The crackling of the fire no longer served as ambient noise. It seemed to grow louder, but was probably from my rising panic. An overwhelming feeling of entrapment suddenly forced my legs to move and against my will I was sent through the narrow tunnel, the orange glow of the bonfire quickly fading behind me.
I scaled the tunnel, surrounded in whispers and children’s laughter. I froze upon hearing the voice of my brother, who was long dead on an equally long dead world.
Don’t fall asleep, he warned in a distant echo. Don’t fall asleep, Zira.
I shut my eyes in an attempt to withstand the barrage of horrible memories from a time when I’d been powerless. A deep ache began in my toes, spanning up my legs and to my arms, all the way to my fingers. The pain was familiar; raw, terrifying. An image of me, gnarled and weak on that shoddy wagon surrounded by filth, flashed through my mind.
No.
No, this wasn’t real.
I steeled my mind and clenched my jaw, moving faster through the tunnel, ignoring the numbness in my calves. My trembling hands clawed at the sides of the wall, pulling myself forward as the muscles in my lower limbs began to fail.
No.
The sound of rain dissolved the whispers, but did nothing for my body. The tunnel led out into a riverbed, and I stumbled out onto the bank, collapsing on all fours. It was still freezing, but the rain was warm. I looked up, panting, unable to see a sky from which the shower fell—only darkness. Wincing in confusion, I crawled toward a rickety bridge that led across the narrow river. It was shallow enough to reveal large geodes protruding through the surface. They glimmered in absence of light; a blue-crystal material similar to celestite, resonating a noise like wind chimes. Aside from the pattering rain and chorus of chimes, the only other sound was a distant roar of cosmic white noise. There were trees along the bank, but they were black and had the same celestite crystals embedded in their trunks, their branches devoid of leaves. Instead they were decorated with sparkling twine that held strange geometric shapes made of sticks.
Across the bridge was a dirt path that led up into a stone edifice resembling a one-room pagoda. Even crawling was painful now; my joints were assaulted by knife-like sensations whenever any pressure was applied to them.
I didn’t make it more than several feet across the bridge before the pain became too much and I rolled onto my back as warm rain assaulted my face.
Laith, please wake me up, I prayed. Wake me up now.
I closed my eyes, defeated, until I heard footsteps. I craned my neck toward the pagoda, viewing it upside down. A shadowy figure stood in the entranceway, illuminated in the glow of another bonfire crackling behind them.
The red tunic, glinting armlets, wild hair…
Her.
“Hurry up and come inside,” said the Svissan woman whom I’d met briefly on the cruise ship bridge, before she’d disappeared in front of my eyes and had made me question my sanity ever since. “You’re getting drenched.”
“I can’t move,” I called, ashamed by this admittance.
“Yes, you can,” she said with a laugh, retreating into the pagoda. “I’ve got some hot tea, once you finally decide to fight your shade and get up here.”
… What?
She said nothing else, removed from my sight. I swallowed hard, laying there for a few seconds more before rolling back onto my stomach and army-crawling up the path. It was an excruciating feat.
I entered the little sanctuary with a tear-streaked face—not scholar blood-tears but mortal, salty ones—and the woman rose from her seat in front of a cast-iron cauldron suspended above a fire in the center of the room. She stirred the steaming contents in the cauldron before dumping a ladle-full into a clay mug, kneeling before my still-sprawled body on the pagoda threshold. She offered the mug with a warm smile, her cat-like facial features reminding me of Laith. “Drink.”
When I didn’t take it, she wedged the mug into my hand and returned to her place in front of the cauldron, holding a steaming mug of her own, though I didn’t recall seeing her pour another. I forced myself to sit, inspecting the contents of my own. It was a dark red liquid that smelled of dirt and flowers; little bits of leaves or something floated atop the swirling surface. My thoughts must have betrayed my expression, as she suddenly said, “If you don’t drink, you won’t mend.”
“Who are you? What is this place?” I demanded, having had enough of all this awful mysticism.
She didn’t respond and stirred the cauldron with one hand, sipping from her mug with the other.
I sighed and gulped down the “tea”. It hadn’t tasted as bad as it’d smelled, at least. And, just like she’d said, almost immediately the pain in my joints abated. Warmth in my gut spanned across my body, lulling me into an ataractic state.
“All better, right?” she chimed, her voice soothing me even more. She patted the stone circle next to hers at the cauldron. “Now, let’s chat.”
I got to my feet, marveling at how well I felt. How calm I felt. “Did you drug me?”
“Do you feel drugged?”
“Answering a question with a question is a pet-peeve of mine,” I cautioned, taking a seat next to her nonetheless.
“And why is that? Does it make you question your beliefs too strongly?”
I said nothing, gazing at the ceiling. There was a hole in the dome-shaped roof directly above the cauldron. Nebulous stars and galaxy clusters swept by as swiftly as storm clouds. My eyes resettled on her. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am, and you know where you are.”
“You’re Kenlila, then? Or some other Svissan deity keeping guard of Laith?”
The woman sighed and shook her head, stirring the cauldron again. “Well, I guess you don’t know, then. It’s surprising to see such a learned creature still believing in deities.”
