Beacon

by Kyle West

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I looked back at where the bear had been, but his glinting eyes were gone.

  This thought was shortly followed by some chomping and munching. He had to be hungry if he was trying to get to the marrow of such a small animal.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Animals are built to survive, right? That bear is old enough to be able to find his own food.”

  “That’s an interesting point. Either this bear is really bad at doing his own hunting, which isn’t likely if he’s lived this long…or maybe there’s something else in the area that’s really good at it that’s eating all of his food.”

  Now I could see what Isaru was talking about. “A bigger predator, you mean.”

  “Maybe.”

  “In that case, maybe we should set a watch,” I said.

  We drew sticks to see who would get it first. It was Isaru. For which I was thankful, because I was about ready to pass out.

  I turned with my back to the fire, wrapping myself in my blanket.

  My last thought, before falling asleep, was that the bear could have been hanging around us as much for protection as for food.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  WHEN ISARU WOKE ME FOR my watch, there was actually a bit of dew on the ground. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the stuff. The Sanctum, probably.

  As Isaru settled down for sleep, I got the feeling that he had stayed up longer than he should have. It couldn’t be more than a couple of hours until dawn. It was nice of him, but I would rather for things to have been fair, but men like to prove how tough they are. Sometimes, you just had to shrug and let them, because it’s usually to your benefit.

  I fed the fire, knowing that the extra sleep I had gotten wasn’t enough. I forced myself to stand on my aching legs, or else I’d nod off.

  I peered out into the trees, but there was no sign of the bear. Apparently, it had lost interest. I could only hope. I didn’t know too much about bears except that they liked to give me a hard time.

  The rest of my watch passed uneventfully. I practiced sword forms to keep myself moving, and as soon as dawn was discernible, I woke Isaru.

  It was hard going back to the rock-bread and jerky after last night’s meal, but it was food, and much needed food at that.

  Soon, we had set out from the pine copse and back into the drylands west of the river. The terrain was rolling and empty. Aside from the wind swirling dust, Isaru and I were the only moving things in sight. All the animals seemed to be hiding today.

  And though we hadn’t seen people yet, it seemed strange that we had not come upon signs of them. There was more water here than anywhere since the Colorado. My thoughts went back to what Isaru had said yesterday – there might be something in these parts big enough to be eating all that bear’s food. I didn’t know if that was the case, but the thought put me on edge all the same. I was more alert than usual; my hand never strayed far from my sword.

  By midmorning, following the narrow river north, we came upon the ruins of a building – what might have once been a house. It was half-buried in dirt, and scrub grew along its broken walls, where there was shade. Its roof had long collapsed, and only a few feet of its stone walls were visible. We came upon more houses like this, half-buried. Sometimes, two of them would be right next to each other. Others were easy to miss, signified by nothing more than a few bricks or a cracked foundation. Others sat off alone on the tops of hills, or were lost among the tangle of stunted trees and scrub.

  “There was a city here once,” Isaru said. “Long ago. Four hundred years seems to be long enough for a desert to swallow a place.”

  I had to agree. There were often ruins like this in the desert, when they weren’t completely buried. Beneath our boots could be ancient streets and more ruins.

  Isaru’s theory was confirmed when we crested a final rise to see a vast spread of broken buildings and fallen towers, all coated with dust, at the edge of a large lake – or what might have been a small sea – ringed by snow-capped mountains, the end of which could not be seen over the far, mountainous horizon. The sight struck me silent. I had never seen so much water in one place, and combined with those mountains, the scene made me lose my breath for a moment.

  Isaru seemed to have a similar reaction, and despite all we had to do and how much further we had to go, we had to stand there for a moment and admire the view.

  I then looked east, across the muddy river, across a vast expanse of broken buildings which ended in a dryland that was broken by a line of mountains. Their sides gleamed like burnished bronze, glowing like flames on the horizon.

  It was the edge of the Red Wild.

  “This is where we turn east,” Isaru said, with a nod that seemed final. He pointed toward the eastern mountains. “Those are the Dagger Peaks. Where the Selvan ends and the Northern Wild begins.”

  Looking at those peaks, it was hard to imagine how they would be easier to cross than the Selvan. “It’s just a straight shot east now, right?”

  I meant it jokingly, but for some reason I sounded more serious than I intended. It was a straight shot if crossing mountains and the Northwood, and yet more mountains could be considered a straight shot.

  Somehow, I got the feeling we just got done with the easy part.

  “Maybe there’s something we can find in those ruins,” I said. “Food, tools. Something.”

  “Maybe,” Isaru said. “There will be a place to cross the river in a city like that, surely. Looks like no one’s lived there in decades.”

  “More like centuries.”

  “That as well, but I meant more recently. Even Elekai haven’t settled it. We would have seen signs by now, new or old.” He nodded again. “Let’s head down there. Once in the city, we’ll find a way across the river. I’ve read about there being a pass, here, but with all that xen, I’m afraid the signs of it might be gone.”

  “We’ve made it this far,” I said. “We’ll find a way or we’ll make one.”

