“Everything is temporary. Everything has a beginning, and everything will end. Time will now reach its conclusion.”
- - Zargoth
Time's Terminus refers to the final chapter in the Conflict of Time between Vyro'Nazdea, also known as Volzara, and Vyro'Ralzora, also known as Zargoth. Wishing to settle the conflict once and for all, Zargoth launches a series of attacks in which he destroys countless universes and timelines, in order to confront Volzara in a final battle and destroy her.
The Beginning
From the very top of the Shining Tower, on a late summer evening, the view of the Golden City was truly a sight to behold. A bustling yet very clean and sleek metropolis, this city was the peak of civilization, the envy of the universe. From here was the sight of a vast, impressive cityscape, covered with bright neon lights of the buildings below, and thousands of flying vehicles rushing to get from one place to the next. A city of people who, of all classes, enjoyed comfortable, luxurious lives, well-looked after by their government.
For Prince Zargoth, this was something he had grown used to. Living in the palace situated at the center of the Golden City, the capital of the Taldar Empire, he had become familiar with the empire that his father, Emperor Zogrith, had built. A government so stable and so secure, with a people living such lavish lives, it was the envy of history. This was the peak of the Taldar.
Zargoth hadn't come to the top of this tower to admire the view from the second-highest point in the city. He'd come here to dine. Atop the Shining Tower was the most famous fine dining establishment in the galaxy, both for its food, and for its price. As he greeted the waitress at the front door, ready to show him to his seat, he wore the smile that he was well-known for. A smile that all the women admired, and the men envied.
- Waitress - Prince Zargoth! It is an honor, your highness.
- Zargoth - The honor's all mine, being served by a beautiful lady such as yourself. Will you be showing me to my seat?
- Waitress - But of course. When I saw a reservation was made for Zargoth and one other, I made sure the rest of the staff were on their best behavior! It's been about fifteen minutes since your reservation, but we kept it just in case.
- Zargoth - No need to worry about it. I may be a prince, but I'm as much of a citizen as you are. Sorry I got here late.
- Waitress - So, what brings you to Shining Tower?
- Zargoth - Well, actually, I've got a date.
The waitress couldn't hide her envy, as the prince continued to smile. Though well-dressed, he was very relaxed and casual in his demeanor, almost seeming out of place in an upper-class restaurant. He seemed much more earthly than what one would expect of a prince. The waitress took him to his reservation and sat him down across the table from an empty seat.
- Waitress - Whoever she is, she's a lucky one.
- Zargoth - Trust me, the lucky one is me.
- Waitress - Should she be arriving soon?
- Zargoth - I hope so. Most times, a lady shows up at least thirty minutes before I do. Sometimes a lot longer. Guess they're normally eager for the opportunity. Not this one, she's even later than I am. She's special.
- Waitress - The seat was booked under your name. Anything I should look out for to find who this lady is?
Zargoth grinned a little, and turned back to the waitress.
- Zargoth - You'll know who she is when she gets here.
The waitress nodded a little, and walked back nervously, still feeling immense pressure from having to serve a prince. But as Zargoth had said, she immediately knew who his date was as she arrived. By Taldar standards, the woman was truly beautiful, catching the admiring gaze of many of the patrons as she walked by in a regal dress towards Zargoth's table, and taking a seat. Zargoth simply sat in silence as she took her seat, admiring her. Though well-dressed, much like Zargoth, she had a very casual demeanor. The two of them were still young adults.
- Zargoth - You're late, Miss Volzara.
- Volzara - Doctor Volzara, thank you. I'm sorry, Prince Zargoth, I got a little caught up in my work.
- Zargoth - I figure. For someone to be part of my dad's personal research group, I bet you're busy all the time. You know, researching.
- Volzara - Yeah, something like that, I guess.
- Zargoth - So, been here before?
- Volzara - No, actually. No way my family could afford it. Even though the lower classes are very comfortable, we can't just take a trip to the most prestigious restaurant in the entire empire, can we?
- Zargoth - Yeah, figure most folk don't get to come here often, unless they're filthy rich from owning property, from working for my dad's personal guard, or--
- Volzara - Or on a date with a prince?
