All Light Will Fall

by Almney King

  He had said it many times, and I had yet to know what it meant, the name hai’ek. But it did not matter. I was no nameless creature and having a name, I was determined to be regarded as nothing else.

  “My name is Celeste,” I said. “And if I took your sword, Uway Levíí, would you not fight for it back, or would you simply stand there as you are now?” The natives were silent, shocked at the manner in which I had spoken.

  Uway Levíí was unmoved, as if he had expected it. And I knew why. That moment we first fought had not been so simple for him. It was not his strength, as he had plenty of power. It was his will. And as I thought back to that moment, to the chain breaking and his divine fury, it was if he had not tried to kill me at all. It was as if he were testing me, searching for something in me that he, himself, could not understand.

  “Very well,” he said suddenly. “Have Luna bring me the…” he paused and looked at me, “Celeste’s possession.” The Meridian bowed then turned into the trees. “You have such courage, Celeste. But I see the darkness has yet to leave you. You seem so determined to nurture it.”

  He was doing it again, flaunting his power before me, speaking in riddles as a way to confuse me, or amaze me. I knew not which, nor did I care. My fascination was over. He was my token home and nothing more. The origin of his power was no longer of interest to me.

  “If you will not come forth and say it, perhaps I shall ask,” Uway said. “Tell me, why have you sought me, Celeste? And do speak honestly.”

  It wasn’t a demand. It was more of an invitation, and I found no reason to hide the truth. And even if I did, there was no doubt that Uway Levíí wouldn’t know. “I’m going home. Back to my world.”

  “To never return?”

  “To never return.”

  Uway was silent, so I continued. “I heard that you were returning to Isaya.”

  Uway raised a brow. “Ah, got a little lost did you?” His tone was almost teasing. “And what led you to believe that I would not slay you?” he wondered. “Surely you are of greater intelligence.”

  I sighed. “Yes, I am. But I don’t have the leisure to be so cautious. You do not wish to fight, Uway Levíí. And if not fight me, then release me. Show me the way to never return.”

  He stared at me for a long time then said, “I have many questions for you beforehand, of the halos you carry. You will answer them. Then, and only then, will I release you.”

  I thought for a moment and nodded. I would tell him about halos, anything and everything. As far as I saw it, what ARTIKA had done was no longer mine to bear. My knowledge, that forbidden flame, I would gladly give it away. “We have an agreement then,” I said, and held out the relic for him to take.

  One of the Meridian moved forward for it, but Uway raised his hand before he could reach me. “I shall do it,” he said. The Meridian bowed, humbly moving aside.

  Uway came to me swiftly. One second he was away from me, and the next, he was standing tall above me, taller than I remembered.

  He gently took the relic, and with a glow of his hand, mended the brake in the chain.

  “I have come with the igle’s possession,” a voice said. Uway stepped back, taking the mr2 in his hand. I recognized him suddenly, the Meridian who handed it to Uway. The one dark as ebony with his twilight hair and his eyes as amethyst jewels. He seemed to recognize me as well, his eyes widening in surprise.

  Uway glanced back and forth between us. “You know of her?” he asked in Hedai.

  Luna nodded. “From the battle up north, near the red wood.”

  Uway eyed me curiously. “Celeste is my captive. And knowing of her, I place her in your care. Watch her vigilantly, Luna.”

  The Meridian bowed. “I shall do so with honor, Aieti,” he said.

  “I trust you shall.” He looked to his legion. “To the beaches. We will depart momentarily,” he ordered.

  From a distance, the whisper of the sea drifted through the trees. And beyond that very wood line was the Meridian fleet.

  Bright blue banners danced across the convoy of allied ships. The massive stone vessels drifted low over the beach. A green energy powered the triangular forms of rock, holding them still against the ocean breeze.

  I spotted a familiar face among the crowd. Zurel hurried through and around the many regiments, giving orders for their grand departure.

  Suddenly there was someone beside me. I turned a little to face him. Luna brushed passed me, signaling for me to follow him.

