The Needs of the Many

by Christina McMullen

  Ellie frowned and searched her mind for the vague memories of what led her into the light. She’d arrived at the temple and found Julian in the archive.

  Julian.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  “I’m not hiding from anything. The Kyroibi. Rhymallian was to remove the Kyroibi using the knowledge I restored to his tether and give Julian back the Abstractive Root that had been taken from him. If I am here, what does that mean for Julian?”

  “Julian is whole, so be at peace,” the creature assured her, nudging her hand once again in a soothing manner. “It is your physical form that hovers indecisive between life and death.”

  “Me?” Ellie was taken aback. “Did something go wrong?”

  “You were incorrect when you left us, El’iadrylline, and yet, you were right as well. You are indeed a child of the light, but you are as well a child of the dark. And it is the dark that drives you to seek refuge in the light. You are welcome here always, but here you do not belong. To return to the balance, you must embrace that which you fear.”

  “Embrace…” She trailed off, confused and yet, there was something in the words of the Iriani that triggered a memory. There inside her heart, a darkness, a revulsion. The energy that clung to her, feeding off her fears and influencing the weak to acts of bold cowardice. She recognized this as the entity that had clung to her, but that was not possible.

  “No,” she said with a shudder, moving away from the nebulous mass of hatred, anger, and rage. “I trapped the entity. I sent it to the temple to be studied. Destroyed, perhaps, if necessary.”

  “And were it not for the astute mind of another pure soul, you might have had no choice in your fate. El’iadrylline, you must take back what is yours.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, cowering further from the writhing mass, which seemed to be growing in size and strength.

  “The darkness you fear is that which has always been a part of you. Our abstractions house our every choice, right or wrong, good or bad, dark or light. When you tore asunder your Abstractive Root, you made only a temporary rift, just as your ancestor before you.”

  “Wait, I what?” Ellie rushed forward, wobbling slightly as she was not yet adept with her less substantial self. “What do you mean I tore my root?”

  “You carry guilt. Misguided, perhaps, but the death at your hands, accidental and without malice as it was, left an impact so profound, you pushed out your own darkness, creating the exact same cleaving that corrupted the being known as Andryvessa in the first place. But without a physical form in which to nest, your insubstantial darkness was allowed autonomy.”

  “You’re saying the entity that corrupted my mother, Prince Gevandar, and many others, was a part of me? A fragmentation of my Abstractive Root made autonomous by my guilt?”

  The idea, while absurd when spoken aloud, did perhaps hold merit.

  “Our abstractions are what keep us balanced and allow for free will,” the being further explained. “Altruistic as it may seem to shed the darkness, you do yourself no favor. Your choices are no longer your own, your relationships insignificant and baseless, your life predestined and empty.”

  “No,” Ellie countered. “I know you’re wrong about that. Perhaps had I continued the path of the Kyroibi master and allowed Julian to sacrifice my abstraction for the good of the galaxy, this might be true. But I could not and so I did only what I did out of love. Love for Julian, yes, but also love of my family, my friends, and even love of the people I’ve never met. Not just the citizens of the Ghowrn system who relied on me to bring back peace, but the billions of Earthlings who have never truly known peace and likely will not in their lifetime. That they feel hopeless is no reason to take away all hope.”

  “El’iadrylline, look inside yourself. The altruism with which you speak is grand, but ultimately meaningless if you have not the darkness inside you to compare and balance the light you wish to bring. Yours is by far a more complicated path than the early Eidyssic masters ever imagined. You have been thrust upon a path none before have walked, but one of great significance. The sowers have a plan for you, but the ultimate choice is yours.”

  Perhaps there was something to what the being said. Balance, after all, was a universal constant. Light could not exist without dark. And yet, was she not at that very moment enshrouded in a light without dark? Was the anomaly of transcendence able to defy the natural order in much the same way it could not be quantified with science and logic?

  She needed advice. There was but one other she could think of who understood and survived the exacting divide of their abstraction. Recalling how she found the realm of the ascended last time, Ellie unfocused, allowing herself to sense shadows she could not see head on.

  The Iriani watched, patient and silent, but when she found the portal, it stepped once again before her.

  “Choose carefully, El’iadrylline. Entering the realm of the ascended with a fractured root is a one way journey.”

  “But I was just there. Andryvessa is there. She may have answers.”

  “When you last passed through our realm, you were whole, El’iadrylline. The abstraction within may not have been your own, but it was enough to facilitate your safe return. I must again stress that if you choose to make ascension your path, you are making a final decision.”

  Ellie held back, but found herself more confused than ever. Perhaps death was inevitable. Julian, after all, had planned to die in her place. She’d spared him and given back his humanity. Perhaps it was fitting that this would be where her story ended. One way or another, she had given up her abstraction for the greater good.

  But would she? Could she leave behind a legacy of sadness? After all, the hole in her heart left by Julian’s silent departure had hurt more than she could express. Would she go willingly into the next, knowing the ache of loss she left behind?

  “What of this plan?” she asked, unsure if her curiosity stemmed from her will to live or simply a distraction from the uncomfortable direction her thoughts were spiraling towards.