- Zargoth - Girl, you took the words right outta my mouth.
- Volzara - If your goal is to impress me, then, you didn't do a bad job. I love the view from up here. This city is truly beautiful.
- Zargoth - The city ain't the only beautiful thing in my sights right now.
Volzara chuckled a bit, shyly, while Zargoth looked visibly impressed. Most of the time when dating a woman, they were falling over themselves to please him, really anxious not to lose the opportunity of being made a princess. But here, this woman wasn't attempting that. He could level with her, and talk to her as an equal.
Or at least, he thought, because after some brief small talk, Volzara instantly phrased a quite accusatory question to him.
- Volzara - So, I know you didn't just bring me up here to flatter me and then take me home for the night. Trust me: I know by now when that's what a man is trying to do.
- Zargoth - You don't think I'm attracted to you?
- Volzara - No, I still think you are. I just think that wasn't the reason you invited me here.
- Zargoth - You're onto something. Well, truth be told, Volzy, you are quite the looker, but--
- Volzara - But if you just wanted quick sex with a hot girl then you're not exactly short of options.
- Zargoth - I was gonna put it a little less bluntly than that.
- Volzara - Your father set you up with me because he's suspicious of my team. Of the research we're doing. We may be his personal team, working on his personal top-secret project, but he doesn't have much control over us. In fact, because we aren't an official government agency, there's so little oversight over us. And that scares him.
- Zargoth - Look, just because my dad wants me to spy on you, doesn't mean I will. I can lie to him if I have to. I don't really know what secret projects my dad has working, or why he has the Empire's top scientists in a secret team that get paid ten times the rate of any other organization, but I want to know at least what the gist of it is. And besides, when he's gone, I'll have to take over from it, right? He's been around a long time.
Volzara sighed a little.
- Volzara - And here I was told you weren't naive.
She paused a little, before deciding if she should explain anything to him. Ultimately, she choose to discuss it a bit more. Partly because if Zargoth reported to his father that she'd imparted nothing, he'd get much more suspicious. But also, partly because she was familiar with the male gaze at this point. She could tell he had genuine admiration, and that maybe she was in a position to win him over.
- Volzara - You've been taught about time travel, yes?
- Zargoth - Yeah. It was one of the first things I learned in school. The Taldar did discover how to travel to the past, but the short of it is, you can't change the past. If you go back and change the past, you don't actually change time, at least, you don't change the time you came from. You just change relative space for different people, and effectively create a branching timeline.
- Volzara - Yes, that is correct. But your father never accepted that premise.
- Zargoth - So... He's funding your group to find a way to time travel that could actually change the past?
- Volzara - He's funding us because he's found a way. After millions of years.
Zargoth leaned back a little, stroking his chin. He never lost eye contact with Volzara, other than to place his order with the waitress. Volzara seemed a little awkward discussing her work with anyone, but she'd not imparted anything yet that could incriminate her. Once their drinks arrived, she continued the conversation.
- Volzara - There are different spatial dimensions as defined in mathematical, geometric space. We occupy third-dimensional space. We perceive everything in three dimensions, and anything above that would be beyond our comprehension.
- Zargoth - Can't say I ever learned about there being more than three...
- Volzara - The fifth dimension has been theorized by the Taldar for years, but mocked as a rather silly concept. The proposition would be that as well as our third dimension coordinates in geometry - x, y, and z - there's a fourth and fifth. The fourth is unimportant; it's our coordinates mapping our place from realspace compared to the hyperspace plane, what you use for space travel. But the fifth is our coordinate as mapped across time.
- Zargoth - Interesting... So from the fifth dimension, us three-dimensional beings are basically mapped in our position from space, as well as from time.
- Volzara - Right. Internally, we refer to that as our "holodata"; our "holographic" "data" is mapped along time from fifth-dimensional "holospace".
- Zargoth - So if one could work out what our fifth-dimensional coordinates are...
- Volzara - Then one could work out how to move back and forward in time, within the same timeline.
- Zargoth - You love finishing my sentences, don't you?
- Volzara - Maybe I just love figuring people out. Working out how they think, and what they're gonna say next.
