The whole world transformed as Caleb stepped into Time-state.
It was something he was going to have to get used to — the blue, the flickering beams of light, the drifting currents — but there was a serenity to his new Time-state that hadn’t existed in the past. The buoyancy, currents of the River of Time all around him, allowing him to swim so freely through the air… it took some effort for Caleb to not just start flying all around, and instead to focus in on the task at hand.
Before him was the Chronos Vault, the hands on its twelve clock-like faces ticking slowly away. Each had its own rhythm, its own pace, and with each tick, the hands on the various dials flashed with blue light.
It’s a puzzle.
That was Caleb’s first thought about the Vault. Different rhythms, different lights, different numbers… he needed to solve the riddle, discover the pattern to unlock the door.
I’m guessing I can’t just Phase Step through it.
Caleb thought about trying it, but he remembered warnings about Phase Stepping. If you don’t know what you’re phasing through, what lies beyond, how large of a distance you need to cross…
You can get trapped. Forever.
That wasn’t the only reason he didn’t try, though.
I still haven’t used any of the Steps of Time since my transformation. Are they going to work the same? How are they going to be different? This isn’t the right time to test them out.
But looking at those clock faces…
Caleb pulled out his pocket watch and opened it. The surface gleamed with blue light, so bright for a moment, that he couldn’t see the face, but then it dimmed, revealing hands ticking away, each one shining with light.
That’s not…
Wait, what?
Caleb stared at his watch for a long time, puzzling over what he was seeing. While the hour hand moved forward, the minute hand moved backward, and both ticked at the same pace, one-for-one.
Have I… ever opened my watch in Time-state?
Has it always done this and I never noticed, or is this brand new? What does it…
Wait, hang on a second.
The light of the separate hands on his pocket watch were like holograms, extending upwards from the hands themselves. Caleb went to touch one, and…
He could.
He pinched the hologram of light over the hour hand, and he grabbed it like it was something physical. Within the light, the hour hand stopped ticking, but Caleb felt the desire of it to move, to keep ticking along.
And he heard something, like a high wave approaching from a great distance. Every moment it drew closer, closer, louder, louder…
Caleb let go of the hour hand.
The rushing sound of waves stopped. The hour hand ticked on by.
So what about…
But when Caleb looked at the dials on the door of the Chronos Vault, their hands didn’t have the same kind of light. When he went to try and grasp and hold the various hands in place, he couldn’t touch them. There was nothing to take hold of.
So how does it all work?
He felt it, then, the resonance that marked the end of his time in Time-state.
It feels like it’s been longer than previous times.
He stepped out of Time-state before he was forced out, and Midnight, Chelsea, Addie, Ingrid, and Mineria looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t get it yet,” Caleb said.
“It would be surprising if you did after one try,” Midnight said. “What do you know so far?”
So Caleb explained the little bits he’d discovered. There wasn’t much to say, and he felt a bit awkward trying to explain the little he knew so far.
“Some kind of puzzle…” Midnight said, staring at the door. “Twelve dials, each with twelve numbers.”
“You feeling okay?” Chelsea asked, looking at Caleb.
“Yeah,” Caleb said with a grin. “Honestly, this new Time Magic is the best thing. It feels great.”
“Take another look,” Midnight said. “I’m going with you, but tell me what you see. We’ll compare.”
“Okay,” Caleb said, stepping forward. “I’ll go —”
“No need for a countdown,” Midnight said with a smirk. “I’ll follow you in.”
“Right.” Caleb entered Time-state, and next to him, Midnight took on a different appearance, his whole body wreathed in a translucent blue aura.
But it’s not like that for the others. So that must signify he’s entered Time-state, too.
“You’re floating,” Midnight said, staring at Caleb.
“Oh, yeah,” Caleb said, grinning as he did a midair flip without kicking off of or touching down on the ground. “It’s like I’m a dolphin or something, I can just fly, but it feels like swimming, but not like I have to use my arms and feet, but more like I can just instinctively navigate the currents —”
“I get it,” Midnight said, holding up a hand. “So?” He turned to the door. “Which hands are lit up, and how? What speed are they moving at? I can’t see anything different about it at all.”
