Time of Flame

The Time of Flame is the culminating catastrophe in the eschatology of the Apostles of Flame, the moment when the gods, having found humanity still wicked at the end of a Year of Godliness, send down Heavenly Flames from the Stars to consume the cities of Kalgash utterly. It is the central promise and threat of the cult's teachings, the event that gives the organization its name and its purpose. The phrase appears repeatedly in the Book of Revelations and in the pronouncements of the Apostles' leaders, most notably Folimun 66, who speaks of it with a chilling, matter-of-fact certainty as an inevitable, cyclical recurrence in human history.

Doctrine and Prophecy

The Time of Flame is the final act of a repeating divine drama. According to the Apostles, the gods have made mankind imperfect as a test and grant a single "Year of Godliness"—exactly two thousand and forty-nine human years—in which to reform. When that period ends and humanity has failed to cast off its evil ways, the gods destroy the world by sending down "Heavenly Flames" from holy places in the sky known as the Stars. Folimun 66, the public-relations adjutant for the Apostles, explains to the journalist Theremon 762 that this is not the first time such a destruction has occurred; it has happened many times before, and each time a remnant of the godliest survivors is rescued to begin the cycle anew. The current Year of Godliness, Folimun declares, is nearly at its end, and the Time of Flame is due on the nineteenth of Theptar of the coming year. He quotes the Book of Revelations directly: "From the Stars there then reached down the Heavenly Flames, that was the bearer of the will of the gods; and where the flames touched, the cities of Kalgash were consumed even to utter destruction, so that of man and the works of man nothing whatever remained."

The Apostles' Purpose and the Time of Flame

The Apostles' entire organizational mission is oriented toward the Time of Flame. Folimun tells Theremon that the cult's goal is not merely to warn people of the coming doom but to convince them of its reality so that they will take measures to protect themselves. The worst of the catastrophe can be headed off, he insists; steps can be taken to avert the complete destruction of civilization. The Apostles themselves, he asserts, will survive the Time of Flame, as they have before, to lead humanity into the next cycle of rebirth. This claim of survival and continuity is the source of their authority. Folimun offers Theremon a choice: accept the prophecy in time to become one of the survivors and guardians of heritage, or discover the truth only in the moment of destruction. The cult's vast wealth, its gleaming tower in Saro City, and its control over radio and television stations are all resources marshaled for this single, defining event.

The Scientific Confirmation

The astronomers of Saro University, led by Athor 77 and Beenay 25, initially dismiss the Apostles' teachings as crackpot nonsense. However, their own research into an orbital anomaly leads them to discover the existence of Kalgash Two, an invisible satellite whose periodic eclipse of the sun Dovim plunges the world into total Darkness. The eclipse, they calculate, occurs once every two thousand and forty-nine years—the exact length of a Year of Godliness. The archaeologist Siferra 89, meanwhile, uncovers the Hill of Thombo, a site where cities were destroyed by fire at the same interval, the ashes of each conflagration lying directly atop the ruins of the previous settlement. The convergence of these independent lines of evidence forces the scientists to confront the terrifying possibility that the Apostles' prophecy of the Time of Flame is not a myth but a literal, astronomically determined event. As Sheerin 501, the psychologist, grimly explains, the Darkness will drive the population mad, and in their madness they will light fires—any fires—to drive back the blackness, burning their own cities down around themselves. The Time of Flame, then, is not a supernatural punishment but the inevitable consequence of human psychology confronted with the primal terror of total Darkness.

The Night of the Eclipse

On the evening of the nineteenth of Theptar, the eclipse occurs exactly as predicted. Dovim is blotted out, and the world is plunged into Darkness. The Stars appear in the sky, thousands of them, blazing with an overwhelming, soul-shattering light. The mobs in Saro City, driven mad by the sight, begin setting fires. The Observatory is stormed and wrecked. The city burns. The Time of Flame has come. In the aftermath, the world lies in ruins, with the Apostles of Flame emerging as the dominant force, claiming the authority to rebuild civilization in the wake of the destruction they had so long foretold. Folimun, revealing that the figurehead Mondior is a fiction, offers the surviving scientists a place in the new order, arguing that only a religious totalitarianism can hold the shattered populace together. The Time of Flame, which began as a prophecy of doom, becomes the foundation of a new, theocratic world government.