Turgon sat back on the couch in his home on Sanctuary and watched the large screen on the far wall, where the events of the previous night were playing out once more on Oa's most popular network.
The screen filled with golden light as the network's crest dissolved, and a commentator's voice swept in over a blare of brass.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Oans of all sizes, a very warm welcome to each and every one of you, wherever in this grand old system of ours you happen to be tuning in from! Tonight, folks, you are about to witness history. History, I tell you! For this is the six millionth Vael'Thir Systemwide Championship, and let me assure you, my friends, there has never been one quite like it!"
The image shifted to a sweeping view of the Grand Arena of Ionith, packed from its lowest tier to its highest with almost half a million people.
"Nearly three hundred million years ago, our ancestors first took to the Drift Field and played the game we have loved ever since. Empires have risen and fallen in that time, stars have burned out and been reborn, and through it all, every fifty years without fail, the finest clubs from every world in this system have gathered to crown a champion. But tonight is special, folks. Tonight is the first Systemwide Championship since the Black Night to be held with our Ion home again!"
The roar from the screen was so loud that Turgon reached for the control and lowered the volume. The view cut to the great box above the arena, where a column of emerald light descended from the sky.
When it faded, Ion stood at the front of the box with his three honored guests arrayed behind him. The Asgardian Odin and the two humans, yes, humans, as they were called En Sabah Nur and Agamotto, were great friends of Ion whom he had met during his brief return four hundred years ago.
"And would you look at that, ladies and gentlemen," the commentator cried. "Ion is raising his ring! I don't believe it. I do not believe it! Ion himself is going to make the Vael for tonight's match!"
On the screen, Ion stretched out one hand over the arena. A thin thread of emerald light flowed from his ring and gathered into a sphere no larger than an Oan's head. It hardened into a ball of polished green and gold that drifted slowly down into the centre of the field below.
The noise that followed was so enormous that it distorted the broadcast for several seconds, and Turgon found himself grinning at the screen like a child.
He had loved the game for as long as he could remember. In the old records, it had another name, the Contest of Spheres, but no one had used that in millions of years. As a boy in the care home, he had spent entire evenings crowded around a single cracked display with the other children, watching the Ionith Stars lose, which they had done with astonishing reliability for most of his life.
The view moved down to the field itself. A transparent sphere roughly a hundred and twenty metres across hung suspended in the middle of the stadium, with the crowd surrounding it on every side. It held a Drift Field, an engineered blend of gravity and inertia that made the air inside behave as though it were liquid. Within it, there was no up or down.
The players could only move by swimming, kicking, and pushing off one another, and every stroke met real drag and resistance. Turgon had always thought that was what made the game so wonderful to watch, because nothing could disguise a lack of strength or stamina once a player was inside the field.
"Tonight's final is one for the ages," the commentator announced. "On one side, the Haven Tempest, champions of the last two Systemwide Championships and the pride of our neighbours across the void! And on the other side, the club that has not lifted this trophy since before the Black Night, the club that has broken more hearts in Ionith than every poet in history, our very own Ionith Stars!"
The two teams swam out to take their positions as holographic displays rotated around the sphere so that every section of the crowd could follow the action from any angle. Each side fielded eleven players from its roster: a Keeper guarding the gate, five Guards, four Wings, and a single Spear who would score most of the points. At either end of the sphere floated a Thir-gate, a glowing ring about four metres wide. A throw through it counted for one point, or two if it came from outside the Outer Arc.
The match swung back and forth for the next hour. Haven built a lead of three points twice, and twice Ionith clawed it back. Soon, the score was tied as the final minutes approached.
"Eight apiece, and I don't mind telling you my heart can't take much more of this! The Tempest have the Vael. They're working it around the edge, a Rise pass, a Drop pass, oh, they're patient, so terribly patient! But wait! Wait a moment! The Stars' Wing has stolen it! She's away! She's found Caladir!"
On the screen, the Ionith Spear, Caladir, caught the pass on the very edge of the Outer Arc and turned to find three Haven defenders between him and the gate.
