Sapphire finally caught me looking.
My eyes flicked down to my plate, and stayed there.
***
Qaira Eltruan—;
We were on the move again four hours later. Our time was tracked in attica.
I had taken watch after waking from a nightmare that I couldn’t remember, allowing Leid a couple of hours to rest. Yahweh had slept the longest, leant against the archway, curled into a ball with his forehead against his knees. He seemed confused when he’d woken, but his confusion was laced with a hint of fear. Yahweh had had a nightmare, too.
We passed around the last of the Archaean stones and replenished in silence. Then it was time to go.
The bodies began to show up as we neared the center dome of the city. There were a dozen of them scattered across the bridge-way; statues, just like us. As they got clearer, we slowed with caution.
“Finally,” said Yahweh.
Leid shot him a look. She found his relief inappropriate.
I moved ahead, examining one of the statues that lay across the ground. It was face-down with a spear through its back, one hand outstretched toward the dome. My eyes lingered on the spear.
Yahweh and Leid crouched beside me, awestruck. This former creature was evidently similar to us, but also different. It was bipedal with compartmentalized anatomy—two eyes, somewhat of a nose, a mouth—and looked to be about the average height of us. However I could not distinguish a gender; its head was devoid of any hair and instead housed two prong-like antennae. It had a lithe, slender frame that didn’t seem favorable for a powerful race. A long, simple robe draped its body, its hood having fallen back.
Every corpse was identical.
“I-I don’t understand,” stammered Yahweh, aghast. “Does this imply that they were an extension of us?”
“An extension of them,” corrected Leid, tapping her chin.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they just found their way here like we did.”
Yahweh rubbed his forehead. “Okay, so that would lead to the question of how.”
I sized him up, accepting his thought exercise. “They came from somewhere else.”
“We existed on Philo, but the proxies don’t look like them.”
“They must have been from a different world.”
“We can’t say for certain if that’s true,” said Leid. “We don’t know what other races existed on Philo, or when.”
“If they were from Philo, a few of these things would have found their way to Enigmus at some point,” I contended.
Leid considered this, eyes trained on the lance. “Perhaps they avoided us on purpose.”
I caught her drift. “You mean you think we did this?”
“We don’t know enough to waste any more time on the subject,” evaded Leid. “But there is some concrete facts to be gleaned, here. They were running from someone.”
“What if it was a civil war?” asked Yahweh.
“Civil wars don’t usually look like this,” I said. “All of them were retreating. None of the statues are holding any weapons.”
Yahweh nodded, convinced. “Then that means there’s at least one other place here, and they’re probably not friendly.”
“Correct,” said Leid, logging our newest finding. “Let’s keep moving, we’re almost there.”
*
The body count grew as we reached the base of the dome. The bridge-way forked out into a ring around it, leading to a single entrance beneath an overhang. The black surface of the glass reflected the horizon. It cued me to look upward; the sun had shifted several inches to the east. Interesting.
Leid and Yahweh stood sentry at the entrance, studying their reflections with trepidation. Around us were at least a hundred statues, displayed in varying positions of immeasurable suffering. The scenery seemed to bother Leid the most.
We all shared a look, and then got into formation. Leid slipped between us, and we followed directly behind her. Yahweh’s ability to synchronize my movements reminded me of how visceral our behavior was. Protect our noble, at any cost. He had proven a worthy guardian so far.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Our steps were tracked with strange, motion-sensitive light that illuminated the path ahead. This was the first sign of their technology that we’d seen.
We walked slowly, our eyes darting across every angle of the entrance tunnel.
The entrance opened into a vast chamber. At the center of the chamber were a row of pillars that had once been portals to the extramural universes, now deactivated. They looked identical to our portal system at the Khel’hanna Scar, which was dismantling at the very least. How they had duplicated our architecture seemed impossible, unless Leid’s theory of our involvement was presented. It appeared that she would be the victor of our debate; surprise, surprise.
Before we could react to our finding, lights flickered from above us.
Our eyes rose in unison.
A star-map rotated slowly across the ceiling, directly over the portals. A single constellation was emphasized, burning brighter than the rest. It reminded me of Oraniquitis’s note. Flecks of light drifted from our feet, ascending in some kind of reverse-gravity.
“This is fucking unreal,” I managed to whisper, turning in place as electric-blue confetti flitted across my field of vision.
The chamber filled with a chorus of voices. They were faint, far away. The phosphorescent stardust in the air clumped together, forming larger orbs. The voices grew louder.
“Thoughts,” said Leid.
Her cryptic statement only garnered stares from Yahweh and I. She lifted a hand directly below one of the glowing orbs, cupping the air beneath it. “Unrefined thoughts,” Leid continued. “These are all that’s left of them.”
Unrefined. Refining them was how we used attica.
Still, I had no idea what any of this meant. Beside me, Leid drew a sharp breath and closed her eyes. Before I could inquire into what she was about to do, her hand rose.
Leid’s fingers curled around the orb.
~*~
The prime directive of alpha-Incipia is homogeneity;
Impurities are forbidden.
