by Ben van Eijk
Seth started to feel cold. He wasn’t quite sure at what altitude the clouds usually lay, but he believed he could now elevate himself there. Finally, his journey had brought him a step closer to Swevender — although now he had begun to think that if he were to make it back, he would prefer to journey the surface of the planet rather than live in the confines of the floating city again. In fact, Seth would probably reveal the truth about the world to everyone and encourage them all to do the same. Of course they would want to explore too; their only reason for staying in Swevender so long was blissful ignorance; nothing would stop them once they had the right knowledge. It got extremely cold as Seth went higher and he was having trouble breathing now. He decided this would best be tried when there were more clouds; he would know what altitude was appropriate — and maybe one of the clouds would be Swevender itself.
Feeling pleased, Seth slowly lowered his segment. The whirring of the huge propeller beneath him was the only thing he could hear. As he descended he noticed a small anomaly in the distance. At first he thought he was looking back at an Evodent village, but, noting the position of the sun he realised he was still facing east. Seth held up his hands and his waterscope appeared in them. He peered through it and sure enough, finally saw something in the distance apart from flat dirt or stone. He still couldn’t quite make it out, but he was sure he had finally discovered The Wandering Cross.
Seth angled his propeller to drift towards the indistinguishable object. He heard loud crashing noises come from his house as everything fell out of cupboards and off shelves to rest against a wall that had suddenly become a little horizontal. Seth straightened the propeller out and descended slowly. When he could see he was level with the top of the dirt column that had supported his home overnight, he manifested his faithful old tornado and started flying towards what he hoped was The Wandering Cross. Seth could no longer see the temple from his current height, even with the water scope, but he knew in exactly which direction to fly. The mess waiting for him inside the house could wait; he needed to find what secrets the distant temple held.
A small imperfection appeared in the horizon as The Wandering Cross was revealed again. Seth peeked through his waterscope. The temple had a lot more plants growing around it than the rest of the landscape. It certainly wasn’t green, but the plants that had managed to grow were significantly bigger than in the surrounding landscape. He saw three arch-shaped tunnels made of big mud bricks. Two of the tunnels ran along the ground perpendicular to one another, forming a cross, while the third corridor pointed straight up from the intersection of the two crossed tunnels — basically an upright cylinder made of bricks. Only one of the openings facing Seth was visible, and Seth could see that there were hundreds of tiny rectangular objects inside the small tunnel. There also seemed to be some movement just outside the entrance to the corridor. Whatever was causing it was too small to see, but Seth would know soon enough. He let his waterscope dissipate into mist and continued his approach.
Slowly, Seth’s concrete vessel approached the cross-shaped temple. The closer Seth came to the brick structure, the more intricate the details he was able to discern. The first thing he noticed was that the movement he had seen was actually a person, and if he was right it was a woman, or a man wearing extremely ornate clothing. Judging by the height of the woman, the corridor was about four to five metres tall, and the rectangular objects Seth had seen were doors, although not all were rectangles. None of them were attached to anything — in fact, they all seemed to be floating a few centimetres from the ground without any obvious purpose. Some of the doors had extremely elaborate frames; some, ornate door knockers. Other doors were made of perfectly flat steel, some looked old and used with rust creeping across its surface. Some of the wooden doors were infested with mould and rot. The doors were mostly in rows four across. Depending on the average size of the apertures, the amount of rows was impossible to judge, extending so far that they became indistinguishable.
Some of the tunnels containing the doors had suffered dilapidation, maybe from the shockwave or maybe just over time, but several bricks were cracked or had fallen, making a small opening that opened onto the interior of the tunnels. Outside the structure between the passageways were a lot more rocks and plants than on the rest of the barren surface Seth had been exploring. There were still relatively few plants but these ones must have had their rate of growth increased somehow and had grown to a formidable size; no trees, only extremely healthy bushes, currently adding a little colour to the landscape. Most were a dark green and any flowers that had managed to bloom were black. The bricks making up the structure were huge and thick. It would have taken a lot of manpower (or matter manipulation) to build the temple.
Seth parked his concrete ship on a column of dirt about two hundred metres from the entrance to the closest corridor, the same one he had seen the woman hanging about near. She was still outside, kneeling on the ground, tending to the plants. She spotted Seth approaching and stood up. She was wearing a rather puffy outfit with complex decorations. The dress was a pale pink colour and looked like it had at one point been a much more saturated shade. The dress was made of three layers, each one shorter than the last, with intricate white lace hanging from the bottom of each layer, the lowest of which was almost dragging on the ground. The woman’s torso was clothed in the same motif of pale pink with white frills. The dress puffed out around her shoulders and elbows and she had a high collar surrounding the back of her long, slender neck. She had dark shiny hair tied back extremely tightly into a long braid half the length of her body. She looked like she was in her early thirties or late twenties, with a round face, a small round nose, and large eyes with extremely long lashes. She had two full lips and a somewhat large forehead.
