Static.
The sound of some alarm, a deep thrum through ancient metal. Running feet- someone, possibly someone, speaking in a voice but saying nothing at all. Static.
A sound, the rending of steel and the crash of broken objects. A sound, the pain of brokenness, the impossibility of false death the pain- expressed in the sound of rending steel. A thrum, through the careful construction, falling- toward something. Static.
The sound of light, torn away and darkness- the shudder, little tears falling and dying and dying, thudding. Shattering, mind-breaking and quiet remembrance. Heat, the sound of fire and the entrance of atmosphere. Heat beyond heat.
Pain.
Static.
“Pause.” Command, so singular and ancient and beyond everything that could possibly be comprehended, because they were comprehension. The Sibilant had been made in the image of man.
They had not.
“Replay.” Static. The sound of some alarm… the sound of light, pain-
The sound of light-
They remembered so little, but that was burned in their memory as it was in the recording. Perfect as the first time… dark stars. Infinities, impossibilities and immensities, and it sought. Ancient thoughts, incomprehensible threads, links in a chain that extended far, far into the black of prehistory. Through that chain, even that most inscrutable being felt regret.
Through that, it remembered the sound of light...
---
Laeo stared skyward, seeing through the pain an orange-brightness, a sky that shifted and twirled and spoke of dark places, whispering. Gravel on gravel, the sounds of eternity and fire… dull water, mud beneath him and the overwhelming sense of relief. He hadn’t had to do it… spared, for once- just once. That was the final price to pay for people who worked in his study. The final existence, those moments bleeding out and knowing that they’d failed-
Those happy moments, knowing that they’d failed…
Fire- it licked at the sky, around him and beside, the cruel scent of smoke and gunpowder remnants, the taste of blood and a single, wracking cough. Why had they stopped? Why had they denied him peace…
Flames, and the souls of those he’d killed, the orange eyes of god that stared down at him and pierced the clouds. Rainwater and the sounds… close. He’d been close, for the sake of Nolabo… the Ilyaochi- they must… must be oppressed. Blackness swam at the edge of vision, a darkness that Laeo both feared beyond fear and embraced.
He’d failed, but sitting on the mud atop shattered forests, he smiled- for all of those that still cared, this was their dream. For all of those that could still care…
Darkness.
He felt it, deep within himself where hurt no longer hurt, beyond the very essence of broken bones, shattered, soul long since abandoned. Finality, the last remnants of…
Existence.
Eyes on God- he couldn’t move anymore. His limbs felt leaden, and that darkness. What remnants of his vision remained swam in and out until he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. Siqxhe was back- he saw it in the corner of his eyes, his silvery skin and piercing witness. He saw eidolons on their thrones wrought of night, orange. Eyes.
Something- he felt it, maybe. This is what it felt like to be brutalized, left for dead- if he couldn’t have laughed, he would have. He’d done this too many times for him to not…
A price, for everything.
Something looked down on him, or was over him. A voice, deep as ice and as massive as the sky, or not- Ididirchi, maybe? Did he discover his treachery? That gave him a spark of lucidity, amidst the fantasms that plagued him. A moment in the sunlight and the quiet. Trees, waving fronts of green, bright lights, iridescent sheen and fire.
Light, darkness. Sound, nothing…
He remembered Siqxhe, his cold touch. Fingers of steel, deathly chill…
………
Darkness. Utter and total, an immensity of blackness that swept out of his body, clawed at his chest and pried it open and ate his heart. Pain unfelt. Skies, afire- brightness. Eyes shriveled and died and skin was flayed from his body… pain, but without the pain.
Darkness.
A completeness of existence, a finality. Deep dreams, memories of Nola greenery and Orroyelan fortresses, of the open sea and its cerulean blue, the deep sea and its darkness- Stars. Little points of light, a single point of light, two points of light, stars quiescent with fire that scoured the flesh from his head and smashed his skull and ate him and killed him.
