The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound—a kind of soft hum, barely there, hovering at the edge of his aural horizon. After some time, he decides to investigate.
Wandering the halls, the man wonders to himself, why did the monks so readily accept his presence? Is it mere monksmanship, or perhaps have they some deeper factor to conceal? Who is this man, anyway?
The hum grows closer as he nears the exit, and a vague celeste gleam lies upon the tiles. There, beyond the archway, a being of sorts stands and smiles at his approach. He smiles back.
“Come along with me,” the being whispers. The man awaits further elaboration, but that appears to be the spirit’s only request.
It turns to ramble the marble path set along the steep outline of the monastery. A peculiar yet warm feeling, almost like levitating over a summery shore, cocoons the man, and prods him forward in pursuit of the visitant. As he makes his way past the boulders, this feeling grows somewhat heavier, so that once he crosses the last stepping stone, there is no doubt in his mind that his feet cannot feel the ground.
Across the road is a vast forest, trees numerous like stars in the night. The spirit wanders yonder, and the man feels as if he’s no choice but to wander along. His feet do not take him; surely, the breeze carries him forth. And as he ambles into the woods in wonderment, his consciousness diffuses among the waves—a state between living and dreaming—and he feels that he and the spirit are the only realities in the universe, and the trees and the stones and the monastery form the canvas upon which their figures are painted.
The being pauses over a raised glade, and turns to face the man. It smiles. He smiles back, perhaps instinctively. The feeling of floating turns surreal, and the languor grows ever so fervent, rising, flying, approaching the infinite. The spirit wanders nearer. It all closes in. This is it. This is it. This is—
“Good morning.”
He opens his eyes. Streaks of sunlight wander through the monastery window, falling on the monk who stirred him awake. The man glances about as the feeling rapidly falls away.
“What… what…”
“We fixed your car,” the monk continues. “I trust you should be on your way soon, but if you’d like breakfast, it’s in the main hall.”
He leaves before the man can say another word. Blurry and perplexed, he slips into his yesterday getup and staggers to the main hall, where the monks have already begun enjoying their morning monk rations. Wishing at the least for an early snack, the man pours himself a bowl of soup and sits at a table beside some other monks. It is difficult to ascertain their religion, he notices; they all wear drab clothes fastened by hastily crafted belts, and some of them wear simple sandals while some walk barefooted. The monastery itself, too, was quite plain in appearance—no statues or lettering chiseled into the stone walls, just pleasant aesthetic patterns and the odd pillar. He has to wonder if these monks even worship any sort of higher being, or if they are simply generic monks cleverly designed so as not to suggest any religious behavior other than an unexplained aura of mystery. But why? Is there some grander purpose to all this nonsense?
He turns to one of the monks sitting at his side. “So, what do you guys do? As monks?”
Fortunately disregarding the bluntness of the inquiry, the monk smiles. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Mr. Carmichael. You are not a monk.”
“Huh. Is it a secret?”
“Secrets are few and far between these days.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Patience is the key to all doors, my friend.”
“W-what?”
“A true monk knows the blue girl is—”
“Okay, I get it.” Mr. Carmichael returns to his soup, a somber unknowing plaguing his mind. And yet, there’s still the matter of… “Wait. Did you say the blue girl?”
The monk eyes him with mild interest.
“I think I saw her yesterday, in the night. It must’ve been a dream, and yet I recall it so vividly I am sure it couldn’t have been one. She took me to the forest, and… well, that’s as far as I can remember.” He waits for the monk to respond, but he simply nods. “Who is she?”
“I cannot say, Mr. Carmichael. You are not a monk.”
Reluctantly, Mr. Carmichael abandons the discussion and finishes his soup. The car has been fixed quite skillfully, in spite of the fact that, being monks, the monks likely held no prior experience in car repair. Nevertheless, he thanks them for their reception and aid and goes about his merry way.
Many years later, in a manner unimaginably convenient, the same exact Mr. Carmichael (of all the Mr. Carmichaels in the world, the particular one that had been there previously) is driving down the same exact road (for some oddly specific reason and notwithstanding the chance that he has moved in the intervening years) and breaks down near the same exact monastery (which still operates in the same place and practices the same beliefs, though perhaps that bit of information is less outrageous).