“They’re all alight,” Caleb said, pointing to each face in turn. “Both hands on each face. But they’re not like my watch.” He pulled it out, opening it and showing the face to Midnight. “They’re glowing, but they don’t have that ghostly hologram thing going on. There’s nothing for me to grasp.” He quickly went through the pace each face was going at, generally going by which ones were faster or slower, sometimes making ticking noises in time with the ticking of the hands.
“And your watch glows, too?” Midnight asked, staring at Caleb’s Talisman. “I can see them moving, but not the light. Still… they shouldn’t be moving like that. I don’t know what it means. You said you could stop them, too?”
Caleb nodded, grasping the light of the minute hand and bringing its ticking to a halt. Midnight raised an eyebrow. “Can you move it?” he asked.
Caleb heard the sound of the rushing, oncoming wave. He didn’t have to try hard to move it, but the slightest alteration made the sound of the wave wild and intense, like it was right in his ears, pounding into his skull. He let go of the hand, staring wide-eyed as the sound of the wave vanished in an instant.
“What is that?” Caleb asked. “That wave sound… I know you can’t hear it, but I just…”
“It could be good,” Midnight said. “You don’t understand it. You don’t know what it is. It’s loud and sounds like something dangerous so in comes the fear again.”
“Right,” Caleb said. Was this more of the unconscious fear, the type of fear that was the hardest to recognize and fight back against?
“Let’s go back,” Midnight said. “You can keep exploring in Time-state, but take a quick break from it. I’ll work on looking at things in real-time. Just keep reporting back as you learn new things about it.”
“Right.” Caleb stepped out of Time-state, and Midnight came with him. While Midnight talked to Mineria and examined the door, Caleb spun his watch on its chain, thinking.
“Hey,” said Addie, looking up at him.
“What’s up?” Caleb asked.
“Isn’t it kind of like what you did with Alice?”
“With Alice?”
“Yeah, under Grimoire, that weapon.”
Caleb’s eyes widened in recognition. “The weapon with no entrances to it?” Addie nodded. “I thought about it, but… if it was that easy, Mister Midnight could have done it already.”
“Phase Step never got us anywhere,” Midnight said. “You can’t phase through it, no matter how you try. Can’t circumvent it either, trying to slip through the walls or floors around it — there aren’t any openings anywhere.”
“But, but!” Addie said. “He’s all transformed now. His Phase Step’s probably different.”
Midnight looked back at the girl, silent for a few beats, then looked at Caleb. “You tried any of the Steps of Time since your transformation?” Caleb shook his head, and Midnight’s mouth quirked upwards in a slight smirk. “Now’s a decent time to try. See what happens.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” Caleb asked.
“Life’s dangerous,” Midnight said. “Just be careful about it. You know what you’re doing.”
I’m not so sure I know what I’m doing, but…
“Emphasis on being careful,” Chelsea said softly, touching Caleb’s shoulder. “I lost you to time twice before. Don’t make this a third.”
Caleb looked back at her, not slapping on any fake smiles or pretenses of optimism. After a few moments, Chelsea smiled, nodding once. “Glad you get it,” she said.
Then Caleb could smile as he stepped into Time-state. Turning to face the Chronos Vault’s door, he took a few moments to steady himself.
And then he Phase-Stepped.
His eyes widened as the entire world changed. Mister Midnight, Mineria, Ingrid, Chelsea, and Addie all turned into ghostly images, flickering and faint. The walls, the floor, the ceiling all looked more like water, so clear that he could see through them to everything that lay beyond.
And before him was the Chronos Vault. Its door had a glassy, shimmering sheen, looking almost like Lorelei’s magical ice, shining with blue light. Where everything else in the world looked insubstantial, the Chronos Vault was the only solid thing. And yet…
There was some sort of seam.
Caleb stepped forward, bobbing on the currents, until he was inches away from the door. He was still Phase-Stepping, as strange as it felt to maintain it so long. There was no pressure, no frantic beating of his heart reminding him of his strict time limit. Just like normal Time-state, he was free.
There in the center of the Vault’s door was a tiny seam, flickering with blue lightning. Only a few inches tall, Caleb placed his hand into it and pushed.
Oh, that’s weird.
Everything beyond the seam was cold, like an ice bath, a frigid but refreshing shock to the system. A laugh came unbidden to his lips. Pulling his hand part of the way out, he worked at the edges of the seam, investigating it. With a tug here and a twist there, the seam began to widen, opening up. When it was open wide enough that a volleyball could pass through, Caleb peered inside.