Dutiful Framers will exterminate impurities on sight.
Homogeneity is imperative.
~*~
MEMORY LOG II—;
THE ANTECHAMBER WAS TEEMING WITH frightened kin, huddled against the wall furthest from the entrance. Our gateways were dark; there was no escape.
How? Why did the gateways close?
The explosions grew nearer, and I receded into the darkness, joining my group. The young ones cried tears of crimson, clutching their progenitors for dear life. Even the children knew of our impending fate.
A preceptor burst through the entrance, feet pounding down the corridor, face contorted in terror. Before he reached the antechamber, an explosion shook the dome and preceptor fell face-first onto the ground. A sparking lance protruded from his lower back, and he started to petrify.
Shadows loomed in the entranceway; four hunters. All I could see were their eyes through the darkness—;
Luminous ice, predatory.
Everyone began to scream, scattering.
Amid the chaos, I dropped my tapestry.
VIII
CONTRITION
Leid Koseling—;
I WAS KNEELING ON THE FLOOR, screaming so hard that when I’d come to my throat was raw. My body jerked as Qaira shook me, attempting to wrench me back into reality. He kept shouting my name, and I stared up at him, seeing only the blood-soaked tapestry and those icy eyes in the shadows.
I shrugged free of his grasp and curled inward, holding my head. “I’m okay,” I breathed, trying to calm him. I was far from okay, but admitting that wouldn’t have helped matters any. Yahweh watched us from the other side of the portal system. He was frozen in place, caution behind his gaze.
None of this was exciting anymore, only harrowing. The wonder and beauty of the antechamber had grown u
gly and menacing. I couldn’t stop seeing blood everywhere.
“Leid,” Qaira said for the fifth time. “Leid, what just happened? What did you see?”
“We have to get out of here,” I said, my voice cracking with urgency. “Coming here was a mistake. We have to go, please.”
He was disarmed by my fear. His eyes searched mine, wary. “Alright, we’ll go.”
The flickering memories were gone, as was the constellation. We were left in the cool darkness of an ancient crime scene. I looked toward the entrance.
Those eyes—they had been ours, the unmistakable silver sheen of a noble.
No, that was impossible. How could they have known, all this time?
Had Calenus known, too?
No.
We vacated the antechamber, but froze beneath the overhang when a low-pitched drone filled the sky. A gust of wind ripped through the curved bridge-way; it hit us like ice water and we reacted accordingly. Never before had there been wind in Exo’daius. What little I’d known of this place had been all wrong.
The drone turned into the same ear-crushing groan that we’d heard at the cliff.
Through red clouds, a craft slowly descended. It was shaped like a lance—pure black, no wings—and disappeared over the valley.
The groans died.
“Well,” said Yahweh, breaking the ensuing silence, “they certainly seem to know a lot more about our physics than we do.”
“I was actually hoping you were going to win this one,” muttered Qaira, throwing me a look.
Yahweh squinted at the valley border. “Did it land?”
I could feel their resonance; it tasted like ours, growing stronger with each second. Closer. “Yes. They know we’re here.”
Qaira raised a hand to his head, distraught. “How?”
“I think I set off a trap,” I confessed. “The thread I touched, that sound—”
“From here on out, I don’t think you should act without consulting us,” he snapped. “Our weapons won’t do shit against that. We have to run.”
***
Qaira Eltruan—;
Wings were much faster, but were also a death wish.
Our best chance was to keep heading south on foot; there was a lot of ground to cover between us and the craft. Maintaining that distance was crucial.
Yahweh updated the thread as we sprinted through an archway. The Court was now informed of the hostile craft in the area, and how its owners had committed genocide on this city. Adrial was going to lose his shit, and then I would have to endure an undetermined amount of years listening to ‘I told you so.’ The thought almost made me want to die.
That was a later problem.
On the forefront was concern over what might happen next. I was confident that we could escape from the other side of the city, but then we would be very visible. If there was another craft anywhere in our vicinity, we were done. The chance of there being another craft was too high.
Thus, we couldn’t leave the city.
We would have to hide and hope they wouldn’t find us.
“Okay,” said Yahweh between labored breaths, keeping pace. “I am officially worried now.”
I looked to him, confused. “What?”
He winced in error. “Nothing, thinking aloud.”
Leid grabbed my arm and wrenched me to a stop. I looked back at her, surprised.
“What are you doing?” I asked, shooting a look toward the northern span of the city. “We need to keep—”
“There’s nowhere to run,” she said, still chewing on that fact herself. “Nowhere to hide. I can feel them, and they me. The only thing we can do now is talk.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I pointed at a statue on the parallel bridge-way. It, too, had a lance buried in its chest. “You want to talk to the people who did that? Are you fucking insane?”
Leid’s eyes flared with anger. I had scathed her. “No, you’re insane for wanting to come here in the first place and now I’m trying to keep you from dying, like promised.”
I scoffed in disbelief. “You’re really going to put all this on me? I wasn’t the one sleepwalking around, yanking on mass-murderers’ corporeal threads.”
