Architecture & Adversity

by Jeremy Dwyer

  The diamond-covered figure then extended its fingers and touched on various locations on its facial area, neck, torso, arms and legs, following the diamond-covered curves. Then, the diamond-covered figure looked closely at the tips of the fingers and noticed something: a miniscule amount of residual crystal dust. The diamond-covered figure then returned to where the blast occurred and looked down into the depression in the floor where the mixture had been poured and saw a thick, yellow liquid which had spread to fill the depression. The diamond-covered figure then looked at its fingers again, seeing more crystal dust. The diamond-covered figure shook its head and clenched its fists in disappointment.

  The diamond-covered figure then walked briskly – quickly gliding, really, across the dark crystal floor of the room, as if sliding down an icy hill – toward the dark, outer crystal wall. Once there, the diamond-covered figure then touched a section of it, altering its structure to become transparent, and then looked outside, gazing upon the ocean. The altered section of the outer crystal wall also magnified images, thus serving as a telescope, allowing the diamond-covered figure to see four hundred fifty (450) miles away. Furthermore, the alteration in the crystal wall also bent light such that it turned corners, reaching around the many nearby mountains. With this panoramic, periscopic view, ships could be seen sailing in all directions, so the diamond-covered figure waited, and waited some more.

  ~~~

  The Mostly Fortunate was a two hundred twenty (220) foot long galleon, having four (4) pairs of double-masted sails. The vessel was used to transport large quantities of diamonds, platinum and gold. It had a crew of fifty-nine (59) relatively strong young men: twenty-one (21) of them were drinkers of the Trerada Ocean waters for robust health; however, most drank of the Nabavodel Ocean waters for strength and speed in loading and unloading the vessel, as well as defending it in the event that they were boarded by pirates. Its captain, a fifty-six (56) year old man named Conleth, drank the waters of the Lujladia Ocean. Its benefits – allowing him to make his own light, and deciding where it went – were far better than listening to the stars by drinking the Atrejan Ocean waters, as far as he was concerned. The recent times when the suns all became dark only proved him right, because he could navigate when many others couldn’t. The ability to see clearly for two hundred (200) miles out, and around corners, was no small benefit, either. Spotting rough waters, and dangerous travelers on the ocean hiding on the other side of a mountain or island, was a key to his preparedness. Why any sea traveler wouldn’t drink the Lujladia Ocean waters, or travel with someone who did, was a mystery to him: they’d have to be an idiot, as far as he was concerned.

  ~~~

  Conleth’s cargo was always extremely valuable, so the Mostly Fortunate was a tempting target for pirates. He never traveled without a hired escort. In this instance, while sailing across the Kazofen Ocean, his first line of defense was the one hundred eighty-five (185) foot long frigate Reconsideration, with three (3) pairs of pivoting double-masted sails, eleven (11) cannons, a crew of forty-seven (47) experienced hired soldiers and a thirty-one (31) year old female captain named Oralee. The captain and most of the crew drank the waters of the Nabavodel Ocean, because of the strength and speed those waters gave. Two (2) of her crewmembers drank the waters of the Lujladia Ocean to give them far sight, and the ability to see around corners and spot enemy ships. Captain Oralee had the respect of all of her crew, male and female, because she never cheated them out of pay, and she knew how to settle disputes fairly. She also knew how to pick crew carefully – most of the time.

  ~~~

  Also sailing across the Kazofen Ocean, the Empty Promise was a one hundred ninety-seven (197) foot long frigate with twenty-six (26) cannons, three (3) pairs of pivoting, double-masted sails and a crew of seventy-one (71). It was led by a forty-three (43) year old male captain named Elbridge, who was rarely ever seen, because he drank the waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean and remained under the cloak of darkness those waters enabled him to create. His stealth was an advantage, and his crew was leery of speaking even a whisper of discontent, for fear that the captain was watching, ready to kill them for any discouraging words or signs of mutiny. Elbridge didn’t hesitate to slit a throat; yet, he never cheated his crew, because he needed their loyalty in combat. He wasn’t afraid of a backstabbing, because they couldn’t find his back; he dreaded, however, the lost opportunity of a galleon that got away.

  The greatest threat to Captain Elbridge was anyone who drank the waters of the Lujladia Ocean and could thereby generate light to see through his cloak of darkness. Thus, he never allowed them on his crew. This deficit, however, caused a different problem: he never had the advantage of anyone with far sight or the ability to bend light to see around corners. This led to more missed opportunities than he cared to think about, but he did have his share of successes, and he was still alive and healthy enough to enjoy the spoils.

  Captain Elbridge’s crew was made entirely of male drinkers of the Nabavodel Ocean waters for the strength and speed it gave them. They made use of telescopes to spot ships to target, but these were of limited range and could not see around corners, so his lookout did the best he could. The lookout spotted a galleon and a frigate and called out: “Captain, we have ourselves a galleon in sight! To the north, and headed west! There’s a frigate alongside it!”

  “Ready the cannons! Sail full speed to meet with them!” Captain Elbridge ordered.

  The crew of the Empty Promise readied the cannons and oriented the sails to intercept the sighted galleon and frigate.

