by D M Wozniak
As the sound of chimes fades away, the hazy shimmer between us is gone. I am left standing in front of a perfectly clear Mander, bearing three voidstones around his neck. He seems suddenly taller, but something about him looks sicker as well.
“Get behind me,” I softly tell Blythe and Chimeline.
Mander begins to chuckle. “I gave you my word, Dem. I won’t kill them. But I’m sorry to say that the same doesn’t hold true for you.”
“The enervated will protect me.”
The words come out unshaken, full of conviction. But deep inside, there is a sliver of doubt.
I reflect that it’s probably because I bear no voidstone any longer. After a life of use, the feeling without the weight around my neck is one of nakedness in a crowd. But it’s liberating, too. I am no longer complicit in an ageless injustice.
My only hope is that the enervated can still help me without it.
May the Unnamed help all of us if I am wrong.
He tilts his head in curiosity. “Still, you maintain the lie. Why?”
“Because it isn’t a lie. And I want you to know that you will lose.”
Mander laughs deeply, the sound echoing off the mirrored walls. “I’m the one holding the voidstones, you idiot.”
“We performed eleutheria,” I say.
His laughter abruptly stops.
“What did you say?”
“Eleutheria.” I pronounce all five syllables.
Mander takes a deep, raspy breath, his chest rising and falling beneath the smooth fabric of his shirt. I hear the gold chains softly clang against each other.
“Where did you hear that word?” I notice his gaze move subtly from me to Blythe, who’s standing behind me. “From the graycloak?”
I don’t answer him, and neither does Blythe.
Chimeline grabs my hand from behind, and I gently squeeze it without breaking his gaze.
When Mander looks back to me, he flashes a snarl, but then covers his mouth with a clenched fist. After a moment, he drops it.
“The one thing I will give you credit for,” he says, “is your gift of voidance. For someone who didn’t even know what it was, you were very good at it.” He nods to himself. “So you discovered eleutheria. Without that tart of a wife to run after, your head must have been buried in your books. Even more so than usual.”
I glance to the right, at the mirror-paned wall in the distance, wondering if the spy is still hiding there. Now that I don’t have my voidstone, there is no way for me to tell for sure.
“What happened to the stone?” Mander asks.
I face him again.
“The stone?”
He nods.
Now it’s my turn to smile, as I reflect upon what Blythe and I accomplished in the ruins of the temple, underneath real stars instead of painted ones.
“Dem?” he asks, apprehensively. “What happened to my stone?”
I furrow my brow. “It wasn’t your stone. It was Cleanthes’. He was one of my most talented—”
“They’re all my stones!” he screams hoarsely, the red on his scalp having taken over his face. “Every single one of them.”
I look at him curiously. “By what right are they yours?”
“They belong to the empowered. They were created for us.”
I shake my head, not wanting to argue with him or delve into ancient histories. “Well, to answer your question, it rose,” I say. “It floated away.”
He lets out a guttural moan which turns into a scream. “You wasted an axion fragment, you fool! It is the most precious element in the universe.”
“No, Mander. What's inside of them is what’s most precious. And what I did was only the beginning. When I’m done with you, I am going to free them all. Starting with the Axiondrive.”
His face contorts into pure rage. Ripples form on his red, glistening forehead, creases extend from his eyes, and his thin lips stretch around gritting teeth.
Sliding his hands down the gold chains, he grabs all three of his voidstones with both hands over his heart.
The room begins to shake.
A Circular Rift
First comes fine dust, like snow from the Northern Kingdom.
I look up toward the painted ceiling.
Hairline cracks cross it from star to star.
Larger sections of the ceiling begin to fall, the brilliant blue-green replaced with patches of yellow-white underneath. When they hit the floor, loud noises echo out into the space, like a hammer against stone. Clouds of white dust rise and billow in the still air.
Candles lean and topple from the gilded lanterns—the three lighthouses Mander mentioned. Then, a moment later, the bronzed lamp housings separate from the ceiling within the span of a breath. They fall thirty feet until they crash onto the wooden floor, their metal panels and chains ringing out in the Celestium.
The ground vibrates so strongly, it’s hard to stand.
A staccato sound. The snapping of branches.
Between Mander and us, and from wall to wall—the very same place where the membrane used to be—the parquet floor buckles.
I turn and raise my arms protectively around Blythe and Chimeline. The enervated may protect me, but not necessarily my friends. I have no voidstone. I cannot weave a membrane around us. All I have is my body and my faith in others—two things which I am not used to relying upon.
I’m not sure what type of voidance Mander is mustering, but its scale is extreme. Any other voider would be close to voideath. Being empowered must make him immune to that check. Thinking back to how he knocked down the tower with ease, this is not an unreasonable notion.
This Celestium is going to be destroyed.
“Let’s go,” I say loudly over the crackling and rumbling, while pointing to the southeast corner. “Over there. Stay as close to me as possible.”
As a unit, we begin to leave the same way I came.
After a dozen steps—before we reach the center of the room—I look over my shoulder. Even though Mander is far off in the distance, he looks straight at us with his hands over his heart, clutching the stones.
