He hugged me as I lay in bed, the scent of aftershave fresh and damp against his cheek. My daughter, with her large violet eyes and yellow hair like Markis’s, gave me nose-kisses and promised to be good at school. She pounced out with her little fuzzy backpack. I murmured something affectionate and rolled over as Markis closed the door to our room.
I never saw them again.
A sharp, twinge of pain coursing through my stomach woke me from the dream. I stared at a red, unmoving sky. My mouth was dry and my chest was heavy. The weight tripled when I remembered what had happened.
Qaira.
I shot up, crying out as the pain in my stomach intensified. Yahweh had been tending to me and recoiled at my sudden movement, regarding me with cautious eyes. He had taken off the sash around his head to use as a tourniquet for my wound, exposing the scar on his face for the first time in fifty years. Yahweh’s Vel’Haru blood told him it made him look weak; I thought it was beautiful.
I tried to clutch the tourniquet but I still had no hands, only oozing wrist holes that had filmed over with viscous fluid. The regenerating process would be long and agonizing. I no longer had the strength to save face. I began to cry and curled into a ball, head against my knees. Yahweh only watched, patient. There was a softness to his gaze.
“We have to go back,” I said, quivering. “We have to get him back.”
I tried to stand and only then did Yahweh move. He held firm to my shoulders, forcing me to kneel. “No,” he said. “We need to report to the Court. Adrial is expecting us. If you move around too much, you’ll die of blood loss. If we hurry I can tend to your wounds, but all of my things are at the pharmacy.”
“Yahweh!” I shouted. “Who are you? Can you hear yourself? They just took Qaira! They’re going to kill him!”
“We can’t help him,” he said, his voice rising as well. “Not like this. I have to protect you. He would kill me if I didn’t, and you know this.”
My heart broke a little, staring at him in his defiance. He would have never left a fallen soldier as a celestial. As a guardian Yahweh was forced by instinct to suppress who he was to preserve me, no matter the cost. In times of danger nobles held little power over their guardians. They became uncontrollable; reduced to their legacy programming, that basic instinct.
I was too injured to make him obey, or at least let me go, so I had no choice but to heed him, my guardian. I knew he was right, that I would never make it to Qaira in this state, but when had logic ever cooperated with love?
“I only stopped to dress your wound,” said Yahweh, extending his wings. “We have to go, so please let me carry you.”
I bowed my head and looked away, seeing the lance he had pulled out of me just a few feet from us. “You shouldn’t have intervened. I didn’t tell you to intervene.”
“They were going to hurt you.”
“I had them.”
Anger wicked across Yahweh’s eyes. “Yes, I know that now, but you withheld that information from us.”
“I was trying to protect you two from getting killed,” I said through gritted teeth. “If I told you I planned to take them on myself, would you have had that?”
He hesitated, thinking. “Probably not.”
“So what difference would it have made if I’d told you?”
“It may have changed the plan, the circumstances,” he said. “You have a history of withholding information, and that this behavior is toward everyone suggests a few trust issues.”
“You don’t get to characterize me. Stay in your line, Yahweh.”
He bit his tongue and lowered his gaze. “Can we go now?”
I was dizzy suddenly and didn’t respond. Moments later I felt him scoop me up, heard the beating of his wings as we lifted off.
***
Pariah Andosyni—;
The night went by in a wink. Hyper-focusing, hyperventilating, scrambling to garner any and every piece of information I could find on Niaphali-X and its satellite, all the while reminding myself to stop clenching my jaw.
We’d sat at the same table in RQ2 all night, but only several conversations had taken place between us, namely ones involving clarification on Ktakhu system entries while combing attica. Zira and Sapphire only spoke to each other if they had to, which didn’t make things any easier. Scholars seldom worked together, and although Enigmus harbored teamwork within its walls, everyone (except for Qaira) was in constant competition with each other; contract completion, knowledge retention, and just about anything else that defined a valuable scholar. Valuable scholars received better contracts, after all.