  “An emergence,” the being replied. “A civilization on the edge of their great awakening. It is our belief that you will be in a position to provide the guidance necessary to see them through the change. It will not be an easy path. There will be heartache, anger, fear, and pain. There will be joys and triumphs, but you will need to return. To open your abstraction to completeness once again. You were always meant to shape worlds, El’iadrylline. It’s up to you how you do so.”

  Briefly, hope swelled as images of a world Ellie thought lost to her swam through her mind. But knowing what it was she needed to accept and undertake continued to weigh heavily upon her.

  “Show me,” she said at last. “Give me something upon which to measure my fears.”

  The creature withdrew, blending into the light until it was but a voice, receding into nothing.

  “All you need is inside your heart. Courage to face the whole of existence lies with you, El’iadrylline. The decision is yours. I can do nothing more.”

  With that, Ellie found herself once again alone with her indecision.

  Chapter 23

  Moments flew by, yet seemed to drag on into eternity. From across the room, all Julian could see was the slight glow of the binding cloth, which still hovered above Ellie, billowing with the energy of her fragmented Abstractive Root. Every undulation of the fabric stripped away his restraint until finally, he could no longer stand by and wait for something to happen.

  “Is there nothing I can do to help her?”

  “I am sorry,” Rhymallian said, eyes still focused on Ellie’s broken abstraction. “I know you want to be here for El’iadrylline, both of you,” he added, addressing Bethany, who had followed Julian over. “But I’m afraid your presence is hindering her recovery and as we are all well aware, there is little time left before we must all move on from here.”

  Julian felt a stab of guilt and regret, but pushed it to the side as he bowed to the original master. Hi
s father. What was done was done. Guilt could not correct the planetary orbit. It was best to do what Rhymallian asked. With a gesture to follow, he led Bethany from the archive and out to the great staircase.

  “Oh, no. Not this again,” Bethany said with a start as she looked out over the parade ground that held the battalion several stories below, noting the wide yet minimal stairs seemed even steeper than those she’d scaled in the T’al Kyri temple. “Your people never heard of workplace safety?”

  “I assure you, you won’t fall even if you deliberately try,” Julian said, leaning dangerously towards the stairs as if to punctuate his words. “I thought you weren’t afraid of heights?”

  “Heights, no; broken bones, yes,” Bethany muttered before descending the stairs at a light jog to prove she wasn’t afraid. It was needless posturing and she knew it, but a lifetime of feeling the need to prove herself in the face of even the slightest criticism was a powerful and difficult to change motivator.

  But as she got closer to the ground level, she slowed, allowing Julian to catch up.

  “So that’s the battalion, huh?”

  “Dormant, once again, but yes,” Julian replied, correctly reading her hesitation.

  “And you’re sure they ain’t planning to rise up and lay waste to us?” Though her tone was light, Julian could detect real fear in her words.

  “They cannot. There is no longer a way to sense a threat. El’iadrylline saw to that when she…” He shook away the darkness that threatened to overtake his thoughts. “The battalion will go quietly into their end when the planet reaches the star’s pull.”

  “I’ll have to trust your word on that, but is there anywhere else we can go?” Bethany asked with a suppressed shudder. “Dormant or not, I don’t like that many dead eyes staring at me.”

  “Through here,” Julian said, leading Bethany down to the corridor that ran the length of the ground floor. “Perhaps one last look at all the Eidyssic have accomplished will provide a fitting farewell.”

  “Seems kind of morbid, but sure. Lead on,” Bethany noted, stepping aside to let Julian show her the way out of the temple.

  “Not at all. Ours is a fortunate history. T’al Eidyn exists, housing a perfectly preserved archive of all we’ve accomplished. Our species continues, as strong today as when we first emerged as sentient. As far as I know, ours is the first if not only civilization who did not die with our star.”

  Julian punctuated his last remarks by stepping aside and allowing Bethany to come forward into what had once been the temple square. Buildings on either side stood as pristine and unsullied as the day the last of the children of Ia’na Eidyn left home.

  “It’s beautiful,” Bethany said, squinting out at the peaceful square. To her eyes, the landscape was still bathed in a dim light, despite the star looming ever closer. “And yet, despite everything you just said, it’s still kind of sad. It’s a shame no one will ever come here again.”

  “I feel much the same, but it is best that natural order be restored.”

  “I think destroying a huge army of psychotic killbots will do wonders on that front.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant, though yes, that does help.” Julian let out a small, amused chuckle before turning his eyes once more to the landscape. “Our system was scheduled to die out many millennia ago,” Julian explained.

  “Scheduled? How is that natural?”

  “Perhaps my terminology is not exact. No star system lasts forever. Even on Earth, rudimentary science studies note that the sky we see is comprised of light that left its star ages before. The Star of Eidyn should have been one of them. Its deterioration predates even my creation.”

  “Well, I guess you just got lucky.”

  “No,” Julian shook his head. “Luck was not part of the equation. Our ancestors created a complex and self-sustaining system by which the required elements were to be reintroduced into the star’s matrix by way of rockets. It was by manually overriding this system that I set in motion what should have happened ages ago. Without my interference, Ia’na Eidyn might have orbited our star indefinitely.”

