by Kyle West
“Show yourself!” I said again. “We know that you’re the stronger one here, but I would speak to you as an equal.”
There was a deep, throaty chuckle that resonated within the air. I resisted the urge to draw my sword, but Shara assumed a fighting stance.
“Please, put the weapons away,” Shal said. “Weapons will not avail you here. We have little time, if we are to succeed.”
I motioned for Shara and Isaru to sheathe their swords. As they did, the air seemed to shimmer between the two thrones, before becoming solid. Slowly, Shal materialized from the thin air, standing garbed in rich robes. He did not look as he had in my dreams with Mia. While still bald, his formerly pudgy features were now hard lines. The eyes, however, were the same: blue, shining, and cruel.
He stepped forward calmly. I thought about telling him not to come any closer, before he stopped at the bottom of the steps leading up to the dais. There was a distance of some thirty feet between us. “It is time we came to our agreement, Anna. Give me the Orb, and the Prophecy will be yours.”
“And this agreement would end the Hyperfold, and allow all trapped here to return to the Xenofold?”
Shal nodded solemnly. “You, Anna, are the only one who can form the connection between this place and the Xenofold. Only you can take Aether without succumbing to any of its side effects. When the Hyperfold fades, the Sea of Creation will be reborn.”
“Without the Hyperfold, it can’t sustain itself,” Shara said.
“Indeed. This reality I’ve created is different from what happened in actuality. Only slightly. It is…a kinder place. Not perfect, but there is no Shen War here. Even so…my power has limits, and to some extent, the Hyperfold must always reflect reality. The Sea drains here, just as it would in the real world. When we reach the point of no return…” Shal snapped his fingers. “I reset the simulation, and it begins anew. Everyone forgets. Everyone…but me.”
That answered some of the questions I had of this place. Some of the things didn’t line up with what Elder Isandru had told me – such as the fact that he said that he was born in the middle of the Shen War, and was fifteen when the city finally fell to them.
In this reality, there were no Shen, and quite a few other things seemed to be different. But one thing still had to be a lie on Elder Isandru’s part: he had pretended that Mia wasn’t his sister, to the point where he’d said she lived in a different time period. That was one thing I couldn’t make sense of: why mention her at all?
“What happened in the real world?” I asked. “The Shen destroyed the city, but…how did the people come to be trapped in this place?”
“Aether bound their memories here,” Shal said. “Even if their bodies were destroyed.”
“None escaped?”
“The Shen were very…thorough.” Shal gave a bitter smile, but there was something else behind it. Something I couldn’t quite place.
“You betrayed them,” Isaru said. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“It is true that I believed I did,” Shal said. “However…”
“Save it,” Isaru said. “The Tower of Shal is a Beacon communicating with the Radaskim. Mia has seen it in prophecy. Shanti has seen it as well.”
Here, Shal’s smile became genuine. The façade had been dropped. “Ah,” he said. “You have learned that which I hoped you would not. Well. That makes things easier.”
Here, I drew my sword. “Why? What are you saying to them? Are you giving away secrets? Are you telling them how to kill us?”
“They will kill us all, dear Anna. I am merely preparing the way. Such power, you do not realize. Even if you had your full memory – which I know you do not – even then you could not comprehend. The Ragnarok War was an anomaly. The Radaskim had never known defeat otherwise. And until Earth is theirs, they will come, in their thousands, in their millions, until every last Elekai is destroyed.” Shal’s smiled widened. “For you see…I have had my own prophecies.”
“They are lies,” I said. “Whoever you’re talking to, they have poisoned your mind.”
“My place in the new world is guaranteed. In two years in the outside world…it will all be over, Anna. You see…I have already won, because time flows differently, here. The Hyperfold has access to any time in which it has existed. From the first day of its existence…until present time…all times are available to those who leave it.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“You need me,” Shal continued. “Without me, you cannot control the time of your return.” At each word, he looked from one of us, to the other. “This will be fun!”
“I’m not giving you the Orb,” I said. “I will destroy it if have to.”
Shal’s sick smile evaporated. “Then none of us can leave this place. The Orb is the key, without which all will remain trapped here until the Sea itself is destroyed by the Radaskim Reapers.” The smile returned. “Which is not long from now. What will it be, then? Give me the Orb, and you can leave this place. The bargain has already been struck. I may not be able to kill you, but you guarantee the deaths of us all, should the Orb be destroyed.”
“What bargain?” I asked.
“Surely, you have heard of him. The Nameless One would not allow me to sweep you out of the way so easily. A pity. You are…guaranteed. Even your friends.” Shal chuckled. “However…there are ways I can make it more difficult for you. There are…allowances.”
“Just get to the point!” Shara said.
“You must give me the Orb, Anna,” Shal said, suddenly. “It is the only way you can leave this place. It is the only path allowed. To not do so is to let the Radaskim win.”
“They will win if I give you the Orb, because that is what you want,” I said.
“Don’t you see that there is no right choice? Everything you choose has consequences. And all of those consequences give me what I want.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Better to kill you and end everything than…”
“No, it’s not better,” Shal said, interrupting. “This is your path.”