The same exact monks accept him, feed him, even fix his same exact car. When he lies to sleep, the same exact hum he had heard oh so long ago in the same exact place keeps him awake once more. He recognizes the sound at once, and the memory of the blue girl retakes him. Almost as if by their own accord, his legs leave the linen bed and seek the source, and soon they find themselves before her. She smiles. He smiles back.
“I must show you,” she says. That’s all she said, before turning once again to the walkway.
Mr. Carmichael follows her once again, and when they cross the outline of that gloomy forest, a pair of crows alight behind them, almost seeming to block their retreat. As if we have reason to leave, Mr. Carmichael thinks with a chuckle. This is among the last thoughts his internal monologue can summon before the feeling of floating drowns it out. He nears the singularity once again.
The girl stops in the same clearing, but now in its center sits a flat object, like a thin mirror, enveloped in a thick veil of sorts. She turns to Mr. Carmichael and softly grasps the sheet, smiling with unworldly happiness. Mr. Carmichael is utterly engrossed by the veiled mirror, and then, right there—
“Good morning.”
“No…” is the only thing he can mutter as it all falls away. “Why…”
“Breakfast’s in the main hall.”
“…why… why… why…”
The monks sit with him in the main hall, but he chooses to keep some distance this time, in hopes of avoiding eccentric discourse. Yet, the soup cannot provide him company for long, and he eventually succumbs to the mortal want of society.
“Hey, uh, have we met before?”
The monk looks up. “Yes, I think so.”
“I saw her again.”
“Hm.”
“Can you please just tell me who she is? I must know. Her visions plague me, and I have spent countless nights pondering her.”
“As I’ve said, Mr. Carmichael, I cannot tell you, for you are not a monk.”
“Well… if I were a monk, would you tell me?”
“There would be no need, for you would already know.”
“Then how? How do I become a monk?”
The monk raises an eyebrow. “You would consider?”
He leans forward, his face darkening in the cinematic lighting. “I would do anything and more, sir. Nothing seems more desirable to me.”
The monk contemplates him for a minute, then sighs. “The journey to monkhood is a long and treacherous one. You must surrender everything you know about yourself. You must forget that you are Mr. Carmichael, for beyond the Three Tasks, you are not. You must leave your past life, for it shall be null if you succeed. Are you ready for such a sacrifice, Mr. Carmichael? Has the girl so utterly captivated you that you are determined to abandon these things in search of the truth?”
“Yes!” Mr. Carmichael answers sharply, though ironically not as sure as he lets on, but comfortable enough with his response—he has no background so to speak of, or at least he can’t recall it. He is just a generic, run-of-the-mill, oddly resolute straight man, almost like the protagonist of some long-winded joke. As such, he has little reason to deny such a life-changing offer.
“Then it shall be done,” says the monk. “Follow down the path outside the monastery, to the Lake of Wisdom. Master Uru will be there. Go to him, and he will guide you to monkhood.”
Wasting no time besides the little needed to finish his soup, Mr. Carmichael hurries out of the monastery, descending the steep walkway leading down the mountainside. The journey is long and treacherous, but after what must be many hours, he finally approaches a colorful shore, his parched throat yearning for water.
An old man sits motionless on the beach, dressed in the same drab clothes as the monks. Mr. Carmichael hesitantly nears him, full of awe at the so-called Master. He stops some distance behind him, expecting him to say some wise remark without so much as twitching a muscle, but the old man remains silent. How mystical!
But some minutes pass, and the old man has still yet to utter a word. Is he really building the suspense for this long?
“Uhh…” Mr. Carmichael uhhs.
“Oh, shit!” The old man jumps and swings around. “How long have you been standing there?!”
“Er… a few minutes?”
“Jesus, give me a warning next time!”
“I thought you heard my footsteps.”
“Well, I don’t have the best hearing, do I?”
“Erm…”
“I…” Master Uru’s face relaxes abruptly. “I’m sorry. I get a little anxious sometimes. I understand you’ve come here because you wish to attain monkhood.”
“Yes, that is my want.”
“Very well. A true monk possesses three qualities most important: wisdom, fidelity, and celibacy. These qualities are tested to their limits in the sacred Three Tasks, which you must complete to achieve the status of a monk. The difficulty of each Task is exponentially larger than the previous—if you are not definite on your goal, leave now, and no harm will come to you. This will not be the case later on. Is that understood?”
Mr. Carmichael nods.
