He sat in that dark room, beneath the weight of stone and white light, pale golden radiance that defied the darkness. Stepping, he placed himself in a different perspective, noting the way the light glittered off metal facets. It wasn’t skin like skin- but it seemed to serve the same purpose, keeping what was inside far from what was outside. Patterns- it was made of patterns.
Sweeping, facets coming together and points of brightness, subtle smoothness were at first there was only jagged, disorder. He sat beside the eidolon, looking it in the eyes as it stared out into forever blackness… “Who are you?” He’d asked the question many times, but of course he got no response.
Siqxhe brushed a finger across the strange, supple metal of the eidolon’s cape, feeling it give way beneath his finger. That was another mystery- how could it be connected to them, but also fully distinct. He slid his finger delicately across the cloak, coming to where it rested on the shoulders…
There was no break there. He could feel something, a slight disunity, but it was almost imperceptible. The cloth transformed from silky gleam to shards of steel, to the eidolon-skin, blending into the gentle, jagged patterns…
Siqxhe gently picked up a scalpel, sliding it beneath in the gap. The blade was so thin as to be barely visible near the tip, sharpened to a needle-point, but still he could just barely pry into the edge. He tried to lift it, but no matter how much pressure he applied, he was unable to free it. After a second of trying it was the scalpel that bent, much to Siqxhe’s frustration-
The door creaked silently open, forcing Siqxhe to halt his ministrations and glance up. A broad man stepped in, clearly Sakaxhy. He wore white robes and the simple grace of someone who knew what he was doing, causing Siqxhe to wonder why he hadn’t seen him before. “Who are you?”
“I am So’kashi, humble servant of the lord Ididirchi, Eye of God.” He motioned toward the eidolon. “I am, and was, Ididirchi’s physician. I was told that you wished to see me?”
“Yes, yes I did…” He pulled a neatly folded square of paper out of his pocket, handing it over to So’kashi. “Firstly, I don’t know what half of these herbs or treatments do. They’re not in the physica-” he almost smiled at the physician’s faint expression- “and they’re not common in Nolabo. That’s not to say they’re invalid, just… I don’t recognise them.”
“We followed the instructions of the physica to the word- most of the prescribed treatments wouldn’t work without skin to cut or mouths to feed.” So’kashi gestured toward a handful of implements Siqxhe had left behind the others. “If you know how, then it might be possible to follow the prescribed course of bloodletting-”
“No! Absolutely not.” Siqxhe sighed, shaking his head with an exasperation greater than he’d thought he’d ever experience after college. “It’s fine. You don’t need to follow the physica… it’ll do us far more harm than good. I’m much more interested in what you tried…” They discussed at length the various methods they’d tried to wake the eidolon, from ice to strong scented concoctions and even one elixir that had knocked one of the assistants out before they could leave the room.
The methods were… interesting, but they didn’t get him any closer to solving the problem than he had been before. The only thing he learned was how truly little they knew about the eidolon. It just… was. He didn’t even know where they’d found it. After more than an hour of pointless rambling So’kashi finally got to something important-
Speech. The speech of the eidolon…
………
It was darker in the room. The fire had burnt down to little more than gentle coals, and even the lanterns’ light hung by a thread. He supposed this was his fault- he’d told the servants to leave him alone while he worked, and they’d followed his orders remarkably.
They were used to following orders. Such was the way of their position… they were not slaves, but those people of the village certainly were. Slaves who just refused to believe it…
In the darkness of light not given, the eidolon looked completely different. Far, far more alien than it had before, shadows casting strange light across the rooms. Dim half-reflections, shattered images of fire ran off the eidolon’s skin, flickering against the walls and the eyes of Siqxhe, the eyes of burning bright, eidolon possibility.
Siqxhe busied himself in those last few minutes of light by tiding tools, wiping them down and carefully stowing them in their cases despite the fact he hadn’t really used them. Two of the scalpels were bent beyond reasonable hope of repair- at least here- and some of the other tools had been marred by the eidolon’s skin. So far as he could tell, it was far, far tougher than iron. Something would…
A shift.
A quiet, roiling sort of motion, sounds of metal on wood and the soft sigh of something he couldn’t see. Siqxhe almost dropped his tools in excitement, rushing over to stand beside the creature of steel and hope. “Can you answer some questions for me?”
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The eidolon squirmed, and began to speak. It was astonishing- for something that had otherwise appeared completely dead, now there was voice and motion. The language had a song-like cadence, a sweeping sort of poetic possibility that he couldn’t feel… different from any language he’d heard before. Completely foreign. Even the Ilyaochi speech had its many similarities to the Nola language, but this… this was different.
Silence- for a single moment there was silence, an utter stillness made all the more by Siqxhe’s held breath in anticipation. Then, another spasm. Eyes flashing eerily bright, it spoke- and Siqxhe could have sworn he saw it, and it saw him. “It can’t- I will not let it-” A string of words and noises, thoughts expressed through the writhing of the both that Siqxhe was certain meant pain- “You will not have Polarity Light! Arctic will not have it.” Beyond those words he sensed… something. A dull done.