We heard the new-day hymn; a frequency of chimes and static in our heads. Attica announced that it was Exodian Day 6, Year 1253. Every 667 days, another Exodian year was marked. How time here compared to other places, I didn’t know. Considering we’d been around since the oldest universes, I could guess that time here was calculated a lot more slowly than anywhere else. Slowly enough that only three generations of Queendoms had passed in all of Enigmus’s blood-soaked history. Proxies to true nobles, true nobles to guardian-ascended, and now us. All but three of the six lines were extinct; another thousand years and there would be just one line remaining. The derelict, tainted line, violet.
Zira was silver, being the sole-surviving guardian of the previous king, Calenus Karim. Sapphire was ivory, a guardian of the second-generation queen, Aphasia Galrian. The others looked at me like I was a filthy half-breed, being Adrial’s guardian, violet; derelict, tainted. Tainted because violet had ascended from guardians—we were closer to lessers, according to them. The old nobles had feared guardian ascendance, as their genes were corrupted by non-binary and subjective traits. As if that was a bad thing.
But Adrial was King, Leid Queen, dual-violet carrying the mantle. The tenured guardians had no choice but to bend their knees as, no matter how filthy, we all were at the mercy of our monarchial programming. Despite formalities, no one seemed to dislike Adrial or Leid, although Zira had to bite through his indignation at times. He and Sapphire were the only ones left of the old regime.
As the new-day hymn faded, we silently left our seats and vacated RQ2. Side-by-side along Enigmus’s main hall we walked, heading for Adrial’s office to brief him of our findings. None of us were excited anymore, not since Yahweh had updated the hunter log. Now we were tired, frightened, worried. I somewhat regretted convincing the Court to explore the satellite.
Adrial was already seated, expecting us. We stood, side-by-side, in front of his desk.
“Here is everything that we were able to find on the satellite,” said Zira, unlocking the thread, making it accessible to our King and everyone else.
Ktakhu was a solar system in Avadara, an elliptical galaxy within the Celevis-alpha universe. It held a blue sun, burning at roughly 10,000 K. Solar wind and flares were frequent; Ktakhu’s inner planets were charred, smoking balls as a consequence. Niaphali-X barely rested in the habitable zone. The sun had intensified since the data was gathered, and indigenous-breathable gasses were estimated to have declined fifteen percent. That didn’t stop us—our organs functioned in any environment so long as it wasn’t too hot or too cold; I wasn’t sure what would happen to us then.
Adrial sifted through our data with raised brows, clearly impressed by the information we were able to obtain. “There’s not much about the satellite,” he pointed out.
“No one has been there,” said Zira. “It isn’t tidally locked, and it has a nitrogen atmosphere.”
“Any guesses as to the temperature?” asked Adrial.
Zira tapped out. Sapphire rose to the challenge. “Moderate climate. Freezing nights, hot days, but not hot enough to kill us.”
“Freezing nights?” I repeated, able to deduce the moderate climate based on atmospheric density, but failed to see how she could be any more specific than that.
Sapphire paid me a look, navigating my attica feed to the moon’s orbit. It was an ellipsis. Now I understood, and nodded humbly.
&nbs
p; Adrial rubbed his chin, reviewing the data one more time. It seemed like he was still undecided as to whether or not this was a good idea. After what was likely seconds but felt more like hours, he suppressed attica and rose from his seat. “You’re clear to depart. Make your final preparations and have morning meal. We’ll see you off after that.”
*
Exo’daius looked different to me when we stepped outside. The red sky, usually a dull haze, appeared more vibrant and stratified, foreboding almost. The Court followed the path down to the Khel’Hanna Scar at the bottom of the hilly terrain.
We walked single file, the three of us chosen for the expedition wore armor, Adrial and Aela remained in traditional clothes that adorned our Enigmus crest. Our armor was all black with reinforced material found only here. Yellow reeds at the gorge were dyed and woven into clothing that could render sharp objects impenetrable, fashioned into hooded cloaks with vests and greaves. We didn’t carry weapons, as they weren’t necessary in extramural places. Even if they had been necessary, our inventory currently was empty, all thanks to Yahweh.