“Now, the first Task is simple—before you lies the Lake of Wisdom.” He gestures at the vast lake. “When you become a monk, you will not be infinitely wise at first, but it is essential that when you do acquire this wisdom, you will know how to use it. If you drink of the Lake’s waters, you will, for a time, possess such wisdom. Now, what is your name?”
“Nathan.”
“Nathan, walk to the Lake and partake of its wisdom.”
Nathan walks to the lake and partakes of its wisdom, taking deep gulps to wet his crisp throat. His eyes open, and all the knowledge he needs is at his fingertips.
“Now, Nathan, I will ask of you a simple question. Take as much time as you need, but do note that the effects of the water wear off after a time. So, here it is: How many pebbles do you see?”
Pebbles. Area of vision is a circle with horizon the boundary. Horizon is 2.9 miles away—area is 2π×2.9²≈52.8416 square miles. Look down. Basic measure—the foot. Assume length of 1 foot, and ratio of width to length 1:3—area of foot is about a third of a square foot. 5,280 feet in a mile—27,878,400 square feet in a square mile. Times 52.8416 is about 1,473,138,939 square feet. How many pebbles under a foot? Count—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Density of pebbles is 22 pebbles per third of square foot. Multiply by 1,473,138,939 square feet—97,227,169,972 pebbles. Seems too high—how much downsizing is permitted? Saw around 200 monks in monastery, oldest being about 90 years. Road adjacent to monastery is scarcely visited, maybe twice a day—65,700 visits since oldest monk birth. 1,000,000 citizens in county, so probability that a citizen visited at least once is 6.3588%. Times 1,000,000 citizens is 63,588 visits, so 2,112 are returns. Assuming every repeat visitor attempts monkhood, and 200 successful monks, the chance of passing all Three Tasks is 9.469%. Let n be the fraction of pilgrims passing the first Task. Tasks grow exponentially in difficulty due to Uru, so n² of people pass the second Task, and n³ of people pass the third, so n×n²×n³=n⁶ of people pass all Tasks and become monks, which is 9.469%. Thus, n is the 6th root of 0.09469, which is about 0.6751. Thus, there must be an allowed error of 67.51%—times the previously calculated pebble number, 97,227,169,972, is the lowest correct answer:
“65,641,272,526.”
“Well done. You have passed the first Task successfully. You are now ready to continue to the second.” Master Uru points to his left. “Head north, towards the Mountain of Fidelity, and seek Master Zolath’s camp. He will give you further directions if you show him this certificate.” He hands him a small plastic card, imprinted upon which are the words APPROVED BY MASTER URU. “Take care, Nathan.”
And so, Nathan takes off to that great Mountain of Fidelity that looms in the distance. The journey is long and treacherous, but eventually, he arrives at the foot of the mountain and sees a pillar of smoke climbing from the roof of a large tent. Weary and fatigued, he parts the flaps and peeks inside. A cloaked figure sits there before the fire, warming its hands. He steps inside.
“Nathan Carmichael,” she says motionlessly.
Impressive. Nathan feels not the need to ask her how she knows his name, for he deems it quite natural for a monk, no less a Master-monk.
“I’ve Master Uru’s certificate.” He tries to hand her the card, but she is too focused on the fire.
“Then you are ready.”
She beckons to him, and he sits before the fire.
“Here.” She hands him a plastic bottle of water, which he readily accepts. On a closer glance, he realizes that she is not merely thawing her palms—rather, she is coaxing the fire, kneading the hot air that surrounds it. To what occasion, he cannot tell.
“You must be Master Zolath,” Nathan speaks, and beneath the hood of her cloak he swears he glimpses the shadow of a grin.
“Yes. The wind has led me here. It whispers the fates of all, and soon, I hope, you will learn its language.”
“Woah. That’s profound.”
“Yes. Now, reach into the flame.”
“What?”
“Reach forward, into the heart of the blaze, and retrieve your torch.”
Nathan scratches his head. “Right, I get that you lot like being mystical, but what actually do you intend?”
“I hide my words beneath no layers, Nathan. Send your hand into the flame—I shall keep it dormant in the meantime.”
Well, this woman sure looks wise and powerful. Perhaps she truly knows the ways of the fires. Resting on this notion, Nathan shuts his eyes and sends a tentative hand through the sparks. The heat stings, but he can tell that he is safe. After a bit of feeling around his fingers happen on a long thin cylinder, which he interprets to be the aforementioned torch. He holds a tight grasp and retrieves it from the fire, and in his hand he finds, indeed, a wooden torch, with a flame dancing on its end.