Just then, the throne room doors burst open, revealing Isandru and Mia. Both were breathing heavily and stood at the threshold, watching us.
“I came to stop you,” Mia said, when she’d found her breath. Then, she looked at me. “There is another way.”
“What do you mean? Did you hear what Shal said?”
“Quiet, girl,” Shal said. “Leave now. You and your brother. This doesn’t concern you.”
“I’ve had a final prophecy,” Mia said. “As soon as you left…I fell into a trance. I saw then exactly what I must do.” She turned her attention to Rakhim, and her eyes narrowed. “So long as I am here, your aim will not be accomplished. I have warned the Xenofold of your intent.”
Shal’s face, at first, blanched. Then, it reddened with fury.
He strode forward, straight for us.
“Stop!” I called. “One more step…”
He swept his arm, and it was as if a wave of energy whipped Isaru, Shara, and I out of the way. All three of our screams sounded in the throne room as we sailed upward. I seemed to move through the air in slow motion, rising impossibly high, even as Shal continued to march down the carpet.
“You have lost,” Mia said. “Kill me if you must. It is over.”
“I would say you are already dead. But I have a fate for you worse than death.”
And then, there was a ripping sound as a sinuous, bright line opened from the air itself. It widened as shining white light shone through. It was so luminous that I couldn’t see anything within it. Maybe there was nothing within it.
Isandru grabbed his sister, pulling her back…but there was some force, some gravity, that pulled at them both. They were powerless to stop it, their feet doing nothing to slow them. Meanwhile, I hung helpless and suspended in the air, along with Isaru and Shara.
I knew if either of them entered that vortex, wherever it led, they would be gone forever.
>
I had one last, desperate gambit. I reached into my cloak, producing the Orb.
“Shal!”
He turned his head, and those eyes shone far whiter than I ever would have believed possible. But his expression became one of shock as I let go of the Orb.
“No!” he shouted.
Instantly, the vortex winked shut with a thunderous clap, sending Isandru and Mia flying backward, where they crashed into the wall. Shal held his hands outward, and the Orb’s descent slowed, coming to a standstill mere inches from the marble floor. Then, it gently landed.
As soon as it did, I myself started to fall, along with Isaru and Shara. We screamed as the floor rushed up to meet us. I crashed, hard, feeling something snap. I cried out in pain, looking through tear-filled eyes at my left leg, which was bent into an impossible shape. Shara and Isaru were already scrambling up, apparently no worse for wear, even if Isaru had a slight limp.
I tried to stand, but the pain was excruciating.
Silence.
I sought Silence, and to my surprise, found it with ease. The pain still burned, but I managed to stand and drag my useless leg, drawing my katana at the same time.
“Shanti, stay back!” Shara said. “This is me and Isaru’s fight!”
“And mine.”
Isandru stepped forward, drawing his own katana that was not unlike ours. The three of them formed a semicircle, facing Shal, who stood weaponless…but with the Orb in hand.
I looked back to Mia, who was on her knees, watching with tears in her eyes. “Don’t do this. Please…”
I wondered then, if by giving up the Orb, whether I had made some horrible mistake.
No. I couldn’t have let Mia and Isandru into that place. I couldn’t…
And I noticed then that Shal was looking at me, smiling. I was filled with loathing.
“You planned this all along.”
I made myself stand beside Isandru. I was going to give this everything I had.
“It’s too late,” Isandru said, sadly. “He is the creator of the Hyperfold. That Orb gives him power to do whatever he wishes.”
“And so I will,” Shal said.
I made my way forward, stubbornly, but was stopped by an invisible wall. I screamed, trying to hack through it. All the while, Rakhim smiled, his white eyes gloating.
“Now, to business,” he said.
The Orb shone brighter and brighter, until we were all swallowed by its light. A cold wind blew, so loud and so fast that it was thunderous, yet despite all that, it did not seem to push me back. It became so loud that it was as if I were nothing, and every thought and memory was driven from my head.
And then…silence.
I realized my eyes had closed, and when I opened them, it was only Isaru, Shara, and I standing there.
Isandru, Mia, and Shal were gone.
“What happened?”
There was no sign of any of them.
“Isandru!” I called. “Mia!”
“They are gone,” Shara said. “And so is the Orb.”
Isaru just stood still, his face a mask of shock.
“Where…where did they go?” I asked.
My question was cut short by a sudden shaking of the floor. I tried to keep my feet, but instead, I fell, only doing further injury to my broken leg. I screamed as white-hot pain shot up my leg and through the rest of me.
But Isaru and Shara could not help. The entire Palace heaved, even as flecks of paint from the mural above rained down in a cascade of dust, soon followed by panels and chunks of ichorstone, all slamming into the heaving floor.
“The Palace is collapsing!” Isaru shouted.
We crawled on all fours across the uneven, cracking floor to the doors. A giant chunk of the ceiling fell just ahead and we dodged just before it could make an end of us.
I didn’t want to know what would happen if I died here. I didn’t want to think of Isa waiting forever by our cold bodies. I didn’t want to break another promise.
“There has to be a way out,” I said. “We just have to find it.”
