Part I

White.  Everything was white.  Not shades of grey…just white.   The lightest of shadows.  Just the vaguest hint of color formed the outline of an object if viewed from the corner of one’s eye, but upon being looked at directly, the color vanished.

He didn’t mind.  The Hub was always white.  The Order had been watching over it for eons.  It was the nexus of all things, and never looked the same twice: sometimes it was a small forest pond, others an idyllic village…once, against all reason, it had been a vast library, the books filled with blank pages.

Today it was a field.  Dejan pushed his way through the high wheat, watching as the white heads parted to let him pass.  His hood was pulled over his face, and his hands wore black leather gloves.  The only color in the entire Hub was the small bouquet of red flowers he had clutched in his left hand.

He climbed to the top of a small hill devoid of vegetation.  The landscape stretched out for miles, an empty canvas.  The sky was a pure, smooth cap on the rest of the scene.   He in his black cloak was an inkblot, tiny and insignificant.  The only sound was the oppressive sound that can only be made by utter silence, a sonerous blanket.

He knelt down slowly, placing the flowers on the crest of the hill.  The katana on his back bounced gently off of the grass as the tip of its scabbard hit the ground.  He stared at the flowers for a few moments, and then turned.  Behind him, his footprints were filled with fading color; the green of the grass on the hill, the brown of the mud in the field and the golden heads of wheat.  Soon they would all fade back to white, as was the way in the Hub; when the Order came here, a bit of their world rubbed off on the Hub, momentarily granting it some of its color.

Supposedly, other beings came to the hub as well, via their own means, but Dejan had never seen anyone else in his forays into the Hub, let alone any creature.  In theory, one could also sojourn to other worlds as well, though few of the Order ever attempted this, and the ones that had rarely returned.

He wanted to stay.  It was so peaceful here in the Hub.  If he returned, he would be forced to again face the insufferable hierarchy of the Order

He retraced his steps through the field, watching as the wheat heads glowed golden as he brushed them with his hand. He was walking towards the gateway, a hole between worlds.  As he reached the portal, a swirling maelstrom of pale purple and blue, he stopped and turned around.  He allowed his eyes to follow the fading color trail back to the hill, where the flowers sat.  Their color had not faded.

It would never fade.

He could hold it back no longer.  The tears came hot and fast now, and there was nothing he could do to stop to them.

For the past three years, the pain and frustration had been building, they were still unbearable.  Here, in this place, he had found solace.  Here, in this place, he had found peace.

He threw back his hood, allowing himself an unblocked view of his surroundings.  His blue eyes burned with heartache.

He ran, as fast as he could back the hill, colors radiating out from him then fading away.  He dropped to his knees in front the bouquet, tears falling and staining the grass green.  He fumbled in his belt for his knife, a long dagger given to him upon his induction into the Order.

He stared at the point for several long moments.

“Dejan Rashalla,” he spoke aloud to himself, breaking the silence, “You have led a tortured life.  You have lost your one love.  The Order has cast you out, treated you like dirt.  Because that is what you are.”

He took a deep breath.

“And so, there shall you return.”

As hard and fast as he could he plunged the tip of the dagger into his chest, behind the ribs, into his heart.  He had time enough to pull the blade and watch as blood poured from the gaping wound.

Then he was gone.

It is said that even the smallest actions have major repercussions; that the smallest ripples can become mighty waves.

And so it was with Dejan.

As the punctured heart gave its last few beats, Dejan’s blood flowed down the side of the hill.  As it did so, color radiated out around the sanguine river, Dejan’s life giving color to the empty world.  The same was true for the ground that surrounded his fallen body, as the grass grew vibrant.

Eventually, the blood stopped flowing and the stream stilled.  The blood sank into the soil, but the color remained where it had been granted, and like the flowers, would never fade.

Dejan watched this all with a certain detachment –he was dead after all.  His body was sprawled atop the hill, a broken machine which no longer could contain him.

Strangely, he still felt fear.  Is this all there is? He still felt lost, heartbroken. My escape was nothing more than a deeper imprisonment.

And then, he was gone, truly gone.

He disappeared just before the second figure appeared in the Hub.

Three Years Earlier

She stared at the mirror again, brush in hand.  She shook her head, allowing the hair to retangle itself atop her head.

“This is useless.  Are you awake?”