“This torch you hold now shall guide you through the second Task. Bring it atop the Mountain of Fidelity, where Grandmaster Venus shall accept it. Take heed, for the air over the Mountain is cold and tempestuous. You must remember to keep the torch ablaze throughout the journey, no matter the price.”
“And if the torch is to extinguish?” (Nathan is starting to get the hang of monkspeak.)
“Then you shall meet a fate most unfortunate.”
“What does that mean?”
“Who can tell? Any concrete knowledge of such a scenario would imply some level of control, which we clearly do not possess.”
Nathan nods, though he is not sure what she means.
“Now go—lest the flame dies early.”
He gets on his feet and heads outside, firmly grasping the burning torch.
“And remember,” shouts Master Zolath from beyond the folds, “keep the torch aflame at all costs!”
And so, Nathan sets out to conquer the mighty Mountain of Fidelity, which now suddenly seems fifty stories taller than earlier. Having little experience (none, in fact) with mountain climbing, the idea at first startles him. The cold wind lashes at him, threatening the life of the flame, which he is to somehow bring to the peak alive. How would such an endeavor even be feasible, let alone possible?
Yet, after a few minutes of scaling, Nathan seems to have happened upon the answer. The Mountain of Fidelity, certainly, had to be named aptly, for the second Task does require for any physical capabilities. All Nathan has to do is remain loyal to the torch and do all that is in his power to keep its flame alive. And surely the Task does not call for any further indulgence; to prove his fidelity he must only remain loyal.
Indeed, this thought process is correct, but, once the wind begins howling, and the flame starts flickering, he panics.
“No, no, no!” He tries to hold still, so that the fire suffers less movement, but he cannot help it. The torchlight wanes, and soon there is but smolder in its place.
What am I to do?! Nathan thinks monkly. Think, man, think!
All he needs to do is stay loyal, but how can loyalty help him here?
“Keep the torch aflame at all costs! (costs, costs, costs…)”
There must be a way. There must be a way. There must—
That’s it!
Nathan takes off his shirt, exposing his muscular torso to the elements. Ignoring the shivers, he wraps it around the smoldering top of the torch, which after a few tense moments catches fire and returns to its flaming state.
And now, standing shirtless on the mountainside, and spotting a thick layer of ice up ahead, Nathan realizes the true meaning of fidelity.
The fabric of the shirt keeps the flame busy for a time, and Nathan keeps it close to his chest as he enters the snowy portion of the mountain. He must be close to the end, he thinks—surely it can’t get much colder than this.
But after a while of climbing icy boulders and trudging through the snow, the flame flickers again. Shivering and groaning, Nathan looks around for something to feed it, but the ground is cold and barren. The fire has burnt through the shirt, and now asks for more. He contemplates this for a minute, and recalls what he told himself near the foot of the mountain—the Task asks for nought but his undying loyalty. If he provides this loyalty, he shall surely pass it alive.
So he removes his trousers and stuffs them on the tip of the torch, which, again, soon flickers back into life. Now he is left only in his nonflammable sandals and his unfortunately flammable underpants, which he prays not to have to use.
He goes forward, shaking against the biting wind, but nevertheless determined to fulfill this Task. At this point he can barely remember what the purpose of all this is. The wind shrieks at his ears, and the gelid air envelopes his naked body, almost repressing his movement. The question of mortality creeps into his mind, but he tosses it aside—he feels he does not know enough to tackle it. He only knows that he must prove his fidelity, no matter the cost.
Soon, he spots a wooden building in the distance, sitting just at the edge of the fog. It is far, but the distance is finite, and that is all that matters now. Nathan glances at the torch, and to his horror, finds that it has already finished consuming his trousers. They lasted only a little longer than the shirt. He looks at the house—it is much too far away, and even if he were to make a run for it, the resulting wind would surely extinguish the flame in mere seconds.
So, of course, he takes off his underpants and wraps them around the torch, and the flame lives on. His body is shaking uncontrollably, and surely if he doesn’t make it to the house soon, he will die. But if he runs too hastily, and the fire is to vanish before he gets there, it will all have been useless.
He walks steadily, not too quickly and hopefully not too slowly, though the constant quivering of his body makes it hard for him to verify these assumptions. He holds the torch close, but he knows the underpants won’t last for long. Nathan doesn’t have much self-esteem, as you can tell.
