by D M Wozniak
“Will the fire save her?” Blythe asks me.
“Yes. It should.”
“Is there anything that I can do to help?”
For a moment, I study the unconscious Chimeline. Then, I look at Marine’s dead body behind me on the stone altar. Finally, I turn back to Blythe.
“Pray,” I tell him. “For them both.”
He tilts his head, perhaps wondering if I am being snide. Which, surprisingly, I’m not.
Blythe presses his lips together and gives me a meager nod.
Then he falls upon his knees. The fringe of waves nearby causes them to sink down into the sand. A small puddle forms around him that reflects the light almost to the point of whiteness. It reminds me of what happened hundreds of feet above us in the Celestium.
“Dem?”
It’s Chimeline.
I immediately turn to her.
Her eyes flutter open as she tries to lean upright.
Quickly, I position myself behind her, placing her head on my lap. The fire radiates against my left side. Which is good. Chimeline needs this.
Smoothing her dark hair down the sides of her face, I give her a gentle kiss on the lips. It seems fitting that I am upside down. My life has untethered completely. There is no clear direction anymore.
“You dd...did it,” she says.
“Please, don’t talk,” I say calmly. “Conserve your energy.”
“It makes me warmer when I speak.”
I nod.
“You kk...killed him.”
I look up at the fire and nod. A breeze comes in off the water and stirs the flames.
“Marine told me. She said I am dd...different now.”
“You’re an Axionlighter,” I say softly.
She wrinkles her nose. “How do you know?”
“I spoke with her in the void,” I answer, motioning to the altar before realizing that she probably can’t see it from her angle. “Her body is over there. So is the stone that has her in soteria.”
“And the one that I used to help you jump from the cliff.”
I nod.
She smiles. “She ss...said that you would look after me.”
I continue to gently smooth her hair. “I will always look after you.”
“I’m sorry to cause you trouble. I did what she said...”
“Shh,” I say. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Voidance is new to you. That’s why you’re cold. It happens to all of us.”
She nods with a confused, accepting expression that warms my heart greater than these flames ever could.
“You’re going to be fine,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“Maybe now I’ll be useful to you.”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”
“Marine says that I’m ss...special now. That I can dd...do things if I can ll...learn.”
I look up to hide my tears, but the smoke from fire makes my eyes water more.
“Chimeline, I want you to know something,” I say. “It’s very important.”
When I look back down, one of my tears has fallen on her cheek.
Moving to her side, I cradle her in my arms. Her brown eyes bloom orange from the flames.
“You were always special,” I say. I place my hand on the back of her head, preventing it from falling backward. “And I was a fool to not see it earlier.”
She wrinkles her nose again.
“But I am nothing,” she adds. “And you are the mm...master voider. Maybe if I am an Axionlighter—”
I shake my head. “I’m not a master voider anymore. That life is over. And your importance has nothing to do with being an Axionlighter.”
“But—”
“Do you remember what the effulgents say?”
She looks up. “Be nothing?”
I nod. “In nothing there is everything.”
She blinks.
I kiss her again, and this time the kiss lingers. Her lips are cool to the touch, but soft and receptive.
She shudders in my arms, so I pull back.
Her skin flickers a pale white brighter than the fire.
“Chimeline? Can you hear me?”
Her mouth opens slightly, teeth unclenched, and her face relaxes. The light turns from a flickering to a constant glow.
“Blythe?” I call out, glancing in his direction. “It’s happening again!”
Despite being in prayer, he hears me. He scrambles over, kneeling by my side in the sand while studying her. The light from her body cuts through her clothes like sunlight through gauze. His outstretched hands briefly hover over her, as if he’s too scared to touch.
“The enervated are speaking to her.”
“Marine is,” I answer.
Blythe rubs a hand over his bald head, looking away in confusion as I continue.
“Somehow, Marine can understand the enervated. Maybe because she’s in soteria? I don’t know. Regardless, Marine is translating everything that—”
Blythe draws in a sharp breath. “Dem. Look.”
He points to the shadow of Marine’s altar, where the four stones lay.
They all glow white.
Just as quickly as it came, the light emitting from her skin disappears. Simultaneously, the four voidstones turn from white to black.
Her eyes snap open, and she weakly grabs my wrist.
“There is a book,” she says, jaws clenched.
“A book?”
“In the rr...ruins. Halcyon...”
Before she can respond, her eyes roll backwards, like two burnt-out suns setting on the horizon. Then they shut completely.
“Chimeline!”
I give her a gentle shake, but she doesn’t stir.
Putting my palm over her heart, I make sure that it still beats. It does, but panic still sets in. I try to shake her again.
“She’s is fine,” Blythe says. “You have done what you can. It’s time for her to rest.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods.
Looking up, the flames are at least five feet tall. Logs hiss and crack, and black smoke rises in a thick column.
Trusting Blythe’s advice, I turn around and face the sea. Shortly thereafter, Blythe follows suit, keeping his legs crossed.