For one long moment, he did nothing at all. Then he wound back and threw. The Vael left his hand with so much spin that it looked like a wobbling, glowing blur. It curled away from the gate before hooking back hard at the last instant, slipping past the Keeper's fingertips and through the ring.
"FROM OUTSIDE THE ARC!" the commentator screamed. "TWO POINTS! TWO POINTS FOR IONITH, AND THERE IS THE HORN! THE IONITH STARS HAVE WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP! For the first time since the Black Night, the Ionith Stars are champions of the system!"
Turgon had not known the result, and his mouth still fell open as he watched it. The arena erupted. The Ionith players swam toward one another and collided in a tangle of arms and legs in the middle of the sphere, while across every tier of the stadium, strangers embraced, wept, and climbed onto their seats. On the screen, Ion descended from the box with the trophy in his hands. When he placed it in Caladir's hands, the young Spear burst into tears.
"And there it is," the commentator said, his own voice thick now. "Ion himself handing the Crown to the champions of Ionith. If you had told me a year ago that I would live to see this, I would have called you a madman. Well, I am happy to say that I would have been wrong. It's a new age on Oa. A new age indeed!"
When the noise from the broadcast finally died down, Turgon sat back and looked at the frozen image of Caladir holding the Crown aloft while Ion clapped beside him. He thought of the treaty that was nearly finished, of all the changes that had come since Ion's return, and now of this victory.
Turgon was certain of it.
Oa was heading into another golden age.
He shook his head at himself and switched off the screen before stepping out of his house and into the cool morning air. His home stood on the edge of the restored settlement, close to where his parents' house had once stood. In the months since the Blue Battery awakened, the ruins had been cleared and rebuilt, and new homes had risen among the old foundations.
The path toward the Blue Battery wound through the forest. Birds and creatures that existed nowhere else in the universe called to one another overhead, and twice Turgon had to step aside for something large and slow-moving that wandered across the path without paying him the slightest attention. The Battery rose ahead of him as the trees thinned, its sapphire light pulsing softly over the clearing like the slow beat of a heart.
He heard voices before he reached it, and when he stepped into the clearing, he stopped and smiled.
Twenty-one Oans knelt in a loose circle on the grass at the foot of the Battery, each dressed in the blue and white of the Corps and wearing a sapphire ring. They were the first recruits of the Blue Lantern Corps, the first since Lithiel's people had died on this very ground, and Adara stood among them, her blue dress moving gently in the wind. She was teaching them personally.
Injured animals lay among the recruits. Turgon saw a long-necked grazer with a torn flank, a small furred creature with a broken wing, and a heavily armoured beast the size of a transport lying on its side and breathing slowly. Each recruit held their hands over one of the animals as soft blue light flowed from their rings and into the wounds.
"Gently," Adara said as she moved among them.The armoured beast stirred and lifted its great head. The recruit kneeling beside it let out a startled laugh, and Adara gave a small clap. Then she looked up and saw Turgon standing at the edge of the clearing.
Adara crossed the clearing to meet him and took both of his hands in hers. "Good morning, Turgon. You look tired."
"I was up before dawn watching the championship," he admitted.
"Ah, I am saddened that you missed it." Her eyes held a hint of amusement. "Half the recruits could not stop talking about it."
Turgon smiled and looked past her at the twenty-one Oans kneeling among the animals. The young woman who had healed the grazer was now helping the furred creature stretch its mended wing, while the recruit beside the armoured beast had his hand resting on its head and was speaking to it quietly. "I see the recruits are progressing well."
"Yes, they are," Adara said. Then she smiled. "Though not as quickly as you did."
"Well, I did have an advantage." Turgon shrugged. "I was the son of two of your best students."
Adara nodded slowly, and for a moment her eyes went to the edge of the clearing, where the new houses stood on the foundations of the old ones. Then the warmth in her expression faded into something more serious, and she let go of his hands. "Walk with me, Turgon."
He fell into step beside her, and they left the clearing along a path that led around the edge of the forest. Adara did not speak for some time. When she did, her voice was quiet.
"I feel that we are heading toward a great conflict," she said. "A conflict between the Emotional Entities themselves."
Turgon looked at her, but she kept her eyes on the path ahead.
