by Kyle West
“Why?”
“There is a power above the Elekai, above the Radaskim, that is a judge of both. He is called Arbiter of Ages, the Great Watcher, or He that is Nameless. Or more simply, the Nameless One. Elekim spoke with him before his saving of the Xenofold. The Nameless One owes no one allegiance. He serves only his own ends...what they are, none but he knows.”
“Where is he, then?”
“He...if he can be so called...shows himself only when necessary. He is the manifestation of the conscious energy of both the Radaskim and the Elekai, not just on Earth, but on every world where the Xenominds have a presence. Without him, neither side could exist. He might have even been the creator of both. There is something of him in each of us, though none can know who he truly is, or what his motives are. That part of himself is barred, for you cannot know that which is formless. Within the Xenofold, he cannot be found...though he can see into it, much like looking through a window. Only that window is dark on our side.” The Wanderer paused. “Even now, he probably hears us speak. He is the check on power for both the Elekai and the Radaskim...so that neither side gains too much power. How he decides that balance, only he knows.”
“He is a god, then,” I said.
“Yes,” the Wanderer said. “In a way. But there are limits to his power. He cannot reach anywhere outside the Xenofold. Those who are not of Elekai blood are free of his touch.”
“This Nameless One...he’s the reason why Anna returned alone?”
The Wanderer nodded. “It was all she could bargain for. She had hoped, when she returned, that she’d also have her memories and return as she had been.” The Wanderer paused. “Neither of these requests was granted. It was not a failing on the Nameless One’s part, but rather a failing of the Xenofold.”
“It’s true, then,” I said. “I really am Anna.”
The Wanderer nodded. “You are of an age with her, when those the Elekai today call gods destroyed Askala. You look exactly like her. You have everything that was hers...her manner of speaking, walking, and even gestures. You have everything, it seems, except her memories.”
I nodded numbly. “It’s as I feared, then.”
“None of this happened as we expected,” the Wanderer said. “You were supposed to have emerged here from the Sea of Creation seventeen years ago. It was the weakening of the Sea that caused your memories to never form. It was all the Sea could do even to offer your body, healthy and strong, and even then, only as a baby. When you were born from the Sea, the dragon, Quietus, was waiting. Only what she found was far from expected. Though she carried you, she had no way of caring for you. She needed to find another human for that.”
“But why would she deliver me to Colonia...the very worst place to be an Elekai?”
“Because of Anna’s Prophecy,” the Wanderer said. “It said she would return to the city she founded, and they would find her a stranger and revile her. She would then return to her people in exile and lead them back to Colonia with the Army of the Dawn.”
“How would Anna have known all of that?” I said.
“Anna was attuned to the Xenofold during her life,” the Wanderer said. “More so than any Elekai who ever lived. The xenofungus...or xen, as you call it...is unlike anything else on Earth. Much of its consciousness can tap into the very power of creation, and can even catch glimpses of not only what was, but what will be. Anna’s painstaking research and conversations with the Xenofold allowed glimpses of this future, and she pieced it together as best she could.” The Wanderer nodded. “This became known as Anna’s Prophecy, and it was kept in the Great Library which she had built.”
“The Library is gone,” I said. “It has been gone ever since Old Colonia fell to the Covenant. The Prophecy is likely lost.”
“Only Anna knew its contents,” the Wanderer said. “At least by heart. Either it can be found, somewhere...or you will remember.”
“This is all too much. I don’t want to be her. I just want to be me.”
The Wanderer appeared to understand. “No one expected this to happen, least of all Anna. If she were here with all her memories, I don’t know what she would tell you. You have your own thoughts, your own experiences...but even speaking to you now, so much is the same. More will probably become apparent in the future.”
“I don’t want it to,” I said, more strongly than I had intended. “Why did this have to happen to me? I don’t want to be the one to stop the Second Darkness.”
I felt as if I was close to tears. I hated being this helpless, and a part of me – maybe most of me – refused to believe this was true.
“It’s not our part to choose our role,” the Wanderer said. “It’s our part to decide what to do with it.”
“Everything I am is a lie. I only exist because of what someone decided four centuries ago. It’s as if...I’m nothing.”
“You aren’t nothing,” the Wanderer said. “You can still be who you are now while accepting your past.”
“I want none of it! I don’t even know who I am. If I don’t know that...what do I have?”
“Some go their whole lives without knowing who they truly are, if only because they are too afraid to live.”
I shook my head. “No amount of living will help me figure this out. All I know is...I’m me. I’m Shanti. I’m not Anna. I’m my own person.”
I expected the Wanderer to answer, but I had the sudden sensation of being pulled. I gasped, and the world around me wavered until it was an indistinct blur.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
IT TOOK A MOMENT FOR the face above to come into focus. I was surprised to see it was Elder Isandru’s.
“Don’t speak,” he said. “Just lie still.”
It was dark, but I couldn’t see anything more than that. I still felt the softness of the xen beneath me.
I next heard Isaru’s voice. “Is she alright?”
