Chapter 981: What Forever Means

Jason found himself at a loose end. Bussinger was now with Carlos, at the beginning of what would be years of research. Jason’s political advisors were working with the factions of Earth, digging out just how dirty the Network branches farming reality cores were. Zara’s Storm Kingdom people were searching the North Sea for the submarine lab, and the vampire queen hopefully hiding in it.

He had resisted the urge to join the search himself. Not only was his skill set not helpful but there was tension between him and the adventurers from Rimaros. They did not like what was, in their eyes, his ambiguous relationship with their princess. Jason didn’t find it ambiguous at all, so long as they were on Earth. It was on their return to Pallimustus that things would get complicated. He decided not to poke that particular bear, even with the tempting allure of a villain’s submarine laboratory lair.

Having been busy, first in Australia, then Pakistan and then Europe, Jason had quietly gone off for some alone time, familiars notwithstanding. Most of his family resided in his French spirit domain, so he had gone to Slovakia and added an extra floor to the top of the administration tower.

The largest room of his private floor had one wall that opened onto a terrace. The other walls were mostly covered in floor to ceiling alcove shelving, filled with board games. Several gaming tables were set up in the room, along with a reading desk and a lounge area with a kitchenette. Gordon and Colin were in the lounge area, with Gordon floating over a cloud couch, watching Mary Poppins: Secret of the Umbrella. It was apparently the seventh film in the series, and the reason Jason was not sorry to have missed the last fifteen years of cinema. Colin was currently a pile of leeches in a large glass bowl, buried in chunks of raw, bloody monster meat.

Jason stood in the middle of the room, looking over the games lining the walls, stacked four or five to an alcove. Shade floated in the air beside him.

“Most of these are decades old, now,” he mused.

“You inherited them from your friend Greg, did you not?” Shade asked.

“Most of them. He’s long gone, while the man who killed him is still wandering around. As some kind of undead blood slave, but he’s out there.”

“Do not feel too aggrieved for the lot of Jack Gerling, Mr Asano. If his soul has been trapped since he died in that transformation zone, his will be a tortured existence. A trapped soul that should be passing on becomes increasingly unstable over time, until it is nothing but insensible rage.”

“Like the flesh abominations in that astral space you were trapped in when we met.”

“Indeed. Gerling is unlikely to have lost his senses yet, but his existence is likely one of constant suffering and misery. A mind can only endure that for so long. What will you do when you catch him?”

“Release him. The man is dead. He’s just a soul that needs to pass on now.”

“You aren’t tempted to use his condition for revenge?”

“Doing that to a soul is just wrong. It being the soul of a crappy person doesn’t change that.”

“I am glad to hear you say that, Mr Asano. I may no longer be bound to my father and his purpose, but I still believe in the sanctity of death.”

Jason wanted over to the wall and brushed his fingers lightly over a stack of game boxes, then let his arm drop to his side.

“It’s been so long now,” he said.

“That is a matter of perspective, Mr Asano.”

Jason nodded.

“What is it like, Shade? Living for so long?”

“Time does not pass any faster for immortals. You and I live day by day, year by year, just like everyone else. It has been my experience that people think in parcels of time. I’ve found that mortal who become ageless still tend to think in lifetimes. Not only does that comport with their formative experiences, but it allows them to live lives alongside those who will not live forever. They might settle somewhere, live a life. Make friends, have children. Then those people grow old and eventually die. Then there usually comes a time where they isolate themselves. Ponder the nature of loss, and of eternity. Then they’ll have an encounter, make a friend, and it all starts over again.”

“It seems like that could get to you, over time. Make you callous to loss. Or you could go the other way and become so sensitive to it that you’re afraid to make any connection.”

“Both are inevitable, but you are underestimating what forever means, Mr Asano. There is always a tomorrow. Always time for things to get better, or worse, however long it takes. Sometimes you find that change within yourself, and sometimes you need a push. Miss Dawn was sent to you, to give her that push, although I suspect you pushed harder than the World-Phoenix was anticipating.”

Jason chuckled, then wandered over to the lounge area. He took a pitcher of juice from the fridge, then a glass and a bowl from the cupboard. He set them down on the coffee table and then lazily plonked himself on a cloud couch, next to Gordon. With a groan, Jason sat up and poured juice into the glass and the bowl. While he picked up the glass and sipped at it, Gordon sent one of his orbs to the bowl and absorbed a portion of the juice.

“What about you, Shade?” Jason asked. “You were never mortal. What’s your experience of immortality?”

The Shadow familiar drifted over, next to the couch.

“I was born eternal, in a place that has no time,” he said. “Even so, I still find myself compartmentalising my life, albeit with more variation than someone born in the physical realms. Sometimes, I measure times in lives, like those born mortal. The instances where I was a familiar, for example. Other times, it is by experience, such as being trapped in the astral space where we met.”

“How did that happen, exactly? You were a familiar at the time, right? To someone who had the dark essence, like me?”

“Yes. Familiars and their essence users can have falling outs. This is most common in the case of summoned familiars, like myself. When one or both do not wish to continue the connection, another is easily summoned. More drastic partings can occur, with one party betraying another, but this is more common with bonded familiars.”

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“Like the Network founder and Noreth.”

“Indeed. It can happen with summoned familiars, however. My summoner, prior to you, not only chose to sever our bond, but to do so in a way that bound me to that place.”

“How did he manage that without you noticing? You’re hard to keep secrets from, even without sharing a bond.”

“Each person has their own relationship with a familiar, Mr Asano. Some are closer, and trusting, while others are more of an alliance. There was distance between myself and my previous summoner. Our ideologies were different but not opposed. We had a formalised contract, with defined rules. Even so, it would not have been possible without the interference of my brother.”

“Umber. I recall you mentioning him, but you’ve never really talked about what happened between you.”

“To explain Umber, I think I need you to understand, at least a little, the nature of life as a spiritual entity. You might say that, for astral beings, our souls are the entirety of what we are. We are things entirely of spirit, simple and focused. We may or may not come into being with specific purpose, but our natures are clearly defined. Colin was born as an avatar of hunger, and Gordon as a herald of annihilation. I was born as a shepherd of death.”

“You sound like quite the sinister group when you say it like that.”

“Mr Asano, tell me that you’ve never found yourself standing on a rooftop, your cloak swirling around you, and had the words ‘I am the night,’ pass through your head.”

“You’re getting off topic. You were talking about what astral beings are like.”