Seth was only twenty metres from the woman when he yelled out to her.
“Hello!”
The woman yelled a greeting back to Seth and walked towards him.
“Hi, you must be Trikala, I heard about you from the Evodents” Seth said to her. She smiled and shook her head.
“Wow, I haven’t heard that name for a long time. I thought the Evodents were gone; we haven’t seen them for many years now. But no, I am not Trikala. My name is Jacquelyn, and who might you be?” she asked as he took in the worn, elaborate dress. Seth smiled, happy with such an amicable response.
“I am Seth. So... Trikala is somewhere in the temple then?”
Jacquelyn laughed before she answered.
“Sort of. Well, not really… first of all, it’s not a temple, but the last time I saw her she was heading inside.”
Seth was confused and the look on his face revealed it.“
“Wait, is this The Wandering Cross? The Evodents told me Trikala was inside the temple called The Wandering Cross.”
“That is what the Evodents called it, but it’s not a temple. To them it was something similar, but none of them have ever actually been inside to pray or whatever it is they wanted to do, so how would they know anyway?” replied Jacquelyn, somewhat dismissively.
Still uncertain, Seth decided to keep inquiring.
“You said ‘we’. Who else is here, Faust?”
Jacquelyn looked behind her at the rows and rows of doors then back at Seth and she opened her mouth to answer.
“Heidi, my sister. You might meet her, although I haven’t seen her for years. Faust, I haven’t seen for even longer. What are you doing here Seth? Don’t tell me you are going on the Evodent pilgrimage to become a Domestic. I thought the Evodents didn’t even like humans.”
Seth raised his hands in a halting gesture so he could explain his purpose.
“It’s a longer story really, but basically my home fell because of the great shockwave and now I am trying to get back there. I recently learnt a lot more matter manipulation but not enough to get home. I figured that if Trikala or Faust were here they could help me somehow.”
This time Jacquelyn laughed very hard, preventing her from answering until she
had finished chuckling.
“They would not help you. They do not care about anyone anymore. The idea they would teach you is laughable, and not only that, but you want to learn to become more powerful, something that would threaten their position in this universe. I think you definitely have things to learn though. First of all, it’s called element binding, and judging by the primitive method you were using to fly here, you haven’t grasped a even fraction of it. Who taught you that, by the way?”
Now Seth was getting somewhere. He may not have found Faust or Trikala but he had found someone who knew something about matter manipulation, so he answered honestly hoping to learn something from this irritating woman.
“I learned it from a creature called Red. He lives in the Restyard. Now, what do you know about element binding?” Seth asked, hoping he was still sounding friendly. Jacquelyn looked surprised.
“You were in the Restyard? Wow, maybe you do know more than a fraction. What I know about element binding is extensive but I’m not here to teach you about that; I’m here to show you the way.”
Once again Seth’s face expressed confusion.
“What way?”
“The way to the bridge of the ship, Seth. Trust me, you won’t make it without my help.” Jacquelyn gestured towards the corridor filled with mysterious doors. Seth looked towards the strange hallway of doors. One of them was broken and a strange green light crept through the small cracks in the door. The corridor seemed to go on forever. Behind all of the doors, an ambient light cast eerie shadows on the ground and walls of the corridor.
Originally, Seth thought he would find two welcoming element binders, judging by the stories the Evodents had presented Seth with, but this was something completely unexpected. Jacquelyn was extremely sure of herself, to the point of being annoying, but she clearly knew things Seth did not. Her reaction to the Restyard showed she was familiar with Jacobus, Iselle and element binding, but she only wanted to show Seth to the centre of the building — which was apparently a ship. If it’s a ship, Seth thought, it might help me reach Swevender. Although he couldn’t imagine such a huge structure flying, but again Jacquelyn showed that she was in possession of unique knowledge and could most likely help him.
Jacquelyn smiled at the confusion on Seth’s face. He couldn’t understand exactly why this woman would help him, especially just for one very specific purpose. Until just now, Seth did not even know that The Wandering Cross was a ship, and now this woman wanted to show Seth to the centre of it — something he was quite sure he could do just by flying, but he was curious as to the purpose of all the doors.
“Why wouldn’t I make it without your help? And what’s at the bridge of the ship?” Seth asked the obvious question that Jacquelyn was clearly waiting for. Her smile grew even wider. On someone else, Seth would have found it pleasant, but on Jacquelyn it just made him dislike her even more.
“Aha!” Jacquelyn raised her finger, getting ready for an obviously rehearsed rhetoric;
“In the centre of the bridge lies more knowledge than you could imagine, young Seth. Trikala and Faust may not be here anymore, but what they left behind is something you could not even begin to comprehend. This ship does not travel like other ships; it moves through universes. No matter how much you have seen of this world, it is only fraction of what is yet to be discovered. If I lead you through the specific pattern of doors you will arrive at the bridge, the control centre of... ‘The Wandering Cross’ as you and the Evodents call it.”