Colu is in the deep, washing himself. Only his head and shoulders stick out of the undulating surface. His black eye patch is off.
Far away and behind him, rain hides the ring of ships. The spiderweb of anchors. Above it all, a dark storm cloud approaches, the palest purple and green. Flashes of lighting push at the edges.
“We’ll need to get shelter soon,” I say. “And fresh water to drink.”
“The Unnamed will provide.”
I look back at him curiously.
“Is he really listening?” I ask.
“Is who listening?”
“The Unnamed.”
Blythe smiles, but says nothing, which I find maddening.
“How can you be so smug?” I ask.
Continuing to smile, he slowly shakes his head. “I am not being smug. Your question made me think of how far the two of us have come.” He clears his throat and brings his pressed hands to his mouth, almost in prayer. “Days ago, I could not have foreseen a voider and effulgent freely talking about such things. Performing eleutheria and questioning the Unnamed. Now, the two of us are stripped of our stature and dogmas, but in less we have become more. I would not have it any other way.”
He looks at me, and I nod. “Me as well, Blythe.”
Dropping his hands, he looks at the storm in the distance. “You are more than just a lesson to me, Dem. You are what one calls a friend. But I still struggle with this. The way of unwanting is absent of friends, since it is owning the light.”
“I’ve never understood that saying. Owning the light.”
“It’s the words that we choose.”
“As in how?”
“Having a friend. What you have, you own.”
“It’s just a stupid saying, Blythe.”<
br />
He nods. “On one hand, you are correct. Words are just the sounds that we make. In that regard, they mean nothing more than do leaves rustling in the wind. But the context that comes with them is important. The hidden weight of history.” He clears his throat. “Just like when one lover says to another, you are mine.”
I think of Chimeline.
“Despite this,” Blythe continues, “I cannot see how it is wrong, given that the Unnamed has brought us together.”
I lean back in the sand, stretching out. “We were both wrong about so many things. You didn’t know that we could perform eleutheria together. You didn’t know about the Axiondrive. About an empowered being alive. I didn’t know the true nature of voidance. That my own submaster was capable of such evil. That my wife...”
“We were both lost in our own dogmas.”
The next words exit my mouth without caution. “But what if you were wrong about the Unnamed too?”
He bites his lip, and for a moment I fear I’ve offended him.
“It is a possibility,” he says softly.
My neck snaps in his direction. “What?” I ask, genuinely surprised. I expected the most zealous of defenses.
He purses his lips. “The truth is, I have no proof the Unnamed exists.”
A gentle rumble sounds from far away.
“But you pray to him. You’ve spent your entire life—”
“Where do you think they go, Dem?”
I furrow my brow. “You mean the souls?”
He nods.
“After eleutheria?”
He nods again.
“I...I guess they move on.”
“What does that mean?” Blythe asks.
“I have no idea. That question is void-destined.”
“Void-destined?”
“Incapable of being answering objectively. That’s what we used to call it back when I ran the university. Meaning, you cannot prove it in a lab. Not by repetition, not by analysis of data or observation. Therefore, it is a question not worth asking.”
I turn to him. “But I would have thought that the effulgency would have all of this worked out. The unanswerable is your domain. Your temples and holy books.”
“I led people on the way of unwanting. Notice that it is a way. Not a destination.”
For a moment, neither of us say anything. I listen to the gentle surf and snapping fire.
“Marine,” I add, softer this time. “She was fearful of where she would go. That there would be...judgment.”
“Hmm,” he groans, a finger to his lips.
“She seemed just as lost as me.” After a moment I add, “One would think that with her being dead, she would know more. About the Unnamed, I mean.”
He pauses before replying. “There are really only two options, aren’t there?”
“Either he exists or he doesn’t. You’re either right or you’re wrong.”
“No. I mean there are only two options to where the souls go. After eleutheria.”
I look out at the storm as I ponder my reply. There is blue sky above us, yet the sun is masked behind a bruise-colored anvil. It makes the day haunting.
“They either go to a good place or a bad place?”
He shakes his head. “No. They either go somewhere or nowhere. That is the more important mystery.”
Suddenly, I see his point.
“If they go nowhere, there cannot be an Unnamed,” I say. “There is no creation without a creator.”
“Correct.”
“So where do they go after eleutheria?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
I let out a laugh. “You’re exhausting, Blythe.”
After another waves comes in, he quietly adds, “But I have an idea.”
“What?”
“I’ve always thought of it like this. Being trapped in soteria is evil.”
“Sure.”
“So, after a lifetime of enslavement, do you think simple disappearance is the natural next step?”
“Meaning, they deserve rest?”
“No. Rest implies life. Consciousness. Rest is not destruction. And did you see how they moved through us? They moved on, willingly. I did not sense fear.”
“No. Me neither.”
