It was raining, a cold, dreary sort of rain that was unsuitable for summer in Nolabo. Rain here should be warm… Laeo shook his head, staring at the village in the distance, eyes inevitably drifting back to the wrecked ship just… laying there. Blackened, steel and glass and the innards of something that had glowed with the very fires of god.
Dead.
The world… he shook his head, focusing on the village. Arctic sat beside him, for all the world the very image of serenity… Laeo knew him better than that however. There was something, deep beneath those violent white eyes and the wrath of that which could be, the very strength behind the world of the sibilant.
The driving force behind a conflict that spanned eternity and a single generation, the generation of the sibilant who were, and always would be. They were beyond humanity… beyond everything on the face of the planet, that small blue rock as it drifted through an expansive void so large as to defy imagination, those small motes of lights as they stared at him from so far away. The stars, little luminescences. Glory…
It was early, and it was raining, and it was looking as if it would be yet another thoroughly miserable day sitting here and waiting for someone to come when they didn’t know if they’d come at all. Arctic turned to face him, a subtle movement but then he was always that- subtle movements, the brightness of eyes and the dark, orange promises and power. Orange flames, little tears of heaven… “Are you sure he’d come back here?” He didn’t suggest an alternative, and that felt… strange, to Laeo. For someone with such power, he was obvious to the ways of men.
That made sense though. He wasn't a man. He was of something beyond, the very progeny of the ship that ruled the world. A warrior in the fight for something eternally great- the luminescence, Polarity Light. Laeo looked out toward the village, a shaken place. First from an attack by something they could at least understand, the fleets of the Orroyel and their rampage, and then from something beyond understanding… “No. No, I’m not sure… everything is in half measures and possibilities. You would understand that though.”
They’d spent so long searching for Polarity Light that they had to. They had to have become adept at ruling out probabilities and searching systematically… it made no sense that they wouldn't. Arctic, Lord of Cold Places, made no sense. “We cannot afford for them to slip away much longer. Things are coming to a head… I don’t know why.”
That startled Laeo more than anything had in weeks. Arctic always knew. Even when he didn’t know, even when he clearly didn’t know he’d say he did, or pretend, always listening, always making sure that he was listening and learning and growing closer to that last, most prestigious goal. “You- Iri is close at hand. Their faction won’t let you get her, and you need her, so they’re preparing for conflict.”
The sibilant’s eyes gleamed. “There is no such thing as conflict.” Laeo looked up, confused. Of course there was conflict. It was fundamental to the nature of the world. Even between the sibilant there was still conflict, and that just about proved that there was conflict and that there always would be… “There are threats, and then there are covert operations and things done in secret, but there is never warfare. Not until we are ready to destroy one another.”
“What about Iri? You fought with her…” They talked for a bit, wary of the villagers watching eyes. They never came close to them- something about the crashed ship setting them off, the fires that were always burning but never burnt. The morning fog faded to a clear sunny day, the rain fading away as if it had never been there, and to Laeo it might as well never have been. He was dry, protected by the works of the Lord of Cold Places.
A lord of the sibilant. Faction leader of a scant few, yet in that command he held the entire fate of the world beneath him- Arctic shifted suddenly, standing, and Laeo quickly followed suit. It was exactly like the first time they’d arrive here, after waiting for so long… after the first time he’d influenced them to bring him back.
He glanced imploringly at the sibilant, but Arctic shook his head, as much of an expression as he ever did. Faint memories, of wrath, quivering anger than had been unstoppable, uncharacteristic anger… then Arctic was speaking, and he was listening. “...confrontation, over your city of Abōeo.” His eyes gleamed, twinkling a bit brighter. Not in excitement… no, wrath? It was difficult to tell with the sibilant, and especially difficult with Arctic. “They… two days ago. This happened two days ago, and I didn’t know.” He began to walk back toward the ship, motioning for Laeo to follow.
“It- what if he comes back?”
“There are some more important things that need to be done, and you wouldn’t be able to fight a sibilant alone. Maybe if I got you a…” The sentence ended with a string of words in that strange sibilant language and Arctic paused as if he was actually considering it. Then his eyes were bright, bright and sold and once again they were moving forward, always moving- making progress, going somewhere.
Moving, into a new ship, and promises of impossibilities to come.
……….
Black stone walls, deep stone walls, silver brightness and an austerity that came from an utter lack of decorations. Two strips of light ran down the walls, liquid luminescence, so bright white as the eyes of the sibilant, yet unliving. It held a different look. Jagged metal implements, the power of something that was never meant for humans to walk…
The cold halls of a sibilant’s palace, the true halls in which rested the rulers of the world. Arctic brought him through them, walking- slowly as they walked, through the deep complex and the impossibilities that made him wonder where he truly was… long tunnels became atriums, became immense rooms that left Laeo feeling as if he was in Arctic’s ship, just… grander. On a scale that was a thousand, trillion times more. Infinitely more.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
It had to be curated- artificial. He ran the thought through his head over and over, looking, the stars and the things all the shadows and jagged shapes as he stepped into the largest of rooms, something that looked as if it continued out for all eternity. It was a massive chamber.