  We continued our stroll to the shoreline. The white pebbled sand shifted beneath our feet. Luna and I steadily approached the ships. Their enormous shadows towered over us, shading the entire span of the beach.

  “Lower passageway!” a voice shouted.

  The bridge was lowered. I watched the thin squares of gold fold down and forward, step-by-step until they reached the waves of the sea.

  “After you,” Luna insisted.

  I followed the gilded pathway, any hint of hesitation abandoned among that crystal white shore. Luna was behind me. I could sense his uneasiness, his struggle to understand me, and the mystery of how I came to be here beside him on this beautiful eve of battle.

  On the deck there was chaos, the natives quickly preparing the ship for battle. Objects were rolled and thrown from one side of the ship to the other. Banners were hoisted and weapons assembled. I scanned the craft of the ship. It had quite the clever design. A row of cannons lined the bow of the craft, shelter holes built low beneath the guns. Rotating shields ran through the entire main deck, evenly spread and easily assessable.

  “Are we prepared to take our leave?”

  I faced the central balcony. A glimmer of sun blinded Uway from my sight. Above him, the ship’s red-headed pilot swung down from the foremast, landing with an acrobatic tumble before the staircase. “Ay, Aieti,” he said, giving the captain a cheeky salute.

  Uway sailed down the granite steps like a monarch. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Have Zurel give order to the valdor.”

  “I shall do so with haste, Aieti,” the boy answered.

  Uway turned and began toward the controls of the ship, and as it moved for takeoff, I noticed a thin fog in the air, steadily surrounding us in a cloak of darkness. I felt the ship move suddenly and then we were off. We flew far into the south, the world around us, gray and silent.

  “A fair sky turns to cloud so suddenly... truly the work of the dark,” one said.

  An eerie croaking echoed through the mist. All was soundless, and it was a disturbing silence, a sinister spirit possessing the air. A beam of light suddenly lit the sky. The mass of energy descended with haste, crashing into the vessel on our right. Large parcels of stone shot from the explosion, blasting their way across the main deck.

  “Kiyona!” Uway ordered.

  “Ay, Aieti!” the red-head replied. He gripped the navigator handles, steering us out of range as the wrecked aircraft drifted off course.

  The enemy resumed attack, the black fleet of airships shadowing above us.

  “Kiyona, hold us down. We shall meet them,” Uway said.

  “At your word!” Kiyona shouted. An airy current passed over the ship, weighing my body down against the deck. Then slowly and gently, the ship began to sway, rotating angle by angle until the bottom end of the vessel stood straight to the sun. The world had reversed. The skyline was a spread of white ocean waves. We ascended, the apex of the ship shielding us from a hail of fire.

  A chaos of color pulsed through the sky. Rocks whizzed and shattered among ally and enemy ships alike. The Meridians used the fissured rock to their advantage, battling among the broken passageways.

  “On my command, Kiyona,” Uway instructed.

  We continued upward. The ship’s right side scaled along the obsidian craft. I smashed into the side railing as the two vessels steadily aligned. Deck to deck, the ship veered to the right and steered directly over the enemy.

  “Release!” Uway demanded.

  We fell, dodg
ing a furious blitz of fire the entire one hundred feet down. I landed with a rugged roll across the upper deck and hurriedly staggered to a stand. Two natives charged from my left and right, their swords cutting the air with a trained accuracy. I blocked the dual attack and countered the one on my right before they could strike again.

  Uway was there on the deck as well, sawing down his adversaries like a flurry of wind. His blade was a tireless spear, a collector of blood and glory. It took the lives of many, a soulless grave rising beneath his steps.

  The battle continued as if the world had fallen beneath us. Nothing mattered but that forthcoming shine of victorious light. Native fought native. Brother slew brother. It was a ruthless slaughter. Unyielding. Unending. Blood and rock and steel strewn across the battlefield. Explosion after explosion, cry after cry trembled the oceans below. War would never die.

