Everything goes silent. The whole temple radiates with silver light.
I understand.
The ground starts shaking.
The marble floor splinters and cracks.
Ifrit stumbles backwards, a hole burning open in her chest. She is not Ifrit anymore. She is Saiara.
I stand up, trying to keep my footing, and reach out my hands toward Saiara. But she is too far away, and something is grasping my neck, holding me back. I pull with all of my strength, but I can’t move any closer to her.
The ground cleaves apart behind her.
She stumbles backwards over the edge, swallowed up by the chasm.
The temple ceiling shatters with the force of the quake.
Stones rain down.
* * *
“Oren. Wake up, Oren. Tell me what you see.” Vizia was shaking me.
The ceiling spun above my eyes. My arms came up to protect my head from falling stone.
“Oren. You’re okay. You’re back now.” His hand on my arm was gentle and firm as he pulled it down from my face. I found his eyes, and there was a warmth there. “Tell me. What did you see?”
“I… saw her.”
“Who, Oren?”
“Saiara. Ifrit. Cere. They were each themselves, but they were also all the same. They were trying to tell me something. It was so clear. But… I can’t… I have lost it.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“It was Manderley, but different. I went into a temple like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The whole building started to shake and the ground opened and she fell in. I couldn’t save her.” Hot tears were streaming down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes, shaking my head. “I am sorry, Vizia.”
“You’re fine, Oren. Just fine.” He paused, searching. “You know that Forsara was almost destroyed, when the moon was sintered by Shugguth?”
I nodded. My neck was aching. I groaned with the discomfort.
“Life is filled with failure. Our ideas fail. Our bodies fail. The stars fail. It is the fundamental nature of the universe. The oldest lesson.” He stroked my hair. “Looking back, it sometimes seems impossible that we ever made it this far. We have ravaged ourselves and our planets many times over. And nature has ravaged us. We fear the flaring sun and the tidal waves and the quaking earth, but they are the softest breath of the universe. A pulsar blasts destructive gamma radiation millions of galactic years into space. The gravity of a dying dwarf star flattens whole worlds. A black hole tears apart the very fabric of space-time.
“But still we persevere. Out of suffering and loss, we extract joy and wonder. Out of death comes new life. That is what makes all of this so beautiful. Failure is not an ending. It is a catalyst. A dying star bursts, spreading its seed, and new stars and worlds are born.
“Perhaps, when the universe is so cold and empty that all life as we know it has stopped, the universe will cross an unseen horizon and become something new altogether. We cannot know. All we have is our faith that in the face of unknowing, there is always life, even when there are none to live it.”
“But what if it is all just emptying out? What if this is all we have?”
“Yes. What if.” He smiled at me. “Come. Stand up. Your body will be sore, but the full eclipse is coming soon, and we need to get you ready for the viewing.”
* * *
People were buzzing with excitement. In a few short hours, Shugguth would eclipse Appollion. It happened just once every four centuries, and the buildup to this moment had filled the world with a sense of joy and celebratory reverence. This moment represented the choice we all had to make. Sunlight or starlight. Home down here, or home out there. The Choosing.
Billions of people on the light side of the planet would bathe in purple warmth as the two suns became one. The Convergence. And those of us on the dark side, we were going to see the stars in all their majesty, blazing silver and white, unimpeded by the light of the suns. The Vastness.
Those who chose the Vastness yearned for something beyond. Explorers. Dreamers. Deviants. Whatever our motivations, we all aspired to a life out past the edges of the Forsaran system. For weeks, astronomists had been streaming down from satellite orbit, preparing the observatories and watch towers for the constellate ceremonies. The people in the darkened lands burned great fires to welcome them. They had the privilege of seeing the stars first, and they served as honorary hosts to the myriad of peoples making their way across the planet into the long night.
I walked behind Viziadrumon as we headed towards the upper deck. We were getting on a small, sub-orbital hopper to cross over the mountains and into the darkened lands. Even though I towered over Vizia, I felt invisible at his side. He was something of a legend here in the academy. Cadets and fellows alike were in awe of him as we strode through the corridors. Over the centuries, he had trained tens of thousands of cadets. Some of our most esteemed fellows had felt the thrill of challenge and the sting of failure under his tutelage.
“Why are you doing this, drumon? Why bother with me?”
He stopped walking and turned to face me, looking up at me. Randall hovered in the air beside his head. It made a chirping noise, as if to fill the silence. Finally, Vizia said, “You are my last project, Oren. At Saiara’s request. She believes in you. And I believe in her. So I’m going to help you.”
“Your last project?”
Randall chirped again. Its surface shifted from silver to gold, then back again.
Vizia laughed, then said, “Well, my last project like this, at least. I’ve been at this for too long. Longer than you’ve been alive, young blood.
“I was here during the last Convergence, you know.” He shook his head. “Oh, you should have seen it. The way the whole city turned to violet, and we danced and drank and sang as the two suns became one. But my energy wanes. I must walk a new path soon, or else fizzle out. Perhaps you will even help me find a way.”