His vision turns blurry, and he stumbles forward. The house must be getting closer, but it seems still so far away. At this point he has lost all feeling all around his body, and the rest of his senses gradually fade away as well. He steps forward, but his foot doesn’t land on anything. At first he assumes his feet have simply lost feeling as well, but a few moments later, when he hears a dull shatter and the air suddenly turns much colder, he realizes something is wrong. His eyes open, and he finds himself suspended in water, the torch having left his grasp and lying on the edge of the icy lake.
Oh, fuck, is the only thing he can think, before everything goes dark.
…
For a moment, nothing happens. Nathan’s only thought is, “I have died.” There is no emotion accompanying this statement, because it is just a simple truth. He isn’t afraid, nor sad, nor angry. He is dead. That is all.
But after a while, he thinks of Descartes. He can’t recall what Descartes had said, but he knows that if he can think of Descartes, that means he must exist. That’s a rule of thumb he’d heard from someone. And if he must exist, then he must still somehow be alive—QED.
So, if he is alive, there must be something he can mold with his imagination. So he fancies a teapot, and it materializes before him, stark against the blank void all around. He fancies a teacup, and a teaspoon, and perhaps a few teacubes of teasugar, and it all appears to him. Neat, he thinks, pouring himself a cuppa.
Next, he imagines a hot bath, and, realizing he is missing a body, imagines himself a hunky physique, imagines himself its occupier, and imagines his figure lying in the bathtub. But he still feels rather lonely, what with the infinite nothingness in all directions, so he imagines that the bathtub sits on the ledge of an expensive villa, overlooking some Scandinavian landscape. He sighs and leans back as a draft passes by. A wooded region sits near the villa, separating it from the distant mountain range, and there near the edge a crow alights on a branch. All is well.
And yet, something bothers him. He did not imagine the crow. He has no reason to even think of crows. And now, the crow takes off and lands on the edge of his bathtub, unnaturally close to him. That he most certainly did not intend.
“ᮿᒔኻАዼჽᛵᾅнᄩᓳሲЇᐷዏᰜᬛДᯌᒋዡЮ᷿ᡵᩭᝳ” quoth the crow.
“W-what?”
“ᣠᄚኛὍЅቴዡፙዔᇀᰊᱹ”
“What does that mean?!”
The crow eyes him more intently. “Repent.”
That word resonates in his fancy, ricocheting off and shattering every one of his hopes and dreams. The crow thus flies off as the world so recklessly sculpted by Nathan rapidly withers away. Then, for what must be years and years, Nathan feels nothingness. But unlike the nothingness he experienced earlier, which he saw through the comforting lens of subconsciousness, this nothingness is pure and raw, and for the first time in his life he is filled with total, unadulterated terror. And the world follows his lead, and suddenly there is cold ground beneath him, and the next moment it’s gone. It has never even thought to exist. He has always been falling down, faster and faster, past universes and worlds that only exist as backgrounds for some greater web of mysticism. He sees himself for the speck he is, in the imagination of another speck in the imagination of a young man, who is a meaningless speck in a gigantic universe that is probably a speck of fanciful thinking engendered by some other speck of meaninglessness. One of these specks must exist in reality, he is certain, but is it necessarily the last one in the seemingly unending cascade? Is it even the only one? Is there such a speck at all?
As if to avoid the question altogether, the Engine appears before him, one of those many tiny specks magnified to seem more significant than it is. It’s a simple function, really—take as input some array of experiences and stories, process them in some mysterious fashion, and output new stories and worlds. A self-replicating particle, and this is only one of its infinite variations. On one side sits hearsay of a mysterious frozen continent—on the other, a young girl who must save the world. On one side, a boy glancing at a girl he likes—on the other, a recursive encounter between a bartender and a customer. On one side, a silly joke about monks that gets reposted to r/Jokes every 2 months—and Nathan sits on the other.
And somewhere in the midst of this process sits the crow.
Nathan turns around, and finds an infinite row of such Engines, each just subtly different than the rest, all being fed endless romances, tragedies and comedies, and spitting out unique, tiny universes. One speaks of a pair of atoms flirting with each other; another, giant metallic behemoths hissing in the distance; and another, a malevolent god-like being learning the power of love. And somehow, perching on some motionless cogwheel, the crow oversees them all.
“The clock ticks, thou Carmichael,” croaks the crow.
