Chapter 4
"The timestream?" Polaris repeated, his voice growing unexpectedly dark. His bottom lip quivered, and he froze in the doorway.
"Was I perhaps wrong?... No, impossible. It's different." He mumbled to himself, before directly acknowledging Hoku with a puzzled tilt to his expression.
There was restraint in his voice, and Hoku was unable to decipher whether it was due to suspicion or if Polaris was slowly reciting his response so as not to give away additional information mistakenly.
"You're familiar with the stream? How long have you known about its existence? Is that what brought you here?"
"One at a time! I only know about it because there were piles of papers on the Baeuru. I looked at them for a bit because I couldn't open the drawers."
Polaris briskly turned, facing Hoku entirely. One of his eyebrows formed a sharp arch that drew closer to the hairline framing his forehead.
"You sure read quick," he keenly remarked. This man goes through four hundred emotions within the span of a minute.
"I only skimmed through one of them and looked through who addressed them on the rest. None of them had an actual name, all of them ended with 'timestream.' The paper I looked over had phrases that sounded very similar to what you were describing."
Polaris leaned further into the space, then stepped backward, standing with one shoe across the door's threshold.
"Oh, those were my notes you must've been looking at! I've been studying the outer universe, marking down traits to understand how its nature contributes to the central universe," he said, returning toward the direction of the study and walking down.
"When it comes time, you will experience it for yourself." Polaris reached up and pushed on the door that Hoku had forgotten to seal shut in the midst of walking upstairs for something Polaris had wanted to show him.
Whatever happened to the box he was holding? Hoku dimly remembered the deep incisions along the covering of it.
"For now, I must be your courier of escape. That is the purpose which defects me from my old life. To get you out of here and set off in the direction to a place that bridges this point in time and infinitely more epochs."
"How come you don't escape?"
Polaris claimed to have lived in the manor over the course of near eternity. It occurred to Hoku that he probably had already tried to leave. Even so, the purpose of his inquiry was intended for a prompt reply on what was keeping him here.
"I've made around three hundred attempts, this issue isn't why so much as it is how. I don't study the timestream out of satisfaction, I am searching for an exit," Polaris said, rubbing his forehead.
"What happens?"
"When I try to leave?" Polaris made his way to the unhung painting, leaning against the wall.
Hoku nodded, following him over to stand on the other side of the red tarp.
"I am brought back. The first time I left through the front door, I couldn't manage past the gate. From the outside, that gate wraps around the entire manor. However, when you try leaving through the garden on the other end, there is nothing. It's like a sick sense of hope." After a moment of silence, Polaris suddenly spoke with a deep voice,
"You can walk for hours through that field of white tulips, but the only other thing you'll find is yourself turning back."
The momentary hesitation in his tone seemed like a method of alluding to an alternative meaning.
Unfortunately, he bore no intention of giving Hoku further context. This entire time, Hoku had been receiving fragments of information about their circumstances. All of which Polaris hadn't indicated with proper deduction.
Had Hoku lacked his own eyes, he wouldn't believe anything that poured from Polaris' lips.
In their present state, though, the insight Polaris was selectively giving Hoku was the only thing he could rely on to avert him from hysteria.
"Care to assist me in doing the honors?" Polaris already had his hands clenched tightly on the tarp.
"You have to tug hard because the ends of it are nailed into the frame." Wrinkles formed along Hoku's fingers as he adjusted a solid grip on the red material.
Polaris' eyes met his gaze before he gave him the cue to pull.
Something tore from behind the painting, followed by the sound of two metal screws plunging to the floor.
The enormous canvas tilted forward, and Hoku stumbled backward, avoiding impact when it completely deflected in their direction.
Polaris narrowly stepped away in time. He watched with an unamused expression as a violent crack ripped through the room.
Dust lifted around the sides, strewing like particles of glitter as the linen covering the back drooped inward.
Twines of red remained attached to both sides of the middle frame.
"Do you have something to cut this open with?" Polaris looked up from the floor.
Visibly, there was nothing on Hoku that could cut through the linen. He rested a few fingers on the locket beneath his shirt.
The corners were too round, but perhaps breaking the glass inside would work.
Like hell—I would do that! He lived in a place this large, surely there was a suitable artifact lying around.
