A vertical beam met the mountain and pierced through its rock. The beam was an octagonal column as thick around as a small town, maybe a mile across. Each face, perfect and smooth and shear, except for the scavenged-metal steps that descended in a circle around the beam.
Dried, hardened clumps of some dark amber liquid adhered the steps to the beam’s faces, and each step was made from a different metal. In the deep jungles of Gaiam, Eolh had heard, there were insect colonies that built mud castles with nothing but their secretions. He hoped, whatever held these platform steps was stronger than insect spit.
Yarsi was waiting for them on the first platform, it might’ve been from an ancient, bronze roof, though it was so verdigrised Eolh couldn’t tell if it was actually bronze. The steps below must have been torn from the machines that infested the surface, and further down, they grew older and of more questionable origin. One platform was nothing more than a net made of rope, suspended by two metal poles.
Eolh’s stomach lurched as he watched the fledgling human jumped from the last handhold. There was a moment of quiet nothing, as he drifted over the void of a hollow planet, with his liquid armor trailing like a cloak. Below, the void of this hollow planet gaped. The distance was only measurable by the far-off mesh of beams and a half-hidden light that doused everything in a cold, silvery brilliance.
Eolh inhaled sharply as Poire clanked next to Yarsi, the platform groaning slightly. There was no railing, and further down, one or two of the panels was missing, or had crumpled under something’s weight and dangled uselessly. They would have to jump, more than once. No room for error.
Agraneia was the slowest of them all, though her focus and determination was far sturdier than any of the steps. Eolh hung back with her, keeping his beak shut for fear of saying something that might undercut her focus. His talons dug into the naked rock, holding his perch easily enough.
Where the mountain met the beam, Agraneia paused. Spent a long time looking down.
“Who,” she rumbled, “Who would be insane enough to build this?”
“You know the lassertane better than I do,” Eolh said.
“I’m not talking about the platforms,” Agraneia said. “I mean this.” She nodded down at the gaping expanse below. The ceiling curved all around them, and tens of thousands of perfect beams formed an intricate scaffolding system that held up the crust of the entire planet.
“The gods have lost their minds.”
“And yet,” Eolh said, “We still worship them.”
Below, Yarsi was showing Poire how to skip from platform to platform, bouncing with a mixture of child-like eagerness and devout respect. Poire shook his head, and beckoned her to come to him. She approached, cautiously, her head almost bowed.
Poire put an arm around Yarsi, and pot his other on the beam. And jumped off.
Yarsi screamed. Eolh sucked in his breath, and flapped out his wings before he saw what Poire had done. It looked like they were floating down, not falling. The liquid armor glued both of them to the side of the column, so that they slid down with Yarsi, half-screaming and half-whooping with laughter.
When they finally touched down on another beam that intersected horizontally with the column, Eolh finally let out his breath.
Agraneia stared up, refusing to watch. Still clinging to the last handhold above the platforms, her hands not ready to let go.
“Come on,” Eolh said. “Let’s get down to the ground level.”
“Ground level,” Agraneia grunted doubtfully. “I don’t believe in ground level anymore.”
But she put a hand to the column, and the shreds of silvery armor Poire had gifted her streamed out, and grasped the beam as best as it could. This was how they made their way down: with Agraneia stepping sideways, like a crab, from platform to platform. Not quite crawling, but close to it. Eolh tested each platform for her, and coaxed her the whole way down. Mostly, he told her to keep breathing.
And when her feet finally touched the horizontal beam, she collapsed. Shaking and gasping. A heaving sound in her throat made Eolh look away, because he didn’t want to watch her be sick.
Instead, he looked forward to the flat expanse of the beam. It seemed to stretch forever forward. Unnaturally perfect. A road that only went one way. On either side, two more faces slanted away, ending in sheer drops.
Yarsi stepped lightly up to Agraneia, giving the cyran a wide berth as she shuddered and wretched.
“You okay?” Yarsi patted her back gently.
Agraneia moaned in response.
“Yeah. You okay.”
“What now?” Poire asked.
“Now is easy part. Only have to watch out for lake.”
“What lake?”
“Bad water,” Yarsi said, as if that explained everything. And the little lassertane hoisted her pack up her shoulders, and started to march across the beam.
Agraneia pulled herself up, spitting and wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. The color had drained from her scales, but she hoisted her own pack, laden with supplies from the lassertane, and followed Yarsi. Agra kept her head down, refusing to let her eyes wander over the edges of the beam.
Eolh started to follow, but Poire held him back a moment.
“Agraneia,” he said, in a kind of question.
Eolh shrugged. “She sees things, sometimes. Sees faces. It happens to some people. There was a priest back in the Cauldron who claimed he could hear the gods talking to each other, but, you know...”
“What faces?” Poire asked, a little too eager, “Who does she see?”
“People she’s killed. And others. I don’t think she understands it. People break, sometimes. And no two people break in the same way.”
“Has she… Has she ever seen mine?”
