High clouds releasing ice to dissipate before the earth
----------------------------------------
Something tight in his mind.
Tristan felt for his receptor and Thought, Y’sazant.
After a few moments, the Thought-feed swung open, letting in a flash of jade: Hey, Tristan. Y’sazant sounded just slightly somber; well, he couldn’t blame them or put any stigma. Maybe they were getting tired of seeing Tristan at every Exhibit; seeing the same idea, shifted differently, as per the whim of Father.
For Tristan was no true techist. And Cel Rin was.
You know I’m not going to Midyear.
I think you’ve told me about 3.2 times.
Tristan forced a feeling of laughter into the Thought-feed. Pi rounded is 3.1.
3.14, then. Does this time count? Syz at least knew. The dark knight did. And Tristan felt alone and harried, waiting for the drawbridge to fall. I told you directly, so 3.14 + 1 would equal 4.14. We’re above pi now. Above the dark water…
Where are you right now? Y’sazant asked. They were probably at the raider game, if Tristan remembered right, it was Restor’s last one as they’d been eliminated by some Plent school.
I’m at school. Where it was dark, lit every hallway, the torches blazing… Tristan struggled to see through the darkness. The hallway was lit by the soft glow emanating from the ceiling, a soft green, a massive sheet of rectangular green laid on top of everything.
Really? Tristan, your dad—did he make you stay? Some light concern.
Meliodas would never make him stay at school. Where he couldn’t be watched.
Yes, he did. I have to finish this draft piece by 11. Incoming Thought-message from Father.
Reject.
11? You’ve been there since classes ended?
I’ve always been here, Tristan thought, and replied, Yeah. Six hours… Meliodas would be furious.
With that thought, he checked again.
Thought-Message from Father. 10:42 PM.
Thought-Message from Father. 10:39 PM.
Thought-Message from Father. 10:36 PM.
Thought-Message from Father. 10:33 PM.
Thought-Message from Father. 10:30 PM.
Earliest after classes ended, he Thought, and the Thought-scroll shimmered down in an instant to Thought-Message from Father: 3:14 PM. “Accept,” he thought, separately, not Thought: and the long column of unaccepted TM’s stood there, like long, impenetrable, silver columns set at the end of the paladins’ journey…
Paladins, knights, gates. None of it would do anything to help him finish this piece. Which he didn’t have to. But at 11:00 PM, he promised to himself, he’d open the Thought-Message, and leave the school, and head home.
Just 13 minutes left.
Thought-Message from Syz. 10:47 PM. Accept.
I’m gonna think really hard, and give you my most brilliant idea, Syz said.
Tristan found himself smiling in the dark.
Neither he nor Y’sazant could solve this problem, and there was no problem. Tristan was staying at school of his own accord. I have one, he said. And there in the dark, he envisioned a piece. A piece of the image. A piece of Cel.
Hanging. Silhouette in the dark.
He wished receptors were technologically able to have their bearers send their images directly. Tristan instead described his idea to Y’sazant, piece by piece, Cel by Cel. Thought-Message from Father. 10:52 PM. The Cel in his vision, wholly black, stared sightlessly from where it hung. Tristan noted Syz’s surprise. He noted Syz’s shock. Cel’s piece hung in the dark. Syz’s skepticism. Thought-Message from Father. 10:56 PM.
Hanging.
Syz sighed in the Thought-feed.
What was your other idea?
Tristan almost let his surge of shock seep into the Thought-feed. I know, I know it’s alter strange. It won’t work. Y’sazant, even Mr. Hegel, Y’sazant would’ve been the only one to approve of this idea.
Tristan, faet ri, I’m joking. You weren’t actually going to Midyear anyway. A moment. Hanging in the dark. My idea was a joke. You’re serious about doing this? To the Alter Boy?
Is your dad going to the Exhibit?
Yes—yes—yes, Tristan Thought.
11:00 PM.
Walking out the doors of Blazon, Eleanor never felt better about leaving the place just an hour early. There was still some sunlight falling onto the square—no, that wasn’t the right shape, it was wider than its incline. But the school didn’t have steps, just a trapezoidal ramp, with the six ready portals guarding it, one on each side, allowing those who didn’t care to walk through those grand hallways to merely accelerate to the main auditorium, the cafeteria, the center rotary spinning off to each and every classroom; or the raider’s arena, the technology concourse, and the various rooms of the faculty.
She always walked, of course. Whether she did so with a friend or alone.