"Forget it," Polaris indisputably retorted, before walking toward the bureau.
He sifted through the disarray of papers on the top, prizing out a slender copper-colored shaft secured by a wooden handle, consisting entirely of the two components.
"This should work," he said, returning.
"Is there something inside of it?" Hoku asked. Polaris didn't respond, instead kneeling.
The object punctured through the linen with ease. Polaris drove it from the middle of the painting in a diagonal direction.
The shaft appeared to hit something lodged against the corner of the frame.
He pulled out the object, tossing it across to his side, where it rolled into the bottom of a bookcase.
"You should be the one to solve the puzzle. I don't want to mess with anything I shouldn't." Polaris ripped open the back, and a few staples popped out of the frame, soaring in various directions.
"...What is that thing?"
Hoku tilted his head, curiously observing a roundish box with several edges.
Nine holes formed a circle atop the center, and a metal ring filled a smaller circle that was engraved with a strange pattern of hollow shapes.
An open circle was welded to the inside of the ring, hovering between a spade and a club.
Club, spade, club, diamond, diamond, club, heart, spade, club.
"A puzzle."
"A child could have deduced that. What am I supposed to do?" Hoku replied to Polaris' wry remarks, observing further as Polaris picked up the box.
Undeterred, Polaris continued speaking, stroking the intricate design with his thumb.
"The center rotates, you need to align the correct order of shapes under the metal crescent to open it." He slightly tilted it, and something slid to the lower edge inside.
"It's quite unpleasant that the pattern changes every time. I used to write them down in case there was repetition, but after the end of every 90th sequence, the manor resets. All of my notes disappear, and the walls are dressed with portraits again." Polaris paused for a moment, resting the box in front of Hoku on the floor.
"This particular room never changes. It just collects more clutter every hour. That is why I garnered most of it down here. It stays in the room except for this puzzle. It never stays outside of the painting, I don't even understand how it gets stowed inside."
He stood up, gazing vexedly at the wall behind Hoku.
"I suppose the ensemble of this epoch is far from my comprehension as well."
Hoku folded both of his hands on the box. His fingers flattened on the surface of the linear edges.
"So am I supposed to just sit here and tamper with the lid until it opens?" he questioned, rising from the floor.
Polaris nearly matched his height, but the thick heels on his shoes made him stand just above Hoku's forehead.
"You can do that, or… there's a considerably more efficient approach."
"Breaking it?"
Without disassembling, Hoku had planned to smash it onto a sturdy surface the moment Polaris wasn't surveying his presence.
"Nope. That would cause the contents to disappear," Polaris said, with a smug grin.
Disappear?
"Do you recognize the symbols on the box?" Polaris questioned, tipping his focus toward the box with a hand situated below his shoulder as he crossed his arms.
Hoku glimpsed down at the item he was holding.
"Cards… They are the original French suits preserved on a deck of cards."
"Very perceptive," Polaris remarked, with a grin in his voice.
"Have you ever heard of the hierarchy on a deck of cards?"
"Isn't that just the order of numbers printed on the face of a card?"
Polaris dropped his arms and moved toward Hoku, stepping over the painting rather than around it.
"A deck of 52 cards has ten suits per category. I believe I said the pattern of the box changes, not the order. This puzzle box was invented as a prototype of the first Enigma machine discovered by a German engineer in 1918."
"But, instead of specific letters substituting other letters, the characters on a card's face substitute numbers!"
Polaris smiled, gently patting Hoku on the shoulder.
"How embarrassing, you figured that out much quicker than I could."
"How many numbers are in the enigma?"
Copious thoughts sailed through Hoku's mind. He was confused yet somehow certain in his resolve.
"Four, the code has always been the year the enigma was broken."
1941, a man named Alan Turing, alongside his colleagues, cracked the Enigma machine, revealing the secrets of the American opponents during World War II.
Had Jiang Hao been anything other than a history professor, Hoku's situation would undoubtedly have been far more ghastly.
"The hierarchy traditionally follows ace, king, queen, jack, et cetera. Since the first four are not in the puzzle, you must replace them with the pattern on the box. It's easier than one might perceive. The shapes that are directly next to each other will always be a nine. Count and go in order, I can only give you so many directions."
current of doubt ebbed and flowed within Hoku.