“All of you are lucky to be alive,” Isandru said. “Fiona...you have to move her, before the rest arrive. Take her by the river and I’ll come find you later.”
“Elder...”
“Do it,” he said. “And do it quickly. The others will not be as forgiving.”
Fiona didn’t respond, and in the next moment, I felt myself lifted up from two sides.
“What about you, Elder?” Isaru asked.
“I have to return to the others. Any moment, they could arrive. Now, hurry. She will be fine, but it’s been decades...perhaps centuries...since anyone has entered the Xenofold directly. And all three of you have done it tonight.”
Soon, I found myself on my feet. Isandru watched me, his expression unreadable.
“Elder, I...”
“Not now. Later. Take her to the river, the both of you.”
“Come on,” Isaru said.
Fiona and Isaru supported me on either side, walking me up the slope away from the lake. Isandru was left behind.
It was some time before anyone spoke, and soon I was able to walk on my own.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He found us lying on the shore,” Fiona said. “Both Isaru and I awoke shortly after, but you were still out.”
“For how long?”
“Half an hour, maybe. Were you still inside?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you remember everything?”
“We both do,” Fiona said. “We had time to explain a little to Isandru. He came to the reversion alone, and it’s lucky he did, because the others are camped not half a mile south.”
We walked further from the reversion. I turned to look behind, but there was nothing but the fiery glow of that lake silhouetting Isandru’s form, while in the sky above, auroras danced.
“I’m Shanti,” I said. “I’m no one else.”
Neither Isaru nor Fiona responded to that.
“Does Isandru know?”
“We didn’t get that far,” Fiona said. “He just knows we saw Anna. He didn’t seem surprised that Anna was her real name.”
“He knows many
things,” Isaru said. “Far more than he lets on.”
We spent the next half hour making our way back to the river, even as the eastern sky grayed with dawn. Though I was exhausted, I forced myself to keep going.
At last, the dark xen transitioned into a variety that still glowed. When we heard the rushing of the river, we settled beside a rock above the rim of the canyon, where we drained the last of our canteens.
We slept as the sun rose within the shelter of the rock’s shadow.
***
Sometime later – probably a little before noon – I awoke to find Isandru approaching us. I stirred, and at my movement, Isaru and Fiona also roused. I couldn’t tell if Isandru was angry, relieved, or perhaps a little of both.
“Elder...”
He held up a hand. He just watched us a moment, his expression implacable. He looked old, then, far older than I had ever noticed. The morning sun caught his face, a maze of lines and wrinkles. That face looked tired, as if it knew that this was only the beginning. The beginning of what, I couldn’t guess.
“You’ve already told me of the dreams you and Shanti shared that led you here,” Isandru said to Fiona, “and how you entered the Xenofold to watch the Departure of Annara.” He paused for a moment, and then surprised me by sitting with us in the dirt. He closed his eyes, as if with exhaustion. “I had the same dream, though at the time, I didn’t realize the two of you had dreamt it as well.”
Fiona’s eyes widened. “It was all three of us, then?”
“And you, Prince Isaru?” Isandru asked.
Isaru shook his head. “I just got caught up in it.”
Isandru sighed, gathering his thoughts. “I suppose some of this is my fault. I discounted Shanti’s prophecies as nothing more than dreams. An understandable mistake, perhaps; initiates often think they are to be the next great Prophet. All the same...I should have investigated further.”
“I think I might have set everything in motion on Nava Mountain,” Fiona said. “The visions came to me clearer and clearer, and I felt something...change...to the north.”
Isandru’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you suggesting you started the reversion?”
“Not exactly,” Fiona said. “But from my communion with the Xenofold, it felt as if something was building up. I think I just...triggered it.”
“The reversion has been growing for the past week,” Isandru said. “It’s possible you had something to do with it.”
“Reversions are symptoms of a weakness in the Xenofold,” Fiona said. “Perhaps that weakness was engineered because someone was trying to communicate with us...or at least, one of us.”
She looked at me, and with that glance, everyone else did the same.
“Fiona’s right,” I said. “The Xenofold communicated to us all. We shared a mutual vision, the three of us...and its details will probably be hard to believe.”
“Tell me,” Isandru said.
So, we told him everything exactly as we had seen it...about Anna, about Quietus, and their conversation. I told them about how I alone saw Anna’s face, and how it looked exactly like my own. I shared the conclusion that Fiona, Isaru, and I had come up with: that it was a vision of the past, not a prophecy of the future, and its purpose was for me to discover my true identity: that I was Anna, returned to stop the Second Darkness and save humanity.
***
No one said anything – not for a long time. Isandru, rather than seeming shocked, merely appeared to be thinking deeply, more deeply than I had ever seen him think.
I was about to interrupt him when he spoke.