Reality, pressing, pushing in on him as they walked onto a bridge that floated above an immensity of nothing, a deep blackness that speared the depths of the world. Deep beneath them was a light, golden and artificial. Arctic looked down at that light for a long time, then sighed and moved forward toward a platform at the center of the room. “It’s been too long. There is no tone… I remembered that tone, as much as the Eternity Falling must remember it. It looks the same, Laeo, but it is different. Trust me…” He shook his head as they came to the center platform, a ring of stone where a few sibilant clustered.
There couldn’t be more than thirty, but even so there was a cool presence, the veneer of power that hung over the room… maybe it was the scale, that impossible shifting of space that made it feel as if the walls that couldn't’ have been more than a hundred feet back lay thousands, millions of feet away, infinite distances or distances as close as to be infinite, lying beyond the stars and the darkness…
Arctic stepped up to the crowds and with them suddenly there was quiet. Amidst the brightness of metal, there was darkness. Twenty sibilant formed a neat circle, and all of a sudden there was another impossibility. Space once again warped to the will of being powerful enough to command it, forming an image out of a myriad of points, colors that were not colors, torn from… something. It shimmered iridescent, a three dimensional image that looked almost like oil on water.
Yet it was there. Tangible, almost… he didn’t dare step out of line, beyond his hiding place behind the Lord of Cold Places. This was a cold place… this was his power. “The meeting is called here, in these ancient halls, and here I stand.” It was said with an air of cold formality, befitting of Arctic.
Twenty sibilant stared back in kind, repeated the words in kind, a chorus of perfectly toned voices. A ritual, carried out some untold number of times in this impossible chamber far beneath the depth of earth. One of the sibilant stepped forward. There was no introduction, which made sense… Everyone here knew each other. There was no way that they couldn’t, this long spent trapped on a single planet, alone… “Lords. Scion of the Eternity Falling, who would see names changed. Polarities of earth.” That too sounded formal. “The... fire-nodes… have been positioned above Nolabo as you command. Give us two days and they’ll be above Abōeo-city, where the Eternity Falling likes to wait.”
Arctic’s eyes gleamed, a sort of excitement, a longing. “Then you’re certain. They’re in the city.”
“Of course. You’d be the sort of person… nevermind. We’re going to threaten them… and it’s possible they’re on the hunt for Polarity Light themselves. After all, they are there.”
“Impossible. All the locations within that region have been searched when we first landed, up and down and through-” It was one of the others who spoke, their words hot but good natured. As good natured as a sibilant ever could be. “We’ve searched as deep as the earth and the rock goes, and then a good ten feet deeper. It cannot be there.”
“But what if it’s deeper?” Another speaker, and then there was an argument, raging through the group like wildfire, sparks leaping and then, as quickly as it had started, there was silence. Complete, each sibilant turning in unison to stare blankly at Arctic.
Arctic held up a hand, then let it fall. “We speak out loud for the benefit of our guest, not to argue. Remember that. I assume that these nodes aren’t the small ones.”
The sibilant that had spoken first nodded softly. “Of course. They are the highest order. We’ve moved the largest ones into position, as well as the ones we’ve been constructing at as fast as we could over the last few decades. All told, there are almost three thousand bombardment platforms hovering above Nolabo, not counting the small ones for precise strikes.” His eyes shone with excitement- clearly this was his project… his work, his world destroyer. “In the breadth of the word I can have mountains raining on the surface.”
Laeo took a step forward, afraid that here, safe beneath the rock they’d just order destruction. Scour the earth and deal with their problems later. “But- if you destroy Nolabo, you’d destroy Polarity Light…” He let his voice fade off into nothing as they looked at him, all of them- just… the power. The power behind those gazes, and the way they felt judgemental.
Arctic was the first one to speak, perhaps having already been used to explaining impossibilities to Laeo. “Polarity Light cannot be destroyed. Not even all endbringers of the Eternity Falling or the massed fire of fleets would destroy it. There are few places in all the universe where it can be destroyed, and here is not one of them. We could shatter this planet and Polarity Light would remain unscathed.”
The other sibilant looked uncomfortable now, at that… it heartened him, just a little bit, to know that not all of them were as driven as Arctic. Here, in impossibility… one motioned, and the image that hovered in the air changed, showing a miniature Abōeo. “All we need to do is send someone here. With the proper power, it could be over in a day.”
“We could bomb the city. Burn it, and then, then find Iri. She should be able to survive the heat-”
“That might lead to an escalation with her faction. True war could see everything we worked on undone-”
“Or, proven-” Everyone was arguing once again, this time on the sickening topic of bombing Abōeo and the millions which lived within it.
It was Arctic, surprisingly, who vetoed the idea. “A direct hit would kill her as surely as tossing her into the fires of the Eternity Falling’s wrath, or the core of Crown. If she dies, then her faction is left solidly with all the information and us with none. It would be the end of our effort. The end of conflict…” He said it almost wistfully, for someone who was willing to destroy the world. “We’ll find her in Abōeo, if she’s there.”
The meeting flowed away, the sibilant leaving at once through exits that didn’t seem to exist, cleverly hidden or made to be nothing- ships that hovered beneath rising, power… Arctic walked with power, as they left- making their way away from the depths of darkness.
Toward Abōeo, and a confrontation. Towards Abōeo and the death that hung above the planet, the promise of freedom for sibilant. God’s will, fulfilled, singular and indomitable through all these years…
They went to Abōeo.