There was a high chance that he could make a mistake without knowing. From what he had gathered, the consequences would dispel whatever was inside this intricate instrument. He was, in essence, erasing his odds of escaping this epoch.
"Once you get it open… try not to burn the manor down again," Polaris spoke in a low, serious tone.
As Hoku's thoughts began to settle, he distracted himself from reading the box and gazed at the young man in front of him. Polaris had an enigmatic curve on his lips.
"Meet me in the main parlor once you've finished. I have yet to impart the 'compass' to you before you head out."
"Understood," Hoku meekly replied.
Polaris left the room without another word. He seemed quite pleased with the fact Hoku had grasped the nature of the puzzle's prototype. Hoku had taken the time to read the box as he was inheriting clues from him.
There was only one heart.
1
The diamonds were distinctly the only shapes contiguous to each other.
9
There were four clubs total spread out between other suits. The club furthest from the others imputed a total of all 4. The spades were the odd ones out.
Hoku's hand recoiled at the final digit. Is the puzzle designed for all symbols to be used? Do I repeat the heart, or do I rotate the center toward the first spade?
The circle leisurely veered back into place, the mechanism reminded him of the old dial phone from his uncle's collection in his office. His fingers trembled over the spade, and he rotated the top one more time.
The metal crescent encompassed the heart once more.
1
Instead of shifting back into place, the box made a click, and the hollow heart stayed in place.
"Did I open it?"
Suddenly, the dial-like mechanism jolted, swiftly retracting so that the crescent was between the club and the spade. The thin line engraved around the entire case popped up, widening enough so that Hoku could pry it open with the tip of his finger.
The corners of his mouth spontaneously pulled upwards. The interior of the box was surprisingly taut, with most of the space being filled by its wooden base. A folded news article clipping rested atop a very small bronze key.
It appeared exceedingly similar to the one Polaris had used to unlock the study, only much smaller. Hoku left the key inside, setting the box down to unfold the news clipping. His eyes loomed over each tiny word in black print.
Doctor Francis Barret receives a great quantity of donations in pursuit of his compelling research.
Doctor Barret—or rather, who many folk deem the father of celestial art, St. Francis Barret—is receiving funds through taxpayers to conduct further inquiries that can potentially eradicate the doubt toward crowd speculation of recurring 'worldlines.' The possibility of revisiting the past has never been clearer!
Doctor Barret is the first man to acquire a grand public contribution for his science foundation.
This 'doctor' seemed rather notorious. The information also felt rather lacking in credibility. There was nothing in the clipping to prove that funding could be viable for a theory. Not only that but wouldn't there need to be some sort of catch? Why fund a foundation that did not guarantee merits?
There was another article folded in the crevice. A grainy black-and-white photo of the manor was above a lanky caption with washed-out text.
'St. Francis Barrot comes public about an unexpected disaster!
"A ravenous intruder broke into my study and set the work ablaze. Years of my studies thrown into the fire pit of my own home by a community of contests!'
Doctor Barrot makes bold claims about the so-called contests of his research,
'Fret not, I will pursue my work despite these obstacles. Even if I must rewrite years of work, then I will do it for the sake of all the people who have offered me their true-hearted support.'
There were various phrases underlined in smeared ink within the excerpt. Is there meant to be some sort of message conceived in the clippings?
Polaris' serious remark seeped through the breaches of Hoku's shrouding thoughts.
"Once you get it open… try not to burn the manor down again."
Hoku snatched the key out of the box and paced over to the bureau, kneeling in front of the locked drawers. He pushed the key into the hole and turned it. The drawer clicked. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open. The drawer was filled to the brim with files.
The key unlocked the remaining chests. All of them were drawn open and completely heaped with papers separated by dull yellow dividers.
'He wants me to burn everything!?'
The Memoir Chapter 2
Rule 8
To save the world you must start from the very beginning. This is the only exception to changing the past. Repairing the former alterations within the world's epochs is necessary to avert the decay spreading in the outer universe.
This is not a guide for survival. Your persistence solely depends on the choices you make in the present.
-The Memoir Chapter 2 End-