I clench my fist and exhale.
The sound of scraping metal permeates the silence behind me. I scan the darkness, but see nothing. The sound occurs again, this time closer. I still can’t see anything, and retreat a step. On cue, the elevator doors slide open at my back. The abrasive grinding of the pulley makes me grit my teeth in response. I slowly back inside, steeling my gaze on the other end of the hall.
As the doors slide shut, a figure emerges from the darkness. Only their eyes are visible at first—a deep gold-brown, flashing in rhythm with my pulse. The noxious sound of scraping metal serenades their slow approach, and once they step fully into view, I gasp.
Adrial.
But not Adrial, only something wearing Adrial’s likeness. His skin is gray and his lips are black, the Antediluvian script wrapping around his neck and bare chest. They, too, flash iridescence, moving over him like waves. The dragging, leather skirt around his hips and horns on his head squash any confusion as to what—or who—this something truly is.
“Your guilt is taking pity on you,” says Ikhtar, in Adrial’s voice. He winks, and I feel my lip curl in indignation. “Perhaps this will make everything easier. What do you think?”
I don’t respond, only stare. The wounds on my hand throb as my fist clenches even tighter.
Ikhtar drags his left arm forward. He’s holding a weapon that looks like a large, worn axe, bent at the handle. The size of it inhibits any maneuvering except to drag it behind him, which is the source of the scraping metal sound. Once I see the axe, my eyes remain on it.
There must have been a change in my expression because Ikhtar suddenly laughs. The laugh is Adrial’s laugh, but he’s got a look that Adrial has never worn: a predatory, dangerous gaze that makes you feel as if you’re cornered by an unpredictable, feral beast. He doesn’t offer any explanation for the laugh, and only shakes his head.
“We’re making progress. See you at the next trial.” He brings the axe forward, and then down on the chain-linked pully. Sparks fly, and then the elevator falls.
I scream as the darkness swallows me whole.
REFLECTION
I CLOSE MY EYES AND WAIT FOR THE INEVITABLE IMPACT, BUT IT never comes; instead, the feeling of free-fall gradually fades. It is too dark to see the elevator in which I cower, but I imagine it, too, fading. The grinding sounds evaporate, and cosmic white noise fills the silence. For just a moment I am floating, before everything goes white—;
And then I am back within the sprawl, landing on a single knee next to the free-standing staircase. I do nothing at first; only stare numbly ahead at the gray and brown-washed scenery. The wind picks up, and a blast to my face shocks me out of my trance. A tickle on my cheek makes me wipe at it. There’s blood on my fingers when I retract my hand. Blood.
Blood tears.
The wounds on my hand are still present, but now another form of pain is layered atop it. A dull ache pulses through the inside of my wrist. Awe-struck, I curl my fingers and press into the soft pads of my lower palm. The pain intensifies, and that familiar indention beneath my skin raises up, threatening to tear out from my flesh.
I’ve gained a scythe, but only one. There’s nothing in my other wrist.
I don’t release the scythe, of course. I won’t unless I have to, because once I do, it’s here to stay. Without any wayfarer hearths or my flask, I have no means of regeneration and I specifically remember the Eschatis thread warning against absorption of any in-realm materials.
Nonetheless, I am slightly comforted knowing I now have something with which to protect myself.
And then I realize I’ve also gained better sight. The dreary landscape is dotted with those familiar, effervescent green specks so commonly seen in the top layer of Eschatis, like bioluminescent insects dancing at dusk. The towers looming in the distance are no longer caliginous black masses, having taken specific shape and form. One is not a tower at all, but an inverted pyramid levitating above an array of smaller structures. The smaller structures are perfect spheres seated atop conical bodies. The architecture, like everything else here, is impossible.
I wish I could take a vis-capture of this. Perhaps there’ll be a glyph along the way that’ll give me back my headset. Wishful thinking, I know.
