Timedeath

A Timedeath is a period during which linear time ceases to function. There have been several prominent Timedeaths in Valan history, though the exact number is, due to the nature of the phenomenon, impossible to determine. It is believed that time was once more malleable and fluid. The Voru worked to establish time as a grounding and defining principle for the organization of the world, but only by the Night Wars did time truly become fixed. The retreat of dragons and spirits, and the creation of the Skein all served to strengthen time, and as mortals multiplied and recorded the passage of time, its influence became stronger. But the stronger time became, the more difficult reshaping Vala became as well. Akhei-Bel attempted to change this with her Tower Spell, and this broke time. The temporal schism, the Timedeath, suspended linear time as material reality became unbound from any chronological progression. Vala essentially existed in a timeless space where all events happened at once, or, simultaneously, were locked in eternal stasis. Siris ended the Timedeath by repairing the damaged weave of fate and allowed time to resume, but no one knows what changed, what was erased, and what was added during the untime between the beginning and end of the Timedeath. Indeed, as this untime cannot be measured, and is essentially outside mortal perceptions, the length of the first Timedeath, or any Timedeath, is impossible to determine. This is why all chronologies are ultimately arbitrary and contradictory. The end of Age Zero and the beginning of the First Age are separated by an unknowable span. Some believe the world was suspended in untime for centuries, for millennia, or even for eternity, with a new, separate reality emerging out of untime and reforming within the Sea of Creation. The old reality was relegated to the Void or perhaps fragmented into the flotsam that litters the Seeming. And while Siris worked to preserve what she could, she might very well have changed anything. Fragments of these other realities sometimes appear as phantom structures or people, as odd lacunae within ancient texts, as unearthed artefacts from no known culture, or as dreams of lands that never were. Though the Age Zero Timedeath is the best-known, there have been several others, such as the one triggered by Empress Hekara in, it is believed, 1871 IR. Each time a temporal schism occurs, Vala changes. The multiplicity of contradictory historical accounts likely stem from scholars recalling different realities, and using material from since-erased chronologies in their scholarship. The College of Keepers has expended significant resources to establish the 'true' history of Vala, though all such attempts have resulted in madness and misery. Some even fear that attempting to recover fragments from untime will disturb the delicate mosaic that is Valan temporality, resulting in a Final Timedeath that will eliminate the entire world from the Mindstream. A few doomsayers insist that studying history or recalling the past is so dangerous that it should be strictly forbidden, so as to allow time a chance to solidify. This will purge the 'artifacts' from previous Timedeaths and hopefully stabilize Vala within the Sea of Creation. Of course, the great temptation of discovering what 'really' happened continues to animate scholars across the world, even if their curiosity might indeed prove fatal.
Category:Chronology