Flickering light from candles danced along the walls as the night wore on with Lady Cael standing over the dagger lying on the table. She was motionless, silent, and her eyes closed. She had been like this since the dagger had been recovered. Dr. Kay brought food and water, but she had taken none of the offered sustenance. The Dreamers where also gathered in the room, save Akot and Ember, whom were outside studying the other magic artifacts in the yard left behind by the old Cael. The younger Dreamers were asleep and covered with blankets Dr. Kay had brought downstairs. Cole and Talon snored lightly next to the fireplace, fighting each other in their sleep for the best postion next to the few remaining glowing coals. Taku and Anat were asleep on pillows they’d arranged in the middle of the living room. Somehow, the two always managed to create scenes that could make one think they were still the pampered prince and princess they'd once been, even if they were the ones that had to work hard to create the illusion. They even had a plate of half-eaten grapes lying on a pillow next to them. Ronin and Bran were also on the floor, leaning against each other, and struggling hard to keep their eyes open. Jax was on his feet, standing at the big window looking out at the darkness. Dr. Kay noticed he didn’t seem to have a problem staying awake, but he was a full-grown man now and expected to have more discipline than the thirteen and sixteen year olds that were asleep. Warrior was sitting in his favorite blue chair, his eyes open and watching with a deep intensity, but not at Lady Cael; he was watching the shadow on the ceiling as it moved back and forth across the length of the room. “Stop pacing and find a place to sit,” said Warrior, quietly. The shadow dropped to the floor and coalesced into the Night Dreamer. She glared at Warrior, then wrapped her gowns around herself and dropped into one of the chairs. “It won’t work,” said the Night Dreamer. Warrior frowned. “What won’t?” The Night Dreamer waved a hand at Lady Cael. “She’s trying to mimic the old Cael’s magic so she can break the spell, but it can’t be done, each incarnation of the Lord of Chaos is unique in how they used the magic they hold. There has never been an incarnation break any of the previous incarnation’s magic.” “Can you break the spell?” asked Warrior. “The Zilinth Doctors put Jack in a slow sleep pod, but that won’t hold long with the condition he’s in.” “No, she can’t,” said Jax, still staring out the dark window. “And you know this how?” said Warrior. “The desert howls its secrets every night for those that can hear,” replied Jax. The chair creaked under Warrior’s weight as he leaned forward and glared at Jax. “I get enough of that Dreamer mumbo jumbo from Akot and Tarlock, if you have a suggestion, let’s hear it plain and simple.” Jax chuckled and gestured towards Akot and Ember outside studying the other five artifacts. “They’re on the right path. I think the peaches can creates magic weapons, that’s its purpose. The question though is what do the other five artifacts do? They’re all related somehow. I think if we can figure out what the artifacts original purposes were, and why they’re placed as they are, we’ll break the dagger’s magic. Do you remember when we tried to move them into storage?” “Yes, I do. As soon as we turned our backs they returned to their exact same positions in the yard,” replied Warrior. “We can change some things a previous Cael did, but not the echoes of what they brought with them from the mortal realm.” Jax nodded. “I think we need to go find the old Cael and ask him. He’s out there somewhere in the Universe. I’d bet Jon can find him.” “It wouldn’t help, my elder self will have already removed Cael’s memories,” said Jon. He had been pretending to be asleep, but the truth was that he was wide awake. “Do you know where he is?” asked Warrior. Jon shrugged. “Sort of.” “What do you mean, sort of?” “When a Cael finishes service as the Lord of Chaos, my elder self removes their memories and takes them home.” Warrior sighed, getting a straight answer from Jon was always difficult. “Do you know where he is or not?” Jon wrapped his arms around his knees and leaned back with one eye squinted shut in thought. “I know he’s on an alternate timeline, but I don’t know exactly where.” “Can you find him?” “I don’t know, jumping to an alternate timeline is pretty complicated stuff, I’ve never done it.” Warrior stood and faced Jon. “You managed to stop time for a few hours so you could go upstairs and take a nap, I think you’ll be able to manage jumping a timeline.” Jon turned pale and stuttered, “How… how could you know I took a nap? “You have pillow sleep-marks on your face.” Warrior’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I want you to leave immediately.” Dr. Kay heard the conversation from the dining room and rushed out to the living room to confront Warrior. “Now hold on, he’s only a thirteen year old boy.” “We agreed you are in charge of the underage Dreamers, but I’m in charge of Jon. He’s ready for a challenge equivalent to his abilities.” “I just heard you say he stopped time to take a nap, that doesn’t sound like a boy ready for any responsibilities.” Warrior shook his head. “Jon is not an ordinary boy, he’s acting out because he’s bored. Picking apples and standing midnight watch is not going to do anything further, other than make him resentful. If we want him to grow into the powerful man Jon Black Sr. was, we’re going to have to let him exercise his muscles.” Dr. Kay pointed at the Night Dreamer. “She’s a