Oh, there she was—Giya. Eleanor had found it one of the few things she could do now while at Blazon, now that she’d made it to Sector—get an eye out on her fellow incoming class. Her grades were still well above 90, that wasn’t a concern—but whether to make it 98 or 99 versus an alter 100 felt like saving grace for an imaginary, lonesome globe, far off in the distance, one that she could never hold or put to use. They were just numbers now…
Giya Igre Bis, her spots of silver-white glinting amongst the rest of her black hair, was otherwise dun; she was wearing her Form Governing mock hologram suit, portraying a feline creature of some kind. Eleanor knew the name of it; it was at the tip of her tongue; it was either the lion or the tiger. Giya Igre Bis, leaving her face and head not covered by the mock, imitate fur, was growling at the students who were trying to go into the portals. She was actually growling at them. She waved her mock claws and attempted jumping over, Eleanor forgot the word for it, but Giya’s green-and-black stripes flashed in the February afternoon sun. Wait—was Giya Igre Bis, one of their most alter students, also leaving early?
Eleanor stepped smoothly around the jade-ebony, shimmering tail—it was only an illusion, but she still dodged—and quickly stepped behind a pair of first-years. (She didn’t actually know if they were first-years, and who could tell nowadays, with body-maintenance prescriptions? Only a few students were identifiable.)
Giya Igre Bis growled at the pair just in front of her. Eleanor thought back to when she’d first entered Blazon—happy to leave mediary, thoughts bent on finding something to focus on (that alter 100), her shadow bearing the fingers of someone she’d known for unfortunately just enough years to bother her, someone following in her wake, someone annoying… she’d forgotten. She’d gone to Sector without them.
Well, she hadn’t gone to Sector just yet, had she? Eleanor put on her first-year face, like a reverse Alterface of two years—whatever that even meant—as Giya Igre Bis, her black-green collar’s tufts of fur gleaming, stepped into the light.
That bright February sun. Government made. Eleanor stepped back in shock.
“Aaah,” she uttered.
“School doesn’t matter!” growled the older student. (She was getting a bit too much into character, Eleanor thought.) “If you want to matter, be a panther.” (Oh! That was the animal.) “Or a—wait.”
Giya Igre Bis stared at her. Her irises were brown, struck through by sharp green pupils. Not many people used their Alteryears to look like cats, Eleanor thought.
“You’re not a first year. You’re Eleanor Dorr.” And just like that, the incredibly plastic alto Giya Igre Bis had been using was now a low tenor. Her Form Governor’s voice. Her Blazon Student Governor’s voice.
One actor to another…
“Giya Igre Bis,” she replied. “We’ll be classmates next year.”
“We’re not at Blazon High next year, Eleanor!” Giya Igre Bis said to her. Back to the panther. Waving her tail lightly at the still-passing-by other students, verily terrified. “Did you pick your color yet?”
Giya Igre Bis truly was a presence, she thought. “Orange,” she said. “For the color of my hair.”
Giya waved the last remaining first-year away; by now, it was only them two, and some other emboldened third-years leaving the school early. A pair of raiders, laughing. A silver point of light leaving the last portal’s use showing an afterimage, Eleanor thought, of two students returning to the school. Only February. For them, the three months that mattered.
The panther in front of her frowned.
“I’m also orange,” she said. “Are you following me around?” Giya Igre Bis asked, raising her paws.
Eleanor pretended to be terrified. “Not really,” she said, laughing. “So far you’re far more fun to be around than Proen iHiela.”
Giya crinkled her nose. “Oh, them. They were always going to go.
“Who else is going, do you know?” she asked, and Eleanor thought.
Her, Giya Igre Bis, Proen…
“I think there’s probably one more,” Eleanor said. “Just from what I’ve heard.”
Giya beckoned for her to follow, and she did. They began walking directly away from the ramp. Eleanor noticed immediately that as they kept going in the sun, matching Giya’s spots, the president of both Blazon’s Governor-oriented clubs shed her imitation topsuit, its colors and radiance of jade slipping away into dashing motes. Just like a real hologram topsuit, leaving—
Wait. It was a real hologram, for as Eleanor watched, the spots and stripes had transformed into the black and jade diamonds of Giya Igre Bis’s Form Governors uniform, top and bottom. Only the informal hood at the collar stayed. Maybe it was the Heron model? Or the Pelican.
“What, you didn’t know? I only got this yesterday. Parents’ gift for making Sector. I asked for a Stork.” Giya Igre Bis shrugged. “What did you think it was?” she asked Eleanor.
“Where are we going?” Eleanor said instead.
“I don’t know, it’s really up to you,” came the reply. “I was just showing off the real thing. You were following me.
“Ha! An actual panther, going after some helpless little cat. I don’t have any place I’m going. Besides Sector, and our shared orange.”
Eleanor laughed. “It’s Sector University. Probably the best in the Sector.”
And where, she thought, she could go for that globe.