Starlight. Dark-light. Possibility and terror. He could not feel terror. He could not feel- Silence. He saw birds, ancient blackness with eyes like unburnt coals, smoldering with white fire, silver claws reaching within him and prying… he saw the worms as they nestled in his body, cold steel and starlight gleaming off their eyes god the eyes orange bright and singular and triple and then infinite across and empyrean plane…
Darkness. He felt himself slipping into sleep, and with a strange lucidity wondered if he was dying at last. Dying wasn’t supposed to feel like this- it was supposed to be a release. It was supposed to be the end of all pain- that’s what they’d told him, that’s what he’d told himself, that’s what the job entailed…
Darkness, a pit beneath him that swallowed all light and glowed with infinite eyes, infinite stars and then it was the night sky and he was falling into it. Adrift on a sea, gentle waves lapping. Sunlight, but then the sun split in twain and was the essence of silver, a cold beyond anything he’d ever known.
He couldn’t move. That was something disconcerting he discovered drifted on a beach that stretched out forever in either direction, sand cresting in waves like the sea. Crying out, for mercy, for silence, for anything that wasn’t the pain of light and the deepness of darkness.
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At least, though- he’d failed. He wondered where Siqxhe was, felt sharpness move within him, and wondered if Siqxhe was inside of him. Wondered if he’d died and his soul had been reduced to steel and ash and the deepness beneath the eyes of god.
Steel and ash.
Cold.
Laeo opened his eyes, and saw… stone. Stone and metal, and long back ropes that climbed over the walls. There was a sharp smell in the air, and he was so cold… beneath him he could feel the metal, but couldn’t move- couldn’t see beyond… breathing. He tried to breathe but couldn't… in and out, nothing happening, and he saw stars and blackness and orange brightness- In the corner of his eyes as he slipped back into darkness he saw… Iri? No- Iri had killed him. Iri had killed him…
He saw stars.
He saw the darkness, flawless gems with their facents and steel and bright lights, creatures that burrowed into his flesh and gnashing teeth. He was the earth. He was the sky he was the whole of the world- existing. Floating in seas of darkness, primordial matter and looking into the eyes of god.
Once, he heard nothing, and then something. A whirring sound, like a small wheel spun too fast. Footsteps, but wrong… he remembered to breathe, and gasped in a breath, coughing… cold. He was still so cold, and there was something more… carefully he tried to move his arm, and to his surprise found that he could. “Hello?” His voice, rough from disuse- echoed through the room, quietly returning to him, the remnants of his voice a shattered reflection of self. He felt… alone, despite how the walls spoke to him.
Eventually, silence returned to the strange room… the metal felt so cold beneath him, and he tried to push himself into a sitting position and discovered the limits of his strength- low. His arms couldn’t support his weight, and his legs felt like jelly. For the first time in his life he felt incapacitated…
Wait- inquisitive hands roamed to his chest, where he was certain he’d been beaten beyond possibility of recovery. His chest had been pulverized, but when he felt it there was… nothing. Just gentle ripples, a few lines where there might have once been sutures but now there was just… cold skin. His ribs were all there, unharmed… he felt healthy. Again, he tried to stand-
“You’re not strong enough yet.” A cold voice, but gentle, and a hand pushed him back until he was lying, and Siqxhe hissed at the sudden cold. Whoever… then his eyes met the cold gaze, the silvery facets and the immutable form of steel and glass and his breath caught.
“Iri… why?” It was barely a croak- he’d forgotten how long it had been since he’d spoken. Or maybe it had been no time at all. “What… happened? How long?”
Those cold eyes met his, no sign of emotion. It was… odd- he’d always gotten the impression of an evocative person. For someone who had no expressions, Iri had always been able to convey her emotions. But now she was as cold as ice, simple and nothing- “You were dying, and you, for all you lacks, know something.” Iri leaned closer, eyes sparkling with the force of wrath and all its incandescent gaze. “Where did Iri go?”
Laeo blinked, confused. That made no sense- why would Iri ask where Iri went… the questions fell into further confusion as he wondered where he was. This wasn’t the white stone of Laytaihishu- it was similar, but not the same. Different, somehow- there was something here that didn’t make sense… “You’re… not Iri?”
“Obviously. Iri is broken.” The sibilant that was not Iri walked across the room, returning with a set of thin clothes that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. They were closest to courtly dress, but no courtier’s dress had ever been made so simply, or with such fine material… it was like silk, but better. “Put these on, and follow me.”
“I can’t move.”
