NOVEL NEXT 79. Loophole And Definition
First, it is essential to consider what an almanac is. It is important, because an almanac is very unlike a diary, and a diary is what Yenna had been looking for. So, it is also important to understand the concept of a diary.
A diary is a collection of notes, personal thoughts and recollections, generally kept on a day-to-day basis, though it is typically private. A diary is a thing of often-unmitigated truth, as its intended audience is its author. The only lies told in a diary are lies to oneself—there is no point in lying about the objective facts of a situation if those facts are only there to remind the one who knew them in the first place. A diary is a reflection of one’s mind, kept in a permanent way—memory made real and tangible, and left exposed to the world.
An almanac is very unlike a diary. An almanac is a book of facts and figures, pertinent and useful information published and updated over time to assist others in their own endeavours. Farmers keep almanacs to record planting times and harvests, to track the weather and gain an understanding of the future. Astronomers write almanacs to record observation of heavenly bodies, to assist their fellows in such observations. Mages pen almanacs to share the results of their arcane studies, updated regularly to reflect their new findings. An almanac is not made solely for its writer—it is one’s findings proffered up intentionally to be read by others.
In this way, an almanac is very much not what Yenna expected to find. Despite everything that was going on, the last thing the witch expected was to turn a diary of her travels into an almanac of magical information—somehow more mundane than she expected, and more public than she hoped. Yet, there it was, outlined in full in the fractal detail of this vision of a potential future. However, actually reading it required colossal effort. The sheer level of detail produced a kind of abstract noise that required mental reconstitution—a snapshot of a moment, even a localised moment, involved splitting threads that linked other times, other places, other events all together. Yenna couldn’t follow them, not without a far greater grasp on the sheer mechanics of totality, but they sprung up as weeds to obscure the desired detail.
The almanac, as the black book cleanly described its surface form, was merely a piece of a scene. A finished thing in the hands of a stranger, a person in a possible future eagerly flicking across the brand new book. Yenna knew that if she so desired, she could know this person—know their name, their thoughts, their history, every little facet of their identity and everything that came out of that. The very thought that she could do this made every detail on the page a well of dark gravity, attempting to drag her under with the sheer weight of curiosity. The book held some ability to allow Yenna to read it far faster than normal—there would be no threat of wasting time on this. But it would be… improper, Yenna decided. An intrusion on the privacy of a potential future reader, and a solidification of the inevitability that this exact person would read it.
The black book’s power was becoming more evident, even as Yenna attempted to dive towards the thing that was most important. Observing the potential future, allowing a conscious mind to define that it was possible, to colour in the blanks of that existence—these things made the Fated future more certain. By believing in a singular set of circumstances, Yenna held some miniscule sway over the ceaseless march of Fate. But, was it right for her to decide what would come to pass? Was the Ledger right, along with whoever made and enabled the construct, to decide that the future it aimed for was the correct one?
That thought highlighted a particular absence in the black book’s descriptions of events. There were no moral judgements—even the descriptive language was a thin abstraction. The actual text on the page was far too massive for Yenna to understand on its surface, a singular colossal word that encompassed literally all of existence and every possible state it could ever be or have been in. Yenna was looking at the very edges of the curves and loops of fragments of symbols that made up parts of the word itself, her brain buckling under the pressure as alien forces squeezed those definitions into shapes that made sense in her mind.
Yenna blinked. The pain of it all was making it hard to think, and her vision swam. She made the detached observation that blood was dripping from her nose, that Narasanha danced as fast as she could to escape the Ledger’s grasp—that it wouldn’t work if Yenna didn’t read into that almanac in the future.
So, she dived back in. The almanac was not a grandiose thing—a manual bound in hardy brown leather, the words stamped into the front cover. A TRAVELLING MAGE’S ALMANAC, FIRST EDITION, by one Master Yenna Bookbinder. Threads pulled every which way, on these miniscule statements alone—the history of mages, the practice of naming accomplished mages Master, Yenna’s entire history, the reason for the phrase Bookbinder… and that was to say nothing of the sheer volume of detail attached to the mundane materials of the book. If Yenna so desired, she could see exactly where the leather came from, the process by which it was treated and shaped, the lives and legacies of every person involved in the process. She could see the paper as one might read a detailed explanation on chemical composition—the arcane formulas that might conjure paper sheets stained with ink with the same words on those very pages.
Yenna pushed those threads out of the way. In her mind’s eye she reconstructed the words on the pages, ironed out the letters into sentences and paragraphs and chapters. It was a fascinating experience, to see one’s own writing laid out—though it amused Yenna to realise how much she had refused to edit down or trim out. The almanac was only an almanac in the barest sense of the word, its chapters filled with rambling anecdotes and journal entries between the important magical discoveries.
It detailed everything after Yenna joined the expedition. Her first impressions of the massive Chime and the boisterous Eone, the anxiety of being forced to speak with Muut, the trepidation and excitement of riding away from her hometown. There was Mayi and Jiin, Hirihiri and Tirk, Mysilia and Narasanha—those two had started off so cold to Yenna, and for reasons unknown to her had begun to thaw.