The windless air made the scenery dead silent, so our footsteps and uneven breaths resonated clearly. I tuned them out, trying to regulate my heartbeat as the effects of the stimulants finally wore off, worrying about the inevitable crash to follow. I’d asked Zira for more, but he said that I had ingested his entire stock. He didn’t seem happy about that, so I said nothing else.
At the scar, nothing grew. The sea of yellow grass ended abruptly around a black gash that was made the day the proxies had arrived. At the center they’d built a monument, a circular arrangement of pillars, thirteen in total. There were thirteen universes comprising the multiverse (at least that we knew of), and each pillar served as a gateway to a single universe. Targeting a location within a specific universe was achieved by synching attica to nearby Exodian obelisks, which were given to worlds intelligent enough to warrant our services. The closest obelisk was on Niaphali-X. How we were supposed to reach its moon was still under discussion; we’d have to see what resources were available once we arrived.
The pillar designating Celevis-alpha lit up, wrapped in coils of electric blue. The obsidian sphere atop the podium lifted from the podium’s surface, floating mid-air like a buoy. Attica told us the synchronization was complete. It was time. It was time and I felt like passing out.
“Take care of our youngest,” cautioned Adrial, speaking to Sapphi and Zira.
Their sullen faces shined with the blue phosphorescence of the activated portal. “Of course,” said Zira.
Mortal age meant nothing here. In appearance I was older than Zira, who’d been turned right out of adolescence. I had taken the body of an adult before joining the Court—not quite old, but older than him. Once turned, you were born anew, and I may have taken offense to our King’s remark if I wasn’t trying so hard not to fall asleep.
Aela only bowed her head, and we did the same. “Keep our thread open,” said Sapphire. “You’ll be hearing from us soon.”
“Good luck,” said Adrial.
“Superstition has no place here,” muttered Zira, right before we simultaneously touched the pillar and winked from existence.
XI
A HIGH-FUNCTIONING IMPURITY
Qaira Eltruan—;
I CAME TO WITH A JOLT, LAYING on my side, breathing heavily. I didn’t move for more than a minute—though it’d felt like hours—as my eyes scanned the environment. What I saw made absolutely no sense at all.
I was enclosed in a translucent cube that hovered in the middle of an open, nondescript room of white and gray. The cube was roughly seven feet wide and ten feet tall, and when I touched the surface of the wall the light bended around my finger, almost like a screen. Awestruck, I poked around at the walls a lot longer than necessary to deduce that their grasp of technology was leagues above my own.
Beyond the cube were two people sitting on black, legless stools. The term people could be used loosely here; bald, gangly, their hands resting calmly on the knees of their crossed legs. I wanted to see their faces, so I banged on the wall to get their attention.
Neither of them moved.
Instead hot, white pain tore through my neck, down the length of my body. There were spots in my eyes and I collapsed to my knees. Clutching at my neck, I felt heat against my fingers but nothing else. The burning sensation died, and I was left gasping for breath in residual pain and confusion.
Then, one of the bald things twitched.
The room illuminated in blue as calligraphy, numbers and other illegible symbols flashed across invisible screens. It looked like computer-less script, scrolling through air, too quickly to read. I flinched with recognition, having seen this script before through Oraniquitis’s eyes. But that script had been red, not blue, and my mind was far too numb to even attempt to process what any of this meant. The other bald thing twitched, and a message flashed across the wall of the cube:
CAN YOU READ THIS
YES/NO (?)
... The fuck? I was dreaming. This had to be a dream.
After a moment of intense deliberation, I touched the YES option. The message vanished, and I looked over at the bald things. They hadn’t moved.