He searched my face for a moment, deep lines of age spidering out through his acorn skin from the edges of his eyes. Then he turned and walked on ahead, his short legs moving quickly, Randall floating after him. Even with my long legs, I had to hurry to keep up.
Up on the deck, the sky was glaring white with the brightness of both suns. They were blazing, not yet overlapping, and it was almost unbearable. But the wind was warm and steady, and I leaned into it, looking down over the gleaming city as the air pushed and prodded me, whipping my hair and tugging the sleeves of my tunic.
Vizia tapped me on the arm and pointed towards the horizon of night that clipped the upper half of the distant mountains. Thousands of lights snaked up the dark side of the mountains, flickering streams of people making the pilgrimage on foot, crossing through to the long night.
“I made that journey once too,” he said. “It was brutal. And beautiful. I will never forget it. The way we walked from day into night. The way our solar torches flared up as we crossed over. Looking back on the city, bathed in warm violet light, and then up at the mountain tops, looming in the darkness.”
My mind worked over the math of his two contradicting statements. Had he stayed in Forsara to celebrate the previous Convergence, as he had said earlier? Or had he traveled into the long night of the Vastness, as he was describing now? Was he implying that this was his third Choosing? I looked at him, my jaw slackening, my eyebrows raised. “But… how old are you, Viziadrumon?”
He just shook his head again, smiling, remembering.
The hopper touched down. We hustled on board, and the door sealed with a quiet hiss as the shipheart registered our biosigs. The noise of the wind disappeared and we were up in the air, the mountains racing towards us. We crossed into night, passing above the hardened pilgrims.
Vizia gestured, encompassing the world spread out below us. “We are forever traveling through space. Tonight, we will see the light of dead and dying worlds. We will look back across time.
“And what are we against that boundless span? Even the longest-lived among us must o
ne day die. In fact, we are dying every day. Shedding memories, and molecules, and old ideas, our identity fluid, changing. What is the fixed point? Does anything persist? That is one of the great questions of the Fellowship. It is another way of asking what you asked me yesterday. ‘What if this is all there is?’ It is up to each of us to answer it for ourselves.”
He turned back to the wide, glass window, looking down at the world below.
* * *
“Look. Look there.” All of the speeches were long over. The ritual dances had been spent. Many people had fallen asleep, too drunk or tired to stay awake any longer. But we stood well away from the nearby bonfire, and I followed Vizia’s hand as he pointed towards a cluster of yellow and silver stars.
My neck was aching. We had been staring at the Vastness for hours, thousands and thousands of points of light gliding above us through the wide, dark night. “It is beautiful, drumon. It is all so beautiful.”
“Yes. But look closer. There, right there.” He gestured with emphasis, and reached his other hand behind my head, forcing my gaze in his desired direction. His bony fingers wrapped around the base of my skull, warm and smooth.
“What am I looking for?”
“That yellowing smudge.”
“… Yes! I see it.”
He released his hand from my neck. “The Dromedar cluster. Deep in the Cthlonian arm of the galaxy. That is where Saiara is going.”
He kept his eyes to the night sky, and I studied his silhouette. His long, rounded nose. The wide forehead. His thin hair, pulled back into a tail, tightening the skin around his ears and eyes. “Seven of our own,” he said. “A vanguard, traveling outwards, leaving behind their homes, everything they know, so that they may bring life and bear witness.”
His eyes were faint glimmers in the starlight. “The probability is high that we will never see them again.” He turned to look at me. “That you might never see Saiara again.”
“I… I know. But I want to see her again, if I can.”
He nodded. “There is so much left to chance. But maybe, just maybe, they will succeed, and the Fellowship will burn that much brighter against the emptiness. And if they do, then perhaps you will get your wish.”
He dropped his head and closed his eyes. “Let us return to the fire. It is time for me to rest. Tomorrow you must decide what comes next.”
* * *
“Over the days ahead,” Vizia said, “as our two suns move past each other in their orbits, light will work its way back into the lands, filling in the mountains and townships, the canyons and forests, shadows shrinking, retreating, returning. I hope you use that time to prepare yourself.”
We stood at the train station, watching hundreds of small transport risers climb back up through the atmosphere and into satellite orbit, returning the astronomists to the star-viewing vessels, out beyond the ambient light reflecting from the planet.
In a sub-orbital hopper, the trip would take barely an hour, but I had decided to take the overland passage back to Manderley. Traveling by solar rail would take several days, and I relished the thought of drinking in the countryside. Since arriving to Forsara, I had spent virtually all of my time either in the city or in the field. There was so much to see.
“You’ll wait for me, right?”
Vizia nodded. “When you return to Manderley, I’ll be ready for you. Your training will begin in earnest. We have much work to do, but I have confidence.” He clasped my hands, looking at my eyes.
Randall floated towards me, shimmering with blues and purples.
I smiled at the mobile intelligence. “See you soon, little guy.”
Randall chirped and turned forest green.
“Come now, Randall,” Vizia said, and he climbed the ramp into the hopper. Randall floated after him, chirping one more time before they disappeared inside. A moment later, the hopper lifted up into the air, quiet and weightless, and darted into the sky.
