He shrugged noncommittally. “We’ll make do.” Glancing back at her when she fell slightly behind to stare disconcertedly at a small sapling that was, like the rest, in the right shape but colored with an old face, he added, “Isn’t that what all your fictitious heroes do? Make do?”
“Sure, cause this is so heroic.” Jess scoffed. “You haven’t even explained why those stones need to be hidden? Why can’t we just leave them everywhere? Wouldn’t it be safer that way?”
Stopping, Kilpeni tried to think of a reason to dismiss her concerns and prevent the exchange of more information than he would be comfortable. “I did tell you there are those who want to get into the core.”
“Yes.”
“Doing so would end poorly,” he replied and went to move on.
She threw her hands up in frustration. “Well – that’s fantastically vague.”
Sighing, he stopped and turned to face her. “I’ll try to simplify this for you because no matter how intelligent you think you are this is a line of facts designed to be invisible to your core world brain. The further out in the dimensions we get, the less there will be. Some of it will make sense – mainly third and on, but the second is built upon a separating foundation. There is nothing here but Aisling. While in the third, there is no land. There is only limitless air and water in dual layers that will be hard for your brain to interpret. Fourth will seem silent because of the thickness you will think is in the air, but that won’t be why you can’t hear anything; fifth dimension will have no water. Six will have no gravity as you know it, but there will be a central pull and a heat source that I won’t even begin to attempt to explain. The seventh will have no heat. Eighth – no light – that is where we’re heading.”
“A bit better. Now who are we facing here? Not a pretend villain – the big guy behind the curtain.” She lowered her voice and matched the intent in his tone. Kilpeni’s brows knotted, uncertain of where she acquired her surprising skill in mimicry.
“It is highly possible that there are further dimensions; however, the…well, the people who live in the eighth function under the weakest laws, as we know them. Therefore, they are – weak – and need hosts to function in any dimension with heat or gravity – the sixth and lower. The parasite on the Aisling back on the bus was called an Illuxenolith. In the eighth, it’s self-sufficient but with a habit for an endless appetite. They’ve been making moves outside their dimension longer than any of us would care to admit.” The corners of his lips tilted towards as Kilpeni glanced up as one of the trees stretched. Not for the first time, he wished she was more willing to settle for less information. If they continued to speak so frequently, the pair would undoubtedly attract unwanted attention during their time in the second. “They aren’t the easiest creatures to talk to, but we’ve had a few occasions where they’ve used hosts to get demands across.”
“And these mobster leeches want what exactly?” she asked.
“Everything – all the dimensions including the core which means they need a mode of transport that can survive across them and move between them. Aislings are the best at that, but we’re blocked from the core without the stones. They get the stones; they can take an army of woken and infected Aislings across to the core,” Kilpeni explained before continuing southward.
Walking beside him, Jess inquired, “Why?’
“Why what?” Kilpeni retorted.
“What’s the motivation to cross into the core world? It isn’t naturally comfortable to them. It doesn’t have materials they need. It doesn’t profit them, right? Villains have motivation; these guys don’t have any.” Stuffing her hands in her pockets, Jess hummed softly to herself before falling silent at Kilpeni’s glower.
Once Jess grew quiet, his lips twisted in a small smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Sometimes,” he said, glancing at her. “There aren’t reasons.”
“They aren’t watching the world burn, Kilpeni,” Jess retorted.
“We haven’t been given a reason. Either they don’t have one, or they aren’t about to share it with us,” he explained. Before she could voice her displeasure, he smirked. “Tell you what, you can ask next time we see one.”
“You’re so damn generous.”
He smiled. It wasn’t a beam or an outright shining grin, but there was a smile at the corner of his lips. Kilpeni never had qualms about failing to consider the motive of the leeches. Aislings were not entirely bereft of what Jess would call humanity. They dedicated their lives to the core world with not a single one questioning why they were born into such servitude – what someone as unaccustomed as Jess would call slavery. Ultimately, there was nothing else for Kilpeni or any of the other shadows who were formed in the second dimension. The Compass did not make them without the capacity to reason, but there was a distinct lack of passion.
