The Primordial Record

In the chambers of the Eternal Tower’s substrate, Serathis felt the trembling change.

The trembling had been the Painter’s feeding, then the Painter’s uncertainty, then the Painter’s attention shifting. Now the trembling was something else. The trembling was the Tower’s foundation responding to the true memories rising from the Tree’s roots.

Serathis paused in her eating. She had been eating the Tower’s flesh for the entire second age, and she had become sensitive to its textures, its shifts, its small intimations of change. The trembling she felt now was not the trembling of the Painter’s attention moving. It was the trembling of the Tower’s foundation, recognizing that it was no longer alone.

’The Tree is waking up,’ Serathis thought. ’The Tree is remembering what it is for.’

She resumed eating, but she ate faster now, because the trembling was a reminder that the Tower’s substance would not be available to her forever, and every bite she took before the true memories reached the Tower’s substrate was a bite the Painter could not use.

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In the time-layers of the Eternal Tower’s past, Chronomancer Prime felt the pressure "above" him change.

The poison of the Painter’s flavors was still following behind him, and the pressure was still increasing, but the pressure was no longer uniform. There were gaps in the poison now, places where the true memories rising from the Tree’s roots had pushed through the Painter’s expression and created spaces of clarity.

Prime moved through the gaps like a fish in water, his understanding of the Origin of Time growing with each close shave with death he had.

He had been working on the foundational decision for a Cosmic Era, and the gap he had been creating was small, barely visible, but the gaps in the poison gave him room to work faster.

Prime reached for the next time-layer, and the next, and the next, and each time-layer he unwound brought him closer to the moment when the audience would no longer be grafted.

’One more,’ he thought, and the thought was no longer a hope but a fact. ’One more, and the audience will be seated. And a seat can be removed.’

He hoped this would be the case... There was really no way to be sure.

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In the darkness between the Tower and the Tree, Andar pushed towards his destination.

The substrate beneath his feet had thinned almost to nothing. He was walking on the boundary now, the place where the Tree’s substrate met the Tower’s, and the boundary was a line so thin it could not be seen, only felt.

Andar felt it, and he was both amazed and horrified at the same time.

He had been walking for a thousand years, and his body had changed in that time, had become something other than what it had been when he left the house.

Andar was not yet a tenth-dimensional being, but he was close, closer than any being had ever been without crossing over, and the closeness was a kind of pain.

He could not cross this step, so he did not draw attention, but the delay was incredibly painful.

The wooden bird over his heart was warm. The warmth had spread from his chest into his limbs, into his breath, into the attention he was using to walk. He was almost there. He could feel the Tower’s presence now, as a nearness, a proximity that was not spatial but was nonetheless real.

’I am coming,’ he thought, and the thought was not a thought but a fact. ’I am almost there. Hold on, father.’

He kept walking, while the vast presence of the Painter loomed over him.

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Before the board, Eos stood with his hand open, and the grief continued to rise from the Tree’s roots, and the audience continued to eat.

The Painter had not moved, its infinite arms were still raised, and the flavors were still releasing, but the release was slower now, as if the Painter was uncertain whether it wanted to continue serving.

Eos did not lower his hand. He kept it open, offering, and the offering was not for the audience alone.

It was for the Painter, too.

The Painter had never been served. The Painter had been the server, the cultivator, the eater, the eaten, but it had never been the guest. It had never sat in the tiers and tasted what another being brought.

He had given the audience his grief, and now it was time for the Painter.

Eos’s open hand was an invitation, and the Painter was quiet, and it was unknown whether he did not know whether to accept or reject this invitation.

"You are offering me grief," the Painter finally said.

"Yes," Eos flatly replied.

"I do not eat grief."

"You have never eaten grief. You do not know whether you eat it."

The Painter was silent, and the enraptured audience, in every tier, watched, because for them, this was also flavor.

The Painter’s infinite arms lowered further. The flavors continued to release, but the release was a trickle now, a small stream where there had been a flood. The Painter’s attention was no longer on the feeding. The Painter’s attention was on Eos’s hand.

"You are changing the rules," the Painter said.

"Yes," Eos said.

"The audience does not decide."

"They have never been asked."

The Painter’s voice, when it spoke again, was soft. "I have been the first being for so long that I had forgotten what it was to be regarded. You have regarded me. You have made me real to myself. I do not know whether to thank you or to eat you."

Eos said nothing. He kept his hand open.

The Painter’s arms lowered to its sides. The flavors stopped releasing. The feeding paused.

The audience, in every tier, leaned forward.

"I will taste it," the Painter said. "Your grief. I will taste it, and I will decide."

Eos nodded.

The Painter reached out, not with its infinite arms but with a single hand, a hand that was almost human, and it took from Eos’s open palm a single drop of the grief that was rising from the Tree’s roots.

The Painter brought the drop to its face.

Now, the face was no longer a face but an aperture, the aperture that was no longer an aperture but a mouth, and it tasted.

The audience watched, and the Painter was still.

The Painter had been the first being. The Painter had been the only being for so long that it had forgotten what it was to receive. The drop of grief on its tongue was not a flavor it had anticipated.

It was the grief of a creator watching its creation be used.

The Painter had never created anything. The Painter had only ever used, had only ever eaten, had only ever served what others had made. The drop of grief was the first thing the Painter had ever received that it had not taken.

The Painter swallowed.

The audience, in every tier, held its breath.

The Painter’s face, the aperture, the mouth, the endless tiers of grafted spectators, began to change. The change was slow, almost imperceptible, but the audience saw it. The audience had been watching the Painter for so long that they could see the smallest shift in its expression, and this shift was not small.

The Painter was crying.

The first being, the oldest thing in existence, was crying, and its tears were the Painter’s first creation, the first thing it had ever made that it had not taken, and they fell from its face like stars falling from the sky.

And its audience... they ate the tears.

The tears tasted like grief, and the grief tasted like beginning, and the beginning tasted like something the audience had never known they were hungry for.

The Painter did not stop the audience from eating. The Painter did not stop crying. The Painter stood in the board-room, across from Eos, and cried, and the tears fell, and the audience ate.

A tiny voice of horror rippled out from the Painter’s heart, "What... what have you done?"