Seth’s eyes grew larger and larger during Jacquelyn’s little sales pitch. Whatever this ship was, it was more than he had expected. He thought he might find a ruined temple with tiny remnants of stories or references to element binding. At the most he expected one of the element binders to be there. But this long corridor filled with strange doors, guarded by an irritating lady wearing fancy old clothes? This was not what he had expected.
Seth thought a little bit.
“Could I not just walk in between the doors?”
Jacquelyn still had a smirk on her face when she answered.
“Anyone can walk between the doors. Anyone can walk into that door —,” Jacquelyn pointed to an ornate door with a brass frame of intricate floral designs, slightly oxidised, “— but it will produce no results. Reaching the bridge is no simple matter, and I am here to help you, Seth.”
The ornate door was only a few metres away and looked like the most welcoming ingress from the first row of doors. Seth decided he would open it as Jacquelyn had suggested, curious what results he might produce. Seth walked casually to the door and grabbed the handle which was cold and made from brass. He turned it, and the door flew open with incredible force, knocking Seth aside. From the open door burst a torrent of water. Luckily, the door had pushed Seth out of the path of the powerful deluge. He stood up and stared at the incredible quantity of water now spilling over the parched landscape. There were some coloured objects visible in the water — strange creatures Seth had never seen before. Small orange, diamond-shaped animals bounced around in the still water. Some of them had black and white stripes breaking the pure orange colour and their skin was slightly reflective. The landscape in front of the door was becoming a huge pool of mud as the water flowed endlessly forth. It would soon be a lake if it continued much longer.
Seth fired a powerful gust of wind to try forcing the door shut, but the strength of the flowing water was too much for him. He began shouting as he increased the air flow and the door slowly closed. Just as the door shut the last stem of water had been directed straight towards Jacquelyn, blocking her from view with an explosion of water. Seth expected to see an irritated, angry, soaking woman once the water had washed away but she was standing in a small circle completely devoid of any sign of dampness, still with the familiar arrogant smirk on her face.
“So. I am still offering to help you. Getting to the centre is not a simple matter,” Jacquelyn said calmly to Seth, looking towards the oasis of mud that Seth had just created.
Seth walked towards another door. This one was much simpler: a plain rectangle shape with a dark green painted wooden frame. The door was made of vertical planks about ten centimetres wide. The metal handle was the fanciest part of the door, with a small curve that ended in a delicate spiral. Seth cautiously opened it. Light poured from the crack as the door stood slightly ajar. Feeling no pressure against the wooden door, Seth opened it a little further. He looked into the aperture. The door led to a very different landscape: the light had a much more yellow tint, and there were patches of grass dotting the ground. Trees with an extremely bright red bark extended into the sky, with very few leaves to block the yellow sunlight. The landscape was quite flat and there seemed to be a field of doors with the same inconsistent design as The Wandering Cross.
Seth peered through the open door and looked back to Jacquelyn.
“So these doors lead back here?”
A small chuckle emerged from Jacquelyn’s lips.
“No.”
A short silence followed. Seth expected her to elaborate but clearly Jacquelyn was happy to leave it at a monosyllable. Seth’s hand was still on the handle of the open door when the landscape inside the door showed a sign of movement. Seth stared. The movement was something off in the distance, growing larger as it came closer. It was a four-legged beast that had nothing friendly to its appearance. Its four legs rippled with muscles as it ran towards Seth, its skin a dark blue and its paws tipped with razor-sharp black claws that gleamed as it raised its legs to take an enormous stride. The head of the thing was a huge lump in the front of its horizontal torso, with angry, pitch-black eyes. Its mouth seemed to be permanently open; a ring of jagged teeth pointed downwards and an incredible amount of drool was spilling from the orifice as the creature thundered forwards. It had almost reached Seth and he moved to close the door, but he noticed that all the other doors in the distance were actually still in front of the behemoth, meaning the beast still had a lot of distance to cover befor
e it reached him. It must have been comparable in size to a small mountain! One of the red trees broke in half as the creature smashed through it, not even slowing down. Seth closed the door hastily.
He decided he would try one more door before giving in. This third door had a featureless metal surface and was so shiny it was almost a mirror. It was made of three square panels, each one with small metal knobs dotting their circumferences. There was no door handle this time, so Seth pushed on the flat surface. Nothing happened. He stepped back and noticed the frame of the door had a small silver button — it was possible this door led somewhere with technology similar to what the Inquirers possessed. The idea the Inquirers might be behind the door made Seth hesitate. Images of a dimly lit room filled with dead bodies briefly invaded his imagination. He took a deep breath and pressed the button. The door slid open and revealed a well-lit room.
Nothing was inside the small white room but one man in a chair facing Seth. He was wearing simple grey clothes. His hands were behind him, and he was slumped in the chair with his head hanging loosely. He tilted his head upwards slowly and eventually made eye contact with Seth. It took a few seconds for the long-haired man to react, but when he did, his eyes widened and he started screaming.