Zargoth was at this point truly fascinated by Volzara. This was an entirely new feeling for him: fascination by what someone had to say, with a longing to hear her say more. He desperately wanted to hear what she had to say, not because of some ulterior motive, but because it truly piqued his interest. Both in the topic, and in the girl discussing them.
- Zargoth - So my dad wants you to make a time machine that can actually change the past, by changing his fifth-dimensional coordinates to another, and subsequently altering everything mapped to the spatial x-y-z-realspace coordinates that occur after those fifth-dimensional time coordinates, to basically rewrite history?
- Volzara - It is his obsession, and we're close to cracking it. We've even found a way to interface with this holodata ourselves. Some kind of energy that interfaces with it. My team calls it "Chronoscopic energy". An energy that, if harnessed by mere three-dimensional beings like us, can alter that holodata as mapped in the third dimension. It's not nearly sufficient enough to change time, but it can do things like, say, freeze time for a few seconds, speed up time on an object for a minute, you know, stuff like that.
- Zargoth - Can it speed you up next time so you get to your date on time?
- Volzara - Funny, but yes. More importantly though, it taught us something.
- Zargoth - What's that?
- Volzara - That changing the holodata as mapped from the fifth dimension is a very, very dangerous game. Merely using Chronoscopic energy for such tiny changes causes major shifts in fifth-dimensional space, so to change time on the scale that your father wants would cause seismic, monumental changes.
Volzara had been ambivalent about talking in-depth about her research at first, but she was beginning to thoroughly enjoy it. This, too, was a new feeling to her; that she could talk about her passion to someone who was interested and who was listening to her. Typically, if she did tell anyone, they were nodding along and waiting impatiently to get to the next point, and if it was a man who was interested in her, they were even less interested. Much to her surprise, Zargoth was fascinated by both.
As their meals arrived, the two tucked in on well-done steaks, created not from animal meat, but generated in a lab to provide the exact perfect taste that would seem filling to those who dined on it. Volzara was beginning to loosen up, while Zargoth only wanted to hear more.
- Zargoth - It's dangerous then, huh.
- Volzara - Your father has been obsessed with it. For the millions of years he's kept himself alive.
- Zargoth - So I did hear you right when you said "millions".
As they finished eating, Volzara looked out at the windows from the tower, smiling. Zargoth followed her eyes and looked out himself.
- Zargoth - Magnificent city, ain't it?
- Volzara - Yeah, but have you ever wondered how it got this way?
- Zargoth - Well... because my dad is a great emperor? Because he's brought peace and justice to the Taldar for the last one hundred years, bridged the class divide that plagued us for so long, and empowered the greatest minds in Taldar history like yours to become truly wonderful inventors?
- Volzara - That's the story you grew up with, and all of us grew up with. But for countless other timelines, the future of the Taldar Empire under your father's rule is ruin.
- Zargoth - I'm not sure what you mean.
Volzara had perhaps said too much, but she was past the point of being cautious. She had Zargoth's trust, fully. Or at least, the safe knowledge that if he were to use her words against her, that she had some leverage.
- Volzara - In the first timeline your father came from, the Taldar Empire was destroyed in a civil war under his reign. A class conflict by led to an uprising, the death of the queen, and finally surrender as his parliament took over and created the Taldar Republic.
- Zargoth - So what did he do next?
- Volzara - He traveled through time. But using the standard way, they only way he knew how. So when he traveled through time, seized rule from his past self, and led the Taldar Empire in a much more totalitarian direction, he hadn't changed the timeline he came from. He'd just made a new one.
- Zargoth - And he kept doing that?
- Volzara - The first time, he turned the Taldar Empire from a constitutional monarchy to a dictatorship. With a firmer iron grip on power, he thought, no one could threaten his rule. And it worked, for a bit, but he couldn't stop the uprising that followed. You can't keep people fooled under a dictatorship for long.
- Zargoth - Have to say, I have a hard time imagining my dad being brutal towards his people. Given how, y'know, they're so well looked after.
- Volzara - Your father realized after two more time jumps that his error was not that he'd gone too strict, but that his premise was flawed. To prevent an uprising, he would have to take away the reason for such an uprising to begin with. He would have to keep all of his people happy. The people, the parliament, the generals, the banks, everyone.