Giya skirted a cyber tree, flicking one of its overhanging leaves; a dot of light ran from where she hit it, rippling across the rest of the foliage. This Eleanor knew just before it happened: unlike a real tree, the cyber tree wouldn’t shake—instead this one replicated the point of light across its boughs and bark, as if the sun were passing over it from above. Similar lights, or spots, to those in Giya’s hair.[1]
Giya Igre Bis stopped before the second cyber tree.
“You’re right, but it’s not the best in the world.”
Blazon High, District F, Sector I, World.
“We can’t go to other Sectors. So this one practically is our world,” Eleanor said. This conversation felt familiar…
Giya began scaling the tree.
Eleanor stepped forward—but it was too late, the Blazon prima donna, herald student, highly ranked; Giya Igre Bis, one who was given not a Stork but a similar bird with that ugly beak, future Governor, was here in a real, hologram suit dressed as a panther, climbing a cyber tree.
She was alter strange! And they would be doing the rest of orientation together.
“Did you go to orientation like that?” she asked. She would’ve remembered a panther on all fours…
“Growl,” came Giya’s response. “No, obviously. Governors were there. I want to be one, that’s why I’m going.”
Obviously, Eleanor thought.
“But Governors have privileges. Golden Rules. I could be wrong, but Governors could be able to see the other Sectors.
“But, I could be right…” Giya reached across a branch with her paw—and with a swipe, she snagged a cyber apple. Eleanor watched. “And if I’m right, the real best university in the world would teach its students about all the Sectors. Like they did in the past.”
“So why did you pick orange?” Eleanor asked.
“Because I got a Prognostication from a Governor, and the Governor told me to. That that was how I’d become Governor.”
You will become a Governor.
Eleanor stared for a few seconds at the branch, a fairly sizeable one, just below the dappling of the fur.
Eleanor sighed, and leaned her back against the other cyber tree. It was hard.
“I got one too,” she said.
“You’re unreal,” Giya Igre Bis said, leaping off the tree—and landing on her two feet. Hologram off. “I’m going to go back to Blazon and make sure Proen also didn’t pick orange. What did yours say?”
Eleanor did feel somewhat out looking at those irises; but she was the one who told herself every year what her particular shade of orange stood for.
“You will become a Governor,” she said.
Green blink. Brown gauze.[2]
“Jade alter, Eleanor,” Giya Igre Bis said. “Are you a Governor?”
“No, no, that’s what the Governor told me. That I would be a Governor.”
“You’re joking. You are a Governor, and my Prognostication was right,” Giya Igre Bis said. “You must’ve been one of the two from the fountain. I missed it, these entire three years…” She was looking perplexed, but Eleanor at that moment didn’t feel like correcting her even further. Giya really did want to become a Governor.
They were just going to Sector…
It was just college, right?
Tristan saw a great many people in the line in front of him; they were mingling. Changing positions, all eager to get into the great, silver dome that marked the Exhibit. This one was probably inspired by that one building on the Agency campus. Both had the telltale markings, which in ancient times were called the frieze, run about its face but were so deeply inset that you could only make out the various animals and creatures if you were looking at the hologram version.
Tristan didn’t have the hologram version. But he could see it clearly within his mind.
“Tristan, I may have forgotten to bring it.”
He whirled, sizing up Y’sazant in one glance—no, they were jesting, the reconstructed V-bow was slung neatly behind their back. He sighed softly.
“Don’t joke like that.” He turned his attention back to the line; it’d barely changed. “It’s not the real thing, remember.”
“OK, OK, I didn’t forget. We’re not actually using the piece you so famously failed with at the last Exhibit. Lile Scint is the one who renders parodies on the day, not Tristan Mott, the latest techist prodigy in a long, green generation. You’re original.”
Of course, I am. I am original. Tristan thought; so the image. “Thanks for coming, Syz.”
“I’m not going to miss the Alter Boy being so rudely attacked! I must say, that is the best idea you or your dad ever made.” Tristan whirled again; but Y’sazant was winking, flicking their jade bangs over one ear. “Of course, it’s not going to work; these Exhibitists will be all over you soon enough.” They shifted the V-bow. It stuck out; Tristan was sure that everyone was staring, no one wore backpacks or even carried their pieces in anymore, just sent them in via portal or Upload.
But his friend was standing out; and Tristan wasn’t. So far going by the plan.
At this point they’d talked enough that they were finally within earshot of the Exhibitist, standing patiently by the self-scanner. The Exhibitist, one Tristan did not recognize, immediately when they saw them, put a hand to his receptor and it flashed: Tristan was recognized. Tristan Mott was here, not as a techist but as an observer, someone unimportant, someone who would only contribute to the determination of Alter Boy 2.0.
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The Exhibitist gestured to the V-bow behind Tristan’s back; Y’sazant was behind him.
“Is that piece registered, Tristan Mott, correct?” he was asked.
Y’sazant pushed forward. “It’s my piece. Tristan isn’t participating in this Exhibit.”