A shiver courses through my body.
“Come on,” I urge, turning back.
We’ve almost reached the center of the room, when the chandelier falls from the ceiling.
Putting my head down, I pull Blythe and Chimeline toward me while trying my best to cover them with my body.
The thing is so massive—roughly ten feet in diameter—that when it crashes into the desk a few feet away from us, it splinters into pieces, sending parchments, dust, and shards of crystal and wood in all directions.
A cloud rolls over us. Even though I cover my nose and mouth with my white shirt, I begin coughing with the others, as the pockmarked sound of destruction surrounds us. Hundreds of crystals hit the floor and walls. The brief sound of hail.
I quickly gauge the three of us. Grime and plaster dust cover every inch of our bodies. Chimeline’s hair is more white than black. Blythe’s chest is cut—there’s a small rip and spot of blood on his light-gray shirt, but since he’s not complaining about it, I don’t bring it up.
The back of my neck burns. I reach back there, and my fingers come away red.
There are limits to the enervated’s protection.
Chimeline looks at me with concern. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I nod.
“Turn around,” she says softly.
“I’m fine. We need to go.”
I urge us on. We stand and resume the path toward the exit.
“Dem,” she says, her eyes flashing to my bloody fingers. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s fine.”
While we stumble through the dust cloud, she snakes a hand underneath my shirt, and I feel her lift it away from my skin. It’s damp and clingy.
“You need stitches,” she whispers quickly. “This is not a small cut—”
Suddenly, the three of us are knocked to the ground, as an earsplitting sound rings
out, then a deep groaning.
When I fall to my hands and knees upon the Celestium’s round, center carpet, I happen to be looking west.
Over fifty feet from me, Mander is on his knees as well.
The ground between us falls away.
A dark rift at least ten feet wide cuts in-between Mander and us.
But unlike the membrane, this one seems curved.
And it continues to grow.
In my peripheral vision, dark lines are being drawn on the floor. Narrow, then widening.
Turning my head, I follow them, as the ground continues to fall away in all directions.
He creates a wide circle around us and its diameter is just short of the width of the room.
“He’s trapping us!” I call out to Blythe and Chimeline over the deep rumbling. They’re looking in all directions too.
Looking to the southeast, the rift hasn’t formed there yet.
“We need to make a run for it!”
But before we can act, a new sound comes forth. It’s treble-filled. A high-pitched whistle.
The north mirrors crack into cobwebs. The entire wall, from floor to ceiling, from east to west, instantaneously shatters.
“Get down!” I scream.
Chimeline kneels next to me, oblivious and upright, but I grab her shoulders and pull her roughly to the ground.
Blythe covers her other half with his body, pushing her into the floor with me, as the crystalline whistling becomes louder and louder.
In my prone position, I turn my head past the tendrils of her thick, dust-covered hair, and watch in dread and awe.
Every pane of mirror on the north wall. Every pane of glass on the south, east, and west walls. They’re all the same now. All shattered and vibrating. Singing.
All at once, they launch at us from all directions, like a sunburst of sunlit daggers.
The high-pitched noise is deafening.
Instinctively, I close my eyes and bury my head over Chimeline’s as I wait for the pain.
But nothing connects with my body.
Yet, I feel movement. The dance of air. An itch that I cannot scratch. My hairs stand straight up. My body breaks into a sweat, and then cool air washes over me, making me shiver uncontrollably. Every inch of my body knows it should be bleeding now, but it isn’t, and it doesn’t know how to react.
There is only so much mirror and glass in the room, so after a while, the vibrations of air cease. The hairs on my skin relax. The floor no longer shakes. The only sound I hear are the chunks of plaster and panes of glass—that continue to fall like thunder and lightning from a departing storm.
I raise my body off Chimeline’s, and Blythe does the same.
“Are you alright?” I gently brush back her mangled hair. Shards of mirror and glass like priceless diamonds fall away, revealing her shivering face. It’s covered in dust, but besides that, she looks untouched.
She opens her eyes and gives me a quick nod.
We’re fine. All three of us are fine.
“Thank the Unnamed,” I say, and I embrace her tightly, my hand on the back of her head.
Looking past her, the field of glittering debris covers the entire floor, except for the space directly around us. The sunlight coming through the south wall reflects in it so strongly, that I must squint my eyes.
I let go and rise to my knees, carefully grasping a handful of the pea-sized shards off the floor. They’re razor sharp.
A gentle gust of wind hits me, and I look around.
There is no more glass on the walls. No more mirrors. No more plaster.
No more wall.
Even the delicate wooden trim is ripped to pieces. Only thick, wooden beams remain, still standing straight. They are probably the only thing keeping the ceiling from toppling.
With the walls mostly gone, the wind comes through the room off the cliffs to the south. The breeze carries with it the scent of the sea: salty, musty, and bright. I hear the faraway cry of gulls.
Turning my palm over, I let the pieces fall. They hit the floor with a tinny, granular sound.
To my right, a woman inhales sharply.
When I turn around, no reflections greet me. All that is left is unfinished wood, strips of dried glue against the remains of raw plaster, horizontal lathes, broken and bent.
