The Stargazer

Stargazer (Prologue)

He dove and danced, tripping his way through the flow, stopping from time to time to amuse himself.  The river churned on, an ever-forward march of minutes and days, of lifetimes even, for this river was made up of nothing so mundane as water but of time itself. He swam freely, untouched in substance but as caught in his own insatiable curiosity as a reed in a torrent.


His chosen playground lay across eternity in an endless flood. Of the vast number of worlds and realms in Creation, the river touched them all, giving him entrance to places and people otherwise out of reach. Something would catch his eye, a wish on a star or a dream too ephemeral to be whispered aloud, and he would stop. Sometimes to dally, others to cause mischief so he might laugh at the flurry of consternation at his meddling. Laughter was his food, and it tasted best seasoned in starlight. The humor was not always kind, but he didn’t care. It fed his needs just fine whatever the flavor.


So it went. Within the river, time did not touch him. He would live until he grew bored and then the river would carry him away, dissolving his essence into the fabric of Creation. But that moment was not now and now was all he cared about.


A taste of something different, something not quite right, brushed over him and he paused, searching for the source. The flavor lingered, an essence he’d never encountered before. Taking a narrower branching, he followed the will-o-wisp flavor deeper. Laughter faded, not gone but dimmed by the overtones of war and despair. It troubled him and he pushed on, more determined than ever to discover the source of the wrongness he’d felt.


The river flowed forward, an inexorable flood that devoured lives, so it was a shock when he found he could no longer follow it. He rose above the stream, peering at the flow, but no matter how he twisted and pushed, he could not move on. Beyond the invisible barrier, time flowed. He could see it. He could feel its motion. But he could not follow.


In his living memory, this had never happened before.


Diving into the Now he presently occupied, he searched for the cause of the barrier. Laughter no longer sang on the wind and the chill of it cut through him. He wandered, seeking answers to this conundrum. Empty. Desolate. He allowed time to slip forward a bit around him and heard the faint rattling sigh of a dying breath. Time stopped. The barrier would not allow him to move beyond this point.


Rising again into the sweep of past and future, he began to search for what might have caused this end to his play. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. It couldn’t be allowed to happen. It didn’t matter that he had an eternity along other tributaries to amuse himself in. This one could not be allowed to remain unavailable for his pleasure.


It took awhile but finally he found the kernel of dissonance that began the unraveling of his fun and he drifted over the moment, lost in thought. Finally, he immersed himself in the river, a plan to remedy this unacceptable situation bubbling in the back of his brain. He would fix this. There was no doubt in his mind about that. After all, he was a king.