City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis (23 page)

I have to admit that I sat there thinking and scowling at him for a moment or two. Out of habit, I reached under the drawer where I keep my spare cigarettes, and was surprised to feel something meet my fingers. As soon as I touched it, I felt the tinkle of mist around my hand, and I remembered spending yesterday reading a memo to myself, from a version of myself who I was pretty sure did not exist and never would.

Look, I have my principles. I never take cases from Time Wardens, and I don't help time travelers kill themselves. Never.

Except this time I would.

I stood up. “All right.”

Because I could swap cigarettes with nearly anyone in this quarter of the city, and get nearly anything I needed. Ammo, food, booze. A big breakfast and a square dinner.

He stood up. He looked me in the eye. He must have known exactly what I was thinking. “It seems you are no better than me, who uses women for sex, and no better than your friend who eats men for food. I am just a meal to you.”

I sighed. “Well, since you put it that way, and since you are planning on erasing your memory tomorrow–”

And I hit him in the face hard enough to knock him backward over the chair and onto the floor.

Memo to Myself

Written in Eternity, sent to the date Day Three Thousand And Twenty-Six Personal Subjective Time.

I am leaving these papers under the bottom drawer rather than taking your pack of cigarettes.

About this time tomorrow, a man destined to be a Time Warden is going to hire you to kill himself via time paradox, or that is what it looks like. Looks can be deceiving.

He is going to tell you a fairy tale about a city that is Beyond the City Beyond Time, a City of Emerald Towers whose spires soar above a green world or gardens and arbors and forest rather than above any emptiness of mist.

He is telling the truth. He kills himself, but he does not really die. There is a real version of him that comes from a timeline where time travel is only used to cure past crimes, not to get away with them. That timeline leads to a city, this city, where the Proctors do not kill people except as an act of voluntary punishment, after which they are brought to life again as new people, people whose sins are only memories of events that never really happened.

That is what you really are, Jacob. You are not an assassin. They—the fallen Masters of Eternity—they twisted your past and tried to make you into something you are not. They changed this city of paradise into a Valhalla, and sent back agents to choose among the dead for historical figures to people their museum and amuse them. That includes their old bosses and old coworkers. Hardened memory does not remember anything for you if the whole time before you were ever born is changed. But they could not change you.

That is where your sense of justice comes from, your willingness to listen to people confess their wrongdoings to you, your willingness to take people as they are without passing judgment.

So go ahead and take the case. Punch him in the eye if you want, but take the damned case. When his alternate version becomes real here, he will be unfallen and forgiven, a pilgrim rather than a mere traveler through time.

As will you. As will we all.

—Yours, Jacob Quirinus Christoforo Frontino, S.J.

Tower of Final Forgiveness,

Transmetachronopolis

P.S. Make sure I come into existence, Jake. Don't screw this one up.

CASTALIA HOUSE

Awake in the Night Land

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

THE GOLDEN AGE

The Golden Age

The Phoenix Exultant

The Golden Transcendence

WAR OF THE DREAMING

Last Guardian of Everness

Mists of Everness

CHRONICLES OF CHAOS

Orphans of Chaos

Fugitives of Chaos

Titans of Chaos

COUNT TO THE ESCHATON

Count to a Trillion

The Hermetic Millennia

Judge of Ages

OTHER NOVELS

Null-A Continuum

FANTASY

Awake in the Night
by John C. Wright

Awake in the Night Land
by John C. Wright

A Magic Broken
by Vox Day

A Throne of Bones
by Vox Day

The Wardog's Coin
by Vox Day

The Last Witchking
by Vox Day

Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy
by Vox Day

The Altar of Hate
by Vox Day

The War in Heaven
by Theodore Beale

The World in Shadow
by Theodore Beale

The Wrath of Angels
by Theodore Beale

SCIENCE FICTION

Big Boys Don't Cry
by Tom Kratman

The Stars Came Back
by Rolf Nelson

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis
by John C. Wright

QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted
by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills
by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS The Programmed Mind
by Vox Day

CASTALIA CLASSICS

The Programmed Man
by Jean and Jeff Sutton

First On the Moon
by Jeff Sutton

NON-FICTION

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
by John C. Wright

Astronomy and Astrophysics
by Dr. Sarah Salviander

TRANSLATIONS

Särjetty taika

Uma Magia Perdida

Mantra yang Rusak

La Moneta dal Mercenario

I Ragazzoni non Piangono

QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти

QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso

QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal

QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand

Grosse Jungs weinen nicht