Into Time

The telescope hadn’t been used in a very long time. Dust covered the lens with a thick film- reminding Darien as this generation’s appointed Scopist, he had a sacred duty to his people. 

He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. The weight of responsibility settled on his shoulders, smothering him as he waited for the cue to approach his people.

There. There it was. Zaren, his apprentice,  motioned to him with a quick flick of his fingers, unnoticed by the hundreds of people surrounding the dais. He stood, resolute and proud, waving from his wrist like a true royal. 

The palatial hall, covered in diamonds glittered along the obsidian walls. The purple hued windows shed a somber light across the floor. The rays from Iona 732’s weak sun were never strong, even on their best day. And today, the weather reflected the gravity of the event- gray, cloudy, and turbulent winds swept across the rocky landscape dotted with the quarries and refineries Iona 732 was famous for. 

“Subjects,” his voice boomed, “I come to you today, a  humble man. Ready and willing to brave the void for you, my people. Let it be known through the ages that Darian, King of the Plutists, Emperor of the Frozen Seas, Highest among the Mountain Dwellers, did not shirk his duty to look into the beyond.” 

A wave of applause and cheering broke over Darien as he basked in the adoration of his people. He smiled, nodded demurely, and turned towards the diamond encrusted telescope, made of the same deep obsidian as the walls. The lenses were cut from a purple ore, chrymanthis, mined in the depths of the frozen sea. This miraculous ore, when blown like glass into a lens allowed the viewer to see into time. The crushed bedrock quickly became a religious totem, sacred and untouchable- except by the mighty few. The chosen. The Scopists. 

It was with this lens the Ionans learned of the prophecy that would guide them for the next generation. Each Scopist had one chance to look through the lens. The Scopists reigned their whole lives, knowing that one day would lead them to this moment. Their crowning achievement. Their true purpose. 

It was written in the Book of Scoping, only the reigning Scopist was allowed to peer into the telescope’s depths and understand the messages that time and space chose to reflect. Only he had the fortitude, bravery, and overall wherewithal to present this information back to his people.Anyone else who dared would go mad from  what they discovered. And blind. And burst into flames. Or so the Book said. 

Darien slowly approached the telescope, his hands trembled as he reached to unlatch the casing over the eye hold. He cleared his throat nervously as the room, holding hundreds of his people, hushed in bristling anticipation. 

The casing came away and swung by a strap that attached it to the telescope’s neck. Darien threw his shoulders back, ducked his head, and placed his eye to the viewer. 

He shuffled a little to the left. He didn’t lift his head, but reached up to adjust the cape around his shoulders. He tip-tapped a bit to the right. He craned his neck this way and that, all the while never taking his eye off the scope. 

After long moments, his subjects watching, mesmerized and with bated breath, Darien stepped back from the telescope. He stood up straight, pulled his cape tight about him, turned to his people, and stoically and with a straight face- looking directly ahead, walked off of the dais, through the sea of people that parted before him like a wave, out the door, through the courtyard, past the outer gate. He did not pause. He did not look to his left or right. 

As he walked he began to shed his cape, his shoes, his tunic, pulling one and then the other off as he walked, until he was naked. And yet he continued his trek. Now he had passed the spindly, almost barren orchards and was at the edge of the frozen, half-dead woods, clad now only in his boots and his crown. 

The hushed crowds followed after him, unsure of what to do or say. Their Scopist had seen something so unnerving that he walked away without warning. Some could swear they heard him muttering, “It isn’t me. It wasn’t my fault.” The elderly began to mumble in fear, crossing themselves in the old ways, as they followed Darien through the bare copse, the light flickering unevenly at the close of day. The young children started crying, startled and unsure as to why their parents were so uneasy. 

And still Darien walked, until he reached the sea- not frozen this time of year. He approached a cliff, the edge of his world, and without pausing one second or faltering one step in his stride, he flung his crown to the side and plunged over the edge of the cliff- his boots dragging him down more quickly into the water's murky, icy depths. 

The crowd, quiet and confused, had just watched their Scopist plummet to his death. His body taken immediately beneath the waves, never to be seen again, where he would sink to the bottom and over time, become one with the rock bed -his body and soul crushed into the ore that eons from now would forge more chrymanthis.

Awaiting a miracle, several subjects stayed at the edge of the cliff throughout the night in a vigil, watching for Darien to float to the surface. Wishing for him to reappear like the saviours of old. 

The only sign they saw of Darien was a brief moment of white foam in the waves as his body churned up a school of fish trying to pick his bones. 

The next morning, the entire city, hushed and reverent, whispered among themselves.

What now?

What did he see that scared him so badly?

Was he really the right Scopist? Could he have been a fraud?

He didn’t burst into flames!

No, but he did walk into the sea! Maybe he was burning from the inside? 

That’s right! He stripped his clothes, as if he was hot! 

No, that can’t be right. Scopists are chosen so carefully. 

We’ve been waiting 200 years for this, and now nothing. 

And so the residents of Iona 732 waited,anxiously anticipating an end to their existence. 

Surely he saw an asteroid hit our planet and destroy us!

No, he saw war and famine and plagues!

He could have seen both- utter catastrophe.

That’s it, he saw the apocalypse.

What if he saw an alien invasion? 

Or the planets exploding?

Or the beginnings of the new universe?

On and on the questions went. Day after day they waited, fear gnawing at their minds, until it began to consume them. This fear of the unknown. 

Several weeks later, Zaren stood at the edge of the cliff where he’d seen Darien plunge to his death.  

He peered out at the ocean, the cold, dim, morning sun rising over the black, turbulent waters, and wondered where Darien had gone after he died and the fish had finished picking his bones. He realized, there might be a way to find out.

Either he’d learn the truth or go mad. Or turn himself to ash. Either way, it’d be an interesting day. He made his way to the palace, the telescope on the dais where Darien had left it. No one was willing to move it, lest they lose their minds. The young apprentice took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and approached the scope hesitantly.

He pressed his eye to the cold, stone rim and stared into its depths. 

He gasped.

A kaleidoscope of colors before his eyes; colors he didn’t know could exist. A brilliant emerald ocean, as far as he could see. Birds with plumage of violent pinks, blues, and yellows screeching their songs as they flew among leafy trees heavy laden with fruits the boy had never seen. The dim morning sun was no more- instead a brilliant white hot orb bleached the sandy beaches and bathed the world in golden warmth. A gray cliff to the side, covered in vines and tall grasses; the waves lapping lazily against the shore.

This was their world when it was new. Before the refineries and mining and quarrying for precious ore. The horizon in the lens went on forever, full of life and sounds and color. There. His destiny stretched before him, a taut line between the water and the sky.