"My heart aches that it has come to this. But after what my brother told me of Predator, of what Parallax and the Butcher did to her, I cannot pretend otherwise any longer. They nearly destroyed her, Turgon. They reduced one of us to so little that she could only survive by merging with another being." She shook her head. "I fear there is an all-out war on the horizon. Perhaps it will take millennia to arrive, but it will come."
Turgon listened without interrupting. Ion had told him about others like himself and Adara, the seven Entities of the Emotional Spectrum: Will and Hope, Fear and Rage, Love, Compassion, and Avarice. He knew that the Entity of Fear, the being called Parallax, was Ion's greatest rival and oldest enemy, and that the Butcher, the Lord of Rage, stood beside him.
"I dislike conflict," Adara continued. "You know that. But we must help my brother and his Corps stand against the rising evil of Parallax and the Butcher. We cannot leave him to fight it alone."
Turgon nodded. "Then we need more numbers. Twenty-one recruits is a beginning, but it won't be enough."
"No, it won't." Adara finally looked at him. "We will grow, and when we do, the Blue Lanterns will act as support for the Green Lantern Corps. Hope strengthens Will, as you have already seen. But that is not all we are for. Wherever we go, we will bring hope and healing to the universe."
Turgon could only nod at her words. They spoke for some time longer, and soon enough, he was flying toward Oa for his meeting with Ion.
He crossed the space between the worlds in a few minutes and entered the atmosphere over the northern hemisphere, then descended toward the Valley of Will, where the great mountains rose on every side. He was still high above the valley floor when something came spinning toward him at tremendous speed, and he jerked to a stop in midair as a hammer passed close enough for him to feel the wind of it.
"What the..."
He turned and saw Ion and Odin fighting in the sky above the valley.
Ion fell backward through Oa's multicoloured skies as Mjolnir, the hammer Turgon believed it was called, came spinning back toward his head. Ion twisted aside at the last moment, and as the hammer passed, he reached out and caught it by the handle.
"Ha!" he shouted, flinging it straight back the way it had come.
Odin caught it without slowing and laughed as he dove after him.
WHUM. WHUM. WHUM.
The Omega Beams erupted, and Odin saw them coming. He rolled aside and let both beams pass beneath him.
"Is that it, Grænlaðr?"
Ion only grinned, and the beams changed direction. They curved through the air behind Odin, turned sharply upward, and struck him squarely in the backside. Odin yelped and shot forward several hundred metres before catching himself, and when he turned around, he had one hand clutched against his rear and a look of complete outrage on his face.
Ion burst out laughing. "Ahh, I can do that now!"
"Since when?"
"Since I came back," Ion said, and he dove at Odin before his friend could recover. He threw a ring of constructs around Odin as he came, rotating emerald shapes that bent the space within them and cancelled the pull of gravity, so that Odin suddenly found himself floating without any purchase in the air at all. Ion drew back his fist, confident that he had won.
Turgon was confident of it as well.
He looked down toward the palace grounds and saw two figures standing on one of the terraces with their faces turned up toward the fight. He recognized En Sabah Nur and Agamotto, the two humans who had come to Oa with Ion, and flew down to join them.
Nur stood with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the sky. Agamotto sat on a stone bench beside him with both hands resting on the head of his staff. He turned toward Turgon and smiled.
"Ah, Saint Turgon. How lovely to see you again."
"Saint," Nur said with a nod.
Turgon bowed his head to them both. "Well met again, my lords."
"Please," Agamotto said. "We are not lords."
Turgon smiled and stepped up beside them on the terrace. Above them, Ion was about to strike Odin.
"I believe Ion has won this one."
"No," Agamotto said calmly. "I believe Max has lost."
Turgon frowned at him and looked back at the sky. Golden light had begun to spread across Odin's body. It started at his chest and flowed outward along his arms until he was shining with it, and the emerald constructs that held him cracked before breaking apart.
Ion's fist met empty air.
Odin moved faster than Turgon could follow. He slipped past two more constructs and then a third before appearing directly above Ion. He brought Mjolnir down with both hands.