Dejan stirred gently.  He mumbled something incoherent and then rolled back over, snoring again as he did so.

Livia shook her head and smiled.  He was tired.  They both were.

The night previous they had celebrated their induction into the Order, a mysterious organization whose goal was to “right the wrongs” of the world.  They spoke often of reordering time and space…concepts which few of the era truly understood.

Livia glanced at the window, at the first glimpses of the sunrise as it peeked over the distant mountains.  Far off, she heard the crier announce that all was well. It was answered shortly by the call of the cockerel.  Soon, the various villagers would be up and about their daily routines, the same that they had followed since they were children.

Livia wanted change.

The Order promised this.  She looked over to the two sets of black robes on the dressing table.  One for each of them.  Wrapped in Dejan’s was a special gift from the Elders of the Order, a long-handled dagger, sharper than any she had seen before.  He received it because of his “exceptional abilities” and its role in his destiny.  She placed no stock in that destiny business.

Still, it was a beautiful weapon, and he deserved it, she thought.

A louder snore escaped from Dejan.  Livia threw the brush at him, and he sat up with a jolt.

“Wake up, or we shall be late. “ She smiled as he looked groggily about the room “We can’t have the star pupil missing on the first day.”

The Order of the Latent Sphere, or Order for short, was an ancient organization and had been in the City of the Caesars since the Beginning.  The peoples of the now fledging Europe had their theories of where the City came from, but they were all wrong.  No shipwrecks, no mountains of gold and diamonds; it has always been.

The citizens were refugees, outcasts…they came to the City by mistake, pulled like the flotsam and jetsam of the human race.  Some were geniuses, some were imbeciles; some were eccentrics, and others enigmas.  As in any society, not all were particularly valuable to the community as a whole, but all filled their particular niche.  As accepting as the society was, it sometimes became necessary to weed out the more unsavory members.

Thus, the Order of the Latent Sphere was founded. It began as a sort of secret police, not unlike the Sons of Liberty which would be founded hundreds of years later in the estranged colonies of Britain in the Americas.  They targeted the sources of disrest and dissatisfaction in the City and silenced them.

And it worked.

It worked well until the discovery of an ancient tablet in the mountains around the city.  Once it was translated and read, there were many rumblings in the earth, and many of the citizens began to experience…changes.  Many had visions of other worlds and said they felt different, as if something had been awakened inside of them.  At first, the Order silenced these people for their “heretical” beliefs, until members of the Order itself began to exhibit the same symptoms as the common folk.  The Order changed tactics, and welcomed them into their organization.  Soon, the Order was nearly completely made up of these “special citizens.”

It was then that two of the Elders discovered the Hub, much by mistake.

The Hub was a sort of nexus between the different spheres of existence.  When it was first discovered, the Hub took the form of a small village, completely empty, and completely devoid of color.  The village looked as if it had been the location of a terrible battle;  the houses were battered, and the mighty tree in the center of the town had been broken down, the white leaves stripped from the now bare branches.  Upon the next visit, however, the Hub had become a vast forest, with mighty white trees stretching up to a boundless white sky.

The Hub became a source of meditation…until more sinister uses became more apparent.  The solitary, changing, and inaccessible nature of the Hub made it ideal to dispose of the evidence of the Order’s less-than-savory dealings.

On the outside, however, the Order of the Latent Sphere was still a noble peace-keeping organization.  They were constantly recruiting the best and brightest from the City into their ranks.

Dejan and Livia, along with about twenty others, were the newest inductees to the Order.  The ceremony had been a grand, lavish affair, with many Official Words and Ancient Incantations…all of which were just for show.  Soon afterwards, the Order presented their newest acolytes their robes and equipment, and the true severity of the organization became apparent.

“We deal,” Martis Enroubin, the Head of the Order, had said at the more private ceremony after the Official one, “in time.  It flows around us, through us, and within us.  We can control it.  True, we keep the peace of the City, but that is only the smallest facet of our many functions. There are far more pressing matters that we must attend to. Time is a resource that we can use to achieve our various…ends.”

The neophytes looked uneasily around at one another.  This was not sounding like the Order that they knew.

“I can sense your unease.  There is much that we keep secret here in the Order of the Latent Sphere.  Much that must be kept secret. With that, it must be said that this is your last chance to change your mind and withdraw yourselves from this organization.“ No one had moved. “Excellent. What goes on inside these walls must never be shared with the outside world.  Anyone who breaks the oaths taken earlier does so under pain of death.”