The Exhibitist showed no recognition. Y’sazant, after all, wasn’t a techist of a known family. Or even a techist at all. Only a dilettante. Tristan began feeling a burn or clenching rise up in his throat. Y’sazant stepped up onto the self-scanner. It was then Tristan noticed that his friend’s receptor flash, his friend turn and give him a wide grin, and the Exhibitist nodded to them both.
“Don De Mai,” he said to Y’sazant, who nodded. “I’m their latest member, this is my first Exhibit. This V-bow took me five months to make.” They nodded again, seriously. “Tristan is showing me around.”
Before Tristan could react fully, Y’sazant pushed him forward and they started walking into the Exhibit, passing under an aperture that expanded in swells as people continued filing into it. The flooring was cool and soft but also hard—alter titanium. The people inside were many, and Tristan immediately saw the true De Mai family’s piece at the northeast corner, identifiable by the overwhelmingly bright piece of alter titanium hanging over them, like the ancient turtle, or the broadest leaf on one of his plants. They were far away and practically invisible under the silver light cast, but Tristan counted two, neither of whom was Don De Mai, who didn’t exist. “The De Mai—” he began saying, and then shifted over to his Thought-feed, Syz you could have asked me for which techist to pretend to be. There are three active members of the De Mais and none of them are named ‘Don.’
There’s a family member no one’s seen yet, and that’s named Don. I’m Don. Let’s just not talk to my actual family, or the actual De Mais, not my actual family Tristan you know what I mean. I get to be a techist for a day.
Tristan forced himself to smile. But he turned Y’sazant away from that direction and made them walk towards the west corner. I’ll tell you what the De Mais might know. He didn’t mention how Y’sazant would be wearing a GAT badge, properly, how sometimes the De Mais wore Lowers clothing, and especially how the De Mais did not speak with the High accent, but didn’t say anything, verbally or by Thought, and stopped steering his friend’s shoulder as they stopped before a silver globe, fairly large, just up to Y’sazant’s height and while its surface was dim, a child was sitting inside, pressing her hands to the inside concave walls, seemingly trying to get out, but Tristan saw the GAT badge tinted silver; checked his Thought-feed for Techist and saw that it was Leia Chibio. The youngest active member known of the Chibio family, and he saw in the description that she was only pretending to try to escape, or rather that she was pretending she was in v-World, but the silver sphere was an imitation or replica of visionices.
“Death Star. That sounds relatively familiar,” Y’sazant noted, walking around the sphere and Chibio, inspecting it, peering this way and that. Tristan, you haven’t asked how I was able to get in with the self-scanner. “Marvelous,” they said. Some other onlookers nodded in agreement. Tristan just thought that it was a sphere of alter titanium, modified opalescence value, and Leia Chibio to his recollection had never won at Exhibits. You bought a new receptor, and registered it under ‘Don De Mai.’ Which Tristan had been thinking about, and expected Y’sazant to pull out their actual receptor from their pockets.
The Chibio child appeared to be screaming, but no sounds were emitted past the sphere. Tristan suddenly realized it was a callback to a series of physical movies that were popular around the world before Sectors, but that after WWIII and colonization of the moon (prior to AIV, when Eo cor Domini uninstalled it) ceased being made. But the v-World Star Wars had been popular in the Sector for a few years during that generation.
Y’sazant was leaving; Tristan hurried to follow. Syz’s green bangs swayed in a pendular motion, back and forth, back and forth. Was he wrong? Syz did know a lot about techists; and it didn’t matter whether the Exhibitist knew what the De Mais looked like, their current esthetic, as the receptor had recognized Syz as Don De Mai.
What if Y’sazant had found the real Don De Mai, and taken their receptor? The clenching returned in his throat, but somewhat colder, but he asked in their Thought-feed: You’re actually Don De Mai—
Syz stopped. The pendulum stopped. Without looking back at him, Y’sazant’s shoulders began to shake, and as those green bangs began flicking up and down in the other direction, slipped to the side, fell against the adjoining wall and struggled to remain standing up against it, laughing.
I was wrong all 3 times, Tristan said. He now couldn’t help but feel an actual smile take over. How did you do it. He actually wanted to know. He touched his own receptor. Every self-scanner would recognize it as Tristan Mott, son of Meliodas Mott. Receptors were registered to their bearers when they—
He saw that Syz was now staring at him, holding back more laughter, the V-bow in their hands. Tristan looked at it. It was so meticulously crafted. A regenerator using parts from the prior regenerated piece had made it superior to the original regeneration. Trace on, the words came unbidden to his mind.
