by Kylie Leane
“Nefertem,” Denvy murmured.
He had disturbed the Zaprex with his glee, and a rather amused face was now studying him. Stunning sapphire eyes danced with mirth. Denvy felt his limbs slacken. They were exactly as they should have been—old, weary, but ever welcoming in the silver-tinged features of the delicate fairy.
“Maahes, whatever brings you here?” Nefertem set down the tattered book it had been reading, one nimble finger tracing the worn brown paper as though the tome was precious. In the light from the towering window, the graceful Zaprex’s semi-transparent chiton constantly changed colour, mimicking the surrounds. “I thought you were playing with the other cubs who came up from the surface? Hazanin organized the whole thing for your hatching-day.”
Denvy crinkled his nose. Hatching-day. Yes. That was what Zaprexes called their day-of-birth, but he had no recollection of this particular memory, or this dream. He slackened, staring around at the vast hall, empty of all but him and his creator.
“Maahes, is everything all right?” Nefertem’s body whirred as it floated up from the seat. Ethereal wings expanded, flowing freely in strands of glossy energy. On slender heels, Nefertem landed beside him, barely reaching him mid-waist. Long ears twitched rearward in enquiry, though the smile he received was tender. It terrified him.
Nefertem should not have been smiling.
Nefertem should have been weeping. Everything the fairy loved, everything the fairy had worked for, was decaying and falling to ruins. Denvy squeezed his paws tightly. This Nefertem was a dream of a time before the Thousand Sol-cycle War. It did not know of the horrors to come.
“I think I am lost, Gifu,” Denvy whispered.
“Lost?” Nefertem blinked, expression flipping from a pleasant glow to a calculating frown for a brief moment. It lifted his paw and gave it a gentle pat.
“Mayhap something has gone awry in your navigational software. I shall have a look this evening during your hibernation.” Nefertem turned, tugging gently on his paw. “Come along. We cannot get lost in our own home, can we? Walk with me.”
The stroll was slow, for Nefertem’s steps were far shorter than his long strides, and he tried to compensate for the elegant Zaprex. They stopped constantly to allow Nefertem to engage in conversation with the patrons of the glowing halls and high walkways. It was the noise that confused him. It was like wind through a forest, only the forest was far below them, deep in the bowels of the city’s inner sanctum. After passing another dozen Zaprexes, chatting happily and breaking his heart with their impish smiles, the noise intensified. He had not heard it for so long it was no wonder he had forgotten the sound. The dream he had conjured up was so accurate it had even recreated the buzzing hive melody of Zaprexes all dwelling in one hub. Hearing the harmony almost made him lose his footing beside Nefertem.
His foot-paws halted and he stood limply, allowing the song to seep deeply into his core. Tears trickled down his cheeks. He had forgotten what it had been like to be connected to such an immense symphony. For so long, it had just been him, Hazanin, and a few of the Ancient Ones who held on to the vagueness of hope. And their combined melodies were so weak.
This was true harmony—what the Zaprexes did best.
“Everyone dies,” he choked out weakly.
“The Sun sets on every Empire, Maahes. It will even set on ours.” Nefertem’s hand curled into his fur.
“No, you don’t understand Gifu. Everyone dies. I lose everyone.”
“When you are lost, what do you do?”
Denvy frowned. The Zaprex’s tone was gentle and yet urging as though tugging his mind in the direction it needed to turn. He stared out across the scene he had long forgotten; even in his dreams it had been vague and blurred. Never was it this crisp.
“You find your way home,” he murmured.
“Yes.” Nefertem nodded. “You find your way home. Denvy. It is time for you to go home. Your home needs you. It is calling you, across time and space, drawing you in, even if you have not yet realised it.”
The overwhelming flood of emotion took him by surprise. Through his foot-paws, a dreamathic bond of immense power bombarded him. His fur stood on end and his fan-tail expanded to full frill at the familiar gush of love and warmth as Tikal’s artificial intelligence made a mental connection deep inside his mind. A knitted web filled the hole the yoke had torn open, and, so faintly, he could see a flicker of dreamathic threads surrounding him.
