by Fuad Baloch
The horse snorted, shaking its neck. She ran his fingers through its mane, then patting it one final time, began walking forward.
The sand was soft, yielding, as it ran between her toes. She stopped and pulled off her sandals. Then, grabbing one a time, she threw them in opposite directions with all her might.
On she went.
She couldn’t hear the horse anymore. Not that it mattered, for it wasn’t the sound she wanted to hear. Patting the dagger tied to her waist, she continued forward, her thoughts dark, dreary.
Her bare feet sank into the soft sands, dunes crumbling underneath. She didn't care. Like time, distance too had lost all relevance. For the moment, it was just her and the empty Ghal.
But she knew better. Wherever she was, so was the First.
Had she made the right decisions? Was there more that she could have done? Gritting her teeth, she let the thoughts pass through her. “I’ve done all I could!”
Her words went unheeded, the wind making soft susurrating noises over the dunes to her right. How long was it until dawn broke? She chuckled, knowing full well she wasn’t going to see it.
She crested a high dune, panting now, her mouth dry like the sands. Filling her lungs with the fresh air, she looked around. No one but her. Dread churned in the pit of her stomach.
“Human… The Shard… It’s collapsing…”
Ruma laughed, the sound sounding strange in the quiet. “You know what? For once, I actually believe you.”
“I… wish to be… in my universe.”
Ruma threw back her head and cackled. “They’re dead, your kin. All of them. You showed me that.”
“You got what you wanted. Now use the Shard.”
“Did I really?” Ruma frowned, placing her hands on her hips. “From the moment I opened my eyes in this world, you’ve done nothing but lie to me. Why should I trust you now?”
“I’m the Shard, the one and the only. When it passes away, so will I. What need do I have to pursue anything else?”
Ruma exhaled, feeling the knot tighten once more in her stomach. The fracking bastard was lying to her once more. Perhaps lying wasn’t quite the technically correct word, but as far as she was concerned, withholding truth was as good as a lie. She scratched her chin. “Why all the deceits, First? If you’re really dying, why go through these charades over the past few months?”
The First, the last remaining Pithrean, member of the race who had constructed the vast network of Shards connecting distant star systems to each other, didn’t answer for long moments. Then, his voice, weakened but still imperious, boomed within Ruma’s mind. “Do you blame the cloud for thundering, for the lightning to strike?”
“So you do what you’re meant to do?” Ruma cocked her head to the side. “That sounds like something a priest would say.”
“There are variables in the cosmos that continue to elude definition.”
Ruma closed her eyes, allowing herself to feel the gentle caress of the wind against her clammy skin. She knew one such variable, too. A man who had been a prophet once, then forced out of his time. A man she had lived with, whose world she now inhabited, one who had eluded all her efforts to describe him through words. “To define someone is to bind them.” She shrugged. “Strange that of all things, we agree on this much.”
“Approach the Shard, human.”
“Call me Ruma!”
“Hurry, before… we’re both doomed.”
Biting her lower lip, Ruma waited. She didn't trust him one iota, but something in the manner the First was speaking to her was different now. Not the haughty manner she’d come to expect from the Pithrean. Instead, more that of a stubborn supplicant.
I can’t trust him, she reminded herself. Yet, at the end of the day, the Pithrean was right. Whether by nature or nurture, a cobra was programmed to strike any living object that approached it. She couldn't blame him for being true to himself, but similarly, she couldn't let her guard drop. Life of a gambler—a set of instincts that mercifully hadn't left her still. “First, can you take me back to my world?”
“Yes.”
“What promise do I have?”
Silence fell for a bit.
“In the name of all those who had died before me, let me feel my strength just the once, and I will grant your wish in my final moments.”
Ruma smiled. All her life she had heard pretty promises made by pretty boys offering her the worlds. Yet, there was no denying the ache in her heart growing stronger each second. If only she could see her world again. If only she could meet Gulatu once more, to tell him all she’d seen, to warn him of what was coming his way…
A treasonous tear trickled down her left cheek. She wiped it away. She had to have faith, trust that Gulatu would know what needed doing, whether she was there to warn him in person or not.
“Ruma, any second now the Shard will implode and—”
“I’m ready,” she heard herself say. She took a step forward, then smiled at the foolishness of somehow walking up to the Shard. Her body tingled for what was to come. Alfi exhortations came to her mind: each soul paid for its sins. This was the time the First got to pay for his. Hoping, praying to the god she had never really believed in, she nodded, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Take me there.”
One second she stood on the sands, aware of the landscape around her, of the way the winds howled. The next, she was a nothingness, floating in space, the world rotating around her.
The Shard pulsed.
As if recalling her previous fears, no figures circumambulated it now. No priests or Yeth this time around. Only the hexagonal shape, the physical representation of the mighty Pithrean, majestic even in its shrunken, shrivelled form. It called out to her, an invisible web of temptations pulling her towards it.
Ruma willed herself closer to the Shard.
She was there, close enough that had she been in her human form, she could have reached out and grazed its surface with the tips of her fingers.
The Shard hummed, a mist foaming around it. Within, she could catch dazzling glimpses of worlds and systems and kinds of beings that had once travelled through the Shards.
“Your prophet awaits you, human!”
A well broke within her, inundating her with sorrow, the likes of which she couldn't bear, not even in this manner of existence.
This was it. All that she had worked up to. A pity there was no one to witness her finest moment. A terrible shame.
Memory of Gulatu arrested her. She saw him like she had the first time outside her apartment. Another memory flashed. He was arguing with the captain of the ARK Aroha to not fire on the fleeing Zrivisi ship. She recalled the time they had visited Volorosi together, the manner Tasina had continued to draw his eyes, filling Ruma’s heart with a jealousy that had both surprised and angered her.
The Shard was growing weaker. The First hadn’t lied. Even though, in this state, time held even less importance, she could intuitively tell that entropy had eaten into its surface, that its end was near.
Shunning the pleasant, distracting memories, Ruma drew closer.
The Shard shimmered, glowing, waiting.
She hesitated.
The mists grew stronger. She could hear the laughter of children now, of couples making love, of strange beings floating through dark, viscous clouds.
She gathered all her willpower. The Shard spun about, the clouds of mist around it growing restless, unaware of what was going through her.
A moment of doubt took hold of her. People like her weren't meant to be making sacrifices. That was something well-suited to prophets and priests and idealists. A shame none of them were here for what needed doing.
Now, the night would have to do what the sun should have had.
“I love you, Gulatu,” she whispered.
Then, she struck the Shard with all her might, her willpower smashing into it with the power of a thousand fusion bombs.
At first, nothing happened, the grey mists around the Shard continuin
g to bubble.
Then, they faded.
The Shard was gone.
Ruma’s heart rejoiced.
One moment of clarity dawned. There was something she had overlooked: words she ought to have paid attention to.
Then… there was darkness.
Eternal.
Absolute.
Hope you enjoyed the book
Keep an eye out for “Divine Space” - the final book of the series.
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About the Author
Fuad Baloch is an emerging author of science fiction and fantasy novels.
To keep up with Fuad, please visit fuadbaloch.com and join the subscription list.
Also by Fuad Baloch:
The Hard Choice
The Lost Prophet
The Faithless Prophet
Lady of the Sands
Blood of a Sultan
Lions of Istan
War of the Sultans
The Broken Winds