Eolh furrowed his brow feathers. He hadn’t thought to ask.
“Khadam said everyone—all of my people—had visions.”
“Fledge,” Eolh said. “You can’t listen to her. She’s not your friend.”
“But what if-”
“What if Agraneia sees the visions too? Then what? Does that make you evil? Does that make you some kind of horrible, terrifying god?”
The human’s face fell, and he spoke only one, quiet word: “Destroyer.”
Eolh knew that look. The self-doubt. The fear that maybe, just maybe, he really should hate himself. And Eolh was not about to stand by, and let that thought take root in anyone else.
“Fledge. You can’t let her into your head. You don’t know what she knows, or what she doesn’t. It’s easy to sound confident when you can pretend you already know everything. Blind faith makes a small world. But for all we know, this Khadam might be even more lost than you.”
Poire looked up at Eolh with wet eyes, though no tears fell. Good, Eolh thought. Keep that brave face.
He didn’t have to kneel down to go eye to eye with Poire anymore, so much the human had grown. Still, he put a feathered hand on Poire’s shoulder, and said, “We’re going to find this other human. This Sen, or whatever she calls herself. And we’re going to get a gods-damned answer. Whatever these visions are, whatever you are, we’re going to find out.”
“What if Sen says the same thing?” Poire asked. “What if she names me destroyer?”
It was Eolh’s turn to feel the wistful sting in his eyes. “Had a friend once. A damned good leader. She said never borrow fear from the future. You’ll just end up being worrying twice as much. Well, we’ve got enough worries for right now. Besides, if Sen wanted you dead, well, she wouldn’t exactly tell her people to worship you, would she?”
Poire closed his eyes, and drew a breath. Put a hand on Eolh’s arm, and squeezed. “I’m glad you’re here, Eolh.”
Eolh watched Poire walk away with the weight of all the worlds still on his shoulders.
It’s not fair, he thought, for the thousandth time. Not fair for someone so young to carry so much.
***
A fleck of snow. Or frozen dirt. Or something.
But unlike snow, this fleck fell up.
It came from the depths below, rising in a slow, weary spiral. Though it couldn’t have been larger than a grain of sand, a fist-sized bubble of air warped around it.
Definitely not snow, Poire thought, though the air was certainly cold enough for snow to form. They walked to stay warm, but the whole group huddled together each time they camped. Even Agraneia, who never wanted anyone to touch her. And all the while, the beam kept going forward.
High above, there were cracks in the planet’s crust, and he thought he could see the pores of a cave system. Cold air poured down from these in a thousand invisible waterfall. Which meant there must be a gap, a hole that somewhere lead to the surface.
Another fleck danced lazily in front of him. Poire held his hand out, and caught it. At the same time, the liquid armor pulled away from it, letting the fleck fall onto his palm, a light brown gap surrounded by rippling silver. The warped air melted as the fleck touched his skin, and when he prodded the black fleck with a bare finger, it crumbled like ash.
A few minutes later, he saw another one. Poire grabbed at the bubble of warped air. For a brief moment, the ash, or dirt, or whatever it was, seemed to sharpen at his touch. Becoming more solid, a hard, glistening piece of something. And then, it crumbled.
Poire smeared his finger through the black smudge on his palm, when he heard a voice—a whisper—sail overhead.
“How can this be?”
He looked up. Agraneia was a dozen yards ahead, and the others were ahead of her. They were gathering around something ahead, a kind of light.
Poire was squinting, when the voice lashed out again: “Is it already time? But I’ve only just arrived-” and, like the wind, it was carried away.
He stood still, and listened the way Eolh had taught him. All he could hear were the others, who were clustered together in front of a crack in the beam. A strange brightness poured up, as if some great beacon hung below, and they were standing just outside its light.
Yarsi was saying, “Don’t touch it!” even though nobody was trying to. No sign that any of them had heard the whispers.
Poire wiped the crumbling ash off his hands, and joined the others.
The beams, Poire knew, were not made of metal, but some other construction material. The same one that had been used to shore up the cavern of his conclave. An alloy of graphene and steel and compressed regolith, probably harvested from the planet itself as it was hollowed it out. It was designed to last tens of thousands of years.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
So, why was there a crack?
It was only as wide as Poire’s hand, but it was deep, and it ran a perfect line across the width of the beam. The crack ran down into the core of the beam, and Poire could see something moving down there.
“What is that?” Eolh asked.
“Soon, there is new lake here,” Yarsi said. “Soon, there is bad water.”
A black, glittering mass frothed and fizzed and made dry, popping sounds. A white glow burbled up from where it dissolved the beam. A reaction, to its action. There were more flakes in the air now, more and more. Yarsi was doing her best to stay away from them.
“What are those?” Eolh asked. He lifted a feather to touch one of the flakes, curling up from the crack and squawked when Yarsi slapped his arm.
“Don't touch!”
“Why not?”
In response, Yarsi plucked a feather from Eolh’s arm, earning another indignant squawk. She ignored him, and reached the feather out to one of the flakes, pushing it through the bubble of air.
