The Void existed everywhere and nowhere at once. It layered itself over the world of light and life, where things could be touched, seen, and heard, but it was also kept separate by what Anika could only describe as a membrane of sorts.
The membrane held the Void at bay, preventing its endless emptiness from spilling over into materiality. If that were to happen, if the raw, unfiltered chaos of the Void were to touch something that existed in the physical world, its total potential would unfold all at once, and pandemonium would ensue.
A tree, for instance, would sprout, contort, and twist in every possible way—and every impossible one, too—in the span of an instance, becoming an unnatural monstrosity. Far worse would befall a person touched directly by the Void.
But the membrane wasn’t completely impermeable, Anika realized next. Motes of colorless light drifted from the material world, filtered their way through the barrier between it and the Void, and fell into the latter, stirring up shapes that existed briefly within its infinite depths before dissolving into tides of unrealized potential.
“The Void…” she said, her astral eyes widening in amazement. “It comes from us.”
“Indeed.” Bei Feng beamed proudly. “The Void is the metaphysical actualization of the galaxy… no, the universe’s sub-consciousness. It is comprised of the thoughts, sensations, dreams, and hopes of every living creature that has existed, currently exist, and will exist through the entirety of time. Souls coalesce in the Void, before being drawn into physical bodies forged by the machinations of nature. When these very bodies die, their souls return to the Void, where they are broken down, so that the cycle might begin anew.”
“That… that’s not what happens in Ghandarna,” Anika said. She looked down at her astral hands, which she’d clasped in prayer without even meaning to do so. “Narayana, the Divine Overlord, reigns over all our souls and brings them into the Engine when we die. There, we are judged by Yamayana and pass on into the Beyond, where we meet our deserved fate.”
“The Ghandarna Engine breaks down souls as well, but it converts them into Quiessence, a twisted form of Aether,” Bei Feng added. A brief snarl flickered over the Shanian’s face, and then it was gone, leaving behind his usual mask of genial composure. “The Starforged feast on Quiessence and exude it as Aether, thereby increasing the net amount of the latter in the galaxy, if not the entire universe.”
“You think that’s wrong,” Anika pointed out.
“Is it not?” The Shanian pursed his astral lips and tapped his jaw with a translucent finger. “The Ghandarna Engine interferes with the natural cycle of life and death, diminishing the immaterial as it gluts the material.”
Anika thought back to what she knew of Aether. It hadn’t been mentioned much in school. A teacher had once described it as the natural energy of living things, but she hadn’t given much more of an explanation than that.
“I think I know what the problem is,” Anika said to Bei Feng. “Our souls come from the Void, but the Ghandarna Engine doesn’t let them go back to the Void. When we die, our souls become Aether, instead. Meanwhile, there is less and less of the Void, like a water canister that doesn’t get refilled.”
“Exactly! The Ghandarna Engine is an abomination! It must be destroyed!” Bei Feng raved, dropping his mask entirely this time as his astral eyes all but bulged and his lips trembled. “Narayana and Yamayana must perish alongside it!”
“You… you can’t say something like that! That’s heresy!”
Or was it? Bei Feng was a Shanian, and the little bit of Ghandarnian law she knew told her that foreigners didn’t have to pray to or worship Narayana. So technically, it was impossible for Bei Feng to commit heresy. Still, that didn’t mean that he could openly call for the deaths of the Starforged Overlord or His brother.
She glared at Bei Feng angrily. “Don’t ever say that again! I don’t want to hear it!”
“Are you that pious of a devotee to Narayana?” Bei Feng asked, blinking in obvious surprise.
“Well, I don’t know.” Anika shrugged. “I just say my prayers whenever I remember to, and I haven’t the best attendance at temple services. If I had my way, I’d rather not pray or go to temple at all, but I still don’t like hearing other people say heretical things.”
“The vestiges of a Ghandarnian upbringing still cling to you, I see.” Bei Feng stroked his mustache and shook his head. “How… unfortuitous. I would have expected the events of your life to have shaken you free of such… burdens by now.”