What the heck do I make of this…?
Inside the seam, inside the door of the Chronos Vault, were partially frozen, swirling currents of bright blue light. Caleb looked at his hand again, the one he’d placed into the seam, and found that it was wet, dripping down and through the insubstantial floor.
The River of Time always felt like… “dry water,” as impossible as that is. It never left me wet. So what the heck is this stuff?
Caleb pulled the seam open wider, and wider, until it was several feet tall and wide enough for him to step through. He placed a hand into the frigid currents, gasping as that refreshing shock hit him again. Then, taking a steady breath, he leaned forward.
I need to see what’s going on in here.
So he stuck his head into the seam. He shuddered as the waters enveloped him — the shock of an ice bath was always strongest above the neck, he’d found. His glasses protected his eyes from the water, so he could look around and take in all there was to see.
The first thing he noticed was the frigid waters within the door went back, and back, and back. If there was an interior to the Chronos Vault, it was guarded by many, many feet of solid… whatever the Vault was made of. But looking to the right, Caleb saw the interior workings of the door’s mechanisms. Twelve sets of gears and cogs, ticking away in time with the clock faces on the exterior.
Those are solid. I could probably grab those, manipulate them to —
Caleb felt it then, the resonance that signaled his time was up. He pulled free of the seam, ready to be ejected from Time-state.
But it had never happened like this.
With a yelp he fell backwards, landing hard on his back and somersaulting backwards, four swift tumbling rolls to slam in a sitting position against the far wall opposite the Vault’s door. Gathering himself for a moment, shuddering as water dripped from his head down his neck, he looked up at five shocked expressions.
“That was rather violent,” Mineria said. “Are you all right?”
“I feel great,” Caleb said. “Really. That was… refreshing, actually.” He hopped to his feet. “I’m onto something. I’m really, really close to something cool. I gotta go back, check something out.”
“Why’s your head wet?” Addie asked.
“Your teeth are chattering,” Chelsea said.
“Yeah, it’s cold,” Caleb said, laughing. “Hang on a sec, be right back.”
And Caleb stepped into Time-state, immediately Phase-Stepping and approaching the door. The seam was still widened, staying how he’d left it. He pulled and twisted, opening it wider, and then dove in, shuddering at the sudden full-body shock. But he could swim, he could move, and strangely, he could even breathe. He made his way over to the interior workings of the clock faces and saw that each of the gears had cranks, handholds to control the clock mechanisms. Everything here was that same crystalline blue of the door’s exterior, surrounded by these frigid, icy waters. Caleb took hold of one of the cranks, and gasped in surprise.
He knew this sensation. He knew it, better than he knew anything. It had followed him all his life, and he’d felt it every time he’d been near to or entered into…
The River of Time.
These cranks… these mechanisms… this entire Vault…
Caleb spun in a circle, gazing at everything with wide-eyed wonder.
No freaking way.
He turned back to the mechanisms, watched as hands ticked along, and took hold of a crank again. Light blazed, firing from one mechanism to the next, drawing a pattern through the twelve pieces of the door’s puzzle. Caleb started to turn the crank, but he didn’t get far.
Everything moved. Every single thing, in a way that Caleb didn’t think he’d ever be able to explain. Because it wasn’t just physical things that moved, or people, or even the River of Time. Time itself… was moving. When he turned the cranks, he saw glimpses of things, so fast and frantic he couldn’t grasp the images, but they were sights of things, of places, of moments in time. He knew because he could feel it, far more than he could see it. He turned the crank again, slowly, steadying himself as every piece of matter itself, even Time, spun with a wild yet orderly chaos. It was localized here — nothing changed beyond the Vault, Caleb could see that — but Caleb finally understood. He understood what the Vault was made of, how it existed at all, how it functioned, and even… why he was here.
I was always meant to come here.
That’s what he felt, what he heard, what he saw, in ways that he couldn’t describe through those feelings, and yet they were. Time was so much more than he could imagine, so much more than he could grasp, and it wasn’t just a River, it wasn’t just what they could see, but something so much more complex, and beautiful, and startling. It didn’t just run in one direction, but existed, at all times, in all places, all at once, infusing every single thing with…
Time.
It’s so big. It’s too big. I’m still only grasping a piece of it, but…
That’s okay. I don’t need to understand it all. I’m starting to get it, to get it more than enough to open this Vault.