  “Incoming!”

  The shriek echoed high and low, drawing my gaze to the west. I hadn’t the time to steady myself as the ebony craft purposefully crashed into its own allied ship. The impact launched me several feet backward where I spun and slid against the angled flooring. The ground continued to tip upward, throwing me into a downward spin.

  I caught the ridge of the ship, clinging helplessly over the open air.

  “I have come by my will... and for your flesh, brother.”

  The voice was so sinister, so dark and haunting that I had to look up. But I saw nothing, only the hard curves of Uway and his enemy standing still atop the ridge.

  “You have appeared in vain then,” I heard Uway say. “From your contempt, you will discover nothing but the aching of truth, a truth you that will guide down the aisles of death.”

  “If it is truly so brother, I shall conquer death and prove that Allya Saihara belongs to me! My divinity has been robbed... and if you shall not return it, then I shall reclaim what is mine, by your blood and by the lives of your people!”

  The figure vanished, clashing into Uway with such a speed that he was but a wisp of air. Their movements were beyond my ability of seeing. I saw only light. My eyes held fast to those flashes of silver. Iron struck iron, the mighty ripples of energy exploding wherever their weapons crossed. With each collision, another fraction of the ship splintered in half. I held tight to its bottom end, realizing the approaching terror rising beneath me.

  I braced myself as a third ship bombarded its way from down under. The ground lifted, rocking the lower angle of the ship. I was hurled across the deck and skidded uncontrollably to its opposite side. I fought on my way down, an enemy on my right side and an enemy on my left. We skidded to a halt near the edge of the ship.

  As the armies warred, a white light stretched above us, its blazing rays shooting across the battlefield. “Di tes fihesel!”

  There was no time to heed the warning. The ally ship from above crashed head first against the deck. The enemy ship groaned, its undersides cracking under pressure.

  “Aieti!”

  I turned south towards the cry. It was Zurel, trapped among a cave of rubble. Uway hurried to his aid. The enemy valdor had vanished, possibly over the rim of the ship. Uway quickly sheathed his sword, stretching forth his hands. By the power of his mind, the rock began to move, levitating inch-by-inch at his command.

  Then I saw him, the dark figure who had challenged Uway from before. He flew forward, the blade of his sword axing through the valdor shielding the Levíí. His victims withered to their knees. A sickly burst of silver crystallized over their wounds where the sword had sliced the seams of their bodies.

  I moved to the right, blocking an incoming attack. That same deathly sword as before rose high into the mist. I threw myself across the way. The assault was blocked, but not the one that followed. My body spun and intercepted the blade. It pierced through the body before me and into my shoulder.

  The valdor pressed against my chest, gripped the sword’s edge, and pulled the violet tip from my flesh. A cold face of beauty glared over the warrior’s shoulder. I gasped. It was everywhere on his face; death on his lips, death below the eyes, caressing his jaw and kissing his skin.

  I was ruthlessly shoved aside. The forced space gave Uway room to attack. The ground shifted again, turning, slipping and sliding downward until our bodies gave way to the pull.

  The one I named “Death” released himself into the air, returning to his ship with a nimble landing. Those who remained, clung to the wreckage as he sailed off into the mist.

  “Aieti!” Zurel called. “The vessel will not last!” A rumble signified the early eruption, the explosion thrusting us forward.

  I twisted and whirled around the crumbing rock. And up in the sky I saw something shocking, and beautiful, and falling fast towards me. Uway moved swiftly through the air, using the surrounding rock as leverage to launch himself forward. He caught me, and together we fell.

  A massive block of stone lay before us. Uway severed the rock in half with a single swipe of his sword. And high above us, a hand of light blinded the entire width of the sky. We fell for only a second through the realm of white. The river came quick. We hit the water, and the push of the current threw us apart.

  I found my way to the bank. The beat of the water had washed me ashore. I stammered to a stand, scanning the endless canyon. The land possessed a solitary emptiness, the whistling waves and the soft crow of nature the only hints of life among the rocks. All was silent otherwise. There was not a sound atop the high ridge. The battle, it seemed, had ended.

