The Reach -- Paradox Realm of Time
Contents
"Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day" -- A Relevant Quotation
Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn ...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)
(This is the school in which we learn ...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn ...)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(... that time is the fire in which they burn.)
Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;
Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
-- By Delmore Schwartz from Selected Poems (1938-1958): Summer Knowledge. Copyright © 1967
A Relevant Question
If time is truly the school in which we learn, and time is equally the fire in which we burn; then in a place without time, can there truly be learning? And, if in such a realm, there is the possibility of learning, what price must you assuredly pay, and by what fire will you be burned in order to learn what time has forbidden? -- Phineus Niger (January 1st, 2029) -- Excerpt from In Regno Aeterno
In Regno Aeterno -- An Introduction
Greetings my long lost companions. It seems we were meant to meet at least once more before the end. So you have managed to find "The Reach"; congratulations on attaining a higher level of understanding in transcendental matters. But before I continue my dissemination on the nature of the Reach and its timeless qualities, let me offer you a admonition. The Reach is not a safe place for creatures like ourselves, for its is dangerous for timeless beings to inhabit a timeless continuum. The reason is simple, the "Curse of Caine" which holds all vampires apart from the mortals upon whom they prey is by its nature meant to exist within the ceaseless flow of history. If you take us out of history, into a timeless realm, one of two things must happen. The first is complete stagnation; considering who and what each of you are, I feel no real reason exists to discuss this particular trap, as you are unlikely to fall into it. The second trap, is actually more subtle, and it is the belief that timeless beings like ourselves could, in a timeless realm like the Reach, accomplish virtually anything we desire in terms of occult research. Unfortunately, in order for you to understand why the second possibility is a trap for vampires, we will have to explore the history of the Reach.
The History of the Reach
The most relevant question that come to mind with regards to the "Reach" is regarding its origin. Is the "Reach" a natural formation within the Umbra? Or as some have speculated, was it created by someone? The answer is simple, no one living or undead knows the answer, at least not that I have been able to ascertain. If you think you can answer this riddle, then I invite you to try. However, in the mean time, it is more productive to discuss when the "Reach" first appeared. As far as I have been able to verify, the Reach formed sometime during the late third or early forth century.
While no true answer exists to explain the existence of the Reach, I would like to offer a hypothesis. The will-workers of my earliest memories, spent endless days and yes, nights arguing and theorizing over the nature of both the material world and the unseen, shadow world that is often referred to as the "Umbra". In fact, the Latin word umbra means shadow. I mention this to make a concise argument, rather than lead you to any erroneous or spurious conclusions. Those early sorcerers or mages often spoke of the spirit world as a plurality, but even then it was in the process of separation. The polarization of the living Umbra and the realms of the dead that we now refer to as the Underworld was well on its way by the fourth century of the common era. Why the spiritual realms separated remains a significant question, but its entirely possible that it was simply a metaphysical variant of continental drift. However, many of the magi of those early nights speculated that the cause was a growing change in humanity's perception of the cosmos that the awakened now call "paradigm".
