[First Era – Year 6 of the Divinity War; Kapurn, command palaces]

  It was the second time in recent memory Moraithe had needed to use the door, but Elithir had to hear the news. He needed to know about Barthum, what he’d become.

  Once more in the grand hall where Elithir worked, Moraithe felt the unnatural stillness of the place. His footsteps echoed like thunder through that silence, a silence far too deep. “Elithir?”

  But no voice answered. He scanned the room and his eyes immediately fell upon a statue carved in the perfect likeness of his father, sitting upon his chair.

  He rushed over to it and stopped, gaping at the incredible lifelike detail of the sculpture. It captured everything about Elithir down to the minutest detail. That expression of deep concentration, the way he held his eyebrows, even their fine hairs were all carved into the stone. It was as if this were truly the stone form of Elithir himself.

  Reaching for the statue, he dared place a single finger upon that cold, shaped stone. In that instant, a presence seemed to settle in beside his own thoughts. “That did not go as I planned.” The words seemed to say. “There were some unintended side effects of entangling myself across eternity.” It was Elithir’s voice echoing in the chambers of his mind, calm but tinged with regret.

  “Elithir? Is that you?”

  “It seems entangling across time has the unfortunate side-effect of petrifying oneself. Or that is how it seems. I am not actually stone, merely a fixed point across time. Fixed and unmoving, frozen just like this. But in the far future, I have found the answer. I have found a way to fix myself. Although, alas, it shall not be for many eons until I will be able to do so.”

  Moraithe frowned, hand splaying across the surface of the stone, his heart heavy with the realization. “So, how do we fix it?”

  Elithir’s voice vibrated through his thoughts, steady but resigned. “Entangling myself across all time bound me along these three dimensions. But if I were to be entangled across all of space as well, then I would be in all things and throughout all things. In short, all things would be mine, and I would have all power. I have long called myself Infinite, but only then would I truly become such.” A pause, a heavy silence. “However, there are a few, narrow places we must pass through to get to that point.”

  Moraithe blinked, struggling to come to terms with Elithir’s petrification. “Like what?”

  Elithir’s presence seemed to shift slightly, the tone of his voice darkening with the weight of what was to come. “The Amnesia Bomb.”

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  Moraithe stared at the stone face, struggling to process what he had just heard. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  Elithir expounded, his words becoming more precise, “Really, it is more of an Entropy Bomb. But the effect on most people will be complete and total amnesia, destroying them, body and mind, regressing every soul back to where they were in the beginning before you woke them.”

  Moraithe took a step back, his stomach turning. “Wait. Before anyone knew one another? Before I woke them? How could—”

  “But I think we can find a way to soften the blow,” Elithir interjected quickly, the urgency in his tone not lost on Moraithe. “If we can bend time in such a manner that they overlap at the moment of the blast, the entropy will be somewhat diffused. It will still cause amnesia, but in lesser repeating waves—no worse than what Throm’tor put you through.”

  Moraithe’s eyes widened as he replayed the horror of Throm’tor’s spell in his mind. The confusion, the lost moments, the sense of time slipping through his fingers. So much loss. “Ah, no worse than that … great.”

  Elithir’s voice softened, though it carried the weight of endless eons of contemplation. “It will at least allow civilization to continue in some form until we can fix this whole thing.”

  “How are we supposed to handle that, facing amnesia again and again and again.”

  “Remember what I always said.” Elithir somehow seemed to mentally pat his shoulder. “Resistance yields growth.”

  Moraithe nodded, considering. “But amnesia takes away power.”

  “It will be a different kind of training, not for the mind, but for the soul. Soul training expands how quickly you cultivate self-assurance. It is excruciating, but is also the secret to my strength. And you have a head start. Of all people, you can handle this. You’ve faced it before.”

  “Soul training?”

  “You will grow faster and faster every time you lose your power. It will hurt in the short term, but in the long term, you will grow stronger than me. And that is the only way to win. Entangled like this I am a fixed point. I can no longer grow. I need you—I need all of the drackmoor to grow to exceed my power. And you will need me to guide you through it all. Only then can you manage an entanglement of such magnitude.”

  The words hung in his mind, heavy and certain. Moraithe glanced up into the stone eyes of the statue of Elithir—no, of Elithir himself, the Infinite now trapped in his own entanglement. And for the first time, Moraithe realized how truly fragile time, space, and life itself could be. He was nervous, and this time even Elithir’s presence could not calm him.