“I’ve seen many beings who call themselves deities.” I shrugged. “Most are dead now, either by my hand or another’s.”
“I am not a deity, self-proclaimed or otherwise,” said the woman, solemn. “I’m just a quantum wayfarer, like you.”
“…Like me?”
The wayfarer chuckled. “Where do you think you are?”
“In a dream.”
“You’re in a shadow temple. The Multiverse isn’t strictly physical.”
“Shadow temple,” I repeated, absorbing that phrase.
“Yes, in the Quantum Divide.”
“And how do I get out of here? I was kind of busy.”
“Not sure,” she said. “Your path in and out is yours alone.”
“I’m not going back through that cave.”
“The rebirthing tunnel is the hardest part of entering the shadow temple. You won’t ever go through that again, don’t worry.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” asked the wayfarer.
“Why is any of this happening? I don’t understand.”
“Shadow temples appear to quantum wayfarers when their subconscious is threatened, or their shadows have grown too dense.”
“Their shadows?” Honestly, I didn’t have time for this.
“The version of yourself that you’re ashamed to show.” She lightly tapped a finger between my eyes. “Your ‘programming’, if you will.”
I might have been appalled by her unsolicited touch if I wasn’t too busy trying to grasp everything that was happening. “This is crazy. I’m dreaming. This is a dream.”
“And where do you think you go when you dream?”
I stood up, shaking my head. “Kindly point me to an exit. I want out of here. Thank you for the tea.”
“It’s not that simple,” said the wayfarer. “If you want to protect her, you need to embrace your shadow. You have to lighten it. That is why your subconscious has brought you here.”
“My subconscious brought me here because I’ve been abusing stimulants,” I spat. “My mind is still wired while the rest of me has called it a day.”
The wayfarer sighed resignedly, eyes train
ed on the bubbling pot. “Either way, you’re still here.”
I’d caught movement at the other side of the room, a silhouette lurking just outside of the fire’s light. I took a step forward and squinted, trying to get a better image. And then a door presented itself beside the figure, materializing from thin air.
The silhouette was no longer as such, but another woman in a corset of white bandages, the exposed skin of her stomach mottled with purple and brown bruises. Her arms were skeletal, legs and hips covered in a sheer, tattered skirt. Her eyes were covered with the same bandages as her middle, stains of rust perfectly outlined where each socket would be. Her hair was gray and brown, wiry and disheveled. Between her fingers the same sparkling twine I’d seen on the trees were laced, spooling around her sigil-laden wrists. They were fastened to two crystal shards on both sides of her, framing the door in five-foot arches. She plucked and pulled at the twine, the sound of chimes returning, while the doorway behind her lit up in swirling mist. Her hips swayed eerily, jerkily, like she was being animated by a puppeteer.
My eyes froze on the crystals. I knew what those were.
Athanasian shards.
This was not a dream.
“Ignore the Augur,” said the wayfarer behind me. “They feed off darkness. I told you your shadow was too dense.”
“Where am I?” I shouted, my hands balling into fists as I spun to face the wayfarer. But she was gone. Her, the cauldron, everything.
Icy tingles shot down my spine as I backed away from the dead-looking spinster. She stopped swaying and released the spool of twine on the floor. As they hit the temple ground they turned into wriggling black roots that snaked toward me and I dove for the entrance; but I was weak and normal here, and in a flash they had wrapped around my wrists and ankles, pulling me back inside.
I thrashed and screamed as they dragged me along the floor, the Augur now gone, too. The twine was towing me toward the other door. I reached for anything to keep from being flung into the mist, but it was no use, I was—
***
I’d had no choice but to hit Zira across the head with the piece of metal. Not only had the storm cleared, but in the last few minutes he was flailing so violently that I was too frightened to go near him.
So I threw the piece of door at him, but it missed. Instead it hit the big chest with gun signs on it. By now Zira had fallen off the bench and was seizing on the floor, so I crept around him and picked up the metal chunk again, tossing it right on his face. It hit him with a thunk and he was up in a flash; eyes wide, panting heavily.
“Oh,” he gasped, grabbing his chest in relief. “Oh, thank the Multiverse.”
But then he winced, a hand sliding from his chest to his forehead. “Ow, did you—?”
“Sorry, you wouldn’t wake up.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, gazing distantly at the ground. His frown was one of concern.
“Are you…okay?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah,” he said again, running a hand through his hair. “I just didn’t sleep well. How long was I out?”
“A while. I can’t tell the time here.”
“Well is it night or day?”
“I can’t tell that either because debris blocked the door. The wind stopped, though.”
“Good.” He got up and stretched, and I noticed how much healthier he seemed. Before Zira had gone to sleep his eyes were sunken in and his skin was chalk-white. It was strange how every little thing affected him immediately. “Let’s try the other door.”
I nodded, collecting the satchel off the ground, slinging it over my shoulder. Zira collected his coat from the floor, shook it out, and put it on. We headed to the door past the storage containers. There was a little black box on the left side of the frame. There was a slot in it, as if we should put something flat inside. Above the slot was a row of buttons.
