The First Matter
It was a sphere of light, barely visible. When Ona stepped close the field enshrouding it, it peeled back a little, allowing the sphere’s swirling hide to emerge from occultation. She touched it and it opened like a retching sphincter.
She leapt back, sweat hissing on her brow, then crept forward. The opening had closed somewhat when she recoiled, and seemed to close more as she approached, so she stopped, careful to move neither forward nor back. She inadvertently leaned to the right and the hole tightened shut, so she leaned to the left and felt relieved when it opened again.
“But how do I get in now?”
She tried stepping forward and the orifice closed again, so she stepped back and to the left, luring it open again.
Then she felt a tingling in her spine, and it seemed to her that her net was casting itself, though it could not, so she saw it casting out over a pond again and again, never touching the stagnant waters. So she cast it herself, and she saw the inside of a massive gem, large enough for people to congregate inside. There nine wanderers had gathered to mourn over an ashen sphere sunk halfway in on itself.
The wanderers wore translucent robes and their skin was dappled with stars. They all sat on their knees; heads bent over clasped hands. One lifted their head and she looked into their eyes, and she was pulled into them, hearing screams wail in the halls beyond the mourner’s brain.
The figure was a man worn hard by fierce winds, but inside his halls of blood she saw a kaleidoscopic being, winged with veined skin, and wrapped in a cloak made of bones filed down so fine they swayed like gauze in that bloody wind.
The walls beat a rhythm, each thump pulling her closer until all she could see was the multiphasic light beaming from the creature’s central eye. Nothing but frigid wind came from its two empty sockets resting below its primeval brow.
“Ona,” it said in a hollow voice.
She could barely whisper. “Who…”
She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw a small old woman in a hooded robe. The woman was smiling, and her eyes twinkled like skies on starry nights.
“Who are you?” Ona asked.
“Me? Just an idea.”
“But…”
“Eno,” said the light.
“I speak for my lady,” said Eno.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Eno laughed with a sympathetic tone. “When I was born, I had nothing but questions. Little has changed since then. This was Haleon, our brave brother.”
“Was?”
“Yes. What you see is an echo, the light of a distant star. I remained here only to do a favor for the allmother.”
Ona shook her head. “Please. I don’t understand any of this.”
Eno was suddenly directly in front of her holding both her hands. “Imogen,” she breathed.
“Imogen? My friends are looking for her.”
Eno shook her head. “They are not your friends, and they will never find Imogen. The poor child was frightened. She came into being naked and alone, and wild she ran, weaving thorns around her body and summoning the violent dead to her side.”
“Where did she go?”
Eno laughed. “Away from here. But don’t be afraid. She wants you to find her. She asked me to wait for you, and she has a favor of you to ask as well. It won’t be easy, but you’ll be rewarded. Will you help her?”
Ona nodded.
“Good.” She clasped Ona’s right hand then in both of hers, releasing it shortly after. “She found one worthy among the grave, and his echo mated with a strong fragment of ohr. He burns, he battles, and he bleeds. She loved him like a lover, but he burned too hot for her, and he is pointed one way while she runs in the other. Bring him with you.”
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She felt ice beneath her. She woke to the cold ground with a start. She was on a checkered floor that seemed to stretch on forever. The sky was lit by the bursting of suns.
She stood slowly, carefully, then subconsciously threw her net in a circle around herself. She heard voices discussing her, and while she could not see them, they sounded very near.
“I know you’re here,” she said.
Something sharp poked at her, nudging her forward, so she walked.
The floor was not infinite. They crossed through many thresholds on their way to Solomon, each veil parting to reveal a different sky. She counted sixty-four, and there was a road that did not change in the skies above her, marked on either side by pairs of broken and unbroken lines of red and blue light.
The floor came to an abrupt end after the sixty-fourth threshold. The sixty-fifth plane was featureless; a glossy tiled floor under a black sky lit only by four glowing orbs; one red, one blue, one yellow, one green.
Where the floor ended in void, she saw a throne with a statue of an androgenous human form, crowned with what looked like the golden representation of nimbus clouds.
A man stepped out from behind the throne, bald headed, slight of build and swart of skin. His eyes glowed red.
“I’m sorry sir,” said one of the disembodied voices, “but she woke early.”
The man waved a hand. “It’s fine, Rebel. Go back to whatever you were doing, men. I’ll speak with her now.”
They all appeared then, seemingly through tears in spacetime that they stepped through like one steps through a curtain.
He paced like a hungry cat then, eyeing her as if she were his dinner.
“Are you Solomon?” Her voice shook, so she straightened her posture, trying too late to hide her fear.
“Yes.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “My name is Ona. I’m friends with Fuzon, Uveth…”
He stooped pacing. “Fuzon? Friends? Ha! He abandoned you here. You’ll never see him again.”
“They’re coming back for me. They left me at a shrine on the way here and…”
“They left you for dead. And yet…” He resumed his pacing. “How did you make it here?”
“I’m not sure. An old woman sent me, I think.”
“An old woman?”
“She said her name was Eno.”
He stopped again, then came close, peering deep into her eyes.
“What did she look like?”
Ona shrugged. “Old and kind. She wore a robe with a hood.”
“That could be any old woman.”
“She was the only person I saw at the shrine.”
“Which shrine?”
Ona thought for a second, struggling to remember the name. “Hadeon?”
Solomon stepped back. “I’ll have nothing to do with that terror.”
“No, Haleon, with an L.”
His posture relaxed then. “This old lady; what color were her eyes?”
“They looked like little galaxies, actually.”
Then he seemed to warm up to her, nodding and again coming close, but this time sizing her up as one inspects a weapon on a rack.
“Fuzon…” she began to say.
“He’s a fanatic, as are those harpies who follow them.”
“They’re searching for Imogen.”
“How long since you were kindled?”
She felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “They shouldn’t have done it.”
She felt her lip quivering.
Solomon sighed. “You’re a welcome addition, but the timing is awful. Our plane has little time left to it, and the solution to destruction will be only a little less dreadful.”
“You’re invading Ulro.”
He nodded sadly. “It’s the only safe place.”
“I know how young I am, but I don’t think Ulro is safe. Eno said Imogen asked her to stay behind and wait for me so I could bring you back.”
“Bring me back?”
“Or... Eno said Imogen went one way and you’re going another.”
He cocked his head to one side.
“That’s what she said. And she said Imogen loves you like a lover and wants you and I to follow her.”
“You as well, eh?”
Ona put her hands over her heart. “I promise that’s what Eno said. I don’t understand any of this, Mr. Solomon. I’m just repeating her words.”
“What does she expect me to do? Abandon everything I’ve built? The Burning Ones have devoted their lives to the work.”
Overwhelmed, Ona shook her head and shrugged. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I wish Eno would speak more clearly. She thinks she sounds more human when she speaks in metaphor. It’s very annoying.”
And Ona remembered when the kind old woman held her hands. She looked at her palms and saw a tiny glow on the right. She felt neither heat nor cold, but sensed a tremendous energy there once she’d observed it with her eyes.
Solomon took her hand and looked closely at the glow. “She was here?”
“That’s why the others left me. They were taking me here so I could train in your gambit. They saw something that convinced them she’d been to the shrine world. That’s when they left me.”
He pressed her finger to the glow on her palm, then held it up between the two of them. “A thousand stars couldn’t match the power in this fragment.”
“What is it?”
“Everything.”