The blow drove Ion out of the sky like a falling star, and he struck the mountainside on the far side of the valley so hard that the entire slope shook and a cloud of dust and broken rock rose into the air.
Turgon stared at the mountain with his mouth hanging open. "How?"
"Aha!" Agamotto clapped his hands together. "I told you Odin would win this one."
Nur groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, dammit. I forgot about the Odinforce."
"The Odinforce?" Turgon asked.
"A powerful energy that only those of Asgard's royal blood can access," Agamotto explained. "Odin has been learning to draw parts from it for some time."
Agamotto turned toward him. "Turgon, I wanted to thank you. The Oans you have sent my way have been very promising. I have already found twenty students who I believe will be able to learn the mystic arts."
"I'm glad to hear it," Turgon said. "Ion has strengthened the security of the system in every way he can. With your help, we will be protected against magic as well."
"It will take time to train them," Agamotto said. Then he smiled faintly. "They will be the last students I mean to teach."
Turgon saw Nur's expression sour at the words. He looked at Agamotto again and noticed how thin the old sorcerer's hands looked around his staff and how carefully he had lowered himself onto the bench. Agamotto was very old, and Turgon understood then that he was preparing for his end.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Then Agamotto lifted his head toward the sky. "Ah. Look, another ship is coming."
Turgon followed his gaze. A vessel was descending through Oa's atmosphere, and he recognized it immediately. "That belongs to the Gardener, one of the Elders of the Universe."
"Then we are close," Agamotto said quietly, "to the return of Aurora."
Aurora.
Only Turgon and a handful of chosen Oans knew of Ion's lost daughter, and every one of them hoped for her safe return. Ion having a daughter meant there would be an heir, which brought great relief to many of them. Even now, after his return, many Oans still feared what would become of their world if Ion were ever to disappear again.
Turgon turned to the other two. "Perhaps we should go to the Battery. I believe that is where Ion will go with Odin for the final preparations."
"Yes," Agamotto said, rising from the bench with Nur's hand at his elbow. "Let us go."
Turgon raised his ring, and a sphere of blue light formed around the three of them. They lifted from the terrace and rose into the sky, and Turgon turned them south toward the centre of the planet and the Central Power Battery.
.
.
.
On the mountainside, Max climbed out of the crater and brushed the dust from his coat as Odin descended and landed a few paces away. Odin's golden glow had faded, but the grin on his face had not.
"I take it I won that one."
"Okay, okay, you got me." Max rubbed his chest where the blow had landed. "So that's the Odinforce, then. I didn't expect it to be that powerful."
Odin placed a hand over his heart as though Max had stabbed him. "You offend me, Grænlaðr."
"I'm kidding."
Odin hefted Mjolnir and rolled his shoulders. "Then another round. Let me show you the true power of the..."
He stopped because Max was no longer looking at him. A craft was descending through the clouds toward the Valley. The playfulness drained from Max's face, replaced by something far more serious.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Time to go."
Odin followed his gaze, then looked back at him. "What is it?"
"It's the Gardener," Max said. "And he's bringing us the final artefact we need to find Aurora."
Odin's grin vanished, and his grip on Mjolnir tightened. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go."
They flew down together and crossed the Valley toward the palace, where the Gardener's ship had already settled into one of the great hangars. Max and Odin landed just as the ship's hatch unsealed with a soft breath of air that smelled of fresh earth and flowers.
The Gardener walked out with a broad smile on his face. He was tall and green-skinned, with a gentle, lined face and long hair that looked more like trailing leaves than anything else. He wore simple robes covered in embroidered blossoms.
"Ion," he said warmly. "It has been a long time."
Max smiled back and crossed the hangar to meet him. The two old friends embraced.
"Well, I've been a little out of commission for the last half a million years."
The Gardener laughed as they separated. "We all knew you would return eventually. The only question was when." His smile turned rueful. "I lost a bet with the Grandmaster over it, in fact."
"Why am I not surprised?"
The Gardener's gaze moved past him to Odin, who had come to stand at Max's shoulder. "And who is this?"
"My friend Odin," Max said. "Prince of Asgard."
