Chains of a Time Loop

The problem was that if Lukai wanted to jump, gravity was on his side. There just wasn't a whole lot you could do—she couldn't just forcibly teleport him back up, that wasn't a thing you could do. Domain protections were too strong.

The only option was to physically grab him and prevent him from jumping off, or, failing that—which she did—to jump off after him.

This is why they had brought the bungee gear, of course. She had really hoped she wouldn't have to use it. The harness was already on under her robe, along with a whole coil of cord stuffed in an uncomfortable location between her legs, but she didn't have any time to secure it before jumping off, she just had to hope she could do it on the fly telekinetically.

She dove straight down, accelerating herself a bit, and she managed to catch him from behind. She managed to get the end hooked to a branch, all while Lukai on the other hand thrashed about, trying to claw her arms off. When the cord went taut and bounced them back up, it knocked the back of his head square into her nose.

Somehow, though, she managed to lock her arms around him in a semi-stable state.

"Listen, Lukai! I—I understand, okay? The things that happened to you are things you want to forget, aren't they? Geel's game lets you pretend, right? He puts on this masquerade where you're expected to say that nothing ever happened, and all you have to do is step into the role, and nobody will ever ask you to confront your traumas! I'm right, aren't I?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he shouted.

"Or is it that it's comforting to pretend you really did forget something, something that would change everything. It can be whatever you want, because nobody's going to tell you otherwise, is that right?"

"I'm not pretending anything!" The two of them flopped around, upside down in midair while they oscillated like a pendulum. He was still trying to wrestle out of her arms, his braids whipping in her face. "I'm not forgetting anything!"

It was harder and harder to hold onto the guy who was heavier than he looked. It was a delicate situation, and practically, she didn't really have a chance at winning in a true altercation. She could only hope he wanted to be saved, deep down, just enough to hang on for just a bit.

"What do you remember of the village, then?" she asked.

"The village? It was small… just a few houses. Barely more than a dozen of us."

"That's not true, is it? There were hundreds in Crabentok."

At the very mention of the village name, he almost ripped himself out of her grasp. Myra gasped just as she thought her arms were about to give out, as Lukai slipped down just as the bouncing bungee cord tried to yank her the other way.

"You're ignoring all—the parts of you that are tied up in those memories—with the rest of the villagers, aren't you?"

"No, it was a small village. I can't—I can't believe there were hundreds."

"You told me—" It was a strain just to talk while trying desperately to hold on while all the blood continued to rush to her head. "You said you can't see anything in your future or your past." That had been in a previous loop, but Myra was too desperate to find her next words. She just kept going. "But that's not it all, is it? It's just easier to say that than to actually talk about the things in your past. But then you reduce yourself to nothing, and then of course you can't imagine your future!"

"I know! I know all that!" he cried out. "That's why I don't have a future!"

"Please—"

And then, just as she was certain she was finally about to drop him, another set of arms wrapped around them.

"I w-want y-yout to have a f-future!" Shera said. "I d-don't want you to disappear today."

"Why? Who the hell am I to you?"

"I d-don't know," Shera said. "Myra's the only one who knows."

"What?"

"But I want to see you finish your br-bridge. I wanna know what that icosahedron at the bottom of the abyss is supposed to do. I wanna see you t-talk runes with Myra. I wanna put you somewhere you'll be happy and see what you'll come up with."

"I want you to show us around Unkmire," Nathan said, deploying the third bungee and arriving to add his support. "Hell, I want you to show us around all your favorite countries you've visited, and I want to show you Ralkenon."

"I—I want to talk about runes with you," Myra added.

She noticed that he had stopped struggling. But he was quiet.

"… Lukai?"

"It's all m-my fault," he said, voice quivering. "My carelessness…"

"Are you talking about the fire?"

She took his silence as confirmation.

"Listen," Myra said, seeing the utter absurdity of her, of all people, trying to give this advice. "I don't know what you've been going through. I, too, recently learned some things I really wouldn't rather have known. But I also realized, I'm never going to be able to fix things if I don't understand what the hell's even going on! I know that someone caused that fire, and I don't think it was you. If we want to bring the real party to justice, we need to know what you know."

Still silent. Myra finally decided to press.

"Do you wanna… go back up…? And talk about it…?"

"Okay," he said.

◆

Deeply, deeply relieved, Myra teleported back to the platform along with the rest of them. Lukai, of course, could have teleported out of her grasp at just about any time, and the fact that he hadn't done that was actually quite reassuring. When she was back upright, with a normal relation to gravity, she felt a massive gob of blood ooze out of her nose, probably from when his head had knocked into her.

Lukai sat down, lifted his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. He looked terrible, but he was alive.

"It really is all gone," he whispered. "It's been years. Geel's ritual might be bunk, but memories still fade with time, you know? And it—it's all gone. We took it to scraps and tossed it all into the abyss. The other survivors wanted to leave it alone, but Roc and I—we tossed it all. Anything that might reinforce those memories. We let it all go."