  I spotted Uway down the riverside, ringing the water from his dressings. I approached him with care, sensing his frustration. “Uway,” I whispered.

  He faced me, enraged.

  “What is it?” he hissed.

  “That Meridian you faced..?”

  Uway gaze narrowed. “What of him?”

  “Who was he?”

  I didn’t know why I had asked, but I found that I wanted to know, especially after taking that blade for him.

  “Do not meddle in matters that are none of your concern,” he said.

  I blinked. He was so near I could see the fine shapes of his markings again. “Very well then,” I uttered. He relented, easing the tension from his face.

  His eyes glided downward. I blushed and crossed my arms over my chest. He yanked my arm outward, agitating my wound.

  “Why did you intervene?”

  He pressed his fingers into the swollen flesh.

  “If my brother were not solely engrossed with ending my life, he would have slain you instantly.”

  “He’s your brother?”

  “Answer me,” Uway ordered.

  I flinched when he ripped away the hindering patch of cloth. “The umbarra would’ve killed you.” I said simply.

  “And what value does my life hold to you?” he asked.

  He didn’t give me time to answer, as he forcibly lead me to the river. We kneeled in the bed of pebbles, and I relaxed as Uway brought the water to the heat of the wound. Then he dipped his hand into the muddy riverbed and used the clay to clog the open skin.

  “Will it get infected?” I asked.

  “It is unlikely. Your kind tend to heal rather quickly.”

  When he finished dressing the wound, he helped me to a stand.

  “My brother Adais has settled two days beyond this valley. My armies are sure to travel in the same direction. Can you manage the journey?”

  “Yes,” I assured, “I can manage.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DESTINY

  Night cradled the planet. Uway and I rested in the heart of the forest among the glow of the trees. As the light dimmed around us, I watched in a blank state of fascination as he blew fire into his palms and lit the flames upon the woodland floor. The fire circled around us. It was a cool and gentle fire, a fire of light, but of a light that did not burn.

  I rested against one of the trees, watching him. “Why did you put them around us?” I asked.

  Uway shrugged out of his damp cloak then hung it a
cross a branch to dry. “Creatures hunt in the night. The fire will ward them off.” He peeled off several more layers of clothing until a cream colored undergarment was the only apparel clinging to his ivory landscape of muscle. I saw the twinkle of the relic against the pale of his chest. It mesmerized me.

  Uway sat across from me. My eyes followed the radiant scales across his forehead, down the curve of his neck, then beyond his forearm to his rounded knuckles.

  “What are those markings?” I asked.

  Uway raised his hands. He opened and closed his palms as if he were fascinated by them, as if he were seeing them for the very first time. “The signs of my birth, my prophesized future one might say.”

  “Birth signs?” I questioned.

  “The future of all the Meridian are foretold when they are born. The power of any marking remains dormant until the calling stirs it.”

  “What happens once it stirs?”

  “Miraculous things,” Uway answered, “miracles.”

  “And what if it isn’t, what happens then?”

  “Eternal emptiness and wandering till death.”

  Eternal emptiness, wandering till death, were these not the true tortures of the soul? I imagined them to be, for what was life without purpose? A chill crept over my skin, lapping at the blue flames.

  “How long as it been since my people have been here?” I asked.

  “Far too much time has passed, over jovi quantums perhaps.”

  Thirty years. That was around the time ARTIKA had first introduced halos and long after the shift of the galaxies took place.

  “We were fascinated. The way you fell down from the stars,” Uway continued. “You came with a great knowledge and wonderful spoils. You taught us to build airships and other brilliant crafts. We called you, ‘the sharers of gifts.’ And in return, you found desire in our way of the world as well. We gave you a many wealth to return to your people. And all was well until we discovered your true name.”

  “Our true name?” I asked. I held my breath, almost terrified to hear it.