The inductees had returned to their homes that night, for the last time. Dejan and Livia went with mixed emotions back to their small home on the edge of the City; on the one hand, they were elated to be members of the Order, but on the other they were being forced to give up all that they had or had known.  Some of the other neophytes joined them, and they spent the evening getting to know their new compatriots.  By the time the others left, Dejan and Livia had hardl enough energy to stumble back to their bed, let alone celebrate more personally.  They both fell into a surprisingly restful sleep, given the ups and downs of the day previous.

After Livia roused Dejan the next morning, they changed into their robes and set out for the Sancellan.  The Sancellan was the headquarters of the Order, a massive…temple, though the word was not right, carved out of the side of one of the mountains that the City of the Caesars sat between.  As they walked through the streets in their black robes and hoods, citizens began shuffling out of their way, giving them a wide berth.  Livia waved cheerfully at the wife of a local baker, but the woman flinched back as though struck.

“It’s the robes,” Dejan whispered. “People know what they mean.  They think that we are the Order, not just members of it.”  He absentmindedly fingered the hilt of the ceremonial dagger he had been given.

Livia nodded.

As they reached the large iron gates of the Sancellan, two guards, also in black robes, wearing sashes of deep purple, nodded at the pair and stepped aside, allowing them into the chamber beyond.

A blast of cool, moist air struck them as they entered the carved cavern.  The ceiling was impossibly high, torches trailing smoke towards it.  The red light flickered off the walls, the sconces casting long shadows on the high edges of the false gallery.

They followed the passage that led down the center of the room, passing hooded figures who were deep in hushed conversation.

“I’ve heard they can control time,” Livia whispered, the atmosphere of the chamber influencing her. “That they can go back and make it so that things don’t happen, or make sure that they do.  Do you think so?”

Dejan was silent.  His mind was drifting back in time…back to the night previous…when Martis Enroubin had drawn him aside.

“Rashalla, you are special.  The elements that we look for in new acolytes are all present in you: courage, wisdom, power and will.  Most of the others only have one or two of these qualities.  You are different.  Your skills shall far surpass those of your friends and so-called equals.  Your path is different Those from your old life shall be forgotten.”

“What about Livia?  How different is my path?” Dejan didn’t like where this was headed.  He and Livia had joined the Order together, and he wished it to stay that way.

“She will be safe, and you may visit her…on occasion.   I know that you share a special bond.”

“I love her.”

“Indeed?  And yet you could not know the true meaning of that word.”  Martis’ voice was cool and calculating.

“Dejan, you have no choice.  You are one of the Order now, and the Order comes first.  Shall always come first.”

“Dej?  Did you hear me?”

Dejan looked around. “Its possible, I suppose.  Anything is.”

They reached two more doors.  One was open, with neophytes filing in one after another.  The other was closed and flanked by two guards.

Livia headed towards the open doorway, then stopped and turned to look at Dejan, who was silently staring at the other door.

“Are you coming?”

Dejan looked at the guards, who nodded their heads ever so slightly in deference to him, and then at Livia.  He sighed sadly.

“No.”

The guards opened the door, and he walked through, leaving Livia stunned in the sea of black.

Part II

Seven Months Since Induction

Concentrate, said the voice in her head.  Be not the river, but the swimmer.  You can control the direction if only you open your mind.

Livia bit her lip.  After several months of training, she had mastered all but the control of time.  Not the control of time, Livia. Control in time.

LIvia was growing tired of hearing the sensei’s voice in her head.  His thoughts were cold, blocky and obtrusive.  They made it hard to concentrate.

Livia, the sensei, and several other students were in the Hall of the Ages, a room which had been specially honed to allow for the bending of time.  Its walls were full of kinks at strange angles, giving the room the impression of being designed from a cracked pane of glass.  The goal of this particular exercise was to remove the necklace that the trainer was wearing, but before he had put it on.  So far, everyone else had mastered it and passed the test.  One second, the sensei had been sitting with a knowing smile on his face, the gold chain laying innocently in front of his crossed legs, and the next the chain was gone, the acolyte looking smug and holding the chain clutched in his or her hand.

Lyvia concentrated hard on feeling the tug of time on her body.  If she could only get into the current, then she could overcome it.