“We used to talk – you and I – during your hypnagogia and at times right before you slept in your hypnopomia as well when you were little.” Kilpeni chuckled, and he quickened his step.
“Really? Awfully fancy words for the time between dreaming and waking.” Her voice betrayed her skepticism; however, she followed his suit and moved faster. “Besides, I would think I’d remember.”
“You don’t remember a lot of your childhood. Why would you remember something like a dream? Most Aisling get the luxury of tethering themselves while their charge is in the confines of the womb. No one remembers that – no one questions the fact that no one forms memories in there. It was just a few dreams – just a few moments to connect us together tightly enough that we’d survive…” he trailed off frowning.
“Survive you killing an innocent Aisling on the orders of your commander? You compare him to God, right? But that’s not the same – you followed orders that were clearly written on your skin by whatever that thing is.” Jess gestured vaguely to where the letters had already faded across her chest and his arm.
“We are formed by the Compass. We are given orders by the Compass when pulled beyond our first ward. There are those who go their entire existence without hearing from the Compass because they serve and retire without unique circumstances or being recycled for a new ward. You have nothing equivalent in reality or theology to compare to the Compass.” The frown shrunk back into a neutral line. His eyes softened. “I feel that we don’t have any good memories. They’ve been corrupted now, haven’t they?”
Shrugging, Jess stared straight ahead as she replied, “I wouldn’t know.”
Chapter Eight
The stone had been further than expected though Jess had no true way to judge with the ominous white blank glow where she was accustomed to the sun. It sat high within the crevices of a sleeping Aisling’s stone shaped fingers. The stone twisted with tiny flecks flying down through the effervescence between the mountain’s side and the plains below. Tiny burnt pieces of the matter that passed for Aisling flesh floated down like dying leaves. Raw skin remained flickering between an obsidian shade and a copper tone that showed in the not-sun like metal – bronze and perfected beneath the bodies beneath and below. Bits of the Aisling were carved out by a river which snaked its way down from the plateau above.
“Jess.” Kilpeni reached out to stop her as she stepped closer to the mountainside. “Whatever it is, the effect is slow moving. Stay here.”
Nodding, she watched him float towards the tiny stone. He was a character from a game in his movements. Capable of stretching like the heroes in comic books from Mr. Fantastic or Mrs. Incredible to the numerous less popular folks whose bodies were as malleable as their minds. Reality flew in the face of physics, or, perhaps, the physics of the second dimension diverted just enough from Earth’s to muddle her mind. All the uncertainty made it worse. Every time she attempted to rationalize the strangeness, a metallic acidic taste crept over her tongue. Wretched and impossible to swallow, these questions were too extensive. Her year had had enough worldview changing moments. Jess wasn’t ready for Kilpeni, and she certainly wasn’t ready to consider anything e
lse about him and his dimension.
As if sensing her twisting thoughts, the imagery of an nearby Aisling shifted. A hand ran over its face. Expanse and possibility dug into the sleeping being. Dreams of a sun brighter and blinding glowed in the sleeper’s mind. A face pulled forth from the dark where the Aisling had left the visage to rot. A boy – too young – too young to choke on what little life remained. A shadow had screamed for someone to hear the silence and realize the danger as a two-year-old died wondering if crayons tasted like rainbows. Some deaths – some lives were just too painful to come back from; some tours were too heavy to unload. I’m not going back - that unbearable promise to the Compass that any sort of non-existence trumped watching another one die. A flickering memory tracing on the edges of an experience that Aisling didn’t have. Aislings did not dream. They did not have the luxury of firing synapses when they were paralyzed. There, in the paralysis, was nothingness. An abyss was the only rest for those who neither had the capacity to imagine nor the good memories to revisit. Pain rippled up from a hand that the Aisling had forgotten he had.
