The city of Tasadir seemed to stretch on forever, an expanse of buildings and smoke and shining towers, walls and the city that had grown beyond that wall, all one single cohesive whole. Even further beyond that was the sea east of Xhyolok, the Cloud Shoals faintly visible in the sun. How it must have felt, to see this land for the first time as a wrecked survivor, scion of that great fleet…
How it must have felt to look out from this vantage for the first time in forever… an Ilyaochi from the inner states, finally arrived. At one point in time the entire continent of Xhyolok had been Ilyaochi… now there were so few.
Tasadir, the city of Empire. Tasadir, the city which had forged from its heart one of the greatest nations the world had ever known, brought that nation to ruin, and then passed on that nation’s remnants to Ilaial in the west. Still, though- Tasadir was immense. Some said it was the biggest city in the world- that would be a lie, as the biggest city was ever a competition between Abōeo and Norapt, but still… third biggest was a place it could easily contend for.
It was beautiful, too… the cities of Royeleo and Nolabo and Paqaboōf all had a vaguely similar look born from vaguely similar environments- open houses, airy atriums, wide streets, sunlit even as they reached to the sky. Tasadir, however, was a fusion of that Nola style and the Ilyaochi born practicalities of living in the far north- Sakaxhy.
Tasadir was a Sakaxhy city.
Laeo and Arctic walked down the road, the latter dressed in clothes they’d pilfered from a village along the way. He looked strange, but more importantly he looked human. It was surprising how close to unnoticeable they’d managed to make him look- and against his will at that.
They needed to find Siqxhe, though, and that meant going into Tasadir.
They entered into the city through the main thoroughfare, a wide road that quickly split off into so many small paths leading every which way in a myriad of confusing forms and impossible to follow streets. Even for someone who’d lived here their whole life, it was known as the ‘place of winding way…’ It didn’t bode well for their ability to find who they were looking for, but at the very least they’d be able to narrow it down-
The docks. Siqxhe and Iri were almost certainly near the docks where they’d be trying to get a ride away from the city and out to Nolabo or maybe- though less likely- Paqaboōf.
The only problem was that the docks were massive. Stretching out across the coast for miles and miles, Ilaial was a port city competing only with Abōeo in size and grandeur. Thousands of ships floated out in the harbor, from merchant galleons to warships of immense size that settled over the waves, cresting and falling. Somewhere in that confusion was the key to Polarity Light. The key to God itself…
……….
Laeo flicked water off his hand, stepping out from beneath the chimney with distaste. The snow had managed to melt itself there and there only, and now he was wet in this weather… “Why are we doing this anyways? Why is Polarity Light so important to find now?” He needed answers, as much for his own sake as for Nolabo’s… if they could find this out, maybe they could exploit it.
Darkness over the earth- he remembered god, and shivered at the thought of controlling them, even pretending to understand them… Arctic looked at him with that piercing glare, almost angrily but also not quite… every time he thought he’d started to understand him there was always something more. “We must find it. It is the will of the Eternity Falling. It is the will of empire-”
“Which empire?” He thought of all the empires he knew- the Orroyelan empire, the Sakaxhy Empire, Holy Nolabo which was an empire, even if they said they weren’t. Still, he couldn’t imagine any of those having access to such power as a sibilant such knowledge and not having a single bit of it leak over time. It would be monumental, the effort put into keeping such things quiet…
Arctic didn’t respond to the question, instead just forging through the shadowed streets and snowed-in ways, walking through the city as if he'd been born there… “It is war. I fear it, and I embrace it- if it brings Polarity Light, then it is worth it.”
“What wouldn’t be worth it?”
“Nothing-” Arctic's words hissed through the air, cold and as powerful as the stars, as immense as all the dimensions of God. A conviction that could bring the fall of greater powers than Nolabo… “The world would burn, so long as Polarity Light falls into the right hands. Iri has proven herself untrustworthy.”
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Laeo was silent for a long time, digesting that information-
The world would burn.