  I would accept no less for the sake of my parents.

  * * *

  By the time we made it inside the ancient city, it was high noon. The heat baked the dusty earth, and the only signs of life were the dry scrub and grass growing among the ruins. Isaru was right; people had not lived here in a long, long time, and there was no sign that people had been here even recently. There was nothing here but wind, dust, and crackling heat.

  All the same, the surrounding land was hauntingly beautiful. If it weren’t for the river, which we still followed, it would have been entirely destitute. Beyond the ruins in the east, the Dagger Peaks shone red in the bright sunshine, almost seeming to bleed from being so covered with xen. Their shape, combined with that color, made them aptly named. There didn’t seem to be much of use in the city itself, though the toppled towers, crumbling walls, and rusted bits of scraps of metal did provide a change of scenery.

  We stopped in the shadow of what must have once been a tall building, now collapsed in a heap of twisted steel bars and shattered glass, to drink some water and get out of the sun.

  “Do you know what this place was called?” I asked.

  Isaru often knew such things, so it was always worth asking.

  He took a long pull from his canteen. “We know a name of a few Old World cities. There’s Angeles in California, which is called Shenshi now. It’s written that there was a war between Angeles and Colonia, back when the Elekai ruled it; the two cities were fast rivals. In the end, though, Colonia prevailed and Angeles was sacked.” He took another drink. “I don’t know about this city, though. It isn’t as large as Angeles, or even Colonia, but it was a big city in its own time. Certainly a regional power that controlled a lot of territory. It may have even been part of the First Novan Empire, if it was still alive during that time. Certainly, it existed before that, during the time of America.”

  America was the almost mythical country that was said to exist before the Ragnarok War, stretching from the Sunset Ocean to t
he Eastern Ocean. It was hard to imagine any one country being that large, and was often dismissed as a legend, but ever since leaving Colonia, I had seen many strange things I could have scarcely imagined. Perhaps that was true, too.

  We set off again, filling up our water as we approached the river. We crossed a bridge, over which a pair of iron rails were held together by wooden planks. It looked as if carts might have rolled along them at one point. That was a clue to how old this place was, because such metal should have been scavenged by people a long time ago. Once we reached the other side, the rails were lost to the dirt.

  We passed more buildings, but the desert wilderness buried most traces of civilization until the distant Dagger Peaks. Walking straight there, we would be in their foothills by sunset.

  “Where to cross…”

  “Wherever it’s easiest,” Isaru pointed. “We’ll try there, where it’s lowest. Failing that, we’ll just have to backtrack and try somewhere else.”

  As I had guessed, we were entering dry, mangled foothills by the time the sun was setting. We set up camp beneath a bluff which provided some shelter. We had caught several lizards, so we put them, along with some yucca root and prickly pears, into a stew which I was sure would taste awful. It was best to eat what we could gather, and to save the food in our packs for the rough days where we didn’t find much.

  As the sun dipped beneath the western hills, we ate quietly, each too tired to find a word to say. That was how it usually was.

  There had been no bear tonight, but then again, there hadn’t been much of anything. Even the wind seemed to have died.

  In the end, we settled down to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I FOUND MYSELF IN THE Highgrove long before my session with Elder Marius was scheduled to begin. I stood by myself in the middle by the ichor pool, surrounded by low Silverwoods and mountain flowers. The Highgrove was built in the Cloud Palace’s upper reaches, an elevated courtyard that served as a place of relaxation and repose.

  I sat by the shores of the pool, seeking Silence. Though Silence was not easy to find, because I was troubled by my conversation with Rakhim Shal, and worse, the Aether seemed to linger in my body like a poison. Every time I reached for Silence, I was instead flooded with emotions that made Silence all but impossible to find. Instead, I left my mind blank, returning to my breaths every time a new thought assailed me. Despite my years of training, I couldn’t slow my beating heart. Every nerve in my body was fired with anxiety. I felt as if someone were creeping up on me, and it took all of my willpower not to open my eyes and turn around…

  “Mia. You’ve arrived early.”

  I drew a sharp intake of breath as my heart felt as if it would beat out of my chest. I forced myself to relax before rising and turning around to greet Elder Marius.

  Before I could say anything, though, his eyes widened. “Mia. Your eyes!”

  I touched them, as if that could give me any sense of what they looked like. “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

  “They’re…” He looked at me, concerned. “You have taken…?”

  I nodded, slowly. It felt as if I were at fault for it, even if I wasn’t. I felt shame, even as I tried to explain. “I had to. My mother made me help Shal with one of his experiments. I…didn’t want to. But it had to be done.”

  Elder Marius nodded his understanding, but in the next moment, there was another expression: anger.

  “Things have changed greatly in Hyperborea,” Marius said, “but most not for the better.”

  “Will this make our lesson impossible? I have been trying to find Silence, something even a child can do. But the Aether is making it difficult.”

  “Aether excites the mind while Silence subdues it.” He looked at me, concerned. “How much did he give you?”

  “A vial,” I said. “Although I know the amount can be deceiving, as some are more concentrated than others.”