The sensation of being young again was always novel. Going from a middle-aged veteran and a stroke to guarding a tiny bundle of cells was always strange. Ultimately, the entire length in the dark warmth of the womb was a waiting game. There was always a chance of coming out too soon by choice or by chance and ending up somewhere else faster. The chance that all that bonding and connecting to the forming human would be wasted. Only the reflection would know what he or she would have, could have looked like. Most of the time knowing was worse than the uncertainty, but that was where humans and Aislings differed the most.
Agony etched lines into the smooth face of a child as Kilpeni drew closer. He frowned at the discontent growing within his sleeping brother. The delicate eyelashes of a dead soul quivered under threat of starting a landslide if the reflection awoke. Hovering above the outcrop where the stone had fallen, he stretched down and removed the stone from the fingers that were not yet capable of grasping. The entire form shook with a shuttering relief before a rolling mist crawled back over the raw flesh and pushed the Aisling deeper to sleep. Only a single shutter ran down the arm when Kilpeni pocketed the stone.
“Simple,” Kilpeni whispered once he was returned to Jess’s side. “One down.”
“Seriously? You can draw a conclusion from this you realize. The longer the exposure to the stone, the more awake those things get. Think about it for a minute – what kind of alterations will it make to someone that isn’t sleeping in jello?” she retorted. Her eyes narrowed and a fierce contempt brewing in her tone.
“We’ll find out rather quickly. This is the only stone in this dimension, so next one is either on its own or something will have it.” Kilpeni ambled toward the river. “We need to contact the Compass and get a portal opened to the third dimension.”
“How exactly are we –.” Her words fell short as he transformed his right pointer finger into a claw carving deeply into his arm. “What are you even doing? That’s disgusting!”
“Whisper,” he ordered, keeping his voice rough and low. “The Compass can only do so much. He’s not constantly watching us, you know. There are other people in the world he has to keep track of.”
“Oh my giddy aunt, you’re carving into your arm. You turn yourself into a rubber man and rip yourself to pieces. And you made yourself into a canteen!” She went to throw the canteen away, but Kilpeni caught it, dipping it into the water to fill the container once more.
“You need water. Drink.”
Jess did so after rolling her eyes. Swallowing a few large gulps, she dipped the canteen back into the water feeling the sparks run across her fingers as she filled it before asking. “What exactly am I looking forward to this time? I can’t imagine less than nothing.”
“The second dimension is a coating – the loss truly begins in the third. It’s simple.”
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Jess interjected.
“There is no land. No matter how deep down in the water you go – there is no land. It’s strange. Air above – water below without anything beneath or between.” His lips twitched upwards at the corners. “How simple is nothing?”
“Confoundingly complicated,” Jess replied, and the pair walked further into the clearness of the plain from which they had come.
The mountains shrunk behind them before the fire climbed up Kilpeni’s arm healing his self-inflicted wounds and leaving a reply: Moving Too Slow Stop. Portal In Five Stop. Silence stretches between them as two pairs of eyes trace over the words. Jess nodded before glaring up at the abyss that was the sky. There was no clear beginning or end to what she could only vaguely label as up. Static built running up her spine and across the plain whiteness beneath them. The water parted into a rough ellipse moving in a stream around and around before falling inwards. Static electricity threw the water back into place and a whole new world stood swirling before them from the top of the river to a far above where Jess could reach even on her toes.
“Well, this is it,” the Aisling whispered.
Laughing, Jess glanced at him, stepping closer to the doorway. “One more step – one more step and I’m further than I’ve ever been from home.”
“You have more than enough unique thoughts in your head that you don’t need to quote someone else,” Kilpeni informed her. “You were further from home than you’ve ever been the moment I spoke and you finally listened.”