It felt like such a cliche threat- he’d heard it said more than once to him in response to his meddling in foreign affairs, but what made it so chilling was that, for the first time in his life, he believed it. Arctic would make the world burn, so long as he was able to exercise his view over Polarity Light, and through Polarity Light, the very works of God- “It’s that important… more important, I suppose, than anything of current political interest?”
Arctic’s complete and total disregard of the question was answer enough for him. “Iri is their leader. Those who would see the Eternity Falling remain on this planet, handicapped and prevented from leaving forever. Those that would see as forever cut off from the rest of the universe-” That scope! It explained- through time and space, a conflict that had wound itself tighter and tighter without notice, regardless of notice-
It was the will of gods. The sibilant were greater than he’d imagined, than he’d ever been able to imagine. Their conflict was ancient. He’d known, not quite believing… modern conflicts, were to this, unimportant. Nothing was important… not the Ilyaochi in the highlands, not the vying of empires. Only Polarity Light…
They moved through the streets of Tasadir, searching in their quiet manner. First they visited the port customs house in the thoroughly uninvited type of way, waiting until the sun set over the coast and then slipping in through a previously closed window on the third floor. There were an immense amount of documents and papers and all sorts of reports detailing who came in and out of the port, but nothing even closely related to a sibilant or a Nola doctor. Well, some were related to Nola doctors, but nothing quite matching Siqxhe’s description.
Arctic was invaluable in the search through those dusty aisles, quickly scanning over the texts far faster than Laeo would ever be able to read them. Seeing that, just another power of the sibilant. Another way that they had transcended the very idea of humanity, how their conflicts-
They continued by searching through various places where a Nola doctor out of work might find themselves, asking around clinics and hospitals and all sorts of places that were of their very nature a place where Siqxhe might find himself. Then the hotels, houses and the streets and the ships’ captains…
Fruitless. All of them- everywhere they searched was entirely and totally fruitless. Once they’d been forced to hide after someone had seen through Arctic’s- admirably flimsy- disguise, ducking behind boxes in the streets and evading notice for almost an hour. After that, whenever they asked around about eidolons of steel all they got were descriptions of Arctic himself…
It was an unfortunate incident, something that only put them more on edge than they already were. More on edge, and frustrated- “The palace.”
Laeo paused, looking quizzically at Arctic. “How could you possibly know that? There’s so many better places to check- we still have a decent portion of the western port to search-” He fell silent at Arctic’s glare- he was not a being to be crossed lightly. The frenetic search had almost made him forget that…
“It’s the only place in the entire city with a significant portion of scrap from the Eternity Falling. If there was ever a place to hide, they’d do it there.” It made a bit of sense, he supposed- it was a decent place to be as a doctor trained in the university in Abōeo- everyone from the lord of Tasadir… well, everyone really wanted one of those. They were the best kind of doctor, the highest tier. Everyone knew that if you were in their hands, then you were in the best hands possible…
“You’re made of scrap, though, and you’re not in the palace. They wouldn’t be able to get from here to Abōeo by the…” He frowned, actually considering it. They could manage to make their way from the palace to Nolabo. It would be difficult, but there were always people in a court that would manage to pull some strings, arrange some stuff. “We need to search the rest of the docks, first, though. They might be on the verge of escaping…”
Arctic glared at him, a fiery gaze that carried all the power of someone who’d known God… but he didn’t back down. So they continued through the city, looking through places and hearing murmurs- mostly about Arctic, but some about-
Laytaihishu.
It was on the breaths of every other sentence, an omnipresent whisper, and every time he heard about it a knife was driven into his heart, and he was vindicated. Ididirchi flees, they said- his advisor lives, they said… and the knife- that plunge into his chest, twisting… Everyone whispered that the Nola played a role. Everybody knew… it was a provocation, a blunder the likes of which he’d never live down… he’d defeated a threat, but by doing so could Nolabo deflect the might of the Sakaxhy Empire?
He didn’t know, didn’t want to know, so instead he focused on the task at hand. The conflict, older than old, beyond the eldest… sibilant. He focused on finding the sibilant-