And Marine.
She’s standing in the Celestium, just beyond the circular rift, near the damaged periphery. She’s still in the same white dress she wore in Temberlain’s Ashes. Its color provides sharp relief to the hidden door behind her, a midnight-blue hallway fading out of view.
Our eyes connect briefly, but her mouth does not close. I’m not sure who is more in shock. Me, seeing her here. Or her, seeing me alive.
I stand. A few shards of glass and mirror are stuck in the folds of my white undershirt, and I gently brush them off.
Mander makes a sound barely loud enough to echo throughout the space—something between a whimper and a groan.
I turn to him.
Half the room away, he still kneels, but his hands no longer grasp the three voidstones. They hang loosely at his side. His head is as red as blood, and sweat pours from it, drops hitting the parquet floor. The wetness reflects the sunlight.
He puts his palms on the floor, his head bent downward.
“What’s happening to me?” I hear him say.
Chimeline grabs my hand, and I glance back at her. She attempts to stand, so I pull her up. I brush her hair over her ear. I brush back her bangs to make sure that her forehead is uncut. The bangs fall back into place. She shivers, so I put my arms around her and hold her tightly.
“Your neck is still bleeding.”
“I know.”
Then, a moment later, she lowers her voice even further. “Who is that?” she asks into my ear.
Pulling back, I turn to the right. Marine stares at us with a blank expression. Her blonde hair is undone, and the makeup around her eyes is slightly blurred with tears, making her look disheveled and lost.
“That’s Marine,” I say.
She wrinkles her nose. “Why is she here?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.”
Blythe stands with a groan.
When I face Mander again in the distance, he’s still on his hands and knees, but he looks up at me, and I am taken by his eyes. Bloodshot white holes within dark recesses.
At first, I think that he is near voideath—he certainly had created enough voidance to kill himself. But his symptoms don’t match. His skin should be grayish blue. He should be shivering, uncontrollably.
What’s happening to him is the opposite.
“Are you alright?” Marine asks him hesitantly, from her remote position near the north wall.
Mander barely glances in her direction, as if she were a servant.
“Mand?” she utters at almost a whisper, as she takes a few careful steps in his direction. She’s barefoot, and some of the shards have made it past the wide rift.
Mand?
“No, I’m not alright.” He spits. It looks like blood.
“Your face...” Marine adds with an outstretched hand, coming to a stop roughly ten feet away from him. Even though she’s on the same side of the rift as Mander, she seems equally as severed from him as us. Fear, uncertainty, doubt, sadness, opportunity—I have no idea what her dark chasm is made of.
“What is happening to me!?” he screams to the ceiling.
Chimeline lets go of me and takes a step forward, pieces of glass and mirror crushing underneath the thin soles of her sandals.
“You deserve it, you monster!” she says.
Mander looks back down at her, his eyes narrowing.
Chimeline’s hands have formed fists at her sides. They’re shaking uncontrollably.
“Chimeline, what are you doing?” I ask softly, reaching out to grasp her arm, but she shakes me away.
“There is no antidote!” she screams.
Mander puts his hands on one of the three nearby c
hairs, trying to hoist himself up, but the chair begins to slide away from him.
“Antidote,” he repeats. “Why would you say that?” he adds softly.
The chair continues to slip away.
“Help me,” Mander loudly barks, across the room, and both Chimeline and I look up. He’s obviously speaking to Marine, but he’s not even looking at her.
Marine flashes us a dark look and then hastens over to him on tip-toes, weaving between shards. She puts a hand underneath his arm and helps him stand, but she arches her upper body backwards, as if trying to stay away from him as much as possible.
And in that subtle stance of hers, I realize that whatever was once between them is now gone.
It’s all about the power. It has always been about the power.
Marine never loved Mander. And she probably never loved me. She loved power and influence. Whoever held it, held her.
But was I any better?
My former self lived a life of entitlement. Lord Democryos, the Master Voider. I cringe when I think upon the hideous title. When Marine sought me out, I took advantage of her, just like I took advantage of the enervated.
As I look at Chimeline standing in front of me, I see a woman who doesn’t love me for my power. I see a woman who loves me in spite of it.
Marine screams.
Mander runs a palm over his head. Something comes away with it, along with the sweat. Because he’s standing a good fifty feet away from me, I can’t tell for sure, but it seems like a layer of skin.
Marine is barely holding onto him. She takes a step back, her arms outstretched away from his.
As he studies the translucent film, his wince turns into a grimace of rage.
“Moonspit,” Mander hisses in the distance, dropping his layer of wet skin on the floor with a soft splatter. “You put it in the glue.”
“Yes!” Chimeline says loudly. “And I hope you rot from it!”
“Is that true?” I ask her in a hushed voice.
She gives me a distracted nod.
“How did you do that?”
“He was occupied with Colu and Blythe—making his membrane. When he wasn’t looking, I poured it in his vial. Then the commander showed up.”
Pushing Marine away, Mander stumbles toward his desk, where he previously left his wig, bowl, and towel. Careening into it, he clutches onto its edge and peers into a hanging shard of mirror there.