“How do you know anything about what happened in my life?” Anika asked, unable to keep the suspicion from her astral voice.
“I know nothing save what I can deduce and conjecture,” the Shanian said smoothly, even as the White Wind bristled and told Anika that he was lying. “Your hands are rough, callused, and sport more than a few chemical burns on the palms and fingertips. Judging from the way you have continuously pushed your hair back, you are accustomed to wearing your hair short or collected in a bun or net, so that it doesn’t get caught in machinery. Your skin is slightly jaundiced, and you weigh noticeably less than an average adult female of your age and height. Both of those are signs of malnutrition. All these facts tell me that you have spent most of your life on a manufactory’s assembly or production line, and it has not been an easy one.”
Anika almost wanted to ask him how any of that had anything to do with whether or not she was comfortable with heresy, but she swallowed her words as she remembered the Acolytes of Light. They’d been manufactory workers, just like her, and none of them had been happy with their lot. Did Bei Feng think Anika would be one of them simply because she wasn’t particularly happy with hers, too?
The White Wind bristled again. It didn’t want Anika to tell the Shanian anymore about herself, and she agreed readily with it. She hadn’t known him for a very long time at all, but she was already sure he couldn’t be trusted.
If I didn’t have the White Wind, I would probably be completely taken in by his kind words, his pretty clothes, and his smiling face, she realized. “Let’s stop talking about my past. I’m here now, and I want to become a powerful sorceress. You said you’d train me, sir. I can look at the Void now. What’s next?”
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“Indeed you can!” Bei Feng clapped his astral hands soundlessly once more. “Now, I want you to focus closely again on the separation between the Void and the material world. Tell me, what else do you observe?”
Anika did as she was told, turning her regard once more back on the membrane. She immediately saw that it was thicker in some places and much, much thinner than in others. She commanded her astral self to fly to one of the latter locations, soaring over a good swathe of the cityscape as she did so. Bei Feng followed in her wake, muttering congratulations to her about her apparently natural aptitude for astral projection.
When she arrived at the thin spot in the membrane, she looked upon the material side and saw a small group of Shanians kneeling before a strange metal pole. There were red words on the pole that reminded her of the writing on the walls of the room in which she’d last awakened.
Motes of light swirled from the kneeling Shanians and the poles through the membrane, but instead of forming temporary shapes in the Void, they coalesced into radiant beams that sped off into the inky depths. Anika was tempted to latch her astral self onto one of these beams and ride them to their destination, but the White Wind clutched at her tightly and almost painfully before she could do so.
It knew that there was something at the other end of these beams, something much larger... and hungrier.
Anika shuddered and returned her attention to the metal pole. The Shanians were muttering to themselves and bowing to it. She didn’t take very long to realize that they were praying, but to whom? Maybe the Benevolent Ones that Bei Feng mentioned?
Something else stirred in the Void, then. She turned to look at it and found herself recoiling in fear. It was humanoid in shape, and its skin was a sickly shade of pink. Small horns covered its bare skull. Its eyes were small and filled with hate and hunger, and it only had four fingers on each of its claw-tipped hands.
The creature clawed at the thin membrane, which bowed and flexed, but did not break beneath its touch. It shrieked in anger then, and turned to leave, but just as it did so, its gaze fell upon Anika.
“There is nothing to fear, Miss Anika,” Bei Feng said, lowering his astral form next to hers. “The Songstress can sense our presence, but it cannot interact with our astral projections in any way. Now, if we were forty times as far from our physical bodies as we are now, the connection would be more tenuous, as would the effectiveness of my meditation chamber’s Wards and Runes. We would then be in danger.”
The creature—the Songstress—swiped its clawed hands in Anika’s direction and hissed impotently, proving Bei Feng’s words. It turned back to the weakened membrane section it had tried to breach and glared at the mortals that were so close, yet also just beyond its reach.
“What is it trying to do now?” Anika asked Bei Feng. “Why won’t it just leave those people alone? What does it want from them?”
“Songstresses feed on any mortal souls that come their way. This one is no exception,” the Shanian said, gesturing at the creature. “Fortunately for my fellow realms-folk there, it is unable to break through into the material world and satiate its hunger.”