Caleb was grinning from ear to ear as he turned the cranks, moving them into positions that matched up with the lights, forming a pattern that locked them together, pushed them to where they belonged. It was a sequence hidden away, hidden in the most amazing, clever, impossible way, so that even many of the greatest Time Mages couldn’t get close to it.
And here Caleb was, nowhere near as knowledgeable, experienced, or powerful as Time Mages who had come before. He recognized his own weakness, recognized the strange irony of him being the one to do this. And in the back of his mind, he was realizing some of the other ways he’d changed, the ways his magic had changed, and that it wasn’t all gain.
I’ve lost things. Things that could have been really important, especially in fights that are sure to come.
But…
I’ve gained at least one thing no one else has. And it’s exactly what’s needed right here, right now.
He went to finish the sequence, just two mechanisms left, but then he felt the resonance, rushing for the seam, he leapt free from the waters, braced himself…
And went sprawling. He tumbled over and over himself, slamming once again into the far wall. He was soaking wet, shivering and chilled to the bone, but he was grinning.
“Are you just going to run off every time instead of explaining yourself?” Midnight asked.
“You were told to be careful,” Chelsea said, coming and sitting with him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him close for warmth. Addie joined her, cuddling up close to Caleb from the other side.
“It’s okay, I won’t s-stay cold forever,” Caleb said, unable to hold back a burst of laughter. He looked up at Midnight, who was looking at him like he was an idiot. So he dropped a bomb right into his teacher’s lap: “I can touch Time.”
Midnight blinked three times, then raised an eyebrow. “You what?”
“The Vault,” Caleb said. “It’s… it’s so much, so much I can’t explain. But Phase-Stepping, whatever happened with my Time Magic, the way it’s changed… I was able to go inside. And the whole thing, while the rest of the world went all ghostly, the Vault and everything in it was solid, or, well, some of it was liquid, but the point is… the Vault is made of Time. Time is — or, well, I guess it’s more that it can be — a physical construct.”
Midnight stared at Caleb, eyes slowly widening. He turned to the door of the Vault, placed his hand against it, and closed his eyes. After several long, silent moments, he stepped back, then turned to Caleb, a wide grin on his face. “Oh, that is brilliant,” he said, brimming with excitement. “I never noticed before — no one did. Because it’s impossible! We thought it was impossible.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “That’s what we get for thinking we know everything. Even freely admitting, over and over again, that I don’t know everything — even telling you straight that I don’t know everything — I still fell into the old trap of thinking I did. Thinking something was impossible, just because it didn’t fit my own meager knowledge.” He turned back to the door, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make any sense, not any sense that we’ll ever be able to make of it. And I love it for that.”
“You always did love impossibilities,” Mineria said with a smile.
Midnight chuckled, looking back at Caleb. “Can you open it?”
“Oh yeah,” Caleb said, grinning. “I was almost done, but then I got forced out. Just a few more pieces to go.” Looking at the door, he saw that ten of the twelve clocks had stopped ticking, each of them with their hands in the exact same position.
“You two are just glossing over so much,” Chelsea said, shaking her head. “And you explained a lot without explaining anything.”
“That’s what the greater mysteries of the universe are like,” Caleb said, staring at his teacher. Both of them were smiling, unable to stop. “Time, space, the Light, and so much else… we can sort of understand them. But only pieces, only parts, and no matter how much we learn, the full truth of them… it’s beyond our capacity to completely grasp. But that’s just…”
“Exciting?” Midnight asked.
Caleb’s smile widened. “Very.” He gently pulled himself free from the embrace of Chelsea and Addie, pushing himself to his feet and prepping himself for another dive into the door. “I’ll be right back. And when I am, the door will be open.”
He stepped into Time-state, Phase-Stepped, and dove into the door, feeling the frigid waters embrace him, guiding his paths to the mechanisms, to the last two cranks, winding them to their proper positions. There was a dull, resonant sound, like lock being turned, and Caleb smiled. He left the door behind and left Time-state of his own will, rather than being forced out.
And he still went sprawling, hurled into a somersault that slammed him into the far wall.
“You need to work on your landings,” Addie said.
“You said it,” Caleb said, nodding. He looked up expectantly, and his eyes lit up.
The Chronos Vault’s door was sliding open.