At the sight of this, Zira sighed. “Stand back.”
I did, and he started slamming his shoulder against the door. It took three tries before it twisted far enough to cave forward. I’d never thought metal could bend like that.
“You’re strong,” I said, unable to hide my admiration.
“At my best I’d have only hit it once,” he muttered, touching his ear. The swirling visor returned over his face, illuminating part of the darkness beyond the exposed hallway. “Stay close.”
I wasn’t sure what ‘close’ meant to him, but never strayed outside a foot’s reach as Zira walked carefully down the tunnel. The floor looked like fishing net, except the usual rope mesh was metal. Staying quiet was difficult; each step taken echoed up off the walls. All I could see was Zira’s figure in front of me, haloed by his visor.
He slowed, and so did I.
A few moments came and went. Zira’s breathing was even, yet audible. I watched his shoulders move up and down, the rhythm entrancing me.
“Stay here,” he whispered, and that command sent a chill down my spine. What did he see? I didn’t want to be left alone in the pitch-black.
Before I could object, he moved again. I was forced to stay put, pressing my back against the tunnel wall in an attempt to keep as small as possible. Zira hadn’t even made it out of view before the sound of a single chug broke the silence. The area flickered with light, and I saw that Zira had crossed the threshold of an open room. Strange music played from the ceiling—relaxing, calm music; not at all what our situation felt like—and a panel on the wall across from us lit up.
Zira leapt back into the tunnel, nearly right into me. His hands were balled into fists, trembling at his side. An odd choice of protective stance.
The screen flashed something in Ophal script. It wasn’t a common dialect of Jabron. I couldn’t read any OSC languages but these characters were even less familiar. The screen possessed a woman’s voice, speaking nothing I understood. But it seemed Zira did.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he breathed, aghast, in my language.
“What is it?”
“This isn’t an OSC outpost,” he said, lip curling with indignation. “This is an O-REACH vault.”
“O-REACH?” I repeated, having never heard the term. Zira only shook his head.
“One moment, I need to make a call.” He stalked off to the other side of the room with his head bowed, touching his ear.
***
Pariah, I called through the conscious stream, the thought relayed in a sing-song tone to emphasize my annoyance.
—Well, it’s good to hear from you. I was worried for an instant.
Why?
—Attica detected you fell into stasis a little while ago.
Oh. I was asleep. I was reluctant to tell him anything about the Shadow Temple or athanasian shards, as it was still undetermined whether or not that’d all been a dream.
—Attica doesn’t report stasis for sleeping scholars.
I don’t know what to tell you.
—Okay. You rang?
Why did attica mark this location as an OSC outpost?
—I’m not the attica engineer, but I imagine it based the location off of outgoing and incoming transmission signals.
So this place received OSC transmission signals.
—Up until twenty-six years ago, yes. Why?
I glared at the O-R symbol on the wall-screen as an automated voice repeatedly commanded me to select my ‘action’ on the touch-screen panel. Then, ever-so-slightly, I tilted my head to bring Laith into my peripheral vision, watching her from the corner of my eye. All the puzzle pieces were falling into place now, and I didn’t like the picture they presented. Change the REF-2 query to transmissions from this place. I want to know everything that was communicated into and out of our location.
—On it. Is everything alright, Zira?
No. Prioritize the query as level one. The other scholars would have to wait a little longer for their research threads.
—I’d need authorization from Adrial to reclassify a query in the queue.
Then get it.
—He’ll want a reason.
I’ll update my thread in a moment. It’ll have all the justification you need.
—Fair enough. Talk to you soon.
I severed the feed, keeping my gaze on the screen. Laith could tell from my posture that I was done with my call. She shuffled several steps forward. “Zira?”
Without responding I approached the panel and studied the actions from the menu. Laith watched, hugging her satchel like one might a stuffed animal. Her fear was palpable. I could smell it, even; a salty musk permeating the stale, cool air.
My eyes settled on the BIOSCREEN action toward the bottom of the menu list. I pressed my finger to the glyph, which brought up another menu. There were numerous types of bioscreens, highlighting that the abdeakka illness wasn’t the only type of OR research conducted here. “Laith, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
I punched the ABDEAKKA bioscreen option. The hiss of hydraulics prompted a square indention in the flooring at the center of the room to slide away. A platform rose slowly, presenting a black examination chair with a smaller screen attached to the right arm, elevated by a silver rod. At the sight of this Laith backed away, apprehensive. I held up a hand to reassure her.
“I’ll make sure it’s safe.”
“You want me to…to sit in that?” she asked, her expression twisting in disbelief.
“Eventually.”
“But—”
“I need to know how to protect you,” I interjected, attempting to keep my voice even, though my agitation was probably obvious. “Right now I can’t protect you properly until I figure out the situation.”
Laith’s eyes darted from mine, to the chair, and then back. “Will it hurt?”
I didn’t respond, because I didn’t know. There was an information glyph on the bioscreen menu and I pressed it. Verbal instructions, accompanied by simplistic visuals, walked me through the process:
Covenants: Elegy (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 8) Page 9