An immense tone.
“Can you hear me?” He leaned down, gently laying a hand on the eidolon’s writing form, but it didn’t respond to his touch at all. The bed it was laying on only creaked, the cold stone silent- “Please- if you can hear me, I need you to answer some questions. I need to know how I can help-”
The eidolon stiffened suddenly, eyes like beacons, singular brightnesses beyond which he could see nothing and eternities of thought. “No- no no. My mind is a bastion. Eternity Falling, you will not abandon them!” Then it slumped, quiet and still once again.
For a minute Siqxhe just stood there, stunned- not quite comprehending what happened, and not willing to move lest it continued. Then he rushed off, grabbing his papers and scribbling down everything he could possibly remember. The cadence of the first speech and its strange sounds he couldn’t quite pronounce but remembered, what it’d said about Polarity Light, Arctic, and Eternity Falling. He scribbled until his arm hurt then kept writing, until he’d written down everything he remembered but one piece, until every light except a single lantern and the piercing whiteness of the eidolon’s eyes had dimmed to nothing.
Everything except that immense tone. The dull whine beneath the eidolon’s words, something he both was convinced meant important things. Something… terrifying. He marked it down a pair of words, nondescript, at the bottom of the page- dark tone.
Then he stood, leaving the wounded angel in the darkness of an unlit room, the darkness of silence and cold… the darkness of the wounded. He glanced back once- looking at the faint silvery light, wondering what it meant before he closed the door on that mystery, and retreated into the inhospitality of Laytaihishu.
………
Siqxhe slumped into the chair, exhausted. He hadn’t realized until he’d arrived how thoroughly studying the eidolon had worn him out… Laeo handed him a glass of water which he immediately drank thirstily, looking out toward the cold world beyond the glass. He hadn’t seen it all day, but felt like he’d done some much more…
It was clear, however, that Laeo had. His hair was ruffled and dusted with dirt that he hadn’t gotten a chance to clean off before Siqxhe had arrived, little pieces of outside clinging to him. “What’d you find?” Still, despite his clear exhaustion, Laeo’s eyes glowed with a curious brightness.
“Nothing much. I suspect- I’m not completely sure, but given what I do know- that the cape isn’t a part of the eidolon’s actual form. And…” He hesitated, remembering the darkness and dark tones, the words which it had spoken but which he could not understand. “It spoke.”
“What did it say?”
“It spoke of ‘Polarity Light,’ something called ‘Arctic’ and something that was always falling.” He shrugged at Laeo’s confused expression, feeling a little self conscious that he didn't know what to do. Insane rambling wasn't something he usually paid attention to, but perhaps the eidolon was different. He knew nothing, and would take nothing for granted. “Where were you?”
“Outside. While you worked with the eidolon, Railoxhe took me back out to the village.” Laeo glanced out of the window, expression veiled behind a controlled face. “I figured out… some things. Here.” After a brief second of fumbling around in his pockets, Laeo drew out a jagged sliver of metal, a single scrap that looked like it’d been torn roughly from a greater sheet. “They’re mining this. It’s not in ore- rather, there’s tons of the stuff buried beneath the surface as scrap. That’s why they dump the stone on the surface and pick through it.”
“But why would they…” He picked up the metal, feeling its lightness. It was cool, glossy and near black- yet it shone with light. Beautiful… he felt as if he could stare into it forever, looking deep into- “It’s the same type of metal the eidolon is made out of!”
Leo grinned. “I figured… I imagine that someone found the eidolon deep beneath the earth, buried under tons of stone as it had been for eternity. I’m still missing some things- for example, I don’t know if the mine was here before god arrived roughly… eighty years ago? Seventy?” He shook his head, sighing. “I don’t have an exact time, but it was within living memory.”
“If the Ilyaochi hate God, then they must be upset.”
Laeo shrugged, tapping the table. A repeated, simple rhythm, like the fall of rain or the gentle burbling of a stream. “I wouldn’t worry about that… the important thing is what we know. We know the power of Ididirchi, and where it stems from. Maybe… maybe if we could figure out…” Laeo shook his head, following his hands together and returning to that perfect posture. “Nevermind. I’ll think over what you’ve told me, and I hope you do the same…” His voice trailed off into silence as he looked out into the darkness of night, the shattered, simply unknowable sky of darkness, extending off into eternity.
Quiet expanses, deep orange patterns, fires on the sky that stretched out in dizzying, falling… off, into the distance, Siqxhe stared at eternity as Laeo stood up and left to his own devices. He stared at the darkness, remembering a ward deep beneath the ground… unable to forget. Unable to forget the burning gaze of the eidolon’s stare, that deep light that spoke of greater things-