Stepping closer to the portal, Jess gazed out into an ocean as vast and blue as any she had ever seen. Waves of white and cream rose and crested before falling into the dark hue closer to the space between stars than the oceans she remembered. Clouds hung low and heavy in the air above without the sound of birds to calm the roar below or the hissing of the breeze. The sky reflected the tone of the sea in a lighter shade while gray rolling tempests poured in the distance with lightning dancing between black clouds. There seemed no edge. A vast endless marine body hid away all from her eyes. An ocean rose high before them without a single sign of life above the surface. The third dimension appeared to be nothing more than water and air rising and falling between indistinct regions of space without any land to divide the firmament from the depths.
“On to the second stone, right?” she said. Every gust of wind rippled across and foamed the expanse. “It’s peaceful.”
“From here, I suppose it is,” Kilpeni whispered from beside her.
“It’s also huge.”
“We’ll find it easily enough,” he replied, noticing that she still hesitated to enter the third dimension. “Are you scared?”
“‘You wish, Malfoy,’” she quoted. At his searching stare, she sighed. “What am I leaving behind? A family – that’s it, but that’s everything.” Jess refused to look at him. He had no family to be mourned by, but he knew loss all the same. She couldn’t pretend that her risk was any greater than his.
“You have friends. Importance doesn’t determine how many miss us when we’re gone. You could do nothing and have hundreds.” The sentiment was a usual one for him. Those who had previously faced danger with him had no one to leave behind. Aisling did not mourn, yet another way he had failed.
“I chased all my friends away. I wasn’t there enough. Didn’t call enough or care enough about what they cared about,” she murmured staring into the landless water of the next dimension.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
She snorted derisively. “It became a pattern. A pattern surrounding me – therefore, my fault.”
“Your pattern wasn’t being a poor friend. You choose bad friends. Perhaps due to your belief that you couldn’t possibly deserve better,” Kilpeni retorted. “Did you ever think you might have to be alone to be great? Being important ultimately results in being alone.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s what people tell themselves when they don’t have anyone who wants to be around them.” She didn’t wait for a reply; instead, she simply ju
mped.
If nothing else, Jess was quickly grateful to whatever strange force had not yet taken heat away. The water did not feel nearly as cold as the oceans with which she was familiar. The water was tepid making submersion uncomfortable in clothing but not dreadful. Kilpeni quickly followed after and soon both treaded water glancing out into the horizon where only water and sky could be seen.
“You can’t escape the conversation by running away,” Kilpeni called over the roaring waves and gusting breezes.
Jess shrugged as well as she could without sinking further. “How exactly are we to search an ocean this big that has no bottom?”
“It doesn’t have a crust beneath it, but the pressure builds to a point where nothing survives,” he informed her. “Anyways, your core world and I’m second dimension. I don’t need to breathe at all, and there hasn’t been oxygen available to you since you were pulled into the core. Honestly, the third dimension should be where you breathe easier with the amount of oxygen, though the majority is bound to hydrogen molecules.”
“How badly mutated am I going to be by the end of this?” she asked though she left him no room to answer before continuing, “Are you implying that I can breathe underwater in the third dimension? Seriously, are the dimensions the source of every dream ever? An endless sea to drown in or breathe underwater in – a dimension completely blank and white filled with only reflections and shadows? I’m dreaming, right?”
“Trust me.” He pulled her beneath the surface and then said, “Breathe.”
The words were distorted, but her ears heard them as clearly as she had heard his voice coming through the water in the core world. Her body ached. Jess could not bring herself to breathe beneath the waves. All she had been through seemed, realistically, to be nothing else save a dream; however, she could not overcome her body’s natural disinclination to suffocate on salt water. For the past two decades, she had been taught not to breathe in the water. She did not have skin that took in oxygen or gills to flush the water back out. Eventually, her body would be forced to attempt to breathe. The process would be inconvenient, but Jess decided to wait until her body gasped in panic. Kilpeni wasn’t going to push her.
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