The shaking ceased, if only for a bit – enough time to stand. Shara and Isaru helped me along, and we pushed through the throne room doors.
The Cerulean Stairway was in ruin, completely impassable. We would have to find another way down.
We circled around the dome, even as the floor gave another massive heave, which threw us into the air and almost right over the balustrade. I ignored the pain, hopping along the walkway until we came to another set of stairs. They were mostly intact, and the only direction to go.
“We can’t go up there,” Shara said. “We have to go down.”
“Yes, this is the right way,” I said. “I can feel it.”
Without waiting for them to follow, I started dragging myself up the stairs.
“Shanti, we have to find a way down!” Isaru said. “What are you doing?”
I remembered Mia’s words: that the Xenofold reached, even here. I had to trust that. It was the only way we would survive.
“Just trust me,” I said. “I think I can get us out.”
There was nothing they could do but follow me.
Once I reached the top of the stairs, it was to a wide set of windows, all of which were shattered. The Heavenly Windows afforded an apocalyptic view of the city – towers crumbled, bridges collapsed, and a great fire sent plumes of smoke into the sky from the forest beyond.
“There’s no way out,” Shara said. “Even if there had been a way down.”
I could see she was right. I looked behind only to see that the circular walkway itself was collapsing, cutting off the option of going back. The ledge of the Palace before us crumbled further, rocking the floor and dipping forward.
I screamed, kneeling down and grabbing a nearby column. Isaru and Shara had also grabbed hold of their own columns.
We were only delaying the inevitable.
Please…I need a way out. Anything. I don’t want to break another promise. Never again.
And then, over the edge…a gleaming light, hanging in the air horizontally. I had seen that before, in the Hyperfold of Mia’s dream.
The Archway, I thought. The escape!
“It might not be too late!” I shouted.
Isaru and Shara looked at me, and I let go of the column with my left arm, pointing downward. “That silver plane in that arch. It will lead us out. I’m sure of it!”
The archway was also a good fifty feet down, and perhaps ten feet out, hanging perfectly in the middle of the air. Likely, it had seen no other place to open up. Why it had to wait until now, and not in the throne room, I would never know. Maybe I could have summoned it there, too, if only I was thinking of it.
“Jump through,” I said. “It’s the only way.”
“Your leg,” Shara said. “You won’t make it!”
“Watch me,” I said.
The archway was closest to Shara; she merely had to let go, and would probably roll far enough to hit it directly. As far as Isaru and me, we’d have to jump over to her position when it came our turn.
“I’ll be the guinea pig, then,” Shara said. She forced a smile, but there was fear in her eyes.
“It’s probably temporary,” I said. “We have to…”
She let go, standing up and running down the ledge, leaping off at the last second.
“…hurry,” I finished.
I watched as she fell down, and it felt as if my heart was going to leap into my throat. And then, there was a snapping sound – the same kind that had sounded in the throne room with Shal’s vortex.
I worried that I had just sent her to wherever Shal was going to send Mia and Isandru. But it was either the archway or dying here for sure.
The floor shifted again, and the angle of the floor became more precarious. It teetered until it was clear that, in seconds, there was not going to be a floor.
Isaru and I had no time. We both leaped with all we had toward the column Shara had vacated, a column whic
h was now collapsing. We crashed into each other, haphazardly rolling down the ledge.
It was up to fate, now.
And then, we were in the air. The feeling reminded me of the fall in Colonia, only this time, Isaru and I were falling together.
We looked at each other for a brief moment, no more than a second, before the Hyperfold winked out of existence.
* * *
When I came to awareness, I was standing in a black void surrounded by a multitude of stars. They shone brightly in the darkness, and I knew, somehow, someway, I hadn’t returned to my body in the present time.
I was somewhere else, or at least my consciousness was.
Despite the beauty of seeing the stars in sharp contrast, I felt a darkness lurking out there…a darkness I felt my mind connecting to, even as I did everything I could to keep that darkness at bay.
Shara was floating not far away, and Isaru still even further, barely discernible with the distance.
Shara and I floated closer together, and I was relieved when we locked arms, allowing us to float together.
“We need to get Isaru,” I said.
“He’s getting further away…” Shara said.
I could see that she was right. Isaru was smaller, now.
“Isaru!”
If anything, my voice seemed to make him get further away. I felt myself panic. I couldn’t move here. Somehow, Shara and I had already been heading toward each other, but Isaru had blasted off in a different direction.
It would be impossible to catch him.
“Isaru!”
His name ripped from my throat. My voice didn’t sound like my own, filled with sheer panic and fear. I knew he wasn’t coming back. Wherever this was…
“No…” I said.
And then, there was a bright light, shooting past our position and into the cosmos. Despite the light, I still couldn’t see Isaru. Tears were stinging my face, and all of a sudden, it got very cold. The air seemed to be going away, and my tears froze to my face. I tried to call his name again, only no sound came out. It was so cold…
And when there was no more air, I closed my eyes. In the Silence of my mind, I saw Isaru as clearly as if I were looking at him face to face. His own eyes were closed. Ice had formed on his lashes and his hair.