Indeed, the ticking grows louder, and the flame wanes. It echoes about his head. But surely, he is still in control! The scene before him is merely a drawing on a curtain, which he promptly tears apart. But beyond the curtain, the crow perches on a pedestal, looking down woefully.
“The choice is yours.”
Behind the crow is a large door, through which a cold gray light illuminates the entrance. As the ticking grows, he realizes that the door won’t last forever. In due course he will have to decide if he wishes to abandon these infinite powers and return to his reality. For what? What does the real world hold over the infinitely-plastic universe within his own mind? Beyond the doorway, nothing has purpose. Everything is for it is. But here, he himself assigns everything a purpose, and thus all that he begets has massive significance.
Though, is the real world any different? Does nothing have significance if we do get to choose what significance even is? Is that power not inherent to all people?
Then there’s the question of control. Within this world, if he says “let there be light,” then light be there let. But out there, saying “let there be light,” the most he will get is a curious glare from some nearby stranger. In here, his powers have no limit—but out there, is he anything but powerless?
And he recalls the Engine. A machine cannot operate without input. A self-propelled self-replicator is as good as a cancer cell. For the Engine to run it needs to see, to hear, to feel. If the Engine has nothing to feed on, it will never be able to create anything. It will remain forever stuck within its own thoughts, which will either be non-existent or unpredictably chaotic. And a man forever stuck with his own thoughts and nothing more, doubtless, is doomed to degrade to a similar fate.
He needs input. He needs to see, and to hear, and to feel. He needs warmth, and sadness, and touch, and hatred, and love and joy and wonder. And all lies beyond that door.
So he walks through.
…
Nathan opens his eyes. His naked body is submerged in near-frozen water, and with all the senses he still has he can only faintly detect the intense cold biting at his skin.
He swims out of the lake and gasps deep of the icy air. The torch is still sitting there, burning faintly. Quaking uncontrollably, he snatches it and hastily makes his way towards the house in the distance. At this point, Nathan can hardly complain, even in his own head, about the severity of the situation. He seems to have lost that part of him, and whatever is left only urges him to keep going.
When he reaches the door, he cannot bother to knock. He simply leans on the knob and pushes through, falling on the matted floor with a thud.
The warmth within instantly thaws him; a little too quickly for his liking, in fact. His senses have not returned to him yet, and now the only thing he feels is a tingling sensation all across his skin.
“Argh,” he arghs, struggling to stir.
Eventually, he hears the door closing behind him, and someone pulls him up and drags him away, although he can only assume this from his foggy vision as he still can’t otherwise feel a thing. The stranger sits him down, and the thawing grows somewhat quicker. His vision sharpens a bit, and he can make out a figure pouring a mug, which it then promptly puts to Nathan’s lips. “Drink.”
Nathan holds it in his pale fingers. “W-w-wh…”
“Drink it. Quickly.”
He gulps the liquid down his throat and coughs. “What is this?”
“Coffee.”
“Oh.” He takes another gulp, and his senses start coming back. Now he can see the room more clearly. There’s a fireplace in front of him, and within it a flame, dancing and crackling happily. On the walls he finds a pair of old-fashioned windows, through which a vast view of a green valley shines, and in the same wall a glass door provides entrance to a marble balcony. Nathan finds himself sat on a crimson couch, some distance from the fireplace, and his feet in a tub of hot water. In an opposite crimson couch sits a tall man, draped in simple monk clothes, inspecting him with intrigue.
“How do you feel?” the man asks.
“Mm… better.” Nathan looks down and realizes that he is still naked. His mind is too fuzzy for this to embarrass him, but he would feel better not exposed to the air. “Do you have a blanket?”
The man smiles. “Monk code requires that a candidate remain bare until the third Task.”
“Oh.”
“But yes, I should have a blanket somewhere.”
The man gets up and rummages through some cabinets on the other side of the room, and after a minute finds a white sheet which he tosses onto Nathan’s body.
“Thank you.” He takes another gulp of his coffee. “You’re Grandmaster Venus, right?”
The man chuckles. “So she told you, I trust?”
Nathan nods slowly.
“It seems she’s grown fond of confusing you lot.” He sits back down and smiles. “I’m Master Zolath. The woman you met at the foot of the mountain is Grandmaster Venus. She swapped our names for her amusement.”
“Oh. But what about Master Uru? He told me I’d meet Zolath at the tent.”