The road that had led to my long-forgotten home has now caught up with me, running alongside my position at the staircase, snaking out into the sprawl and leading onward to the black, upside-down pyramid.
I don’t venture on just yet. There are a lot of things to unravel, here. What I first thought to be a stroll through chaos is now very evidently an organized process—as organized as this place can be, anyhow—and I am beginning to catch on.
The wayfarer realm is merely a veneer of what Eschatis truly is; and what Eschatis truly is, is completely dependent on the person traversing it. Here is where travelers go should they require or desire pilgrimage. For what? Eudemonia? Omniscience?
Where the veneer is the collective subconscious, it seems this place is the personal unconscious. Every obstacle along the way is a checkpoint—a trial, as Ikhtar calls it. And, each trial awards me another piece of myself from the physical realm, traded for the fragile stability of my psyche.
It is at this moment where I once again recall the comical look on Yahweh’s face when I declared I’d make no hypotheses during the envoy. I can only wonder now how much sooner he would have come to these conclusions, had he been here instead of me. How much better at this was he?
None of these thoughts are helpful, so I dismiss them. I am still alive, and (relatively) sane. Whether that counts for anything is yet to be seen, but nonetheless I press on.
*
The towers are growing closer.
This is a good sign.
I’ve been walking along the center of the road for what feels like an hour, at least. The air is growing colder, the wind more violent. My hood is drawn and I’ve angled my head downward to escape the brunt of the elements’ wrath. Flecks of what appear to be either snow or ash pepper the landscape. I can’t discern which, as they disappear before touching anything.
The change in scenery plays second string to the worsening wound in my palm. The pain has elevated to a level that makes it impossible to ignore. The gashes have blistered over, outlined by necrotic flesh, oozing yellow liquid. The infection is advancing quickly, as if having taken on a reverse-effect of what normally happens to us. I’ve begun to entertain ideas of how I might go about excising it, should it get to that point. I suddenly find myself infuriated at the situation—;
No, at Ikhtar.
This was a game to him. Not to me.
My tongue sweeps across the top of my teeth as I think about what might happen the next time we meet, now that I’ve potentially leveled the playing field. The call for blood is foreign to me, something the others promised would come eventually, but never did. Until now. Can’t say it doesn’t feel good, and for a brief moment I can even empathize with Qaira’s factory settings.
I finally reach the towers, the constructs toward which I’ve headed since my arrival here. Even then I’d known here was the end of the line. The imminent destination.
The road stops abruptly, and my eyes rise to look upon the towers, levitating hundreds of feet above ground. The evident logistical problem is not yet a concern to me. I am in awe of the gravity-defying architecture, and mourn the absence of my headset. I linger at the end of the road, absorbing everything I can see—every little detail, so that I may remember and convey it to the others later on.
The towers are all identical, smooth and black; not a single contour on the surface. There are six, arranged hexagonally, connected to each other by blue, luminescent threads. At the center of the arrangement is the inverted pyramid, black like the towers, except it levitates slightly higher. All sides are decorated with Antediluvian script, phosphorescent like the bridges between towers, pulsing like a beating heart.
The heart.
These words repeat in my head three times
. I don’t know why. There is something to be gleaned here, just on the tip of my tongue, but I’m unable to connect all the dots. I waste a little more time trying to find meaning in what I’m looking at. There is meaning; but as Cassima said, I can’t possibly understand as I am.
“Little insect,” I murmur, crestfallen.
The constructs react to my self-deprecation; rather, that is how it seems. The script on the pyramid disappears and the surface ripples. The point warps, and a sphere drops from it like a bead of sweat. It descends slowly, tiny in contrast to the pyramid but very large in comparison to me. It hovers just ten feet away. I can see my reflection in it.
But the person staring back isn’t me—at least, not how I am at this moment. Their complexion is pale, tinged gray, blood tears streaming down their face, eyes as black as void. Both scythes are protracted, resting at their sides.
I tilt my head, and so do they.