  “Can’t say I blame them,” Bethany said with a shrug. “Our biggest fear is to be forgotten. At least, that’s the mindset I have come to know as an irrevocable truth on Earth. Somehow, I get the feeling it’s a universally accepted constant.”

  Julian paused, considering her words with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t he felt a similar sense of profound loss when he first arrived? Not for the first time, he regarded the brash Earthling in contemplative awe.

  “How is it that you are here, exactly?”

  Bethany looked up at Julian with a wry smile.

  “I understand you phase pulsed,” he amended. “What I mean to ask is how you knew of Transcendence?”

  “Old Bethany would have said ‘I dunno’ and left it at that, but new Bethany is both more enlightened and humbled.”

  “And that means?”

  “I’m a primitive,” she said with a wide grin. “Back on Earth I was a Christian. Well, towards the end there I wasn’t too keen on most the beliefs, but I still had my faith. I still have faith now, but I’ve kind of expanded my idea of God to fit the rest of the universe. But in the eyes of most folks out here, I ain’t a whole lot higher on the food chain than a luk, which gives me a slight advantage in the whole innocence of mind department.”

  “You’re of the Transcendent.” Julian’s voice held a note of awe, but Bethany shrugged.

  “I’m no mythological god, if that’s what you’re getting at and I sure as hell have no desire to go around granting wishes, so whatever I am, I’d appreciate it if we kept it between ourselves.”

  “Spoken like a true child of the stars,” Julian said with a teasing smirk.

  “Speaking of stars, is it just me or are we headed more quickly into a black hole situation?”

  Julian looked up to where Bethany pointed. Indeed, the Star of Eidyn was much closer than it had been just minutes before. There was little time left.

  “We’ll need to prepare a ship.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “I…” Julian grimaced. “I sent El’iadryov’s abstraction back to T’al Eidyn. I didn’t anticipate one, let alone two transcendent beings phase pulsing to put an end to my plans.”

  “I ain’t gonna fault you for your logic, but doesn’t that put us in a position of trying to reverse engineer this whole phase pulse thing? I doubt any ship you find is going to be serviceable after a bazillion years of sitting around.”

  “Fortunately for us, your assumption is incorrect,” Julian said with a tight smile. “We just need to find one that isn’t inside the temple hangar. The battalion is dormant, but I’ll not test my luck. Stealing one of their ships would have been just the type of act to awaken them once again.”

  “Where else would we find something fast enough to get us away from a star going supernova?” Bethany asked in a voice rushed with panic she didn’t bother to hide.

  “The military practice ground was across the square, behind that squat building,” Julian said, pointing at a complex of long, flat buildings in the distance. “I’m sure I still have priority access,” he muttered and began to jog in that direction, but Bethany caught up and held out a hand to block him.

  “No, I’ll go find us a ship.”

  “But you don’t—”

  “I’ve got the latest and greatest physiological advances thanks to your best doctors. Reg made sure that among other things, I got the pilot’s signative.” She held up her palm and showed a specific diodal arrangement that had been added. “Now go. You’re better equipped to wake sleeping beauty than I am.”

  Julian said nothing, only nodding before he raced away, back inside the temple and up to the archive, halting only when he noticed the closed door. For a moment, he panicked that the chamber was once again off limits, but he did not sense the too familiar barrier. Placing his hand on the control panel, he held his breath as the door slid nois
elessly open.

  Rhymallian’s head snapped up sharply at the sound of the door.

  “Julian, please. I’ve only just placed the binding.”

  “We’re out of time. Ia’na Eidyn is too close to our star. We must leave here or perish. Please, Father, if there is anything we can do…”

  Julian trailed off as a brilliant flash of golden light issued from Ellie’s body. Rhymallian pulled his hands away and drifted forward, placing himself between his son and the still prone form.

  “What I have just done goes against all I vowed, all I believe, and all that our laws have taught us is right and moral. Her abstraction is whole, but healing will be her decision. There is nothing more to do. El’iadrylline’s will is strong.”

  “I understand,” Julian said, voice cracking with emotion. “Thank you for stabilizing her. I know the truth of your words and I cannot begin to express my gratitude for all that you’ve done.”

  “I can only hope it will be enough. But your assessment is correct. There is little time with which to leave the star’s draw. I will now say my final goodbye and urge your swift departure.”

  “Final?” Julian stared in confusion. “What of your tether on T’al Eidyn?”

  Rhymallian gave Julian a sad smile. “It is but a projection. When I am released from my bondage, no more will I be tethered anywhere in this realm.”

  A sadness, startling, but not entirely unexpected, overcame Julian’s heart. Feelings long dormant manifested in the form of tears.

  “I feel it unfair, Father, that we have both spent far too many lifetimes together, yet separate, unknowing and worse, unfeeling.”

  “Do not be sad, my son,” Rhymallian said, taking Julian’s hands in his. Despite being nothing more than a hard light projection of a tethered fragment, a wave of emotion passed through his diodes, flooding Julian with love and warmth. “You’ve been granted that which pained me most to take from you: your memories. Remember me. Remember your mother. Remember life as it once was and know without doubt, you were loved.”