“Yes, perhaps we should bring him up to date.” Master Zolath pours himself a cup of coffee. “We were originally swapped. I was the guide for the second Task, and Venus was here, for the third Task, this House of Celibacy. I think you can imagine why she wished to swap places.”
“Mhm.”
“So now I am in charge of this burden, which for my sake and… well, probably for yours, too—although I don’t judge—I’d rather we just sit here for however long you’re required to… er, ‘resist.’”
He nods in agreement.
“So what is your name?”
“Oh, uh, Nathan. I thought you’d already know. You know, being a Master and whatnot.”
“No, no, unfortunately. Only the Grandmaster holds such mystical powers.”
Nathan takes another sip, nearly emptying his mug. “Well, I’ve come this far—could you perhaps indulge me in the fabled secrets of the monks?”
“Only when you become a monk.”
“When will that be?”
“In about…” He surveys his watch. “4 minutes. Not doing too bad. How are you feeling, Nathan?”
“Well.” The feeling has almost fully returned to his fingers.
“Can you walk?”
“I’ll try.” He draws his feet from the hot water and places them on the floor. The joy of warmth subsides quite tragically and the skin longs for the past, but otherwise he is fine. He ties the blanket about his neck, stands up with a deep groan, and steps along the carpet for a minute. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Master Zolath sets his cup on the table and gets on his feet. “I’d like to tell you some words in private.” He gestures at the balcony.
“Outside?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
They step out onto the overhang, where the air is significantly colder, and yet, with the blanket, liveable. The valley is spread out before them, glimmering joyfully in the reflections of the sinking sun, and right below them a steep walkway leads down the mountain and merges with the green.
“I take it the pond befell you,” says Master Zolath.
“The Pond?”
“No, no, just the pond. It’s no official name—everyone falls in it, so we just call it the pond.”
“Well, yes, then.”
“So you have witnessed the Engine.”
“…Yes.”
“Then you must understand that you cannot revert your path.”
“Yes. Wait, no. What do you mean?”
Master Zolath leans on the pale railing and heaves a heavy sigh. “Nathan, over the years I have seen the views of our monastery morph about. As Masters fall and rise, the values they preach grow ever so slightly different. The pond has been crucial to this metamorphosis, and the secrets it unveiled have affected our operations significantly.” His glassy eyes rest on Nathan’s. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”
Nathan hesitates for a moment, then nods vaguely. “Who is she?”
“The last of the mallocs. The final remnant of those that crafted the Engine.”
“What happened to the rest?”
He closes his eyes. “The twilight fell on them.”
A tense quiet follows, and Nathan isn’t really sure what to say, or how to interpret the Master’s words. Surely the twilight is an allegory of some kind (or a metaphor; he never really understood the difference), and it falling on the mallocs alludes to some unfortunate fate, but which exactly, he cannot extrapolate. However, fearing disrespecting the mystical obscurity of the Master’s discourse, he inquires further not.
“Nathan, I know not where the wind should take you, but if you must go on, I only ask of you one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The malloc still controls the Engine. If she is joyous, the Engine will make joy. If she is in pain, the Engine shall make pain. And pain I have seen. Such terrible, awful pain.” He turns to Nathan. “The malloc will not live forever. And if she is to perish naturally, she will surely bring the Engine down with her. Do you understand?”
“…yes.”
“I’m sorry. It’s the only way.” His eyes return to the valley. A crow alights nearby, and starts pecking at a bush. “You’re free to go, Nathan. Take the path down the mountain and to the Caldera of Ordination, where you will become a monk.”
“Thank you, Master Zolath.”
The journey to the end of the world requires arduous planning and preparation, but the journey to the Caldera of Ordination is easier. Nathan takes only a few hours to scale down the mountain, clutching his blanket tightly, but as the view of the steamy spring grows closer, his fingers gradually thaw back.
At the margin, he finds another monk, with clothes much shorter than his brethren’s. He stands next to a wooden boat, and as Nathan nears him, he notices the sweat dripping from his forehead.
“You are ready,” the monk says raspily. “Climb in.”
He rows Nathan into the midst of the caldera, and the steam grows thick and dense, obscuring their vision. Nathan’s heart is pounding restlessly, though he isn’t sure if this is because of the excitement or because he has trouble breathing.
Minutes later, a small island, certainly in the dead center of the spring, emerges from beyond the steam curtains. Numerous stone structures decorate it, and circling them are a handful of monks, all wearing short monk clothes, their faces hidden by veils. They seem to be chanting something, though they might just be mindlessly humming.