Then, suddenly, her surroundings froze.  Noises stretched into inaudible frequencies, and motes of dust, normal when moving, now hung eerily in the air.  She had achieved step one.

After taking a moment to get used to the new environment she found herself in, Livia reached out a hand for the necklace.  She noticed that her master’s eyes were -unnervingly- following her movements, even in the frozen time she was operating in.  She snatched the necklace and allowed herself to be pulled back into the current.

The noise came rushing back and the other students looked on with interest.  Livia had passed the test?

The sensei smiled and bowed his head at Livia, and then stood and addressed the other students.

“This concludes your training for the day.  Please, return to your quarters and rest. “

—

“You need to rest, Dejan.”

Dejan scowled and turned to face the man who had spoken.  “Do I, Scaras?  I am on the brink of a major discovery here.  The mysteries of the Hub are starting to unravel.”

Scaras pulled up a chair next to Dejan.  They were sitting in the library of the Sancellan, with piles and piles of books all around. “Dej, what makes you think that you are going to discover something that no one else has? All of this information has been poured over before.  There is nothing here that someone does not already know.  I tell you, you are wasting your time.”

Dejan shook his head. “No, Acolyte Scaras.  The Hub has posed many questions to the Order.  I aim to find the answers.”  Dejan paused.  He hadn’t intended to draw attention to Scaras’ rank, or lack thereof. Dejan, within a month of his induction, had been raised to the level of Master of Acts, which was below only Masters of Thought and the Sancellor, the head of the Order.

He became aware of a ticking noise, and glanced at the clock built into the wall. “Is it so late? I must meet Livia…”

Scaras opened his mouth to respond, but, blinking while he did so, found the table cleared away and Dejan gone.

—

Livia was sitting on the ground, alone in the common room of her quarters, cross-legged.  She was trying to meditate, or at least catch up on some much-needed rest, but her mind wandered.

At the forefront of her thoughts was Dejan.  He had kept his promise to visit her as often as he could, and, being a Master was able to make his visits last much, much longer than would be normally possible.  She loved him fiercely, but also knew that their new lives would forever prevent them from being together.

Then there was her own training.  She was still an Acolyte, though having completed her last training exercise, she would be able to apply for consideration for promotion to Initiate, and would be given a new, more ornate blade to signify her new position.  With the new position would come her first trips outside of the City.  Agents from the Order traveled the globe, ensuring that things played out the way they were supposed to -which was decided by the agents once they arrived.  Often, they did not interfere, but sometimes it was necessary to give events a little…inluence.

For instance, on their first day of training, Livia and the other acolytes were told this story by their master, Rijar.

“A number of years ago, I was in the distant continent of Europe, overseeing a battle between two major factions.  Two kings,from the houses of Anjou and Valois were in bitter cnflict.  It was decided that Henry should be victorious. I gave to his soldiers, who were vastly outnumbered, special bows which would pierce the armor of the soldiers of the opposite army.  The Anjou forces easily slew a multitude of those of Valois.”

“Unfortunately, the battle was not as decisive as was hoped.  Even now, eight years later, the war still rages between them. “

Livia wondered why they did it.  The Order was changing history…changing the course of history.

What if they were changing it wrong?

There was a sudden sensation of a rush of air, and Livia turned to see Dejan sitting in the chair by the empty fireplace.

“Dejan!” Livia dashed towards him and through her arms around his seated person. “I’ve missed you.”  She planted a kiss upon his lips.

“And I you.” He smelled her hair deeply. A vague hint of roses hit his nostrils. “Tell me, do you still love me?”

She leaned back. “Of course I still love you, you silly man. Why would you ask such a thing?” Her dark eyes searched his face.

“I was just worried.  I have become so busy, and I feared you had forgotten about me.”

She laughed, her eyes twinkling.  “I could never forget you.”

“So,” she continued, “Are we going?”

Dejan put a finger to his lips and nodded. There was a change in the air as Dejan slowed time down for them.  He rose from the chair and drew her by the hand out of the door.

Along the ancient, cold, twisting tunnels they walked.  Livia almost knew the way by heart.  They were heading towards the Junction.

The Junction was the point at which entry could be gained to the Hub.  It was a giant bronze circle, fifty feet across.  A web of lavender light beams latticed the face of the circle, becoming deep purple in the center, where it seemed to rotate counter-clockwise, even when time was suspended.