“I’m sorry—I should have told you—”
Tristan tried not to look at the others walking around them. The V-bow held in Y’sazant’s hands, the current iteration of the superancient image, shrouded in steel, a green knight.[3]
Y’sazant hadn’t told him—Y’sazant was a techist—Y’sazant knew Cel Rin—
Y’sazant put a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. Very few people know you can do this. But when I registered for my first receptor, I put Don De Mai as my name. But the name on my receptor doesn’t have to be the name you see when I TM you, or when you TM me, and neither has to be the name I actually have.
It’s helped me to go to a lot of Exhibits. Y’sazant lifted the V-bow over their shoulder. Faet ris, I’m still Syz, I’m not a techist haha. I’m also not an archer but let’s find the Alter Boy and fulfill this quest. They threw an arm around Tristan’s shoulder. You can start smiling now.
Tristan was smiling, and as they resumed walking, the kaleidoscopic titanium causing rifts and rays around them, their feet steeped in light, a row of robots in silhouettes became visible around the corner. The Rins.
As Tammarin ran ahead of them, Skylark looked behind; she was already leaving them in the dust—well, no, the clens—Jaceus was second—as she tried to follow the way Tammarin’s cloak flashed different bouts of blue by the bright sky above.
No, they were in the sky! Skylark laughed.
“You’re having fun,” Luke’s voice came as he caught up to her; it was now them chasing the blue. “I agree, when you don’t think about it, it’s just running on binelan. I bet—” he said as he huffed—"some people in High do this,” but Skylark wasn’t really listening because when looked at a certain way, the cloak read like a cloud itself—shimmering over the cloud-surface as they ran across.
“We’re in a wonderful place,” she said back. “And I’m not in school.”
“You got that alter right,” Luke said. “Jaceus, don’t make it easy on us!” he shouted, as Jaceus, Skylark glanced back, was just two meters behind them, the fourth in line, as Tammarin continued moving along ahead.
The cloud was blue.
Wait it wasn’t green—or pink—who was keeping them up on it? Running? Without falling—Skylark ran faster; could it be—a light, clear blue ran over, as she started breathing harder. She should’ve brought a sweater—no, it was too late—they were going to fall—but the clouds felt steady beneath her feet. They were blue.
She kept running; she didn’t know what binelan was but it felt, with each quick step, like a pulse of something coming up just beneath her feet, each one, just as they hit the surface.
“It must be the clens,” Jaceus’ voice said. He had overcome Luke; she was not surprised, but then Tammarin’s hands, no, their fingers she saw, were flickering, moving rapidly as they swung by the long blue cloak. She kept them in view as she glanced back at the pulse-steps her feet made. With Tammarin’s finger movements, certain shades of blue swung into view beneath her feet, beneath the surface of the cloud. It was Tammarin. They were a Scion!
“They’re Descended,” she said, but Jaceus was shaking his head.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I’m not sensing any magic.”
She’d forgotten. He could sense magic being used.
“We’re almost there,” Tammarin called, and Skylark made herself run faster—Jaceus was getting closer to them, and before she realized it Mr. T and Agate were also there, and Cerise, and they were slowing down.
Skylark put her hands on her knees; body-maintenance prescriptions could only do so much. And it was somewhat cold. She glanced at the others—Luke and Mr. T were breathing heavily, but Agate, Cerise, and Jaceus didn’t look at all fazed.
Wait—she thought that only Agate’s mind couldn’t get tired. But, then she thought, exactly because of that, Agate probably trained her body on those fancy robos up in Plent. Or she ran. Like they just did.
“Just wait, rest,” Tammarin was saying. “It should be here soon.”
Skylark soon felt something hum beneath her feet, in addition to the pulse. Then, she heard Mr. T gasp, and Agate say, “Wow…”
She looked. Tammarin was standing at the edge of the cloud, and above them, coming deep out of the cloud above, was—was something white and long and nearly silver. She couldn’t exactly make it out—it seemed to be partly outlined by the sky surrounding it, but also concealed by it. Like—like on a Lowers painting. The clouds around it were the frame. But the thing itself was merely the, what was it called? Watercolor? Watercolor white, meandering down out of the cloud. Like it was being dripped down, slowly, in its upperside white paint, by the hidden painter living in the clouds above.
The swathe of paint came down to rest.
Lingering there, on the surface of the cloud they were on. Skylark waited for the brush. But Tammarin settled their hand upon it, and was touching it lightly with their fingers; tapping gently, in certain rhythms, upon it. Playing music upon a long white keyboard.[4]
“OK. It’s OK. They’re not here to kill you.”
What? It could be killed? It was real?
Skylark stepped back; the clens humming beneath her feet. So this thing before them was a sort of elongated, enlarged version of them and the binds. She couldn’t help but think back to a class in World History where, Mr. Abur, his robot clock chirping loudly, yawned and tried explaining once again how every animal was related, before the Government released mankers into the public…
So it was the same here. She imagined it as it might appear in V-book: Clens à Bindsà Whatever this thing was. She rubbed her eyes; the thing was slipping in and out of sight. But now Tammarin was climbing onto it, like they were Fayar Gaebus on a hologram horse in the Westworld v-World. Or was it a flesh horse?