Then, I look down at myself to ensure my appearance hasn’t somehow changed. It hasn’t. The urge to back away from the sphere and the monster staring from it becomes overwhelming, but I stand my ground.
Seconds pass, then a minute, and our eyes remain locked. We throw back our hoods and my reflection shows the same short hair from the lavatory mirror, so dirty and unkempt that it no longer appears gold, but brown. I feel the weight of my own braid over my shoulder. On a hunch, I bare my teeth. My reflection’s bottom two are missing.
This means something, but what? What am I looking at? Who am I looking at? Are they a representation of some dark, menacing side of me, or a harrowed foreshadowing of my future?
Before I can deliberate any more, the sphere’s surface ripples, and bruises materialize on my reflection’s skin. They swiftly turn into scrolling Antediluvian script, washing over her form, akin to the pyramid. A large shadow encloses her, and Ikhtar appears at her back. It seems as if he’s taken permanent residence in Adrial’s form, the pair of them presenting a macabre version of us. He gently places his hands on her shoulders—;
And I feel the weight of them on my own.
I turn, staring up at him as he grins down at me, the baubles of his horns nearly hitting me in the head. There is a very evident gash across his neck, festering in the same manner as my hand.
“Don’t stop now,” he says softly. “We’re almost there.”
He shoves me hard enough that I stagger forward, into the sphere. Into my reflection.
I hold my hands out in front of me to brace against the impact, but the sphere’s surface is like water, and I fall through it. I don’t have any time to scream. A thousand hands are pulling me in every direction. One of them clamps around my mouth. I see nothing but darkness.
And then I am weightless, floating up and away.
THE TOWER
WHEN EVERYTHING GOES STILL, THE FIRST sensation I notice is my hair against my face. My braid rises and hovers ear-length. The wind against my skin is gentle, yet present enough that I can tell the gusts propagate from the ground up. The thousand-hand grip releases me; icy burns mar the areas where the fingers had clenched, even through my uniform. My jaw is sore, and clicks whenever I attempt to open wide. Another wave of fury drags me out to sea as I consider Ikhtar’s savagery, humiliation quickly following suit.
I was caught so off guard.
Even with having parts of me returned, I am still faint-hearted and slow to act.
Cosmos, damn me.
The details of this strange, reverse-gravity chamber are at first obfuscated by complete darkness. The darkness is quickly remedied by the sudden flurry of Eschatic flecks, snowing inversely around me. I realize then, in the absence of nothing except for green light, that I am indeed floating in a vacuum. My arms flail as I refuse to accept this reality, reaching for anything solid that could prove me wrong. Panic sets in as I touch nothing, prematurely surrendering to the idea that Ikhtar has banished me to some kind of nothing-realm; and that I might stay a vegetable in the succumbence chair in Exo’daius for eternity.
But then the flecks do something curious: they begin to come together, appearing as complex chains, then lattices, then—;
My knees hit solid ground, hard enough for me to clench my teeth. I fall forward and remain on all fours for some time, marveling at the scenery that has apparated from the flecks. I am beginning to better understand the nature of these luminescent particles, and have a hypothesis or two up my sleeve to explain their importance. If only I could get back and inform the others.
I am in a gallery of paintings, reminiscent of the apocalyptic museum from the previous trial. The images behind the glass frames move in minute-long loops, surrounding me in various end-of-the-world scenarios, unfolding all at once. I might have believed these were merely figments of my imagination, except I recognize more than a few lost worlds, having come across them in attica’s historical databanks previously. The walls housing the images are composed of what looks like conveyer belts inlayed together, oscillating in opposite directions. The sound of grinding metal shakes the inside of my skull, adding the final touches to this dizzying, abrasive, unnerving place.
I stagger to my feet and survey the dozens of ending worlds. The room obviously means something, but I don’t know what. I feel like a monumental failure.