Another message appeared, this time on the adjacent wall. I had some difficulty interpreting what it relayed, but then realized it was a thermodynamics equation from Apaeria Minor. The confusing bit was that it was shown in Exodian—not Archaean, or Human, or any of the other languages of that universe. I hesitated some more, trying to understand why these things would show me a physics equation. It was clear now that they, like us, were well aware of the Multiverse and its properties. Maybe they were trying to gauge how much I knew.
I finished the equation, in Exodian. Again, the message disappeared. They gave me three more thermodynamics equations from other universes. Now I was certain that they were gauging my knowledge, and perhaps if I proved how smart I was, I’d get to live long enough to escape and eviscerate them.
The next equation was in the vein of Dyson structure analytics. Their line of questioning had escalated from rudimentary physical sciences to solar energy harvesting. After a brief moment of calculation, I finished the equation, sweating the next one.
But there wasn’t a next one. Seconds passed, then minutes, and nothing came. The bald things kept still, the scripts kept scrolling through the air. I used this time to update my hunter thread, unable to sensory capture anything but able to add a description of the cube and aptitude test. Confirming my survival would also give Leid some peace of mind. If she was still alive.
I closed my eyes with that thought. Surely I would have felt her die, like that one time in Atlas Arcantia. That horrible clenching of my stomach and the projectile vomiting it had induced was something I could never forget.
Something in my peripherals flashed. Another message appeared on the wall behind me.
I approached it, squinting. It was an equation I had never seen before. I didn’t even know where to start; mass, density, velocity, and a foreign variable that kept me from understanding what physical property the equation conveyed. I must have taken too long, because they shocked me again. And again.
And again. They had a fucking shock collar on me.
I started to get angry.
Gritting my teeth through the pain, I lunged at the wall nearest the bald things. My shoulder rammed into the cube’s surface, sending a network of light across the pane. They shocked me again, and I snarled, unleashing my scythes.
That finally got their attention. They turned in unison, just as I sent a scythe right through the wall of the cube, shattering it. The shards turned to sparkly dust, then disintegrated. The bald things looked at me with empty, white eyes. Both of their faces were framed with lines of blue light, like neon veins. The sight was disarming, and I hesitated just long enough for them to shock me so hard that I lost consciousness.
~*~
CODEMAKER’S LAW, 1
Twelve were SPLINTER
ED into thousands,
Sent to the far-reaching thereafter
To discover the truth, to discover the code
That synchronized Insipia
***
Regalis Sarine-375—;
After the crossbreed broke the containment cube, Regalis Lelain-235 suggested that we euthanize him, having already gleaned anything useful about his culture’s evolution. Lelain considered him a high-functioning impurity, nothing more.
I ordered the auditors to place the crossbreed under total stasis instead. He would be moved to the inquisition room. The auditors said nothing, moved nothing, only twitched and then the crossbreed’s beautiful, violet resonance dimmed as he fell into sleep-mode on the floor.
Lelain’s serenely blank expression waned in disappointment that I’d dismissed his opinion. As overseer of the Insipian Qualification Directive, I was obliged only to consider any actions expressed by Lelain, my assistant. He knew this, hence his deference.
“The Kalikri scouters said one of them had telekinesis,” I reasoned, though an explanation wasn’t warranted. “I would like to find out more about that.”
“Your information came from a second-tier caste,” said Lelain. “They can’t comprehend our capabilities. He’s no threat to us. You rewarded the scouters too many resources for him.”
Lelain was right, but never before had I seen an impurity so powerful, so in control of our environment. Normally impurities crossed the tear into Insipia as naïve, low-level civilizations. Not them. They operated with a neural database stream, like us. Their physical strength was above anything we’d seen from Celevis-alpha, the Codemaker’s first universe. They spoke our tongue, the Framer language. This crossbreed showed more similarities to us than differences, and that in itself was practically impossible for numerous reasons. One being that a culture would need a long time to evolve to such a level, and we were very skilled at euthanizing any impurities making a mark on our grid.
Dysphoria: Rise (Hymn of the Multiverse 6) Page 8