"Y'know, that stuff is still down there. I've seen it. We can go get it."

He perked up slightly, but then sank. "No. Most of the important stuff, the meaningful stuff, we… we destroyed. We didn't just toss it over, we burned it until it was unrecognizable."

"What about photographs?" Myra asked.

"Photographs?" He blinked, then shook his head. "We wouldn't have had those down here. Even if we did, we would have burned them."

"Well…" Myra started, "I might know of something. It's small, but… it's something."

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"It's something?"

"Yeah." She nodded.

"… All right."

◆

At Myra's direction, Lukai hesitantly led the group to the murk bogs' platform. The walk across the bridge was tense, not from the dark or the heights, but from the fear that Lukai would give up and jump when he reached the nadir. The fear was—mercifully—unfounded, and as the group started talking about the bridge architecture and Lukai's plans for it.

When they reached the platform, the guard raised an eyebrow, but was otherwise content to let Lukai pass through with whoever he pleased.

Lukai had said they dumped the entire village, but that wasn't true. No, Myra wasn't thinking of the three houses that were left—no, there was still the platform that had served as the village community center.

Lukai didn't seem impressed when she headed for the basement. "If you want to show me Roc's telescopes, don't bother," Lukai said. "Roc refuses to see them, and they don't mean so much to me."

"No, not that. This is something Shera found. She wanted me to show you…" Thinking about the last loop's Shera again set her stomach in a knot.

"Why is she not leading the way?"

Myra whistled and pretended not to hear.

Their destination was, of course, the secret room that had seemed to be some kind of secret kids' hideout.

"I'd forgotten all about this place," he said with a touch of awe. "That is, I mean, I hadn't thought about it in a long time. I knew it was here, but I never came down here…"

There really wasn't much to the room, and it was gross from years without maintenance. The decorative plants had decayed beyond recognition—Myra could hardly think Lukai would find it a welcoming, nostalgic sight.

But maybe…

"Here." In one of the drawers, there was a stack of photographs. They weren't exactly to the quality she'd see in Miirun, but they were surprisingly good. The top of the stack was mostly of owls, but the bottom had three people in various poses: Roc, a much younger-looking Lukai, and a woman Myra didn't recognize.

Her heart sank when she got to the bottom of the stack. It really wasn't much. Shera had told her about these photographs, but until now, Myra had never seen them herself. She'd been expecting a lot more than this.

Lukai, though, when he saw the first photo of the woman, grabbed his chest and physically recoiled. Myra thought he was going to have a heart attack, but he composed himself, reached out, and took one of the photographs, gingerly, by the edges, as if the surface would be ruined by his touch.

"I can't believe it. These… I had no idea these were here. I thought we cleaned the place out, but we… we completely forgot. We completely forgot about this room… I'd really forgotten what she looked like…"

"The woman?"

"Kari. She was Roc's daughter, and she was my fiancé."

"She… died in the fire?"

He nodded. "I have to show him. He's not—he's not going to believe this. He's not going to believe something's left."

He dashed out of the room and towards the stairs. The photographs had worked better than Myra had even dared to hope—he was practically a different person. He was almost giddy as he ran back up to the surface, taking the stairs two at a time, then skipping the last half of the staircase entirely with a teleport.

"Roc!" he called out. "Roc!"

It was night, and just as Shera had observed, that meant the old man was hunched over, eyes fixed straight at the ground. "Roc!" he called again, waving one of the photographs in front of him. "Look what I found. There are some left—I didn't think—I remember all about her, I know you do too—"

Roc's face twisted into a rage. He lunged towards his gods and grabbed his arm by the wrist. "What are you showing me?!" he shouted. He twisted his arm, and there was a snapping, popping sound, something mechanical breaking. "SHE IS GONE!" he roared. "SHE IS BURIED AND GONE FOREVER!"

◆◆◆◆◆

February, Winter of '12 — 2 months after the fire

"We will have to move on soon," Roc said. "But first, we must pay our respects. We have not even begun, and we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Saying nothing, Lukai willed himself to his feet. Every day, this was more of an exertion than the last.

Roc led the way with a large axe over his shoulder. The pair went house to house. In each one, they would search it thoroughly for items of significance to the previous owners. They would collect the items, reminisce for a time, and then throw them over the edge. In some cases, usually when the item meant something to Roc himself, he would want it turned to ash. "Are you able to burn this?" he would always ask.

Lukai could. He was not used to casting with his right arm, so it was difficult, but he could do it. He always did it without question. When he was done, Geel tossed the ashes. They scattered in the wind, but they always made their way downwards.

With the house emptied, they set about to toss the house itself. Carefully, they inspected its construction, its embedding in the trees, and determined what branches they needed to cut down and in what order. Roc set about this task on his own, swinging his axe rhythmically and without pause, face hard as stone. Thwack, thwack, thwack, it went, until the supporting wood would start to give out, slowly at first, and then everything would snap, and it would all tumble down.