“Step forward, child,” says the monk who rowed him.
Nathan, a little irritated by his condescending address, nevertheless walks into the center of the monk circle. The steam grows even thicker, and soon he fails to witness the monks surrounding him.
“Take the blanket off your skin.”
He takes his blanket off his skin, and the steam nears and licks his naked body. The humming of the monks grows louder, and the feeling of levitating returns to his feet. He closes his eyes, and somewhere, in there, he dimly sees the light. The truth is there. It has always been there, and now he will understand it. The humming grows louder. Everything is lighting up. It’s all starting to make sense. Yes, yes, this is it! This is the light! This is what it’s all been for! The light is here! The light is—
Wake up.
What—what was that? What’s going on?
Wake up, Nathan.
No, no, no! Everything is falling away! The light! The light is retreating! It’s all shattering! Why?!
Jesus, what did he take?!
Nathan!
Everything is dying. Everything is dying. Everything is dying. And the truth is gone.
“Nathan!”
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”
He looks around, breathing heavily. There’s a room. It’s a small room, maybe a living room. There’s a window in the corner, and a streetlight blinks beyond it some distance away. He turns his head. There are people there. Two boys at his side, and a girl sitting on the carpet, wearing headphones. They all stare at him.
It becomes apparent to him that he is the one who screamed those words.
“Are you okay?” asks one of the boys.
“Y-yeah. Sorry.”
He looks at his companion. “He had a bad trip.”
“Yeah, no shit, Uri!”
“What’re you mad at me for? You gave him the stuff!”
“I didn’t give him anything, I don’t know where he got it!”
Nathan says nothing. He is too bewildered by the horrible feeling flooding his mind.
“Zack,” the girl calls, “check his pulse.”
The other boy pulls up Nathan’s sleeve and presses a finger to his wrist. “He’s fine.”
“I need…” Nathan murmurs.
Zack looks at him. “What?”
“I need a breather.”
He exchanges a worried expression with Uri, who nods grimly. “Alright.”
“Wait, he can’t go!” says the girl. “Look at him! He’s in shock! We need to—”
“Vera,” Uri says seriously. “Let him.”
She opens her mouth to object, but closes it a moment later and sighs.
Nathan leaves soon afterwards, entering the rainy night. The orange streetlights reflect on the pavement, breaking up and shattering into indistinct blurs. Slow, jazzy music plays in a nearby building, attentuated by the veils of time and space.
He steps into the darkness of a small alleyway, chained metal clanging at his feet. A crow lands yonder, glaring through its ebony eyes. Nathan blinks, and the alley gradually turns gray, whatever life left in it draining away so quickly. Then it stops, and all that remains is its frozen ghost, whose only physicality is being a background to a distant black car, which now approaches him. It brakes some distance away, making a terrible noise against the pavement. The crow hops onto the car and turns to him.
“Get in, thou Carmichael.”
“What? My name’s not Michael.”
The crow groans, then beckons him forward. Nathan climbs into the car and sits himself comfortably against the cushioned backseat. Soon enough, an abstract landscape speeds by the window, through other worlds and times, and as this is all happening, Nathan can’t help but feel empty and minute against the vast scale of it all. He is doomed to forever be a marionette in the hands of a marionette which is held in the hands of an infinite tower of strings and marionettes. That much was made clear by Master Zolath, who may or may not even exist. Which begs the question—does the monastery exist? Does the Engine exist? Does he, even, exist?
And does it really matter? If everything that can possibly exist is just a figment of imagination of imagination of imagination of imagination, does existing even have a valid definition? Is it anything more than an expression of want to be significant, or to stand out in the void?
The car stops. Beyond the window, Nathan sees woods. Thick woods, shading the bushes and plants from the dim, metal-blue sky, where pink clouds hover. Quiet. And there, in the distance, the malloc stands.
He soon finds himself at her side, almost levitating over the grass. Through the thicket he catches only glimpses of the ever so peaceful skies.
“We do not get to choose who the twilight falls upon,” she says.
Nathan nods sympathetically.
They reach the clearing again, and in the center once more sits the veiled Mirror. The malloc stops under the shade and smiles at him. He smiles back, then walks forward, towards the Mirror. His heart races, his hands shake, and he realizes that the truth may still be out there, after all.
He pulls the veil, and—