Mortals tend to believe that time is linear. It 'flows like a river' or 'soars like an arrow' into the future, in mortal parlance. But, like so many mortal metaphors, these are missing the point. Time has dimensions too, just as space does; they're simply not as obvious.

But then, neither are the bulk of the spatial dimensions. Theories suggest that space actually contains eleven dimensions, eight more than the usual three visible to the naked eye. Those three are often termed x, y, and z, but the other eight don't have such convenient names. In fact, unless you're a physicist, you probably don't know that they exist!

They do, though: they're curled up inside the big three dimensions like shy atoms hiding inside a massive molecule.

Imagine a piece of paper laid out flat on a table. Although it's technically a three-dimensional object, its thickness is minuscule compared to the other two dimensions, so you can treat it as a two-dimensional object. For simplicity's sake, let's call those dimensions width and height.

Let's also assume that this is a gigantic piece of paper, so both width and height are basically infinite. If you were an ant walking on it, could walk forever on it and never reach the end.

Now take that imaginary piece of paper and roll it up into a very tight cylinder. If you're that ant, you'd be a bit confused, right? The paper still has height, but when you try to traverse the width dimension, you end up walking in a circle. You can still walk around in two dimensions, though; they just behave a little strangely.

From a giant's perspective, though, that cylinder of paper only has one dimension: height. Just as you disregard the thickness of the paper as being too small to matter, the giant ignores the tiny thickness of the cylinder – it looks like a line to them. The dimension that you know as width hasn't vanished, though; it's simply rolled up very tightly.

From the universe's perspective, you're in the same position as that giant, which is why you can't detect those other eight dimensions – they're too miniscule to notice. But the math says they exist, and everyone knows that math can't be wrong (except, of course, when it is. But let's pretend that doesn't happen much.)

Mathematical foibles aside, the paper analogy explains a whole bunch of previously-unexplainable things, so it'll probably stick around for a while. In fact, it makes a lot of spatial equations much more tractable, so you might think it'd do the same for temporal ones.

Unfortunately, time isn't nearly so accommodating.

People have described time as a river, a line, a rubber sheet, a circus, or even a big wobbly ball, but none of those explanations are too accurate. How do you describe a highly chaotic, nonlinear phenomenon to a species whose brains are wired to be linear? Those species lucky enough to possess nonlinear mental processes have never found a good way, and so they resort to math which only a fraction of a fraction of the population can hope to understand.

That's a pity, because time is fascinating. Think of it like a massive sandstorm, where each grain of sand represents a moment in time. You can go forwards, backwards, or sideways in time, but you can also skip around in no discernible pattern. To mortal eyes, time flows linearly because they can only land on a single grain at a time. So they skip from grain to grain and assume that their path is a straight line, where it's really more of a jagged squiggle.

That squiggly-ness is why it really doesn't make sense to count the number of temporal dimensions. It clearly has more than one, but how many more? Like a chaotic attractor, time is fractal, which means that its dimensions can be fractional. You could argue that time has two dimensions, or three, but you could also say that it has 2.783 dimensions, and no one could definitively prove you wrong. There's even an argument to be made for infinite dimensions.

Practically speaking, the count doesn't really matter, though the fact that time is multidimensional is very important. Knowing that there are exactly x possible paths to take through time at any given instant is meaningless if you don't have some way to make and enforce that choice. Individual choices can have some effect, but they're only important at crossroads: your choice of cereal or a bagel for breakfast won't cut it. At moments in time like that, you need powerful magic to deviate from your current path.

That doesn't mean the future is deterministic, though. It's simply predictable up to a point where the paths diverge; then it becomes nebulous and unknowable. Crossroads like that aren't too uncommon, so predicting the future is like predicting the weather – chancy at best, and total guesswork when you get too far out. There's no such thing as fate or destiny.

Mortals never want to believe that, though.

* * *

As the trio ringing the pool lifts their hands towards the sky, a coruscating rainbow materializes over the water. They begin to hum, and the brilliance increases, until the huntsman has to shade his eyes and look away. Every hue imaginable is represented there, as well as some that aren't.

Shades of infrared and ultraviolet join the dance as the chorus swells. The wild music conjures images of breakneck chases and desolate moors, storm-tossed seas and the thrill of the hunt. A drumbeat drives the song forward like a heartbeat, though there's no drum present. Maybe the music is echoing the huntsman's heartbeat, which pounds as though he's been running for miles. Fear and excitement waft off of him in tinted waves, mingling with the magic rising off of the pool.

The gray-clad seer raises zir voice in a lilting chant and the tempo increases. I can't make out zir words, which frustrates me – I've encountered millions, billions of languages, and I've always been able to understand them.

Then again, this might not be a proper language. Words of power, as these clearly are, rarely conform to semantics. For all I know, the words may be unique to this seer, a personal language zie invented to power zir spells. Or maybe it's been handed down from farseer to farseer, never leaving these tower walls.

The probability of the second hypothesis increases when the other two seers join the chant. Their voices are low and melodious, a harmony to the gray-clad seer's melody. As all three voices mingle, an edifice begins to take shape within the rainbows. It's too blurry to make out right now, and the clouds of energy surrounding it don't help, but I'm fascinated by the way each chord adds another building block to the structure.

Three is a powerful number. Three witches, three riddles, three wishes... from the earliest days of mortal storytelling, the power of three has captured the imagination. Some mortals say that it's a perfect number – the first number to have a beginning, middle, and end. Others write that three-sided figures are the most stable.

I can't say if the former belief has any validity, but the latter holds for both engineering and magic, as the trio of farseers are so elegantly demonstrating. The spell they're weaving is a gorgeous construction, sinuous lacework spinning out from their hands in unbroken fractal patterns. Its primary colors are azure and violet, but I can see hints of myriad other colors accenting the delicate patterns. Parts of it resembles a nebula; others are reminiscent of a heat map of a chaotic attractor. Yet everything works together – there are no breaks or gaps in the structure, and the flow of power is perfectly uniform.