“Come to the chart, my septet,” Tammarin said, raising a hand; the fingers waved, and Skylark felt a push beneath her feet; she had to step forward, and all of them were being pushed forward. Cerise was the first now to walk directly up to the thing and plant herself right behind Tammarin; no, there was still some space there. In between them. For her. Skylark walked forward.
As she approached the cloud-horse (she couldn’t think of anything else, even though it looked nothing like a horse—or maybe a chorse) she could make it out a bit clearer.
She wasn’t looking at a horse at all. There was no head. There were no legs, none of that long hair on the horse’s back, none of it. Only a slightly discernible outline of silver where Tammarin sat in front, Cerise behind them; and what looked like long white (or a subtle dark form of silver) stripes sliding down on the side of the chorse facing her. The front of it was, she thought, what a cloud close-up might appear, and the rest of the body snaked up, up, up back into the cloud above them; some hazy tufts floated up near where it penetrated the mass of white.
“That is one giant worm,” Luke said from behind. “What does that eat?” he asked, but before Tammarin could respond with more words from a different language and music terms, Mr. T interjected, “Is it even alive, I wonder.”
Is it even alive. Skylark hadn’t thought of that. But Tammarin had said—
Were the clens alive?
Could something be not alive, but still die when it was killed?
“C’mon, it’s a lot easier to sit on than it looks,” Cerise said, motioning for them all to join her. Skylark let Luke sit first; he plopped himself right behind Cerise, and it took him a second to steady. Skylark expected him to almost bounce, or wobble from side to side on the thing; but it looked firm. She moved up onto its clean white surface, shimmied herself such that she had one leg on either side; she didn’t bounce. It was very comfortable; like sitting on a floafa—that wasn’t really floating. Agate and Mr. T came right behind her, Agate asking if she could hold onto Skylark from behind (she said yes), Mr. T doing the same for Agate (she said yes), and then it was just Jaceus, standing there alone, his long golden hair seeming to sparkle in the sky.
So we’re doing this. They were going up. They were going higher.
Jaceus remembered his first meeting with a Vay’rte. One with wings. (‘One who attains into the sky’ to be exact. It muddled the jade chambers of his thoughts and memory, as he thought more in Neo English now than he did in Nox.)
She’d been invited by Triomphe. During their favored Class of Vay’rte each year, when their Silver Eagle would invite as many Vay’rte as he could to the Taenim Laev. When they’d all come in from the sky, cleaving the vareau in so many ways, landing on the grass on their feet. Wings of all hues. Some in feathers like the birds, others in scales or shafts or what other materials their bearers imagined. And then she came, walking over the grass and issuing its calm, just as he had now seen the non-Scion Tammarin walk over and move the clouds. Not magic; but a more innate understanding. But she had come and walked over it, bare foot; and those four components shaking off her shoulders, if they could be called ‘wings’ were, but there were four distinct parts, coming off them in the bluest forms of light. Sacre del’ Ement, part of Mine Tiara Dirn as he later discovered, and the one who had shown Triomphe the matrix of shapes and substance, how to cast your own. And she had flown there, her face shrouded in blue, Jaceus and the other Crea all doubting their own shapes that they had imagined themselves to create someday; Sacre introducing them all to Avien di Wae, who could only nod shyly to himself even though he, too had wings of blue, and Avien would join the teachers of the Taenim; Jaceus braving himself and asking, could anyone create wings for themselves, and Sacre del’ Ement merely smiling ambiguously, as if it were some fundamental secret. Later Puræ, as he showed Jaceus the markings of wings he’d been developing on his outer skin, confiding that only those with wings in H’trae flew, and those who flew in H’trae without wings were unborne. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t ‘attained.’
And now, he saw, Skylark and Cerise and the others were about to fly themselves, and as he tried convincing himself that it was only moving through the clouds like the Element’r shaping the vareau in the days before the Greenhouse that Enshaped the World was created, and not truly flying with the unbound freedom that Vay’rte had, he also knew that Skylark would see it as flying, vicariously; and to her magic was magic, ability unbound was freedom. He could not fly so with them. He looked up; the cloud was only five or so meters above. And the cloud-serpent’s body was still trailing back up into it.
“Our leader of shapes and colors, are you coming,” Cerise called, and Jaceus decided. Before any of them could say anything, he swept up, and walked up the serpent’s form, and almost immediately found himself on the new surface; his feet were descending; but as he reactively threw his arms out, grasping at the solid silver tufts for something to transform back into something solid jade green he could hold onto, hands touched his own, and lifted him up.
