{"id":316,"date":"2003-09-11T10:10:59","date_gmt":"2003-09-11T17:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/?p=316"},"modified":"2003-09-11T10:10:59","modified_gmt":"2003-09-11T17:10:59","slug":"in-a-couple-of-neighboring-universes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2003\/09\/11\/in-a-couple-of-neighboring-universes\/","title":{"rendered":"In a couple of neighboring universes…"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses:<\/em><\/p>\n

\ufffdWhere are we heading, exactly?\ufffd Lee said.<\/p>\n

\ufffdEast, and a little farther downtown,\ufffd the Elf-king said. \ufffdThere\ufffds another potential \ufffdrogue\ufffd worldgate nearby; we can use it to get out of here, and slow down the pursuit a little more.\ufffd<\/p>\n

He waited until they came to the next corner, gazed up at the sign. \ufffdThis is it,\ufffd Laurin said. \ufffdEast from here.\ufffd<\/p>\n

They crossed Sixth Avenue. \ufffdIt\ufffds weird,\ufffd Lee said absently, while her mind was turning over the awful things the Elf-king had told them. \ufffdExcept for the vehicles, the place looks normal.\ufffd She glanced down Sixth Avenue. \ufffdBut where\ufffds the World Trade Center gone?\ufffd<\/p>\n

Gelert glanced down the way she was looking, shrugged his ears, winced. \ufffdOther side of the island, maybe? This is<\/em> an alternate universe…”<\/p>\n

They went on down Sixth Street, past the brownstones, mostly ignored by passersby who saw nothing but a man, a woman and a very big white dog, possibly some kind of wolfhound. Lee, for her own part, was finding it increasingly difficult just to be in this space; it itched, burning on her skin, and she wondered how the people here bore it. This was not a world that was kind to life. Her lungs were burning, too, not just with smog. The air here was full of something unfriendlier still, the presence of a universe that didn\ufffdt care anymore, if it ever had. How do you make a universe stop paying attention to what happens in it? How badly do you have to hurt it that it turns its back on what\ufffds living in it, just lies there, passive, unwilling to get involved?<\/em> For she couldn\ufffdt shake the feeling that this place hadn\ufffdt always been this way; its ethical constant hadn\ufffdt always been this low, couldn\ufffdt have been. Something had to have happened.<\/p>\n

Or you hope it did,<\/em> the colder side of her mind answered her back. What if it was<\/em> always this way? What if this is a perfectly normal way for some universes to be? And what if, when our sheaf rotates again someday, <\/em>more universes are created like this\ufffdor worse?<\/em><\/p>\n

That was a thought too awful to entertain. It has to be possible to heal such places,<\/em> Lee thought, or to keep them from happening.<\/em> If there was any way, any way in the worlds…<\/p>\n

(and in Wizard’s Holiday:<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Nita went quietly down the stairs. The living room was empty, but from the dining room she heard a voice, Tom\ufffds voice. Nita froze only a few steps from the stairs.<\/p>\n

\ufffdIt\ufffds something we just have to deal with,\ufffd Tom was saying. \ufffdSometimes you hit \ufffd When we speak of them in English, we call them \ufffdcardinal events,\ufffd which is a vague equivalent to a word in the Speech that\ufffds derived from the Speech\ufffds root word for \ufffdhinge.\ufffd There are moments in the lives of people, of nations, of cultures, of worlds, on which everything to come afterward hangs, or turns \ufffd like the hinge of a door. If intervention comes at one moment, the door swings one way. If it comes a moment early, a moment late, the hinge swings another. And sometimes no intervention, regardless of its size, is enough to change the way the door swings. There are some changes that simply have so much impetus behind them, driven by the force of earlier events \ufffd the way in which other \ufffdhinges\ufffd have swung \ufffd that there\ufffds no stopping them, no matter what you do. As a result, a life changes, or ends… or a thousand lives do, or three thousand… and whole avalanches of change come tumbling down through the opening left by the way that door swung. All a wizard can do, in the face of one of these avalanches of chance and change, is pick a spot to intervene in the consequences and try to clean up afterward.\ufffd And Tom sighed. \ufffdNo matter what we do,\ufffd he said, \ufffdentropy is still running.\ufffd<\/p>\n

There was a long silence. \ufffdI\ufffdm so sorry,\ufffd Nita heard her dad say.<\/p>\n

\ufffdNot half as sorry as we were,\ufffd Tom said, \ufffdthat we couldn\ufffdt stop it.\ufffd Another painful breath. \ufffdBut day by day, in the aftermath, we do what we can, and try to be ready for the next \ufffdhinge\ufffd…try to recognize it when it comes. It\ufffds all we can do. And we have to keep reminding ourselves, because we know it\ufffds true, that what comes of what we do will eventually make a difference; and the Powers That Be will find a way through even our species\ufffd worst cruelties to something better, if we just don\ufffdt give up.\ufffd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses: \ufffdWhere are we heading, exactly?\ufffd Lee said. \ufffdEast, and a little farther downtown,\ufffd the Elf-king said. \ufffdThere\ufffds another potential \ufffdrogue\ufffd worldgate nearby; we can use…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIn a couple of neighboring universes... - Out of Ambit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2003\/09\/11\/in-a-couple-of-neighboring-universes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In a couple of neighboring universes... - 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