All in all, it's a masterwork of spellcraft. The effort to create something so flawless is evident in the faces of the farseers, which hold the faintest glimmer of tension despite their best efforts to remain stone-faced. They aren't so uncouth as to sweat, of course – the Sidhe never do – but they're clearly wearying as their construct stretches towards the ceiling.

The huntsman mumbles a curse under his breath, and I turn my attention to him. He's sweating and pale-faced, pupils blown wide as he stares at the pool and the trio of elves. His lips are moving in a silent benediction. Though I'm no lip-reader, I can make out the words 'God' and 'save me,' along with invocations to any angels who might be listening.

If I had a body, I would frown. What is he seeing that has him so terrified? Did the potion work some hex on his mind after all? I can't see the malignant energies of a curse wreathing him, but ingested spells are rarely visible even to my senses. His eyes reflect only the glow of the pool, yet I can't imagine him being frightened of a simple light show; he must be seeing something else. But what?

"Ben?" I whisper, as quietly as I can manage. I don't want to disturb the seers, but I dislike seeing him in such distress.

He doesn't answer.

The female seer, however, does. "Do not fret, cousin," she intones, eyes snapping open. The blank whiteness has been overtaken by pastel shades of rainbow, which swirl in unnerving patterns. "Your mortal will be fine." Her hands flutter back down to her sides like dying leaves, taking her companions' hands with them. The other two seers cease their chant, and she offers me a thin smile. "Be at peace."

The androgynous seer relinquishes zir companions' hands and takes a step forward. The structure they've created remains upright, pulsing in time with Ben's heartbeat, as zie tips zir head to me. "Come, mirror, travel the paths with us. See what we see, hear what we hear." The last sentence has the ring of a formal offering to it.

I tell my mask to nod. "I accept."

Color drains from the gray-clad seer's eyes. "Good." Zie reaches out and caresses the magical structure in front of zir. The underlying power structure remains constant, but the hues trail after zir fingers as if they're cobwebs snagged on zir fingertips. Zie turns zir hand upright, and the colors drift upwards and outwards, forming a sparkling halo around the pool.

Then, without any fanfare, the tower disappears.

In its place, a crystalline forest rises out of the mists. Branches stretch towards each other like skeletal fingers, bare of leaves and gleaming in the unnatural light that emanates from the center of the crystals. I can't see the tops or the roots of the faux trees; they appear to go on forever.

There is an odd uniformity to this place. The branches are spaced at precise intervals around the trunk, and none brush against each other. The tree trunks are polygons, not ellipses, while the 'bark' is perfectly smooth. Razor-sharp edges gather the light and reflect it inwards – whatever these things are made out of, it must have a high index of refraction.

The more I look at them, the less they resemble trees. What mathematical constructs hide within these shapes? What equations could a scientist derive from these forms? I get the feeling that this place embodies the laws that shape the multiverse, but decrypting the message is far beyond me.

That doesn't mean I can't try, though. My attention fractures into a thousand places as I cast my gaze around this strange new world, trying to gather as much information as possible. I even pull back some of the fragments of myself in other universes to increase the cognitive power available.

A soft cough recalls me to the presence of the farseers, who have joined hands again. Their milky eyes stare at nothing – I'm not sure I even have a physical representation here – but it's clear they're addressing me as they intone in chorus, "See what we see."

The world shivers around me, flexing and folding, propelling us forward at an incredible rate. Scenes flash before my eyes, almost too quick to distinguish. A ruby-red apple with a bite missing. Scarlet slippers and burning coals. An ivory harp strung with thin strands of gold. Splashes of gore on a blue beard. All images I recognize, archetypical motifs common across the multiverse.

But soon images appear that I don't see as often. An eight legged horse, accompanied by two ravens. Flames dancing around a shaggy grizzly bear. A long silk sleeve cut away from the rest of the garment. Maggots crawling inside a half-rotted skull, stabbed through with a scythe. And more, a dizzying array of color and sensation.

The images grow darker and darker as we hurtle forwards. Blood splatters across the pictures; the pale ivory of bone gleams starkly. Monsters from a thousand worlds lift their heads to the sky and howl in triumph. I catch glimpses of bronze gears interspersed among the gory sights, but they always vanish before I can analyze them.

We begin to slow, and the scenes become more abstract. Threads shuttle back and forth in a massive tapestry, guided by no visible hand, but I can't see what pattern they're forming. Every time I try to focus in on one piece of it, it melts away under my gaze. Other images depict heat maps or massive chaotic attractors, which curl in around themselves when I glance in their direction. The gears remain, but they're buried underneath heaps of glass or mountains of rubbish.

The last few images drift by lazily, almost entirely obscured by drifting clouds in sunset hues. I can hear the farseers murmuring behind me, but I pay them no heed. Is this it? Is there no key, no missing puzzle piece left to be revealed? I search the images for any scrap of information, hoping against hope to see something that might explain the darkened world or the tainted huntsman, but there's nothing.

Mists engulf us as we glide to a halt. I recall the fragmented shards of myself, sending them back to their proper universes. Clearly there are no more answer to be had here.

Then one last image peeks out of the fog. It's only visible for a millisecond, but I recognize it instantly. How could I not?

A cracked mirror is unmistakable.

* * *

Author's note: The part at the beginning about the spatial dimensions is actually real.  If you're interested, you can read more about it in Stephen Hawking's book The Grand Design, which I highly recommend.  The part about temporal dimensions is my own invention though!  The only truly scientific part there is the comment about fractals and dimensions: fractals can truly have a fractional number of dimensions.