My eyes stop on an image to my left. It’s the one of the waystation, where the lonely wayfarer huddles with their back to me in front of a cold hearth. Just like last time, my skin prickles in alarm at the seemingly innocuous painting. For one, it is sorely out of place with the other cataclysmic images. I am about to take a step closer to the painting for a better look, but the ground beneath me jolts and I nearly topple over. The walls narrow, the room turning from chamber into hallway, and I am whisked away as the floor morphs into a conveyer as well. The paintings on the wall fade to shadows as the hallway opens into a pitch-black corridor, its maws swallowing me whole. All sounds and sensations evaporate, save for my elevated pulse and the humming conveyer belt, pulling me through the abyss.
Do you understand yet?
Ikhtar’s voice makes me start. I can’t tell if it’s in my head or not. I stare pensively into the darkness.
Do you?
Not at all. I struggle to keep a neutral expression; in case he’s somehow watching.
An area to my right illuminates ahead of me, spotlighting a single painting. My eyes follow as it slowly passes. Oil on canvas; still-frame. A little girl is opening the door of her cottage to greet a gray-robed man with a sullen face. He is accompanied by two guards in full-plated armor, standing on each side of him. Brilliant red plumes spill from the crowns of their helmets. This memory washes over me like a frigid tide. I shiver in revelation.
What about now?
Another pillar of light illuminates a section of the path ahead, where a bridge is lofted slightly above the belt, and a full-plated guard awaits my approach. Like the last trial, there is no body housing the armor; Eschatian flecks are circling the gaps in joints instead.
Living armor.
A living memory.
This is me fighting myself.
“Not as you are,” Cassima told me at the gate, when I’d inquired to understand what lay beyond it. His words now ring with a clarity that was previously buried.
I release a scythe, obliterating my right hand. I suppose that’s one way of dealing with the festering wound; although I am henceforth devoid of my dominant hand, which could pose a few problems. I must remind myself none of that is important right now, as the distance between my person and the armor closes in enough that it suddenly jolts to life, steadying its sword.
I angle myself to face left, scythe held at a 30-degree angle from my side. I keep the living armor in my periphery, but focus outward so that everything around it can also be sensed. Surprises aren’t welcome here.
The sword arcs through the air, the upper portion of the blade nearly disappearing as it exits the small circle of illumination.
I blur forward, leaping over the bridge. There is a
brief flurry of sparks as my scythe scrapes across metal, and then I land in a crouch on the other side.
The sword finally hits the space where I’d stood seconds before. Upon impact, the armor’s torso slides off from its lower half. As the conveyer carries me away, the sound of metal plates clattering to the floor resounds at my back.
I keep my eyes ahead, awaiting the next threat. Ikhtar’s narration has ceased; I’m uncertain whether to be concerned or relieved by this. The spotlight turns on me, and I squint upward in an attempt to find the source. I realize the ploy too late, and something hits me from the left side. I am sent into the adjacent wall, smacking my face hard into cold cement. A protrusion of the wall recedes behind me, resembling a battering ram.
I taste blood and, to my horror, spit my bottom teeth into my hand.
What about now?
Ikhtar’s chiding receives only a toothless snarl from me. The conveyer accelerates. I am quickly approaching two paintings on both sides of the hall. I won’t have time to look at both, so I choose the one in the direction that I’m already facing. I’m only able to catch a blurry glimpse of the gardens at Emporia—the scenery of my succumbence Mind Temple. I anticipate the subsequent attack, side-stepping the tall, metal spike that shoots from the ground. I watch it disappear into the darkness, shaken.
Ikhtar means to kill me this time.
My pulse elevates at the revelation.
More paintings appear ahead. I choose to glimpse the one on right as the conveyer whirrs me by. What I see doesn’t make any sense; surely, I am mistaken. Ikhtar and I are in a tight, almost loving, embrace. The only actual detail I catch is of my scythe against the curvature of his broad shoulder. The gallery thus far has been of my past, but this image suggests—;
Covenants: Quantum Dream (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 11) Page 10