  “And the purpose?”

  “He wanted to test the effects of my entry into the Hyperfold.”

  “He what? And your mother allowed this?”

  The vehemence of Marius’s reaction was shocking. I had never seen such an outburst from him, and had never heard him speak an ill word of my mother.

  “She did it as a punishment,” I said. “For skipping lessons.”

  “How long ago did you take it?”

  “Three hours, maybe,” I said. “Why?”

  “It should not be holding on this long,” Marius said. “I suspect you were given a far larger dose than you could handle.”

  I frowned. “Why would Shal do that?”

  Marius scowled. “Who can guess the motives of the Grand Advisor?”

  “He said it was for testing how the Hyperfold would react to my presence.”

  I next told the Elder exactly what had happened: finding myself in the forest, the picnic with my parents, and how they had turned into monsters.

  When I was finished, Marius was quiet for a long while.

  “Have you told your parents?”

  I shook my head. “They would think I was making it up to get out of doing it again.”

  Marius sighed, and his shoulders fell. “It may be too late, then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As soon as you left, I’m sure Rakhim found his way to your parents and made his own version of events. His story is the first, so it is what they will believe. It is…a sad state of affairs.”

  I thought very carefully about what I was going to say next. I knew what I wanted to say, and outside of my brother, Marius was the person I trusted the most.

  “He needs to be stopped,” I said, quietly. “Only, I don’t know how it is possible.”

  Marius didn’t say anything for a moment, and it made me wonder if I had gone too far. I was about to say as much, when Marius nodded.

  “It runs deeper than you know,” Marius said. “It all goes back to Aether and the Hyperfold. It goes back to the very foundation of Hyperborea itself. But the irony is, to save the city…it must also be destroyed. At least, destroyed as we know it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As you know, the Sea of Creation is smaller than it was at the founding. Much smaller. It is said that its rate of depletion and regeneration are now balanced, only this is no longer the case.”

  It was something I had always been taught. Hyperborea’s power relied on the supply of ichor in the Sea of Creation. It had been noted early in the city’s history that the growth of the city was a drain on the Sea’s resources – but as that growth slowed, the Sea was able to regenerate. As such, it was believed that the Sea would always remain in balance.

  That was the case until the last ten years, and for ten years, people had been waiting for it to regenerate.

  “What happened ten years ago, Mia?”

  It suddenly clicked with me. “The invention of Aether.”

  “Precisely. Aether is not ichor. It destroys the memory within ichor, and as such, the Xenofold “forgets” its existence. It does not re-create anything, because to its mind, nothing has been lost in the first place.”

  It made sense, but I didn’t know how Marius had come to this conclusion. “If this is true, then how did you figure it out?”

  “It might be a coincidence, but I don’t think so,” Marius said. “The Sea has only lowered so drastically in the last ten years, perfectly coinciding with the invention of Aether.”

  “Could it not be something else?” I asked. “Something yet unseen?”

  “There is more to it. The Hyperfold itself demands more energy than any other thing in Hyperborea, to the point where it had its own Xenofont constructed.”

  “So, the Sea isn’t regenerating and it is being depleted at an even faster rate.”

  Marius nodded. “That is the idea. I…have no way to prove this, but it will become increasingly clear in the coming years. My main worry is that it will be too late by then. There is a point of no return, where the Sea will become too s
mall to regenerate at a fast enough rate to support the city. The production and consumption of Aether must be stopped immediately, for it is completely destroying the memories vested in the Sea of Creation. As a result, all things that depend on the Sea – the strength of the Xenofold, the city itself, even the very ability for Elekai to connect to it – all of these things are threatened.” He looked at me seriously. “The death of the Sea, is effectively, the death of Hyperborea. More than that: the Xenofold itself.”

  I could see exactly what he was saying, and yet it felt so overwhelming. How could one stop it when everyone was already addicted to Aether, and the man who had created Aether was the most powerful man in the kingdom after the king and queen?

  “How can he be stopped?” I asked. “Is it possible to convince the people? Perhaps if we wrote some sort of treatise…”

  “We cannot go down that road,” Marius said. “As it stands, it is only you and I, Mia. And we have to be very careful about who we say this to.”

  “Isandru must be brought to our side,” I said. “As the future king.”

  “I agree. Already, though, he uses the Hyperfold on almost a daily basis. And any change in attitude on his part would arouse Shal’s suspicions immediately.”

  “He seems…lost, sometimes. He was telling me the other day that the old way of communing with the Xenofold was old-fashioned. I don’t know how I can convince him.”

  “You must bide your time,” Marius said. “Do not take too much of a burden upon yourself. Learn your craft; that you know the truth of things at such a young age is remarkable. If we follow our hearts and stick to our principles…a path often is shown. Whether of the gods, or of ourselves, the fact remains. That path is truth.”

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  After that, we continued with our lesson. Silence was a bit easier to find; what was left of the Aether had apparently left my system.

  I left the Highgrove after, finding myself wandering the Cloud Palace’s halls. Even if I passed plenty of servants and black-armored guards, the place seemed empty.