“But it might.” Anika pointed at the membrane. “The barrier is so thin over there. If this Songstress keeps trying, it could succeed.”
“Delighted though I am to witness your perceptiveness regarding the Divide between the material and the immaterial, I should assuage your fears first.” Bei Feng stroked his mustache and smiled. “It is very unlikely that the Songstress will be successful in its efforts. It is a Void Entity of middling power, which means that it will require a physical host for it to possess and then transmute, if it wishes to traverse the material world. Only the weakest and least powerful Void Entities can cross the Divide at will, though few of them have even that.”
The barrier or membrane is called the Divide. Anika nodded. “You’re saying that anything from the Void that can easily enter our world wouldn’t be very dangerous, and most of them don’t even have minds of their own.”
“The lack of sentience or self-awareness doesn’t render any creature, be it Star Beast, Void Entity, or even mortal harmless,” Bei Feng said, his words taking on a serious tone. “You would do well to remember that, Miss Anika. It wasn’t exactly the main lesson I wanted to teach you today, but now that it’s come up, you should take it to heart, because it is an extremely important one.”
“So what exactly is the lesson you want to teach me today?” she asked, holding up her hand and counting on her fingers. “Let’s see. You said you cast a spell called Astral Walk just now, right? I think I can do the same thing, too. I’ve also learned how to see the Void. Then you went over what actually happens in the Void. After that, I got to see how the Divide is thicker in some places and thinner in others. Then we came across this Songstress and you told me how Void Entities work. I think those are quite a few lessons already.”
“You can cast Astral Walk after seeing me do it once?” Bei Feng seemed truly astonished. He quickly regained his composure, though. “Perhaps you can demonstrate that spell for me later, Miss Anika. Then again, I don’t have any reason to doubt you. You take naturally to the mysteries of the Void. Hiran, for all his other merits, is far less gifted than you when it comes to sorceries.”
“Speaking of him, do you think he’s back yet?” Anika reached out and tugged at the Shanian’s translucent sleeve. “I have so much I want to say to him.”
“Unfortunately, I have no way of ascertaining his whereabouts in this form. However, we can return to our physical bodies. Once we have done that, we can find out for ourselves whether he has returned.”
“Sure! Let’s do that.” Anika nodded. “I think I’ve done enough astral walking today. I want to…”
Her words trailed off as she noticed the Songstress pushing against the Divide again. This time, its clawed hands actually managed to rip a minuscule breach in the Divide’s surface, though the opening couldn’t be larger than the size of Anika’s thumbnail.
The Songstress cackled as it emitted a tiny beam of violet light from one of its claw-tips. The beam flickered through the breach and raced toward one of the Shanians, a man with a slight build and a close-shaven scalp, before embedding itself into the small metal pendant he wore around his neck.
“That… that is most unfortunate.” Bei Feng looked at the Shanian man with the pendant closely, as if memorizing his face. After a moment, he nodded. “I will contact my realms-man upon returning to our bodies and warn him accordingly.”
“Warn him? About what?” Anika asked. “What did the Songstress do?”
“It has placed a minor curse on that man’s pendant. Left unaddressed, such a curse will inflict nightmares on him, while also feeding on his fear and dismay and growing stronger in the process. That man’s sanity will break down over time, and the curse will start to transform him into a suitable host for this Songstress. When the curse has run its course, the Songstress will seek out this unfortunate individual again and claim his flesh for its own.”
“That’s horrible!” Anika cried. “We can’t let that happen!”
“We won’t,” Bei Feng assured her. “A minor curse like that can be readily countered by any competent sorcerer. I will personally see to this matter.”
Anika looked at the Shanian man’s cursed pendant. It pulsed with violet light, though its wearer obviously couldn’t see that. The White Wind brushed itself against her, as if warning her not to get too close to the pendant.
But it was too late. Something within the object called to Anika. It was a challenge, one that she didn’t know quite how to resist.
The last thing she heard was Bei Feng’s startled shout before her astral form soared into the pendant, with the White Wind following closely behind.