  ~~~

  On board the Reconsideration, one of the Lujladia water drinkers – a young man named Meade – was scanning the ocean around them and spotted another frigate approaching from the south, over ten (10) miles away. He wondered why he didn’t see them earlier – when they were a hundred (100) miles away – unless, he thought, the other frigate had been under the cloak of darkness. Meade knew that, if enough people drank the waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean and gathered together, they could form a cloak of darkness around an entire ship, and it might be too intense for him to penetrate by his powers of light. That wasn’t the only technique for cloaking, but it was possible. Still, if that technique was being used, Meade thought they should have waited until they were close up before revealing themselves, unless they were stupid. No – they weren’t that stupid, he thought.

  “Captain Oralee, there is a frigate, ten (10) miles to the south, approaching rapidly,” Meade called out from his perch, twenty-one (21) feet up the center mast.

  Captain Oralee was surprised that her lookout didn’t spot the approach much sooner, and farther away. Still, it was some warning. “Ready the cannons! Possible enemy vessel approaching from the south!” Captain Oralee ordered. Her crew readied the cannons and waited.

  “Signal the Mostly Fortunate! Let them know to fall back,” Captain Oralee ordered.

  Meade used the light powers given to him by the Lujladia waters he drank in order to flash a pulse of light toward the Mostly Fortunate.

  ~~~

  On board the Mostly Fortunate, Captain Conleth saw the signal and looked out over the ocean for himself. He saw the approaching frigate, but something about it was strange – not the ship, but its approach. The light seemed to shimmer, and the motion of the ship appeared to be accelerating, then decelerating, in a way that made no sense at all.

  ~~~

  On board the Empty Promise, Captain Elbridge took his own personal telescope to see the targeted galleon and saw that it was getting farther away, and then closer, which made not a drop of sense to him.

  “What kind of maneuver are they pulling? We’re getting closer, then farther away, then closer again. Why?” he asked, calling up to his lookout.

  “No maneuver, captain. And our speed seems steady,” the lookout said.

  “This is a trick of light. Somebody’s drinking Lujladia waters out there, and making illusions,” Captain Elbridge said. He was worried now. He could penetrate il
lusions, if he was up close. But he wasn’t up close, and couldn’t even judge the distance correctly.

  ~~~

  On board the Reconsideration, Meade watched as the approaching frigate appeared to gain on them, and then change direction, and then seem farther away. Its movements made no sense, unless someone was manipulating light, by also drinking the waters of the Lujladia Ocean. He could create his own tricks of light – if he concentrated – but he couldn’t cancel out someone else’s, or see through them to find their true position.

  “Captain Oralee. The other ship is trying to trick us – either changing its course, or using light powers to project a false image of its location,” Meade called down from his perch.

  “What do you mean?” Captain Oralee asked.

  “They appear to be getting closer, then farther away,” Meade said.

  “That makes no sense – unless it’s an illusion, like you said,” Captain Oralee said. She was still suspicious of the other ship.