He almost expected more clen-beings to appear before him. Their faces shrouded in white and silver.
“Don’t just stand there, Peridot. Uuggh, always fermata,” said the girl with curls of dark green, her eyes of brown turned silver, and her entire body save her head covered in what looked like one gigantic cerulean iststarke; there weren’t any shoes or feet on the bottom. She scanned Jaceus up and down. “Yeah, you’ll cover the charts,” she said, but Jaceus didn’t see anybody else; he almost expected to then see another massive cloud-serpent emerge from the surface of cloud behind her.
“I’m here,” said another voice, and there was no cloud-serpent rising out of the tuft, but the voice was right there, and a second giant green iststarke jumped off to the side, from behind the girl; a boy, who looked half her age, but of the same height, with pearly green eyes and hair of the lightest green shade he’d ever seen. “Rest, Oliviet, there’s still time. Tamm wanted more than just a trio, right?” he said.
“Well, I don’t see them,” Oliviet said, peering past Jaceus; he turned, and saw that the end of the cloud-serpent was still hanging underneath the cloud through which he’d come. “With us four, that’s a quartet, at least.” She patted Jaceus’s arm. He recoiled automatically; while her hand was likewise encased entirely in the green material, the touch was cold, significantly more so than it’d been on the cloud below.
“You’ll get used to it,” she whispered, and patted him again. Cold. “When Tammy returns we’ll get you a tuba.”
Tuba: that one outdoor structure in the Taenim. An ancient physical instrument used by the human beings.
Here: he made a guess, that the green hopping-suits were tubas, but they didn’t use them for music, but for warmth.
Shaking; the cloud beneath his feet was moving. Jaceus saw that the cloud-serpent was moving backwards—or maybe it was forwards—and the vivid pink of Cerise’s hair shot up in a flash above the cloud.
“Go, go hippocampus!” she shouted, letting out a whoop as they descended, undulating back down to rest on the cloud. The hippocampus seemed to let out a soft murmur as it poofed down to land, and Jaceus saw the others all rise and fall with its movement. Oliviet and Peridot bounced out of the way.
“Wow!” Skylark and Luke seemed to say in unison.
“All right. So what exactly is this serpent named?” Jaceus asked Tammarin, who was doing their tapping-rhythm once more on its back, or what resembled one.
“Affannato, that’s what this chart is right now, because of you sky people,” they responded. “It’s a chart. Which should be a word in your Sector.”
Chart, Jaceus thought. A map or other table showing information. A memory, a blur—Emeli making skylight once showing all the known kingdoms of H’trae, with a line drawn in ochre for how she’d traveled through them. Ila ce asking how fastest to reach Palette. Emeli responding, again, Ila ce, (as she laughed) you can’t go to Palette. You must be invited. Ever since that dayform Celbrian, one of those who came in between worlds, brought one Magy’cal child from Palette into the world of the Celbrians, and (laughing again) that probably had unidentifiable consequences! for the world without material.
He knew now, though that it did—at least contained in the portals. And, he felt, the Porter Qumulo likely did as well.
Wait. Qumulo had spoken Nox. Qumulo, presumably, was human. Dayform Celbrian, one of those who came between worlds.
He had to find her. And to find her—he had to go up.
“It is a beautiful creature,” he told Tammarin.
The sky-wanderer smiled, slowly; but he noticed. Jaceus extended a hand to help Mr. T down; but the teacher promptly fell forward, landing face-forward in the cloud. Poof.
“Ymm-m mhaeve tm-melp mm-mm!” came the muffled response.
“And you two absolute bouncers are?” Cerise asked Oliviet and Peridot, who were shuffling their way, somehow, over to where the chart lay, heaving Jaceus thought, on its side from ferrying over so many people. How many sky people did it usually see (or did it even see?) on its days, almost idyllic it seemed, or perhaps this society truly was ‘militant.’
“So I’m Oliviet, it’s pronounced Olive-y like the fruit. My fellow bouncer is Peridot. I guess it has Pear in it.” She nodded, the movement causing herself to move up and down, slightly. “Are you not a bouncer, as you sky people don’t fly, the most you can do is, you know, leap and jump, bounce and lift?”
Peridot let out what sounded like a cackle. Jaceus was glad he looked away; the sound did not well match that hair that was just so, so light green.
“Are you guys also part of Tammarin’s… musical group?” Skylark was asking. It was a good question. Tammarin had seemed to not include these two, as jovial as they were, in their initial estimation.
“We’re, uh, helping,” said Peridot. “Tam, I think we should start introducing the sky people to the chord.”
“I agree,” Tammarin said. They did another quick flurry of taps on the chart’s head; the chart, without making another sound, seamlessly, slipped off backwards—or forwards—off the cloud. It was then Jaceus realized that they were not alone.