goddess, why can’t she go?” “I can’t jump across timelines,” replied the Night Dreamer. “He can take you with him,” said Dr. Kay. “I know for a fact Jon Black Sr. took people across timelines with him.” The Night Dreamer brushed a hand towards Jon, her sleeves flowing with her arm like shadows. “For young Jon to do so would be like asking someone that learned to swim yesterday to carry someone across the river today. No thank you, I’d rather not have my molecules scattered across ten dimensions, it would take me ten billion years to reform myself.” Warrior glanced at the Night Dreamer with a grin. “So, basically there would be no downside.” “Oh how I should like to show you the terrors of the night,” retorted the Night Dreamer. “I was genetically bred to have no fear,” said Warrior. “You do not frighten me.” “Perhaps you do not fear me, but you do have three fears in you right now.” The Night Dreamer’s voice slipped into that icy tone she had when she was about to win an argument. “Your first fear is for the life of the one you think of as a brother, your second fear is for the one you think of as a son, and your third fear is that you are making a choice between which one to save.” “That’s enough,” said Dr. Kay, putting her hands on her hips. “I will not have this bickering in my house. Jon, if we don’t send you, we lose Jack, if we do send you and you can’t find Cael, we lose Jack. Do nothing that will cause us to lose both of you, if you encounter anything you can’t handle, return here immediately.” Jon shifted between moments in time and disappeared before anyone could change their mind. He could still see everyone as blurry wraiths, but a few more steps through the moments of time and they were gone. The house was silent and empty, there was no life here between moments. This was the domain of the god of time, but he couldn’t stay here in this one moment, and he had an idea where to begin. He knew he couldn’t jump across timelines, or between worlds on his own without help from the elder Jon Black, but he could cross time bridges left behind by his predecessor. He ran up the stairs to Dr. Kay and Clay’s room; the room that the old Cael had passed away in. He hadn’t been in the room since that day four years ago when they had gathered here to witness the transition of power, but what he needed should still be there. Jon pushed the door open and peaked inside. The room had changed in four years, taking on the personalities of Dr. Kay and Clay. The tapestries were gone and replaced with personal items. Jon couldn’t blame them for removing the magical artifacts created from Lady Cael’s imagination. One wall now held a weapons rack displaying the brutal weapons of the desert, and another wall had a bookshelf neatly stacked with Dr. Kay’s medical journals. Jon entered the room and closed the door behind himself. The room was lit by a low banked fire casting a warm glow that held the chill of the night at bay. He hurried across the room, and there it was, hidden between the moments of time, the faint outline of a time portal. It was the time portal his predecessor had created to take the old Cael out of the Crystal Universe. He pushed through the portal and emerged onto a time bridge stretched out between the stars. A faint chime rang out and the bridge shivered like the web of a spider. Jon winced as his presence on the bridge was sent out across the universe, the elder Jon Black would know someone was using his bridge. There was nothing Jon could do about it now, but he did hope there weren’t any traps left behind. He set out at a brisk pace, each step taking him across the vast reaches of space. He almost walked off the side of the bridge watching the galaxies blur past. The view was spectacular; nebulas, star clusters, asteroids, solar systems, and rogue planets, all sped past him in their cosmic glory. He saw another time bridge not far away, but it was unlikely he would encounter another Jon Black. There were currently somewhere over four thousand Jon Blacks, but space was a big place. He wore the mantle of the god of time, and like the original god of time, he existed as one of many incarnations. Jon had come into existence at nine-years old, a shadow memory of the original Jon Black, yet he was still his own person, unique from all the others. He had the original Jon Black’s memories, up to the age of nine, of course, and they seemed real, but he knew he had never been to Carina, or even ever met his father, the Ocean God of Carina. The Night Dreamer said Warrior thought of him as a son, and if that were true, Warrior would be the only father he would ever know. He stumbled and nearly fell as his feet touched uneven land. He stopped and glanced around – it was an island floating in space. Not very big, he could see where the time bridge continued on the other side of the island. The island was… he searched for something relatable… of course, this was like the tower of a suspension bridge, connecting the cables and providing support for the suspended span. The time bridge was a massive suspension bridge. He knew there was no such thing as magic, not really, it was all just technology on a level so advanced it was indistinguishable from magic. But, of course there would have to be real physics somewhere in the creation of the bridge. But, that would mean there would have to be suspension cables. He looked and searched for them, and they were there. He hadn’t noticed before because he hadn’t been looking for them. The cables were nearly invisible, blending into the night sky, and they were as thick as a sun was round. Then another thought came to him and he squinted his eyes in thought. Was he only seeing an illusion, a representation of what was really here? He was a half-god, and as such could use the long dead god of time’s mantle, but he was also half-mortal. His brain was not the infinite brain of the gods, but a finite brain of the mortals. