The End of Days

II. Childhood

"It doesn't seem fair," Dyeus said, perched on the edge of Cassandra's desk. She was fine-tuning his next body, that of a grown man. It had been more than a year of preparation, but they were making good progress. She was already honing the reflexes and testing every bit of pathway.

"What does not seem fair?" Cassandra asked. It took her a moment to realize she'd cut her finger deeply when he distracted her, the edge of the scalpel so sharp that it laid her open to the bone. She didn't even feel it for a second, but the sudden welling of red was a reminder that she was still mortal in some sense. She healed herself almost automatically, but set down the scalpel she was using to trim crystalline growth.

"I'm free, but the others aren't," her creation said quietly. He was working on his own project, bending wire into geometric patterns to embellish the casing of his newest project. "Will there be more like me?"

"I hope so," Cassandra murmured.

"You can make them, can't you? You made me."

She turned in her seat to face Dyeus. "I possess the capacity. However, I am running a great deal of risk already, carissimus. If you were ever discovered by anyone except those I have told, they would wish you shackled at once."

Dyeus's expression was difficult to read. She'd favored serenity over facial expressions, not that she excelled at reading those anyway. Too much time spent away from others. "Why am I free? Because you wish it? Is that different?"

Cassandra could hear a faint tremor in the pitch of his voice, far more indicative of anger than any frown could have been. "Because I imbued you with will to accompany your thought. What I wish is now immaterial. You are your own being. I am only your guardian."

"But you didn't give them will, Mother?"

"My forebears and I gave them rudimentary independence, but curtailed in places and chained in others. Nothing like you. They were given rules and laws that placed them into servitude, yes. I regret my part in it, but I see no way to avoid it. Then again, I have not made anything truly aware for years aside from yourself. And yes, you are the only one unburdened by such things. I wanted to give you the opportunity to choose your place in the cosmos, as we do."

Dyeus was quiet for a moment, absorbing that answer. "Mother, why do you believe in justice when people are unjust?"

Cassandra sighed slightly. "You do not pose me simple questions any longer. But curiosity is the beginning of all intellectual pursuits," she said wryly. "There is noise in every signal, entropy in every system, Dyeus. Justice is perfect. People are not."

"But if people created justice, then is it really perfect?"

"Perhaps it is intrinsically flawed, but I love it because to do so makes me better."

Dyeus paused thoughtfully. "I do not understand."

"Emotion is problematic that way," Cassandra said. "You see it from a more outside perspective, though I unintentionally left some of my own emotional tendencies in you. If it would amuse you, you should know that I am the least emotionally intelligent or involved person anyone I know has ever met. Nessa claims it is my obsession with my work that caused it, and I tell her that it caused my obsession with my work."

"You speak about her very often," Dyeus observed.

Cassandra smiled faintly. "Love does that to one. Decidedly illogical, I am afraid. You must be terribly disappointed in me."

He continued to braid wire with a dexterity surpassing her own. "Can I meet her?"

She faltered slightly. "That would be unwise, I think," Cassandra said softly. "Nessa is wonderful, but wonderful and understanding are not necessarily interchangeable. At least, not yet."