"Ah, the Aesir." The Gardener studied Odin with some interest. "I believe I have met your kind before, though it was a very long time ago."
Odin only nodded respectfully.
"Ion, I have brought what you asked for." The Gardener reached into his robes and produced an ornate wooden box carved with flowering vines. He held it out between them and lifted the lid. Inside, resting on a bed of moss, lay a gem that glowed with a steady green light.
Max smiled when he saw it.
The Time Stone.
Odin leaned closer and stared at it. "Is that another Infinity Stone?"
"It is," the Gardener said. "This one has been in my possession for a very long time. Ion was the only one who knew I had it."
Max took the box carefully. "I'll return it as soon as I'm done with it, Ord. You have my word."
The Gardener shook his head. "No, Ion. I do not want it anymore. Keep it, or hide it away yourself."
Max frowned. "I already have three. Four would be..."
"Then find another protector for it," the Gardener said gently, "or hide it somewhere no one will ever find it. I do not need it anymore." He sighed. "For a long time now, I have felt as though I carried a target on my back for as long as that stone remained in my care. I would very much like to set that burden down."
Max looked at his old friend for a long moment, then nodded.
The Gardener's expression softened. "I hope you find your daughter, Ion. Truly. I wish you every good fortune."
"Thank you," Max said, and he meant it.
The Gardener turned back toward his ship, then paused at the foot of the ramp. "I will be stopping at Sanctuary before I leave the system. I have brought some new flora for its forests." He smiled once more over his shoulder. "Good luck, Ion."
"Thank you, Ord."
The hatch sealed behind him. The ship lifted from the hangar floor, turned slowly toward the open sky, and rose through the clouds until its green hull disappeared among the colours of Oa's heavens.
Odin came to stand beside Max and watched the place where it had vanished. "So that was an Elder of the Universe."
"Yes," Max said. "The same as me."
Odin shook his head slowly. "I still cannot get it into my head how old you truly are." Then his eyes dropped to the box in Max's hands and the green light glowing within it. The wonder left his face and gave way to something steadier. "Let's go, then. Let us find Aurora."
Max smiled. "Yes," he said. "Let's."
They rose from the hangar together and flew toward the Battery.
It rose from the centre of the planet's equator as it always had, vast and emerald, with more than twenty thousand rings circling slowly above its summit. Max had been adding to them since his return, and the number would soon reach twenty-five thousand. He flew them in through the opening in the roof and descended deep into the structure, where they found Turgon, Agamotto, and Nur waiting for them.
Max and Odin landed on the platform at the centre of the chamber.
"Jade," Max said. "I have the Time Stone. Let's do the thing."
"Yes, Max," Jade replied, her voice filling the chamber from every direction at once. "Commencing operation."
The floor at the centre of the room opened, and a device rose from beneath it. It unfolded as it climbed, ring after ring of emerald machinery locking together around a central cradle where the Reality Stone already sat, glowing a deep red. A second cradle opened beside it.
Max lifted the Time Stone from the Gardener's box and held it in his palm for a moment before placing it into the device. The machinery closed gently around it, and green and red light began to pulse through the rings in a slow, alternating rhythm.
"Calibration has begun," Jade said. "While I calibrate the device, Max, I should tell you that the issue with the Battery we have been looking for is not confined to one region. It has spread throughout the entire structure, and it is affecting the rings as well."
Max barely heard her. His eyes were fixed on the device and the two Stones glowing at its heart, and for a moment everything else in the chamber seemed very far away. The last word reached him, though, and he turned his head.
"Wait. The rings?"
"Yes. I do not believe whatever is affecting the Battery will cause it to stop functioning," Jade said. "But I believe it will have other effects, and I am still trying to determine what they are. The closest description I can give you is that it resembles an impurity of some kind."
Max frowned for a moment, then shook his head and turned back to the device. "We can deal with that later. Right now, let's just find Aurora."
"Yes, Max," Jade said, and the rings of the device continued to turn.
Agamotto had been studying the machine, and now he looked toward Max. "Why these two Stones in particular? I would have thought a place could be reached with the Space Stone, if any Stone were needed at all."