If only I’d had more time to know them, Yenna thought, running imaginary hands across metaphorical pages. What could have been, if my story hadn’t become this?
There was the temptation to check. A silvery thread on every word tempted the witch to follow through with that idle wondering, to dive down a rabbit-hole of discovery. Every single person was the protagonist of their own story, which meant that every change to one tale rippled across to another—what might have been, if Eone had never had the summons from her mother? If the expedition really did set out to do what Yenna had expected of it, right off the bat? What places might they have visited, and what friendships might they have forged?
Yenna felt strangely angry. At the Ledger, specifically, but at the entire cult of the word, and the rippling chain of events they had caused to reach this moment and their ideal world of pure good. By doing so, Yenna’s story had been impacted—what should have been an exciting trip around the world was instead a brutal race to a finish line. There had been no time to stop and discover and learn, only the desperate need to stop an unwanted future.
The witch’s mind was growing cloudy, her focus waning as her emotions kept her propped up. Her very being was coming undone, and deciphering the lessons of the book was not helping her stay intact. In Yenna’s heart, she understood that she would die—at least, unless she found a way to change the future. She needed to defy Fate.
Once again Yenna looked back into the almanac in the future. She skipped over the trials in the valley, meeting Demvya. Past the encounter with Lumale, past the beast march and learning witchcraft, past all the things large and small that happened between the start of her journey and that moment—right up to the future.
Then, Yenna saw it. The way she described every action, and the Ledger’s inevitable reaction. In every moment, the Ledger reacted as though reading her thoughts, and Yenna of the other timeline related her confusion, her thoughts, and all the events that led to her opening the black book.
Yenna read the page of her own thoughts as she read the page of her own thoughts. It was uncanny, an alignment of mirrors into which one could see infinite reflections. All the little differences and flaws grew into endless distortion, disappearing into the distance of her mind—Yenna mentally connected with her potential future self.
What did this Yenna do, that her reality was one that could produce this very almanac?
These words were on the page and in Yenna’s mind simultaneously. Yenna read herself reading ahead. A spike of pain passed through her—one that hadn’t been described in the text. Narasanha was gripping her tight, holding her body close, shouting something that Yenna couldn’t quite hear. External senses had voluntarily ceased their watch, to give Yenna’s eyes and brain more time to read the solution on those pages. There was a pain deep in a metaphysical location, a terrifying rumbling of imminent collapse. Yenna needed the answer.
And, it was so simple.
“As I looked across the pages, I realised that my description of events had simply ceased. I did not report on the motions of Narasanha’s dance, or the details of Lumale’s spell or Tirk’s prayers. I had simply written– or, would write, that we had been victorious. For what could the Ledger do to read the future, to make predictions around my actions, when it had no information?”
Yet, Yenna looked, and thought. Why would the Ledger even look here if it was an incomplete register? Perhaps it wasn’t looking here—perhaps there was some other record that it considered more useful, more important?
But that’s the future where I win. The future where I live. The future where the world remains. So, I will look upon that world, and I will make it true. I will influence Fate—I will make that future mine!
Yenna made herself a promise. For this moment, until the Ledger was stopped and that future had come to pass, she would not record the specifics. She would act against the expected flow of Fate, and act outside of the Ledger’s scope of knowledge. A loophole, through which she could define the future.
It won’t be enough, though. The thought hit Yenna with the force of a brick. She couldn’t possibly out-think an entity that could literally know every possible future—every possible action that Yenna could take. The Ledger had to know what was going to happen here, that Yenna was going to do this—it could simply make some sign for its past self, a clue as to where it had gone wrong in one timeline to bolster its attempts in another. The only variable it couldn’t check through those potential futures for was Yenna—the crippling blind-spot assuaged only by the mirror of her own almanac.
The witch’s consciousness was on the verge of collapse. She was running out of time, even in this compressed perception of time that the book granted to its reader. Yenna held onto a question.
What is it that prevents the Ledger from simply seeing the exact path it needs to take to succeed?
Her answer was there, right at the edge of every one of the Ledger’s victories. It was… nothing. Just before each of its victories, there was a singular moment where the book could not tell Yenna what happened. That miniscule point broke each of the lines, and continued as its own perpendicular break across every single timeline. It was an entire moment erased from time, from all times, and not one of those infinite events on the cusp of that forgotten moment explained why.
Yenna knew it had to be her. It had to be Fate’s blind-spot. So, Yenna needed a tool. She reached deep into the dissipating depths of her own soul, and gripped the loose thread—the chain that bound her power inside, the soul thread that had been in Mulvari a key to open the black book. The witch pulled, loosened her body’s hold on her soul. Yenna pulled, tore her own connection to her body apart. The kesh pulled, and let the core of her being go free.
In Yenna’s hand she held a knife, and with that knife she slashed a perfect line through the infinite pages of the black book.