He was actually here. Denvy staggered back, his breaths coming in sudden, sharp gasps as he struggled to take in the real, fresh, untainted air. The Dragon still slumbered in this world. The Zaprexes still ruled. They were healing the shattered planet piece by piece. The Towers were brimming with life. He was home, before the Thousand Sol-cycle War.
Twisting sharply, Denvy stared down at Nefertem.
“This is impossible. I’m home. I’m home?”
Nefertem’s hands curled behind its back. “Hazanin must be dead in the future if Time is rippling. Interesting. I suppose that means the cycle is broken in the future. Troubling, but not unexpected from Sehkmet’s calculations.” The Zaprex twirled about. A door to the side of the hall opened, revealing an outside balcony. He followed the fairy through the entrance, blinking in the sunshine. Raising a paw to shade his eyes, Denvy watched sky-ships glittering in the rosy pink sunset across the sky-sea. His hearts raced at the sight and he wanted to vault over the edge of the boulevard. But he could not join them. He could not fly with them. This was not his time.
“How am I here?”
Nefertem shrugged. “It is likely that, in the future, the mainframe of the Northlands is being reset and you are being caught up in a reality ripple. I’d expect a few hiccups to happen if it’s a single sector reset and not a full world-system reinstall. Even then, I couldn’t hope for a hundred percent wipe out of the old desktop and mainframe.”
Denvy ruffled his air-gills. He had to trust that Nefertem was correct. After all it was the scientist behind the sector-gods and the sectors of the Lands of Livila. While it might not have created the actual Towers, it was the combined Pantheon themselves that had built the software within them. His creator and Hazanin had been the two Zaprexes remaining who had devised the plan to pull the Northlands together, creating its rotational spin to replace the Towers.
“Why am I here?”
“You said you are lost; you have found your way home.” Nefertem joined him, taking out its book as it seated itself on a nearby seat. “I think your consciousness is trying to tell you something.”
Denvy opened his mouth. Nefertem lifted a hand, stalling his words before they escaped his mouth.
“My dear Maahes, you know very well that telling me anything now will not change your reality. It will simply change a reality that is not yours. Your past has already happened, my future has not. They cannot merge.”
Denvy slumped into the seat beside the fairy. “Everyone dies…”
“You don’t.” Nefertem pressed a kiss to his forehead. “And, therefore, my song lives on in you, my dear son. Hold on to that.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
As you sit surrounded by your mirrors, which reflect your true nature, do you ever wonder what I do as I sit up here watching a world burn?
NORTHERN TOWER – private communication linkage –
01010011 01100101 01101011 01101000 01101101 01100101 01110100
The touch had been gentle, sending Denvy drifting back to a time he could barely recall. A hazy place in his mountains of memories stored on top of each other, weighing each other down until they were so compressed he could no longer bother remembering his youth.
But the touch and the sweet tender voice that accompanied it comforted him more than the pressure of the blankets and the warmth of a bed made for the heavy structure of his body. Denvy drifted in and out of the freedom of sleep, the deepest sleep he had settled into since his capture, and always the presence was behind him, the touch and the voice.
Gradually layers peel
ed back, fold by fold, and he woke. Precious life flowed through his limbs, and, while it was not the return to his immortality, he could feel his base program gradually beginning to repair itself. That meant the nano-bots in his body had regained function. Denvy sank deeper into the bed. It creaked and he relished the sound. Blankets slid off as he lazily raised an arm and scratched behind an ear.
He paused.
His lips parted. “Oh no.”
His mane was gone. Denvy felt his head, his still-aching chest heaving in mild panic as he had the horrible thought that his air-gills were also missing, but he finally encountered the frilled gills and relaxed slightly.
So, it was only his matted mane that had been removed, the crown of a prince’s glory. He had never been one for vanity, but deep down he was still a Kattamont prince. He had been a bit proud of his shaggy golden locks.
He stared at the ceiling and the lantern dangling above him, swaying back and forth. The scale of everything surrounding him was designed around something the size of a large Kattamont like himself. Sickly sweet scents lingered in the air and in the blankets. It had seeped into the wooden walls and floors—the aroma of a female Kattamont, and, by the intensity of it, a queen. He was in the quarters and the bed of a queen—with his mane shaved off.