- Zargoth - And that took him a few tries, huh.
- Volzara - Several. Each time, learning from his mistakes, working to create the utopia that would keep him in power. All the while, lengthening his life any way he could.
- Zargoth - Obsessed with power?
- Volzara - I thought that at first. But then I realized when examining the fifth dimension myself that he was taking a lot of the research with him. That's why the Taldar are so advanced; this technology we have now is from thousands of timelines worth of developments.
- Zargoth - All the while, he wanted to find the way to do time travel properly. So he wouldn't create new timelines each time. So he could create his perfect timeline, without leaving several in ruins.
- Volzara - Indeed.
Zargoth's calm fascination with her had turned a little sour. His smile had turned to a much more stern expression. It wasn't that he thought she was lying, she seemed too genuine for that. But that she would shatter his entire worldview over steak and a few drinks was something he didn't take kindly too.
- Zargoth - Lemme get this straight. My father, the benevolent ruler of the Taldar Empire, adored by his people, is hiding a dark past as a dictator in which he slaughtered millions of people and left others in poverty?
- Volzara - You're missing the part where he made backroom deals and ordered assassinations of those he'd seen in other timelines would be threats to his power, but yes.
- Zargoth - Sorry, but he's a good man. I simply don't believe it. I don't believe he'd be so mad for power.
- Volzara - Oh, it's not for power, although most in my team think so. But I know precisely why he's doing it.
- Zargoth - Go on.
Volzara paused before she said her next line. Normally, people didn't believe her, but perhaps Zargoth would.
- Volzara - Because he blames himself for the death of his queen. He feels immense guilt. Guilt that overshadowed the guilt he felt for the people whose lives he ruined. And he will stop at nothing to bring her back.
Zargoth leaned back in a little, pondering what she had said. His father had always talked about another wife he'd had before he'd met his mother, but never went into specifics. If anything, this part of the story made her story far more plausible to him.
- Zargoth - Driven to commit atrocities, all for a lost love.
- Volzara - Yeah. Just think about it. Hundreds of timelines out there, all in which people are right now suffering under a brutish regime, all because your father thought that was the best way to prolong his life and his research in order to get his queen back.
- Zargoth - You are quite the remarkable woman, Volzy.
- Volzara - Heheh, "Volzy"? That's a new one. Only my best friends call me that.
- Zargoth - You suggesting I just became one of your best friends over dinner?
- Volzara - Mmmmmaybe.
- Zargoth - That's a shame. I was kinda hoping for something, y'know... a little more than that.
Zargoth's smile came back, as Volzara chuckled again shyly. It took a lot on a first date to really impress her, with how many times she'd been let down. But it wasn't the food or the view that caught her attention, it wasn't Zargoth's status as a prince, and it wasn't the charm he had that was so legendary among the Taldar. It was his interest in her work, something she'd never seen before. Volzara knew for certain that Zargoth was genuine in his fascination.
- Zargoth - How do you feel about going on another date after this? Maybe you can tell me a little more about this fifth dimension.
- Volzara - Gladly. Though, as much as I appreciate you taking me out here, and it is a nice view, it's extremely tiring getting ready and putting on formal wear to come to places like this.
- Zargoth - You know, I was thinking the same thing. I may be raised in a palace, but fancy dinners like this aren't the place for me.
- Volzara - Yeah, and I loved the steak and all, but it all feels a bit much. I prefer something a little simpler.
- Zargoth - So do I, y'know. Say, why don't we hang out on one of the lower streets of the city and I'll show you my favorite meal?
- Volzara - Is it pizza?
- Zargoth - Course it is.
- Volzara - Right answer. That's my favorite dish too.
- Zargoth - Girl, you are remarkable.
The two left in higher spirits than when they'd arrived. At first, they'd both been cautious of each other; Volzara had had enough of men trying to win her over, and Zargoth hadn't really expected a date set up by his father to go anywhere, even though he had been impressed by her looks. But as the two returned home - Volzara to her house in the suburbs, and Zargoth to his palace - the only thing they could think about was each other, and the sheer possibilities of the fifth dimension.
This was the spark of something beautiful.