There would be a faint noise when it hit the ground, and then it was gone. Then they never spoke of the house again, and then they moved onto the next one.

Though Roc took on the physically demanding work, Lukai still found the work to be grueling. Throughout the day, they stopped only to eat, and even then, they didn't eat much. They worked from dawn until dusk.

At the end of the day, Lukai confronted Roc about their plans. "Will we be ready to leave this place tomorrow?" he asked, even though he knew exactly how Roc would answer.

"We will have to move on soon," Roc said. "But first, we must pay our respects. We have not even begun, and we have a lot of work ahead of us."

◆

The next morning, Lukai could barely get out of bed. It had gotten harder and harder every day, and finally it had reached a breaking point. He didn't stand up until Roc physically helped him up and led him out of his bedroom.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," he said again. "Where should we start?"

"Do you blame me?" Lukai asked.

Roc stopped in his tracks, frowning. "Blame you? For what?"

"Do I need to spell it out? I mean the fire! Because it's my fault!"

"Your fault? How could that be?"

Lukai looked at the ground. "I found my key," he said.

"Good. That means the arsonist couldn't have used it."

"It was somewhere I would never put it!" Lukai snapped. "He took the key that day I left my bag in the square. He wrecked the control room, started the fire, and tried to return the key like I wouldn't notice!"

"Though that may be the case," Roc said, "you should not blame yourself. The fault belongs with the arsonist—"

"It was my responsibility to keep the key safe. You told me that, over and over again, when you took me on. How dangerous it could be if anybody untrained got in. You told me, I gave you my word, and then I left it out in the town square!"

Roc held out his hand. "Let me see your key."

"A-all right." Lukai handed over the key.

Roc inspected it for a moment, just long enough to check it was really the key to the control room, then with a flick of his wrist, chucked it over the edge of the platform.

Lukai boggled at the action. "W-what was that for?"

"What was what for?"

His cheeks burned at Roc's casual answer. They didn't wet, but he could feel tears welling up behind his eyes. "The key! To the control room! You threw the fucking key off!"

"What key? We only have the one key, remember? I kept it with me at all times. That's why the case is so befuddling."

He couldn't take a break from his fictional world, not even for something as important as this.

"Fine. Fine!" Lukai shouted, throwing his one arm up. "What about the rune cabinet, huh? I know you were just being modest about the cabinet when you described it to the investigators. I know there's no way into the cabinet without our fingerprints. How—how do you think he got those, huh?"

Roc's face darkened.

"I know you've been thinking it. You haven't said anything, but you've—"

"Go get it," Roc said.

"What?"

He nodded towards Lukai's bedroom. Towards the object Lukai was talking about.

"Fine."

Lukai fetched the object that Roc was requesting. It was a small but long wooden trunk with two latches. He opened it up to show Roc the contents: on a soft pillow, wrapped in powerful preservative bandages, there lay Lukai's left arm.

Roc asked the question he always asked. "Are you able to burn this?"

"I… I can…"

"Then do it. Toss it away and leave this theory behind you."

So Lukai did.

◆◆◆◆◆

Back against a tree, Lukai sobbed. It was ugly, but it was probably doing him wonders. Crying as a way to work through grief seemed… somewhat antithetical to what little Myra knew of Unkmirean ways. They let him work through it, Myra and Nathan sitting on one side, Shera on the other.

He sat with his arms crossed, holding the photographs close to his chest. It had been a difficult confrontation. Roc had tried to destroy the photographs—yes, the precious memories of his own daughter and the woman Lukai had planned to marry—and he probably would have succeeded if the three of them hadn't interfered to keep them safe and drag Lukai off to where they were now.

"I-I c-c-couldn't talk about it with anyone. Not with Roc, not with the other survivors—" He took several gasps. "I was going to leave. I'd had it, and I just wanted to move on, I was going to leave Roc. But then… that group showed up. And Geel—he convinced me, he could make it real. The ritual—he said I could forget, for real, and—and then—then I—"

Lukai had said a lot. A lot of it wasn't entirely incomprehensible—this had been one of the more cogent sentences—but she felt like she got the gist.

"You wanted to believe him. I get it."

He nodded. "Will you… help me? Help me get through to Roc?"

"Of c-course we will," Shera said.

"Thank you," he said. He was silent for a while. He let his emotional state run down for a bit. Then he had another request. "You said, earlier. You want to bring the arsonist to justice."

"Yeah… It's something we want to look into," Myra said. "Though, uh, I should probably warn you, we're sorta neck deep in our own shit right now."

"Perhaps…" He rubbed his shoulder. "We could come to a deal? I am a mercenary after all." He smiled, though it was a smile steeped in irony. "If you agree to help me find the arsonist, I'll do everything I can to help you with whatever you need."

"Our thing's kinda… complicated," Myra said. "But, ah, what the hell."