Siqxhe dutifully coiled the ropes into a tight pile, all those lessons from childhood remembered- so many days amongst the jewels of the world. It felt good to be back, at last- the breeze blew through his hair, ruffling his clothes with its warm summer gaze and pushing them steadily east. Toward the grasp of ancient cities, foretresses-now immense…
The spires, the towers and the new, gleaming buildings of Nolabo, the ancient palaces. Water, glittering in the sunlight, the sound of metal on wood. Weight… he let the ropes fall to his side, nodding to Iri as he rose. “How’ve you been?”
Iri shrugged, faintly amused eyes brilliant- all one light. Different, meaning- “Nothing on this ship was designed for sibilant. The captain tried to have me help in the rigging but I kept cutting it. He set me here to help.”
“With the ropes?” They’d gotten tangled recently by a cremember who he’d seen working in the bilge, and someone had to untangle them. He supposed they were almost providence… “This… Arctic. He was… powerful.” That was an understatement, if anything. He remembered the force of fire, raining from the sky and the power as it thudded, breath after breath running from someone who was greater than them. “He destroyed islands.” He threatened to destroy the world.
“He was bombing us from orbit. Primitive, but effective- he has a lot of those.” Iri was quiet for a second, deft hands working diligently at the ropes much faster than Siqxhe ever could. “We have some too. Kinetic bombardment, primitive thermonuclears, a few lasers which make good satellite to satellite. The Eternity Falling is the only thing around here with any real firepower.” She glanced up then chuckled at Siqxhe’s confused expression. “I keep… forgetting…” Darkness- in her eyes, a gleaming sort of dimming.
It was hard to remember, sometimes, with her exuberance- so many years beneath darkness, the orange eyes of God, the power of the Eternity Falling as it executes its will over her and tried to make its hers. Tried to steal… “Your memories. It’s been a while since we’ve last… anything else.”
Silence, the whispering of wind and the creak of the masts, the ship and the world moving beneath them, yet they were the movers… “No. No, it still evades me.” Hard eyes, silver facets shifting just so slightly, something he would have never noticed until he’d spent as much time as he had around the sibilant. If felt almost human, for something so obviously not. “I destroyed the memory, almost as completely as destroying it in truth. Scattered it to the winds, glass to sand to dust to atoms. Maybe one day…” She shook her head, and the rope was remade, coiled once again, then left.
Leaving Siqxhe, once again yet for what always felt like the first time, alone…
………..
Forward. The power of the ship as it cut through the waves… Siqxhe stood at the prow, watching the wooden hull eat throughout the water like some serpentine beast, some immensity. Some being from the darkness…
Someone came up beside him. Human, this time- Iri was off below doing something or another. Helping the chef? He couldn’t remember… he glanced up, noticed the golden lines, tassels and a perfectly kempt form, and quickly executed a neat bow. “Captain.”
“Siqxhe, was it?” His voice was as deep as he’d remembered it, something that was the seas, the power of sky but human. Still, it was human, and only human voices never could carry the same weight as a sibilant’s power. “You’re a traveler? You look pretty local.”
“I am local. Here, at least… I traveled-” Far. Far to the top of the world where the sun never set until it did and then never rose, the power of darkness. He remembered the darkness… now he’d never compare this ship to the shadow. Not truly- the shadow was so much infinitely greater than comparison would never do it justice.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Where?” The captain raised an eyebrow in interest and Siqxhe blushed faintly, remembering that he hadn’t actually finished his sentence. Finished a memory…
He drew a deep breath, banishing those thoughts to the far back of mind. “Xhyolok.” He would leave Laytaihishu out of that- no need to engender hatred when he didn’t need to- “Paqaboōf. Gallant. The seas of the world and… home.”
“Did you see… it.” The captain watched his faint nod, imploring, but Siqxhe would not speak about that shadow, that force of darkness that had cast itself across all things and weighed itself over the world, a power beyond the very reckoning of humanity. He didn’t understand- he was just human, constrained to human knowledge, everything they’d been able to learn. So little.
He understood so little. Both of them, beneath the scarlet sunlight, sunset- they watched the sky bleed red as the sun dipped below the horizon, hiding behind the jewels of Nolabo as they sailed through them. Tsqalmōubo, captain of a single ship, who knew so little. “I dreamt of it, once. One day, when this war’s over, I’ll visit it.” He laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “Or when this war takes me there.”
They seemed so confident… it made sense, at least. The Nolabo were the most powerful nation in the world and not by a short amount. High on economy and a navy that could match twice over any nation’s in the world, they were power. He’d been impressed by that, once… but now, looking up at those stars and just wondering how easily the fires of heaven could destroy them, he wondered…
He wondered, and the wind blew… driving the ship, so many lives, ever inexorably forward.
………
He sat on the deck in the early light of morning, tired but not that tired, watching the sunlight as it steamed over the horizon and crested the waves and slammed into the ship. A brilliance of sails, white-brightness that echoed across forever and illuminated verdant isles all around them as they passed through a strait.
A weary fortress looked down on them, stone brick and cannons, its eyes- trained on them, wary. In this way, he thought, the whole of Nolabo was made a fortress. Yet, there were always vulnerabilities… “You started this- I mean, not that it’s your fault… but you started it.” Iri sat silent for a moment.
Not denying- “I did what had to be done.” Cold, but not as much… Those years beneath the Eternity Falling had been, apparently, the most damaging of her long life. Now, the consequences, broken memory and shattered, incapabilities… it all crashed down on her, and she was… sad. “I… two sides of a coin. One of us wants to go home, one of us wants to stay. Polarity Light is the key… humanity will suffer, without the Eternity Falling’s watching presence.”
“How-”
“That power.” He knew it- the fire of the heavens, the crashing, thumping beat as the whole world seemed to be falling around them. “It’s not a purely sibilant power. In an odd… three hundred years, give or take projections, you’ll have that capability yourself. Humanity will be able to destroy humanity.”
Siqxhe shuddered at the thought. The capability, especially in the hands of just one- an empire, a single despot and the world would burn. They needed the oversight… it was hard to think about, but he’d seen the darkness. He’d seen the dead, the dying and the wars started over near nothing at all, and… he didn’t trust they’d restrain themselves.
Iri perked up suddenly, gleaming fear- “Arctic knows where the ship’s going, right?”
“Yes-”
“Then we don’t have much time.” She stood, striding purposely down into the hold and grabbing what little they’d brought with them. A single small medical kit, a soggy journal that had somehow managed to survive. Money, a lot less than he’d had before. “His power was destroyed before, but he has more. We need to go… and I need to call allies.” She seemed almost reluctant. “War is on the horizon, Siqxhe.”
A long moment passed between them, minutes as they just watched the sea go by and the waves drew closer, strait narrowing until it was barely a thousand feet on either side. Gentle winds, the trees moving. The hearts of the sibilant-
Things came to a point- a single moment, a memory of darkness as they slipped off the side of the ship and into summer-water’s warmth, the sudden chill of wind, and a refuge of islands. They slipped away from the knowledge of Arctic, hidden once again.
Hidden, shadows amongst the darknesses of men and eternity…