The Pillars of Eternity

‘Alive and fully conscious. But conscious in an unaccustomed way. What else do you do with flies? You swat them. That is what I have done with the people who came here seeking their own ends. I stopped their consciousness at one moment of time. They live timelessly now, experiencing only that one moment, thinking their last thought, feeling their last feeling, seeing whatever happened in that instant. This mode of consciousness will be most strange for one of your kind. For me, of course, it is only a matter of convenience, a means of storage.’

‘Why are their bodies so stiff?’

‘Their bodies persist, even though consciousness is locked in the past. They are rigid because the electrical forces between molecules have been rendered incapable of change.’

‘But it didn’t work with me, did it?’

‘No. Your ship saved you. It is a remarkable phenomenon. And you yourself are by far the most interesting of the specimens, Joachim Boaz. That is why I have brought you here. The others all have minds that, when we come down to it, are petty in their concerns. But you! You have set yourself to change time itself, to negate the whole universe if need be. Could any obsession be so grandiose? You have set yourself to fight Hercules, to pull the legs from under Atlas, to wrestle with Mother Kali, to joust with Jesus, to battle with Ialdabaoth….’

Though he vaguely recognized the other names, only Atlas and Hercules were familiar to Boaz. They were ancient, cruder versions of the colonnader image of strength, or nature. ‘And you, I suppose, will tell me it is impossible,’ he said in a surly tone.

‘Could it be possible? After all, a bacterium can slay a man. But to do that it must multiply itself indefinitely, and there is only one Joachim Boaz. Besides, a bacterium and a man are of almost the same size, when compared with the ratio between you and nature. And there is something else you must understand, Joachim Boaz. Even those gods I mentioned are powerless to change anything. They are powerless because they do not exist. All that exists is natural force, and in the last resort, the unconditioned consciousness that comes into its own between successive world manifestations. But even this super-personal consciousness can neither change anything nor even decide to change anything. It is only the real world made latent, and the real world is changeless. So you see, in your madness you are striving for the absolutely impossible.

‘And yet I tell you, Joachim Boaz, that there is a way you can do it.’

The narrow curved beak, so nearly motionless while they had been talking, dipped as if in thought. Boaz found that he could not speak, so great was the tension within him, and after a while the ibis-headed man continued: ‘Let me paint you a picture. You are walking down a street in one of your towns. The street forks both left and right. Both routes bring you to the ship ground where your ship is parked. Both routes take about the same time. Always at this moment, throughout all eternity, you have taken the left turn. Can you now take the right turn instead?’

‘It is all that is needed,’ Boaz admitted. ‘I know this.’

‘But have you never tried to force yourself, in some such small action, to do something new?’

‘Of course!’ Boaz was familiar with this frustrating and futile exercise. A distressed frown crossed his face. ‘It is impossible to know! One can never remember what one’s future action is supposed to be!’

‘That is right. You cannot remember that you have lived before. You do not know what is supposed to happen. What you cannot remember, you cannot alter. Perhaps it would be easy to act differently if you could remember – who knows? But you cannot, so instead you look to science, to a mechanical device that can alter time for you. But you can never succeed that way, Joachim Boaz. No inanimate device can do it for you. You must do it yourself. You as you are cannot do it. The super-personal consciousness that keeps guard in the night of the world cannot do it. If it can be done at all, it can be done only by a new kind of consciousness – one that is personal, residing in a living creature, and yet remembers. Such a consciousness would be more intense than the abstract consciousness from which the world was originally made. It could act differently.’

‘This is all very well,’ Boaz rumbled, pondering as he listened, ‘but I don’t have this new consciousness. And although I have received mental training, I have never heard of it before.’

‘Of course not. If it existed, the world would not repeat from phase to phase with such absolute precision. But you can have it, Joachim Boaz – if you are brave enough.’

‘I am brave enough,’ Boaz said immediately. ‘Tell me how.’