The portal was a swirling maelstrom.

The Junction Chamber was empty; there were no guards, because there was no reason to guard the Portal.  Only Masters could access the Hub, and their actions needed not to be questioned.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Typically, the Hub took a different shape every time it was entered, and it was not possible to control the location.  Never had two identical places been recorded or described by any of the visitors to the Hub.

Dejan knew better.  He knew a secret.  It was a well-guarded secret, so well-guarded, in fact, that he was the only one who had ever known it.

The Hub could be controlled.

Over the past few weeks in their visits to the Hub, Dejan had been studying Livia’s responses to the environments. He had it perfect now.

“Take my hand,” he said to her, “I have something to show you.”

She did so, and they stepped into the portal.

It was white.  Everything was white.  Not shades of grey, just white. The lightest of shadows.  Just the vaguest hint of color formed the outline of an object if viewed from the corner of one’s eye, but upon being looked at directly, the color vanished.

Today it was a field, a seemingly endless field of high wheat. In the distance there was a vast forest,  all colored in white.

Livia gasped.  It was perfect.  The rolling hills were magnificent, and the wheat beautiful.

This was her place.  Their place.  It belonged to them.

“Oh, Dejan… it’s wonderful.  All so…perfect!”

Dejan smiled as she ran up the hill in front of them.  The stalks of wheat parted and allowed her up the grassy knoll, where she lay down at the top.

“Come join me Dej!” Livia waved her arm at the patch of ground next to her.

Dejan smiled again as he walked up to lay beside her.  This was love, it had to be.  Just seeing her face made him happy, and when she was happy, he needed nothing else in the world.  He knew that she was his world and without her there was nothing else worth living for.

All of these thoughts flashed through his head when she waved at him.  He sat down on the white grass next to her, their black garments a stark contrast to the world around them.  A patch of green radiated out from Livia, and from Dejan as well, as the hub took on the colours of the world they were used to.

The world they used to be used to.  As the months had passed, Dejan and Livia had become more and more separated from the outside world, so much so that the cavernous interior of the Sancellan felt more natural than the living breathing sunlit world above.  This small pocket of a universe that they had carved out for themselves was more than just a place to be alone.  It was a place to escape.

“Dej, do you ever think we made a mistake joining the Order?”

Dejan thought about this for a moment. “I used to.  But that was right after we had been inducted. Now I think it is the best decision we could have made.”

Livia pushed herself up on her elbows, and rolled onto her side to look at Dejan. “What about us?  What about the future we planned for ourselves? Who knew the Order would be this…rigid.”

“What about it? What about us?  We can be together whenever we want here.  This is perfect, Livia, perfect.  All that we could want and more is provided for us here in the Sancellan.  And this,” he gestured around them, “Surely this is the greatest in perfection.”

“But it isn’t real, Dejan.  This world isn’t real.  We can make it as close to perfect as we want, but it will never be any more than just a construct.  We were going to have kids, Dej, remember?  What about that dream, the dream of a family?  Have you replaced it with this dream of a…of a dream?”

Dejan jumped to his feet and looked down at Livia. “Livia, who needs these things when we have the power to create?  We can do anything.  We can be anything.  We can be gods. Gods, Livia.”

“Yes, until we have to go back to the real world, and you go back to losing yourself in ancient books and I go back to being ridiculed by the masters.  Dejan Rashalla, you have changed.  You are still yourself, but you are different.  I thought it was cute the first time you froze time to come visit me, but now it seems like an excuse to not use any time at all in your precious library.” She stood and made to head to the portal.

“Where are you going?”

She stopped and turned, a fire glowing in her teary eyes. “I am leaving, Dejan.  I am leaving the Order.

“And I am leaving you.”

She stepped through the portal and was gone.

“You can’t leave the Order!  They won’t allow it!” Dejan yelled at the portal.  “They would rather kill than let you leave!”

Dejan sat down in the grass angrily.  How dare she accuse me of such things!  If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be in the Order, with her talents so few and paltry.

Good riddance to her.  And to think I loved her.  Master Enroubin had been right.  He didn’t love her.  He just thought he did.

Well, she is her own person.  If she wants to go offer herself to their knife, then so be it.

Dejan stayed sitting on the hill like this for some time, an angry god in his own private univers