The Rings of Salammis

Salammis - Part 4

     Thomas returned to his cabin and enjoyed a long, dreamless sleep, awaking eight hours later much refreshed and feeling more like his old self than he had in a long time. His long chat with Matthew had done him the world of good. He didn't mind at all when the wizard unloaded all his fears and problems onto him, and he was able to give good advice, but the advice was less important than just being able to share with someone. Telling someone else about it helped him sort it all out in his own mind, and allowed him to realise that he was really worrying about nothing. "Thank the Gods for him," he said to himself as he pulled on his clothes and buttoned up his shirt. "Thank the Gods for giving me a true friend."

     He went up to the bridge to see if anything had happened and found Tana Antallan sitting alone, staring thoughtfully at the image of the ring that was still showing in the mirror. "There has been no change," the shae said in reply to his question. "The artifact appears to be moving in a slow circle about a central point, but other than that it has shown no activity."

     "No more Immortal Wizards shown up then?" said Prup Chull, wheeling himself in in his wheelchair. He'd removed most of the clothes that had swaddled him from head to foot when he'd first come aboard, perhaps because it was making him uncomfortably hot in the ship's controlled warmth, and he now wore only a single layer of thin silk, just enough to hide the loose, sagging skin that he knew humans found so unsettling. Thomas could still see muscles bulging in his thin, fragile arms, though. All this exercise in full Tharian gravity was building him up like a bodybuilder.

     "Not so far," replied the shae, "but I will breathe easier when that object has been destroyed."

     "I'm not sure it'll be possible to destroy it," said Thomas, however.

     "Why not?" asked the moon trog, sounding a little alarmed. "You think Salammis made it indestructible?"

     "No, it's not that, although he may well have done that. No, I was thinking of the dead ring we've got down in the hanger deck."

     "What about it?"

     "Well, that ring has to be the twin of that one out there. That one out there links to a ring in the past, right? But what happens to the ring in the past as the centuries go by? It must eventually end up here, in the present. Right?"

     "By the Gods, yes! You're right!" Prup stared at him in sudden comprehension. "So the ring in the hanger is that one's twin, but a thousand years older!"

     "Right! But the one in the hold was clearly not destroyed by an explosive release of magic. It appears more as if the magic leaked slowly out of it, probably over centuries. Since whatever happens to one happens to the other, it follows that that ring out there will also die slowly, probably over centuries. Any attempt by us to destroy it will, therefore, fail."

     "But, you're talking about something that hasn't happened yet," protested the moon trog. "It is said that even the Gods Themselves cannot foretell the future, so how can you, a mere mortal, predict how that ring will die?"

     "Well, this is a special case," said the wizard with a grin. "That ring exists in the present and the past at the same time, so its fate is as fixed and unchangeable as any other past event, even though, from one point of view, it hasn't happened yet."

     Prup Chull shook his head slowly. "It's beyond my poor head, so it is. Either something's happened or it hasn't. How can it be both at the same time?"

     "It is a difficult idea to grasp," admitted Thomas, who wasn't completely sure he grasped it himself, "but I'm pretty sure I'm right about it. It explains why we've got three bayta rings. There aren't three, just two, as there should be. Two of them are, in fact, the same ring."