After a pause, he continues. “I guess that is why I believe. That is why I have always believed. In life, given the choice between nothing and something, I have always chosen nothing. Except when it comes to belief. An eternal hope. That is when I choose something. Because nothing is even worse than being in soteria.”
I don’t answer him. It is hard to argue with his logic.
“There is something else,” he adds.
“What?”
He scoops up a handful of sand, letting it fall slowly through his fingers.
“When we did eleutheria, I saw through your eyes. Before we entered the axion fragment. The indivisibles. Everything in this world is made of them—even these grains of sand.”
I wait for him to continue.
“But in soteria, all was black.”
“We were inside of the fragment.”
“Yes,” he says, brushing his palms together. “And then we traveled through that lost place. To the white room and the souls.”
I nod.
“Did you notice it?”
I furrow my brow.
“The souls. They were not made of indivisibles.”
He picks up another handful of sand. I watch, hypnotized, as the grains fall.
“You’re right,” I say. “The souls. The spheres. They were...”
“Beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“They were not made of indivisibles,” he adds.
“No.”
“Perhaps, in that place, they were indivisibles.”
I turn and meet his eyes, and then I give an ironic smile. I’ve been in the void since I was a child. When we performed eleutheria, I should have picked up on this fact immediately. But it took a man of faith to see it.
A rumbling clatter rolls in, but it’s weaker than the storm, and higher-pitched. It comes from the north.
Turning in that direction, I see dozens of people by the distant crimson pier. Over a mile away, they fill the beach, from sea to bluff. Despite the ominous sky, their armor glitters with light.
“Reddles,” I say, with a sense of relief. “He came back.”
“What do you mean, back?”
I turn to Blythe. “I met the commander on the way to the Celestium. He was visibly shaken. Mander used voidance on him.”
“So, he knows the truth?”
I nod. “Some of it, at least. I asked him for help, but he refused. He told me that he was going to warn the king.”
“He must have noticed the Celestium fell into Xi Bay.”
“No doubt.”
“What will he think of all of this destruction?” Blythe asks.
“It’s not the destruction of the Celestium that will concern Reddles,” I say. “It’s the destruction of his dogma.”
Blythe looks at me, confused.
“Soldiers have dogma too. A simple framework of rules with the king at the center.”
Blythe doesn’t look convinced, so I continue.
“Reddles’ world has been shaken. He ran away from a fight for the first time in his life because voidance was used against him. And his blind faith in the king...”
“What about it?”
I sigh as I think back to my dinner conversation with Andrej X. “The king will probably not let the Axiondrive go, just because Mander is dead. He’ll exploit the situation and will lean on Reddles and his army to defend it.”
“Then we need to perform eleutheria on it while we still can.”
We both face forward to look at what’s lurking in the rain.
“Can the two of us do that on something that large?”
“I don’t see why not.”
He balls his fists together.
“What is it?” I ask.
He turns
from the storm to me. “What about the rest of them?”
“The voidstones?”
He nods.
“We’ll do the same thing. Eleutheria for all.”
“Your fellow voiders will not freely give them up.”
I dig my heels into the sand, feeling the damp coolness below. “They’ll listen to me. I was once their leader. As far as they know, I still am.”
Blythe brings his folded hands to his lips, looking forlorn.
“You don’t agree?”
He shakes his head. “I have dedicated my life to trying to influence your former kind. I have tried to educate you all on the evilness of these stones. But my words have always fallen upon deaf ears. Voiders only worship what can be seen and understood. The unseen are swept aside like children’s tales.”
“You got through to me, Blythe. And if you can get through to me, we can get through to the others.”
“I admire your optimism, but you speak without experience. You’ve never been on the opposite side of power.”
He briefly looks at me and swallows, before turning back to the anvil-shaped cloud.
“It’s not an army of soldiers that we have to fear,” he says. “It’s an army of voiders.”
Halcyon Roadmap
At least a hundred men stand before us under overcast skies from sea to bluff. Reddles is in the rear. His soldiers hoist a large white tarp above him, anchored in the corners by tall rods of bamboo.
The entire company droops with an exhaustion that needs no explanation. Most of their helmets are off, their heads matted with sweat.
The white tarp advances, floating over the throng. It’s about ten feet square. Reddles is in its shadow, along with another young, bald Xian, dressed in white. By the way she’s walking, I can tell it’s a woman.
An effulgent?
Reddles is barefoot, his gray-and-red pants cuffed at the calf. A nearby soldier carries his boots and sword. Another carries his folded suit. But the golden star still adorns the commander’s neck—it’s hung upon a blood-red ribbon against a sweaty, white undershirt.
Blythe and I have already risen to our feet. Colu steps out from the deep, ties his eye patch, and picks up his sword up from the sand, attaching its belt around his hips.
The shadow cast by the white fabric crosses my feet at an angle. In the shade, Reddles combs his wet blond-gray hair with his fingers as he looks at me, unblinking and pensive. The effulgent is hidden, eclipsed by Reddles’ wide shoulders.