  ~~~

  The diamond-covered figure saw three (3) different ships approaching very close to the outer wall. With lithe fingers – covered in thin diamond scales that did not diminish dexterity – the diamond-covered figure then manipulated the dark outer crystal wall even further, causing it to separate widely. After this, the diamond-covered figure quickly glided across the crystal floor toward the center of the room and waited there.

  ~~~

  On board the Reconsideration, Meade, Captain Oralee and several crew members watched as the Mostly Fortunate disappeared from sight.

  “Where did it go? Look with your light!” Captain Oralee ordered, not yet in a panic, but nearly so.

  Meade drank anew of the waters of the Lujladia Ocean and was energized. He looked and saw nothing – the ship was gone, but there was no hint of a cloak of darkness like that which was created by the waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean. Something else, entirely, was occurring. He then climbed down from his perch to join the captain and crew on deck.

  “Nothing, captain! No darkness. No galleon,” Meade said.

  “The other frigate is still in sight?” Captain Oralee asked.

  “Yes, still approaching, and receding, for some reason,” Meade said.

  ~~~

  On board the Empty Promise, Captain Elbridge looked through his telescope in surprise, and then disappointment, as the galleon disappeared from sight. He didn’t know if their crew was using the powers of the Ikkith Tar Ocean waters to generate a cloak of darkness. Whereas he could drink those same waters to create his own darkness, he could not see through that of others. Another prize was lost.

  Suddenly, he realized that he was lost, as well.

  ~~~

  On board the Reconsideration, the crew watched as the other frigate disappeared from sight.

  “The other frigate – the one I thought was pursuing us – is now gone,” Meade said.

  “Darkness?” Captain Oralee asked.

  “No. Just out of sight, like it was an illusion all along. It’s not hiding around these mountain, or I could see it,” Meade said.

  “Someone’s trying to trick us. Keep looking for signs of the Mostly Fortunate,” Captain Oralee said.

  Soon, even the Reconsideration was lost.

  ~~~

  The diamond-covered figure looked on as the two (2) frigates and the galleon sailed into the opening of the crystal room. The room was a vast fortress that had been built so long ago, using the power given by the waters of the Kazofen Ocean to bend crystals and forge the unusual structure.

  As the ships fully entered the fortress, the diamond-covered figure reached out to touch one of the many tall, white diamond spires in the fortress. Some of the crystal within it began to stretch out like liquid and then this reached to another such spire, and then another, until there was a web work of liquid crystal hanging from the ceiling of the fortress, and this material then hardened into thousands of long, sharp stalactites over the three (3) ships. Suddenly, these stalactites of diamond separated from the ceiling, raining down on the crew of the ships, killing everyone on board.

  The diamond-covered figure then glided across the crystal floor toward the galleon. Since the boarding ramp had not been lowered, the diamond-covered figure molded the fallen stalactites into a diamond staircase and used it to board the ship. After finding a considerable supply of diamonds in the cargo hold – estimated to be seventeen (17) tons – the diamond-covered figure then touched the cache of diamonds and they began to liquefy. The diamond-covered figure then guided the liquid diamond streaming mass, by constant touch, up and out of the galleon, down the diamond boarding stairs, and into the large room that was the crystal fortress.

  The diamond-covered figure then glided across the crystal floor and led this liquid diamond streaming mass toward one of the three (3) smoky quartz domes with the hint of violet light glowing within. The liquid diamond streaming mass was then further guided by the diamond-covered figure’s touch, spreading and rising to cover this dome, layer upon layer, and then it solidified into a hard diamond shell. The diamond-covered figure did not need to climb up to the height of the dome to complete the covering process; rather, the liquid diamond streaming mass crept upward like vines on a trellis.