Denvy crinkled his brow at the thought. Considering his size he doubted there had been any other place to put him, but he could not recall a queen ever giving up her quarters for a saggy old prince.
Had Utillian traditions changed in his centuries of self-imposed exile?
And had she—
Had she shaved off his mane?
“That’d be nice,” he grumbled. “Always did hate tradition.”
Still, he shuddered to think of what he looked like without the golden layers of his cascading hair and beard. He ran his paw over his chin. Some relief returned as he felt that whoever had given him a shave had left at least a small sampling for him to fuss over.
Worry not, old one. Mother has good taste. A dreamathic giggle tickled the edges of his mind.
He almost sat up in alarm, but his wasted muscles barely raised him from the pillows. It had been so long since he had felt anything remotely dreamathic. It was almost painful to bear and he rubbed his temples as he rolled himself from the heavy covers. Weakly he cast them aside. No one was in the dimly lit room. Outside the small pot-hole window, the sky-sea was a dull haze. It would never grow as dark in Utillia from the Long Night that fell across the Northlands, for the burning-sea reflected an enormous amount of light and heat into the sky-sea, which reflected light back, like two mirrors facing each other. But the Long Night was approaching. He could feel it in his bones. The Northlands was changing its tilt. The spin was slowing. Would this then be the last time the Northlands spun? Had the patch Nefertem tried to install, joining all the lands of the north together to keep Livila alive for just a little longer, finally run its course? He hated to think so, but it was possible that this was to be the Long Night that ended it all.
The dreamathic giggle caused him to lift his head once more. His eyes sought the door and he frowned. It was open slightly. An invitation for him to leave the cabin, if he could manage it.
Setting his teeth in a snarl, Denvy heaved himself up, wobbling on his legs. Rather more swiftly than he anticipated the nearest wall impacted his shoulder and he supported himself against it. Gradually he made his way out into the corridors beyond, keeping slow and steady on his foot-paws. He was on a sand-ship, that much he could deduce by the swaying, and the rich smell of processed Mist being channelled through powerful thrusters somewhere deep within the engines churning below. It was a distinct scent that reminded him of old, vicious days of warfare, bloodshed, and pride against pride. With a paw upon the rough surface of the timber corridor, he followed the pattern of the mind that was calling him, whispering with soft, fluttering touches. Onward through winding, intersecting passageways he staggered, until he felt the sudden strength of a powerful wind gusting down the corridor.
Denvy’s air-gills spread in surprise. He hissed, releasing the thick feathers down the spine of his tail and he turned to encounter the familiar head of a burning wind far more ancient than even he was. Only he did not meet the shifty shape of something out of his past, coming to haunt him in jest to test his sanity. Instead a youthful prince was slumped against the wall, studying him with thoughtful azure eyes.
Teal-coloured air-gills and fan-tail feathers lay flat in submission to his superior age. Despite his strangely limp posture, the youth was showing subservience—apart from his hard, clear eyes. The pure ebony pelt, glossed with a silver lining, revealed a true descendent of the Silvertide Pride. Denvy straightened as best he was able, trying to overcome the pressure within the passageway as it continued to build.
“Denvy Maz, Dream Master of the Northlands of Livila, it really has been a while. So perhaps I should call you Maahes, yes?”
Denvy frowned. “Do I know you?”
“Oh, yes.” The prince gave an awkward bow. “Forgive me for not introducing myself. You would not recognize me. I blended myself into this child’s body. You would remember me as Khamsin, Titan of the North Wind.”
“By the Almighty Sun.” Denvy landed against the nearest wall. “Impossible. You perished. The Dragon threw all the Titans into the Unknown Realm and sealed you therein.”
Khamsin shook his head. “It was a frightening battle of Elemental forces, indeed. I daresay it took out half this world with it, but I ran away before it truly began. I admit I was a coward, but I lived to fight another day.”