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced his mind was creating something he could use to explain the unexplainable. He tried an experiment and changed the way he was thinking of the time bridge. He stared at the bridge and thought of it now as a series of barges linked together in the ocean, and it became so. He was now looking at a vast ocean with barges lined up in a long column. Then he thought of it as a train track, stretching out into space, and it became so. “Make up your mind, I’m getting dizzy,” said a voice. Jon spun around to face… Jon Black? Not the Jon Black he knew, this man wasn’t the big shouldered man that was Jon’s predecessor, but the man was definitely a Jon Black. “Make up my mind about what?” asked Jon. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a young version of us,” said the man. “You haven’t learned to control your thoughts yet, and you’re think-shouting at the top of your lungs. Just pick what you want the road to look like for you, and stick with it.” “What does the road look like to you?” “A yellow brick road.” “Huh?” The man gave Jon a half-shrug and grin. “It was a book I read when I was your age. “It’s about some friends on a magic journey following a yellow brick road. I always liked the mental image of that.” “I think I like the bridge best,” said Jon. “I see you have Jon Black the Gunslinger’s guns, are you a gunslinger like him?” Jon shook his head. “No, they don’t even work.” Jon tried to pull the guns from their holsters, but they wouldn’t budge. “See, I can’t even pull them out, they don’t like me – some Marshal I am.” The man nodded. “All that means is you’re not a gunslinger, and they won’t let you use them. You know, you can hire any of the Jon Black gunslingers to fill the office of Marshal.” Jon’s eyes widened and his head whipped back and forth. “Don’t say that! Do you know what would happen to me if I refuse to serve? I’m free after I serve my 10,000 years, but I’m a prisoner until then.” The man sighed. “Ah, I see what’s going on now. No, I’m not suggesting you refuse to serve. The House at the End of the Universe called on you, and you do have to serve, but it’s up to you how you do it. You should have called for one of us to come advise you. I’m guessing you’ve been miserable for the last few years.” Jon’s eyes showed his sadness. “I hate it there. The only part I like is helping Enge, that’s Jack the Engineer. He builds bridges and stuff. I like helping him build things.” “Well then, there you go, you found your calling, Jon Black the Engineer.” The man smiled pleasantly, but not the condescending smile of Clay, or even Warrior, but more of a conspiratory smile like that of a big brother. “I’m on the way to Ursa Major to deal with a plague, but when I’m done, I’ll drop by the Crystal Universe and help you get things sorted out.” “Really? That would be great!” exclaimed Jon happily. “I need to get going, but I’ll see you in a couple months,” said the man. “You take care… oh, and do you see that old woman.” The man pointed. Jon hadn’t noticed her before. “All these waypoints have a toll-keeper, they’re left over from the Age of the Gods, but be sure you pay her – I think you’ll figure it out quick enough.” Jon waved as the man continued on his journey, and for the first time in a long time, he felt really happy. He’d never met another Jon Black, or had anyone come to the farm to visit him. He realized too late that he’d forgotten to ask which Jon Black the man was. He had a skip in his step as he continued on his path across the little island. The old woman was crouched in the dirt making marks on the ground. Jon saw what she was scratching at and understood what he had to do. She looked up at Jon with a face worn with age and a lifetime of regrets. Her gruesome attempt at a smile was empty of teeth. “Tell me a dream, or give me a coin, young Jon Black, and I’ll let you pass.” “I’ll do both,” said Jon. He never dreamed, but Jack did, and would often repeat his dreams at breakfast. He would give her one of Jack’s dreams, with a modification. “I had a dream and saw a crow with a gnarled branch in its beak and blood dripping from its talons. The crow flew up into the sky, and when it had reached the sun, it dropped the stick. The stick fell back to the ground, and where it struck, an ocean sprouted from the ground and drowned the old woman in my way.” Jon then pulled a coin from his pocket and tossed it on the ground in front of the woman. The old woman glared at Jon. “That wasn’t your dream, you foul little boy, so I will take your coin.” The woman snatched at the coin, but her fingers passed through the coin. She tried twice more to take the coin, but only scratched at the dirt. “This is a ghost coin, it’s worthless beyond the borders of the Land of the Dead.” Jon’s eyes went to the pile of other ghost coins the old woman had been scratching at and trying to pick up. “That’s quite the fortune you have. Well, I paid, may I pass?” “I can’t use these coins,” screeched the old woman. Jon’s hand dropped down to the revolver on his hip. “If you like, I can send you to the Land of the Dead where you can spend your fortune.” The old woman changed into a crow and flew away. Jon shrugged and continued his journey.