  The diamond-covered figure glided back across the crystal floor and then touched a part of the outer wall of the crystal fortress and its material rejoined, sealing the fortress, and even the transparent portion of the wall, previously used for observation, became opaque again. After this, the diamond-covered figure touched another of the white-diamond spires, altering its low-level structure, which impacted other structures, far below.

  ~~~

  Inside the underground cavern, with the luminous ocean, Commander Doriv’Natix and his scouts and combat troops waited on the central island for their rescue for more than a year, having occasionally gone back to the surface to restock their supply of the various ocean waters. While they were trained to be dedicated to their mission, even patiently waiting for an enemy to make a mistake, there was no sign of a forthcoming rescue. Until the burnpath was opened for them – initiated by someone on Votteus using a trailblazer to cut through the fabric of space to reach this point in Thalariveth – they weren’t leaving.

  Gears – or some heavy machinery – could be heard turning and the island began to rotate slowly. Commander Doriv’Natix was alarmed. Soon, the luminous ocean around the island began to stir and its corrosive waters rose up onto the island and dissolved the flesh of the commander and his troops, whose final moments were agonizing.

  The island – which was merely part of a machine – continued to rotate around a central axle. It was connected to other rods and axles in a complex arrangement, leading back up to the crystal fortress.

  ~~~

  Inside the crystal fortress, the diamond-covered figure watched as the smoky quartz dome – now covered in the diamond taken from the galleon – turned bright violet, rather than the faint violet color that barely shone through before. The light was intense, but there was no eye injury, because the diamond covering was carefully constructed to filter the light.

  The diamonds covering the dome began to change – they appeared fractured at first, but then the fractures appeared to fade, and they became quite different from their original form, and more like the diamonds worn by the diamond-covered figure.

  The diamond-covered figure touched these diamonds with lithe fingers – still covered in diamond – and found them to be promising. Then, the diamond-covered figure changed – the diamonds over one small finger melted away so that the finger could directly touch those diamonds on the dome. The finger – connected to a body whose thirst had been quenched for ages by the waters of the Kazofen Ocean – had the ability to detect and manipulate crystal and stone: either by touching it directly, or through other crystal or stone. Touching it directly, however, worked more precisely. The finger sensed the correctness of this new diamond covering the dome. Suddenly, the diamond covering melted away from the
figure, revealing a woman with a sleek form and youthful body – only forty-one (41) years of apparent age, but four million three hundred thousand (4300000) years of actual age. Polyxene looked at her exposed skin and was pleased, but she had to be quick, before time caught up with her.

  The diamonds she had carefully carved in the past had intricate etchings, designed by her unmatched skill which was amplified by drinking the waters of the Kazofen Ocean. Those etchings caught the very flow of time and slowed it down, so that she could live, essentially, forever. Great age was not the sole province of those who drank the waters of the Ursegan Ocean – Polyxene had found her own way. She was the architect of many transcendent works, and none could rival her, as she had eons of practice and vast innate potential. Yet, she had to continue to work, and the flow of time was turbulent, in every direction. The diamond etchings caught hold of that temporal flow, but they were eventually damaged by it, causing the diamonds to weaken and begin to turn to dust. Her experiments also produced powerful blasts that damaged the diamonds, causing them to weaken more quickly, hastening their transformation into dust.

  It was only the violet fire within these quartz domes – also architected by her – that was powerful enough to make the etchings deep enough to last. Drinking the Kazofen Ocean waters let her manipulate diamonds and other crystals and even stones as if they were clay. Yet, architecture also needed light, and she did not have the direct ability to manipulate it. Instead, she had to create complex crystal tools and chain these together to produce the desired effect, amplifying the intensity of the light and directing it with utmost precision. The machine in the underground cavern was part of that chain.

  Polyxene drank anew of the waters of the Kazofen Ocean from a vial she had with her. She was thereby energized and able to better manipulate crystals and stones. She then touched one of the many smaller turquoise spires in her fortress and she altered its structure, so that it became a channel and a containment vessel for the waters beneath her, taken from the Kazofen Ocean on which her fortress rested. Those Kazofen waters flowed up and she began to work with them, separating out the impurities from the water crystals. This produced a purer potion of Kazofen waters, which she drank, and thereby became further energized. She repeated this process several times: with the increased purity of water she drank, she became better at exercising her crystal-manipulation powers, including improving in her ability to purify the water, forming a virtuous cycle. She did this until she was satisfied.