“When I was young, I prophesied that Annara would return before the last Prince of Hyperborea died.” He looked at each of us in turn, but his gray eyes settled on me last of all. “At many times over the years, I doubted my own words, though it was the voice of Anna herself that spoke to me. She had revealed her name as such, and there was no doubt in my mind that she and Annara were the same person.” Isandru looked at me, as if it were I who spoke with him. For all I knew, perhaps I had. “I was derided when I presented my prophecy to the Seekers, because it was clear to all that Anna hadn’t returned before the last of the Hyperborean rulers died. All the same, I announced the prophecy to the Sanctum, as is our custom. However, there was one thing I knew that they didn’t.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I’m an old man,” Isandru said, giving a tired smile. “That much is obvious. Yet there is something about me no one knows, and it is something that will probably surprise you – almost as much as Shanti’s revelation.”
“Do you believe she’s truly Anna?” Fiona asked.
“Yes,” Isandru said. “In fact, I suspect that I am the least surprised by it of anyone here.”
“But the last Prince of Hyperborea died years and years ago,” Fiona said. “Even my grandparents wouldn’t remember anyone living during that time.”
“Among the Hyperborean elite,” Isandru said, “miraculous things were done with ichor. It not only enhanced one’s connection to the Xenofold, it granted longevity when refined into Aether. Of course, only the very rich could afford it. When the Sea of Creation was drained, however, it could no longer be produced. Assuming one were to continue ingesting it, I suspect it would have granted immortality.”
“What are you saying?” Isaru said. “That one of these Hyperborean princes is still alive, using Aether?”
“Many went mad when the means to produce Aether no longer existed,” Isandru said. “Entire families of the Samalite elite perished. The war against the Shen was terrible, and lasted thirty long years. Aether was the escape, the reason to keep fighting, when so much had been lost, heinous as that motive was. In the end, though, Hyperborea and the Shen destroyed each other, but at great cost to both sides.” Isandru looked at me. “I’ve told Shanti some of this story already, and also Fiona, but have purposely kept some of the more disturbing aspects hidden. Suffice it to say, the Sea of Creation was drained, and Hyperborea fell into ruin, and it became the abode of the Mindless. Those who used Aether all went mad, wasting away from want in the coming years. The only ones who survived were those who couldn’t afford it.” Isandru paused. “All among the nobility wasted away, but one...the last heir to the Hyperborean throne.”
“Who?” Isaru asked.
“Shanti is Anna, because my prophecy is true. The last Prince of Hyperborea lives, and he stands among you right now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ELDER ISANDRU REFUSED TO SAY anything more at that moment, promising to explain everything later. He Called for us a Radaska by the name of Naira, who flew us back to the Sanctum, setting us down far enough from the Grove so as not to be noticed. We snuck back in the way we had come, quickly washing up and changing our clothes in time to join the others for breakfast. I managed to convince Isa – barely – that I had woken early for a bit of studying, and no one else was any the wiser.
For the next few days, Isaru and I hardly spoke, and Fiona completely ignored us. I told myself it was a calculated move so as not to make people suspicious that anything strange had happened.
A few days later, Sage Barrat, Elder Isandru, and everyone else returned from the reversion, apparently having restored it much sooner than anticipated. But even with Isandru’s return, answers weren’t forthcoming. He cancelled Isaru’s and my next lesson at the last minute, so we could only speculate what was going on.
I lost myself in my lessons and my duties, joining Isaru in the library whenever I could to help him with his research, at least the kind they kept on the first floor. I kept so busy that I didn’t have time to think, and that was what I wanted most. I didn’t want to admit any of it had been real. However it played out, it was out of my hands now.
There was one change that was welcome, however. For the first time in what seemed ages, my sleep was dreamless and peaceful.
***
A week after our vision in the reversion, Isandru called me to his office. When I went into the
Hall of Elders, through the museum, and knocked on his door, I was admitted only to find Isaru and Fiona already there.
I shut the door and walked across the plush carpets. Everything in Isandru’s office took on a new meaning in light of what I knew. All the strange instruments on his desk must have been artifacts from Hyperborea, his long-lost home. All of the art, the rich rugs, the books, and even that grandfather clock, had probably been passed down in his family – the Hyperborean royal family –for generations.
Just being here, with the others, made every doubt that it was all some crazy dream go away.
“Let’s get started,” Isandru said. “I trust each of you have said nothing about what you’ve learned?”
Everyone shook their head silently.
“Not that any would believe you. We are the only four in the entire world who know the truth, and because of that, we have a hard road ahead of us. I’m still working tirelessly to make sense of everything you were shown.”
“What does this mean, going forward?” I asked.
Isandru blinked his gray eyes. “That’s why we’re all here, Shanti. Our first task is to discover Anna’s history. Though I’m old, even I don’t know anything regarding the location of the Prophecy of Annara. I was born during Hyperborea’s twilight, early in the Third Century, in the midst of the terrible war that destroyed us. But even then, it was believed that the Prophecy foretold the Second Darkness, only at the time, we believed we were living it.”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,” Fiona said. “If I may.”
Isandru nodded.
“You’ve told me about Aether...I found out a little about it in the library, on the second floor. According to what I’ve read, it destroyed all who used it when it could no longer be made.” Fiona paused. “How is it that you survived?”