The sibilant that was not Iri didn’t react, but Laeo could get the idea that he’d miscalculated something. An idea that was only supported when the clothes disappeared and those silvery, claw-like hands reached over, covering his eyes with their force and then the voice. A whisper, stretched out into an eternity of darkness- “Sleep, then…”
………
When he woke again he was in a different place. There was a mattress beneath him, for one, and bedsheets, and a fire gently burnt in a hearth to the side. The room was furnished- simply, but it was furnished. Wooden tables, a wrought iron chair, carpets and all sorts of accouterments draped over the floor to insulate it from the cold stone.
The clothes were neatly folded on a nightstand beside the bed, and if he hadn’t known better he would have thought… something. He would have thought those moments of cold metal and dark stone, all the time spent beneath the shadow of God was just a dream…
Warmth. Warmth through cold… Laeo sat up, pulling himself out of bed and stumbling over to the clothes, carefully putting them on. He hated the idea of failing to do something so simple as getting dressed, but it was hard.
Then he waited.
The room wasn’t empty- it wasn’t a family, a lie constructed by the sibilant that wasn’t Iri. There were things there he was certain he’d lost- his knife was in one drawer, carefully wrapped up, as was a few vials of poison he’d brought along and even some of the gear he’d used to climb in and out of Laytaihishu. It should have made him happy to have these, but he knew the sibilant’s game.
If he was allowed to have these, that meant that the silent wasn’t threatened by him, and if he couldn’t threaten the sibilant… then he was stuck. For real- more than the simple exercise of fear he’d played against Siqxhe. For the first time in his life he’d actually-
“You’re awake again.” Laeo twirled, facing the sibilant that was not Iri as they entered the room. They wore more than just a cape of steel- cleverly designed holsters and various effects were bound to their form. Things he couldn’t fathom the purpose for. “And you can stand. That’s good… I thought putting you in a more… human environment would put you at peace.”
“And you are not human?”
“No.” Inwardly Laeo smiled- he’d managed to get some information out of his captor. Outwardly though, he presented the essence of confusion. “I am not human. Polarity Iridescence is not human… she was a sister, and I was brother. We are something older.” The sibilant shook his head. “I am the Lord of Cold Places. You may call me Arctic, because I need your help.”
“I thought you were beyond humanity-” In a moment Laeo was pressed up against the wall, those burning eyes boring down into his own and a cold hand gripping his chin like a vice. Arctic’s strength was immense, and he clearly knew how to use it.
Slowly, Arctic released him, allowing for him to slump to the ground. From there, the sibilant looked even taller than he already had. “Iri is damaged. She’s damaged herself, and I can’t trace her.” A moment of silence, as deep as the skies. “The Eternity Falling itself can’t trace her. They express dissatisfaction, and they express it to me..” Arctic shuddered, and Laeo wondered what could scare something as powerful as he was.
“How could I help you, though? You’re… greater than me.”
Arctic stepped back, then- almost as an afterthought- helped Laeo to his feet. “True. I’m not human, though. Polarity Iridescence evades me by debasing herself to the very level of humanity, where nothing connects. She’s shattered herself to protect a secret that needn't be protected.”
“What if I don’t want to?” He knew that he was in no position to lay terms, but it was good to test boundaries. At the very least, it could get him killed, and that… he remembered a pit of stars and eternity.
“Follow.” Laeo didn’t object, tracing Arctic’s footsteps through a warren of tunnels that quickly returned to being a cold place, cold stone, dimly lit. Harsh white radiance, and then darkness. They stood on a slope benefit of tree or root or grass, but Laeo stared up. Dark skies, orange skies that burned… “I brought you from death, healed you in a matter of weeks.” So little time? Laeo didn’t… couldn’t comprehend. The vastness before him. “The Eternity Falling demands their light returned… Iridescence would rather have the world be destroyed than fulfill our fate. She has her eyes set on a goal, and she will not be deterred.” Laeo didn’t know if he was imagining it, but he almost heard a… fondness, there.
“Then… this Eternity Falling-” He suspected he knew what Arctic was talking about, but it was as impossible as to drive itself fully from his mind. “You want to fulfill its wishes.”
Arctic didn’t move to respond. Nothing so much as motion, nothing so little… “It’s a war for the fate of the world, and I need your help to find where Iri went. Because…” A brief silence, and above that silence, the orange light of God. “Find Polarity Light, and you can convince the sky itself to do what you want. Find Polarity Light, and the whole of the universe is laid before us…”