Denvy scrubbed at his stubble beard, studying the young Kattamont. “So you will fight?’
“This child I inhabit has a strong will of his own. If he desires to do something then I will follow him and act accordingly. It was our pact. He provides me with energy to exist in this Realm, and I sustain his existence. He was born dead, Denvy. This land is tainted by the Zaprex waste.” Khamsin sounded weary. “Something terrible has befallen Utillia—”
“The Zaprex crystals are growing out of their containment fields, aren’t they?”
Khamsin snapped his head up, a momentary delay before surprise graced the young features of his host. “Yes. They are. How did you guess that? It took my children so long to figure that out, and they have been here for centuries.”
Denvy shrugged. “I was raised amongst Zaprexes. Their technology is not unknown to me. You mentioned your children. Am I to presume then that the Simoon have entered the Primary Realm, like the Thyrrhos of Prometheus?”
Khamsin clicked his tongue. “They followed the Thyrrhos, yes, but I have not been leading them as my sibling leads her people. Until recently I did not know of my children’s suffering here in Utillia.”
“Suffering?” Denvy stepped back a pace.
“Yes.” Khamsin hissed. “I desire to discover why my children are being enslaved by the Kattamonts, and, in repayment for saving her precious son, Zafiashid, Outcast of the Silvertide Pride, will save my children.” Khamsin chuckled. “She does not believe in curses.” His arm jerked outwards and he roughly bumped open the door beside him. “What better queen to have on your side than a queen brave enough to spit in the face of an Elemental Titan?”
“I suppose so,” Denvy muttered as he followed Khamsin through the entrance, pausing on the threshold of a homely cabin that reminded him more of the interior of a small home than anything aboard a sand-ship. Warmth emanated from a stove beside a bench covered in cooking utensils and healing kits. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling, along with dangling lanterns.
A table was bolted tightly to the floor, along with the bookshelves, closed in to keep the books stored therein secure against the rocking and tossing of the sand-ship. The large bed was fit for a small pride, as wide as it was long. Denvy studied Khamsin’s host. The young Kattamont prince looked as though he had reached his mature height, and barely touched Denvy’s shoulders, therefore it was the startlingly pale, albino prince whom everyth
ing in the cabin was heighted for. Denvy smiled at the tall and graceful male who matched his own towering figure and rarity in fur tone. He sat on the bed’s side, tending to a sight that made his hearts beat lightly in relief. Jarvis. Dear sweet little Jarvis was bundled under the blankets.
Denvy scanned the room, catching what he had missed. Ki’b lay in a small cot by the heat of the stove. He should have known she would not have been far from Jarvis’ side.
A princess seated in a chair waved. “Khamsin, you may go.” Khamsin bowed and Denvy watched in fascination as the body of the young Kattamont shifted its stance, the change in personality shown in the face as it relaxed. He glanced at Denvy with a sheepish smile.
“I apologise, sir. Khamsin wanted to greet you. He said you were old…friends?”
“Friends is a bit of a stretch, but perhaps now that can happen. Time tends to change even Elementals.” Denvy chuckled. As unexpected as it was to find another Titan still in existence, it was not unwelcome. The Thousand Sol-cycle War had changed all Livila, and all those who dwelt upon her, and perhaps even the Elementals had realized their grave and terrible mistake.
The young prince inclined his head. “I am Prince Aaldryn, the alpha of our pride. Allow me to introduce you to my blood-brother, Jythal, and our queen, Nixlye.”
So that explained why their little cabin was set out in such a manner—they were a pride, and the princess was not a neutral waiting to be a queen.
She was already a queen.
A very young queen, who presented herself as a neutral princess to the world outside of their little cabin. He was being honoured, as an elderly prince, to be permitted into their sanctuary.
Nixlye wheeled her chair towards him and he offered his paw for her to scent. Her colours were as beautiful as he remembered them, even distracted and overwhelmed as he had been by the poachers. Soft pink fur, and a tail full of lavender and white feathers. The hues were delicately pastel, alluring a watcher into a false sense of calm. Whatever confined her to the wheelchair lay hidden under layers of homespun blankets.