Hoarse, visionlike green shapes, emergent in the mist that had been clouding their view on the cloud-surface, were becoming visible. More bouncers. Agate was shepherding their group further onto the cloud they stood on, away from its edge; Mr. T was talking quite excitedly with the two bouncers among them, and Skylark was asking Tammarin questions. Cerise had changed her entire outfit to green, short of her hairpin which she kept sky-blue; and Luke, gesturing distinctly, was asking him—
“Jaceus. I’m ready when you are. You’re not keeping us up, are you.”
He was not. And neither was Cerise; they were all standing, unsupported, except by the cloud-surface itself. He glanced at Tammarin; they were emitting more musical terms, to Skylark’s eager nodding—she was certainly keeping up.
But, instinctively, he did not get to his knees to touch the cloud—it was entirely possible that the cloud here, and he realized that he’d been feeling this for some time on both the cloud here and the one below, that walking and standing on it felt like standing on a cliff-face, or rather a soft version of one—that it was keeping them up on its own. Or it was the clens. And then he heard a soft humming, all joined in a single note, emanating from the group of bouncers similarly garbed in green to Oliviet and Peridot, as they became more visible, their various hair-colors and eyes, heights, becoming clear. Some of them were holding binds. And the binds’ wings were fluttering in the cool wind that seemed to wash over them.
Jaceus counted nine of them. He almost expected them to begin singing.
“Caesura,” Tammarin said, and Jaceus did catch it this time—a nearly instantaneous tap of the right foot, without moving the heel—just before the nine bouncers ceased their humming, something pushed from below and Jaceus caught himself before falling—now it was Agate who tripped, falling face-forward, Skylark catching her by the arm—and now Jaceus saw, on the faces of these nine additional bouncers, varying expressions of neutrality, surprise, displeasure, and bemusement. Their entire group was now eighteen in number. Tammarin was the leader here, and Jaceus felt compelled to step forward.
“I—” he began saying.
“We’re here to go up,” Skylark said. She was forming a shape, invisible, in her hands; as if she was holding something. “Do we all need binds for that?”
“Ha, you need binds,” Peridot said, laughing, but stopped abruptly when Oliviet bumped him on the shoulder. “Okay, okay,” he said. Oliviet, seeming to drag him along behind her as they bounced forward to join the other nine, was silent. Tammarin seemed to be staring intently at Skylark’s feet; she wasn’t floating. But it was at that moment that Jaceus felt a strong inkling, like a sense of air or pressure being formed between them, by someone with wings. Holding a bind which had its own was entirely not the same. But to Skylark, again, there probably wasn’t a difference if it meant going up.
“The chord is disrupted,” the now eleven bouncers said in unison. Their eyes and green suits seemed to shimmer in the mist, although as it continued to clear, Jaceus saw that, in the near distance behind them, stood a structure of some size, hazy, white, hanging silently like its own miniature cloud; it was larger than the chart, unmoving, and wind seemed to chorus through it, forming thin slivers of sound.
“And that is the chord,” Skylark said, softly; she was staring forward, her silver eyes seeming to glow, as they were illuminated by the auras of green around them in the cool mist. Surrounded as they were by these bouncers, Jaceus felt that they weren’t yet able to pay attention to the distinctly colder air. And the chorusing wind, sleeting through the chord ahead, seemed to speak to them.
Jaceus couldn’t understand it.
Tammarin stepped up; making a double pinching motion, one with each hand. They were now making clear, distinct, and rapid steps, their quick and unbroken, smooth and shot by blue movements causing wakes of cloud and white to unfurl from the surface. The bouncers en masse bounced out of the way. The way ahead to the chord was now empty. Tammarin stepped forward into the mist and, continuing to dance with only their feet, seemed to be moving forward, closer to the massive thing which was continuing to usher in an unidentifiable sound.
No, Jaceus realized that Tammarin was bringing it in closer to them; and that, as they all observed, there were binds protruding along two skeins of its surface, apparent only by their handles, or hilts; and the bouncers, the Powers, all kept watching.
Tammarin extended both hands.
“Encore,” they said. The chord ceased its language; and, still embracing the creature of cloud before them, distinct and great and formidable, Tammarin said—
“It is time to test.”
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[1] Giya Igre Bis’s first theme song: Mashiro Ayano’s “ideal white,” from her 2016 album WHITE PLACE
[2] Giya Igre Bis’s second theme song: “jade tower” by FlowerBoyDeMii, from his 2022 EP New Game +
[3] theme of Y’sazant Syzer: “drowned” by midxna, from their 2023 album control is an illusion
[4] theme of Tammarin Le: “Lingus” by Snarky Puppy, recorded and performed in 2014 at Kytopia Studios at Utrecht, the Netherlands; part of their studio album We Like It Here