"Because the White Hot Room isn't just far away," Max answered. "It doesn't obey the normal rules of where and when. It's tied to the Phoenix, and inside it, past and future, life and death, and rebirth don't line up the way they do everywhere else. There aren't any coordinates to aim for."
Nur frowned. "Then how do you get in?"
"That's where the Reality Stone comes in." Max nodded toward the red Stone in its cradle. "What the Reality Stone can do is change our side of things, just for a little while, so that the physical universe and the White Hot Room recognize each other as connected."
"Put more precisely," Jade added, "the Reality Stone cannot command the White Hot Room. It can, however, alter our universe enough that the White Hot Room and this reality briefly accept one another as contiguous states of existence."
Turgon folded his arms. "Then what is the Time Stone for?"
"Safety, mostly." Max looked at the green Stone. "Time doesn't work normally inside the White Hot Room. Past, present, and future can all overlap. If I use the Reality Stone to tear open a doorway between there and our universe without controlling that difference, there's no telling what happens on this side. We could get temporal distortions or something worse."
He tapped the device. "The Time Stone keeps our end of the portal anchored to the present. It makes sure that whatever is happening with time inside the White Hot Room stays inside the White Hot Room."
Turgon looked between the two Stones. "So the Reality Stone opens the door..."
"And the Time Stone makes sure opening it doesn't fuck up the universe."
Agamotto nodded slowly, his blind eyes turned toward the Stones. "An elegant plan."
"Speaking of the Time Stone," Max said, "you should take it once we're done here, Agamotto. Its previous owner doesn't want it back."
Agamotto turned toward him. "Are you certain? Would it not be safer here, on Oa?"
"I might give away the Reality Stone as well," Max said. "I can't keep too many Infinity Stones in one place. It just invites trouble, and Oa has had enough trouble for one age."
Agamotto bowed his head. "Then my order and I would be honoured to guard the Time Stone for all time."
"It is ready," Jade said.
The chamber went quiet.
Max realized he was breathing harder than he had been a moment ago, and he could not seem to stop. In a few moments, he could have his daughter in his arms again. He drew a breath and opened his mouth to give Jade the order.
The chamber vanished.
There was no flash or sound to mark it, and no sense of movement. One moment, he was standing on the platform with his friends around him, and the next, he was standing in a place of pure white. There was no floor, no sky, no horizon, and no Battery, only whiteness stretching away in every direction without end.
Max felt the difference in himself before he looked down. When he raised his hands, they were no longer human. They were the green of deep space, filled with drifting stars and slowly turning galaxies, while the cosmos-filled cape of his true form moved behind him in a wind that did not exist. He was fully manifested as Ion, and he had not chosen to be.
Max closed his eyes as he understood where he was and what had just happened to him. This was the Dimension of Manifestations, and only one being in all of existence could pull a cosmic entity like him here without consent.
The first arrivals came in a flash of light that rolled across the whiteness like a wave. Celestials appeared, first a few, then dozens, then hundreds, and finally thousands upon thousands of them, until their armoured shapes stretched away in every direction like a mountain range.
The Watchers arrived next, silent and enormous, their vast heads turning as one toward the centre of the gathering. Master Order and Lord Chaos appeared side by side, as they always did, followed by the In-Betweener, who stood exactly between them.
The Stranger appeared with his arms folded and an expression of keen interest, while Eon drifted into being like a slowly turning sun. Then came Infinity, whose shape was difficult to look at for long, and Eternity, whose body held the whole night sky within it.
Death arrived after them. Max had last seen her inside the Central Power Battery on the night of the Black Night, moments before he flew out to end Knull. She had agreed to help him then, though reluctantly. Now she looked at him for barely a moment before turning her face away, her anger obvious and entirely undisguised.
Galactus arrived after Death. He took his place among the others, looked down at Max, and nodded.
Then came one final flash of light.
It was the one being Max had known, from the moment he arrived, was the only one capable of summoning him here.
The Living Tribunal.
Max looked around at all of them and wondered why the fuck the Tribunal had called a cosmic court.
He really hoped it wasn't for him.
.
.
Living Tribunal, Eternity and Ion.