* * *
The solar train carved through valleys and sped across the land like an arrow, silent and powerful. I enjoyed the sense of perspective from the wide windows of the cabin car. Trees and dwellings and meadows edged the train route, blurring with our passage, dwindling in our wake, while the distant mountains seemed to stand still.
The train was not full, but there were still more than a dozen people in my car. Everyone kept to themselves, using the quiet of the train to read, or work, or daydream. I was grateful for that. I needed the time to just be, no one watching over me, no one judging me.
The hours passed, and the world passed with them. I slipped in and out of sleep. If I dreamed, I do not remember. When the train stopped, passengers disembarked and new ones took their place. I paid them all little mind, occupied with my own reflections and wanderings. I thought of Saiara, always a few steps ahead of me. Of Ifrit, her firebrand anger, the way she died for what she believed in. Of Transcend personified, strange and enchanting and mysterious, ushering me into field consciousness.
My mind wandered to my parents. A pang of guilt for leaving them behind came over me. But my mind carried me past the guilt, back across the light years between us, back to my first simple, golden summer beneath the amber light of Cordelar, before I learned the harsh, cold lessons of the long winter.
I was so lost in remembering that I did not look up when I heard the carriage door slide open. The sound barely registered. The soft footfalls on the padded floor that came closer and closer to me were just background noise, almost imperceptible. Even when they stopped right next to me, I still did not look up.
Then she sat down across from me and said my name.
For one terrifying instant, I was back on the Arcturean moon, and she was screaming for help, and the horrible shipheart was above me, teeth silver and sharp.
She reached across the table, stroking my hand. “It’s okay, Oren. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“Cere.” I choked out her name. I stared at her, my jaw hanging open.
“It is good to see you again.” Her smile was compassionate.
“Eledar’s breath. What are you doing here?”
“Same as you, I imagine. Traveling home from the celebrations. I saw you through the window when I boarded a few stops back, and I’ve been thinking about what to say to you.”
“I wish I had the same time to think. It’s been so long. I’m not sure what to say.”
She nodded. “It’s been a long time. And from what I hear, you have been through a lot since we last parted.”
I lowered my eyes, embarrassed at the thought of what she might have heard.
“Oren. Look at me.”
I looked at her.
“If there’s anyone who might be able to understand what you’re going through right now, it’s me. You know that, right?
“You did your best. Now you have to figure out how to live with the fact that your best wasn’t enough. But that doesn’t make you a terrible person. If anything, it will make you a stronger one.”
“What happened to you? After? I had heard you were released from medical care, but I never saw you again.”
Instead of answering with words, she lowered her forehead down to the table, fanning her hair towards me, revealing her neck. My breath caught in my throat as I sucked in air through my teeth. There was a faint circle of discoloration where her field port should have been. It had been sealed off.
She sat back up, and she was not smiling anymore.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Cere. It’s just… It surprised me to see that.”
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching across the table to touch the back of my hand. “Most people react like that. The thought of a loss like this is too upsetting for those who have crossed over and connected.
“But this is how we were once. All of us. And this is how many people in the universe still are. Living every day in our waking bodies, alone with our own minds, the wanderings and anxieties and distractions, the constant stream of our own consciousness, seemingly isolated fr
om everyone else’s ideas and dreams and feelings.”
We sat in silence for a while, staring out at the blurring world.
“Were you angry at Dar?” I asked after a time. “For what she did to you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Anger doesn’t do it justice. Rage. Bitterness. Fear. Jealousy. So many feelings. And not just towards Dar. I was angry at you. At Kino. At everyone. But none of us could have controlled what happened. And, in the end, I was the one who made the decision to press ahead, to try and interface with that damnable corruption.”
“I… I think you did the best you knew how. Darpausha too, though I don’t know how she did it. It seems an impossible choice.”
Cere stared down at her hands, fingers splayed on the table. “The madness of that shipheart was a terrible, alien thing. It left some kind of neural virus in our minds. I survived. So did Sulimon and Mahkoun. But the others were too far gone. Their brains were pitted and cratered.”
“Eledar’s breath. That is awful.”
“And if Dar hadn’t the will to act, who knows how many more would have suffered.” She looked up at me. “Sometimes, there are no good options, Oren. When you’re older, you’ll understand that.”
“Darpausha said the same thing to me.”
She smiled a rueful smile. “I probably learned that from her.” She looked back out the window of the train.
“What did you do? When you recovered?”
“As soon I was well enough, I scoured Transcend’s networks for any sign of the abomination, but it was either gone, or hiding too deep for us to find.” She shrugged. “So, I moved on. I have spent the past seven years working with Transcend on my rehabilitation, exercising my mind and body to release the trauma and carve new neural pathways. We have discussed my reconnection to the field, of course, but Transcend worries that my mind won’t be able to handle it a second time. For the foreseeable future, this is my life.”
“I’m so sorry, Cere. I wish… I wish I could have done more.”
“You probably saved my life, Oren. I am grateful to you. My anger is long past.” She touched my hand again.
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