“Yes, because you drugged me.”
“I was trying to help.”
Yahweh intervened, tapping his polearm on the ground. “Please refrain from bickering. Decide, quickly.”
“What, you think us talking to them is a good idea?” I asked him.
“Not us,” said Leid. “Me.”
Yahweh and I immediately started to protest.
“Not a chance in—”
“I would strongly advise against that—”
“Look, you two have wings,” she pressed, “which means you have the only feasible means of an escape. If either of you were to fall, I’d soon follow.”
The pressure changed, and the silence was ravaged by an insufferable ring. All of us looked down the bridge-way. We could see nothing, as the sun had fallen further and shadows now dominated the northern side of the city. Something hummed mechanically in the distance, and it grew louder with each boom of my heart.
They were coming.
“Better me than you,” Leid said firmly, clutching my forearm, reclaiming my attention.
I wouldn’t relent. “I can’t do that. I won’t.”
Leid was losing her patience. “Qaira, there’s no other way. That is an order.”
“I won’t leave you here, end-of-fucking-story. You want to reprimand me for that? Go ahead.”
“I’m not ordering you to leave. I’m ordering you and Yahweh to stay out of sight and let me talk to them. If things go wrong, intervene.”
I didn’t like this, not one bit, but I was backed into a corner and Yahweh wasn’t taking my side. He just stood there looking between us like an idiot. If any more time was wasted, we were toast. “Fine.”
*
Leid stood alone at the mouth of the archway. Behind her was the mezzanine, which offered shadow if she needed a quick escape. Thus concluded the single advantage that she had, as she’d given us her weapons with an order to hide. This was such a terrible plan.
But it was our only plan. I’d gone over every other angle.
Talking to them presented a meager chance that they’d let us go, or take us hostage. Being a hostage was better than being dead, and if anyone could win over a crowd, it was Leid. However her odds of being killed before we could react far outnumbered that of us being taken hostage.
Yahweh and I were stationed in separate circle-huts, surveying Leid on the street between us. I was fairly convinced they would be able to see us somehow, considering Leid had mentioned they’d ‘felt’ her, whatever the fuck that meant. Again, the odds were bad.
Yahweh knew this, too. He kept tossing me looks of panic. We were crouched beneath windows, on the furthest side of the doors. It gave us just enough visibility of Leid’s portion of the bridge and each other. Our lesser eyes wouldn’t detect us from the huts’ recesses, but that really meant nothing in this circumstance. For all we knew these things had laser beams for eyes that disintegrated solid matter on contact. And after they killed you they sodomized your skull, just because. I didn’t know how to sodomize a skull, but certainly they would.
Leid was statuesque, facing the source of the approaching sound with fearless eyes. She drew her hood, and the mechanical whir stopped. Footsteps.
Discovery number one, they weren’t an aerial race.
Two forms clad in black armor appeared into our field of view. Their faces were hidden behind smooth, circular headgear that appeared to be glass in composition. It couldn’t have been obsidian, as that was too heavy, but certainly looked like it—reflective and flawless, marbled with crimson. They held what looked like giant crossbows, scintillating blue sparks. Each bow housed a lance; the very same that we’d found among the slain.
Discovery number two, they looked like us—at least in an anatomical sense.
That may ha
ve been why they hadn’t shot Leid on sight. One of them held their weapon on her; the other was relaxed, bow hanging at their side. Both continued to approach. Leid didn’t move.
They stopped roughly six feet from her, talking quietly among themselves. From their tone of voice I presumed they were male.
“Who are you?” demanded the one pointing the bow.
Leid looked between them, her gaze a mixture of venom and whimsy. “I don’t know anymore.”
They spoke in Exodian, and were evidently stunned that Leid could as well.
Discovery number three, the inhabitants of this city hadn’t spoken Exodian, which meant they were extramural. I kept the attica thread updates going as the scene unfolded. So far these people didn’t seem overtly powerful or threatening, which made me relax.
“How did you get here?” asked the other one this time.
“Took a wrong turn.” She surveyed the city around them. “You killed these people. Why?”
Neither of them responded to her question.
The one on the left took a step forward, raising his weapon. “I’ll ask you again, how did you get here?”
“I followed the thread, from there.” Leid pointed north.
The one on the right leaned into his partner. “That’s Framer-talk. We should call this in.”
“A Framer wouldn’t be out here,” the other said, incredulous. “Look at her hair. She’s no Framer.”
“Yes, but look at her eyes.”
Leid only tilted her head.
“Fine, call it in.” And to Leid, he kept his weapon pointed. “Don’t move.”
Leid did as she was told, eyes drifting to his bow. Her look was calculating, wily. She wondered how powerful he would be without it. That made two of us.
The partner left our field of view, talking to someone through his headgear. He was too far away to hear properly.
Yahweh and I shared a look, and there was ice where our eyes met. He’d come to all the same conclusions as me.
Dysphoria: Rise (Hymn of the Multiverse 6) Page 6