The flake touched the feather, and immediately, the whole quill began to darken and curl. All those soft barbs turning into the same, crumbling, glittering ash.
The disease was here. Poire had seen it in the frozen bodies, forever lying in the Vault below the Cauldron. The Conclave’s own director with veins glistening black. Back then, Poire had thought that was only frost from the cold chamber.
Khadam said it was the disease that had killed their people.
Poire swallowed hard. He looked down at his hand, still dusted with ash. His skin was… fine.
And what about Sen? Eolh said they were going to find her. Too late, he tried to shut off the thought: But what if she’s already dead?
Black flecks poured up out of the deepening crack, and Yarsi showed them how to search for the breeze, where it would blow the flecks away.
“It doesn’t look like him,” the wind whispered with a woman’s voice.
Poire looked up. Looked around. Saw only beams and shadows the crust of the world, high overhead.
“Poire,” Eolh said. At the same time, he heard his name on someone else’s lips: “Poire.”
“Poire,” Eolh said again, more urgently. “Get away from there.”
His hands were sweating, despite the cold. As he walked away, he listened for the whisper, but there was only the hollow silence of the world.
***
By now, Agraneia had grown used to pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist. There was only the beam, and it did not have sides, which meant, for her, the edges didn’t exist either. She would never go near them.
Faces watched her from the disorienting dome of the ceiling. Stretched and disfigured and always watching her. They urged her to do things she didn’t want to. Walk off. Jump. Some of them wore the voices of her own people, and they begged or sobbed, pleading with her to do what you know is right. Some of them laughed, and the shadows of the lassertane she had killed on Thrass scampered at the corners of her vision. Their tails descending over the edge of the beam, just out of sight.
There is only the beam, she told herself. And one foot followed the other.
“How much closer?” she overheard Eolh asking the little lassertane.
Yasri squinted. The dry, interlocking scales of her snout wrinkling as she did. “Maybe another day.”
“You say the same thing every day.”
“You ask same question every day,” Yarsi shrugged.
“Fine. How many miles to this elevator?”
Yarsi shrugged, as if she couldn’t be bothered with the past and all its histories.
“Do you even know how to count?” Eolh held up his feathered hands, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Don’t know. Too many feathers.”
Poire let out a laugh. Eolh frowned, more with his eyes than his beak.
Yarsi frowned back, wrinkling her brow in perfect imitation of Eolh, which only made Poire laugh even harder.
“Watch it, hatchling,” Eolh aimed a feathered finger at her. Yarsi mirrored his pointing finger perfectly. Poire was doubled over, and wiping tears from his eyes.
Eolh glared at Poire. Back to Yarsi, who only glared back.
Then, with a grin, Eolh threw out his wings in an explosion of black feathers, loosing a loud bwark! at her. Yarsi shrieked, and fell back, laughing like mad.
There was a veil, with the three of them on one side, and Agraneia on the other.
Only a few months ago, she had been on Thrass, bathing in the blood of her enemies in the vain hope that she might slake the faces that haunted her.
Her body, nothing more than a machine. A walking corpse that could not die.
Eolh had shown her the promise of life, after life. And she had believed him.
But there was a veil…
The three of them were howling with laughter as they each threw their “wings” out. Poire’s armor rippled like a cloak, and Eolh had his feathers, and Yarsi flapping wildly, trying to imitate both of them.
It hurt.
Just watching them.
It hurt all over.
Why?
***
The light was a relief, because it meant the lake was near.
After days of walking along the beam, and seeing nothing, Yarsi was worried something had changed. Or maybe the memories were wrong.
But there it was, a glow on the horizon, pouring up from the beam. Pieces of rock, enormous boulders made to look like specks of dust by the sheer distance, hung suspended in the glow. High above, there were cracks in the shell of the world, all jagged and broken, like an egg about to hatch. Here, the air grew colder still as it leaked in from outside the shell.
Yarsi scanned the cracks above, searching the miles and miles of rock. Searching for hints of metal, or movement of any kind.
She saw none, but that did not mean all was well.
With the Witch Princess’s memory implanted in her mind, Yarsi could remember the last attempt at a pilgrimage, and how it had ended. It was as if she had been there. Running away in a body that felt like it actually belonged ot her. Running, as the machines rained down from the cracks in the shell…
Until Sen had saved this would-be pilgrim, who now lived only in Yarsi’s mind.
Yarsi brushed her fingertips over the jewel embedded in her neck. Feeling its hard, angular coldness jutting out from her scales.
Yarsi ignored the questioning whispers of the corvani and the human behind her, and kept walking towards the light. To her great relief, Yarsi saw that the lake had not changed at all.
There was a clear division on the beam where it began; a straight white line that sheered across the width of the beam. Like everything else that Sen made, it was perfect. A thin, bright layer of light rolled in a flat tidal wave, sloshed against the white boundary, and rolling back out.
“Why does it look so familiar?” The feathered one reached out a hand.
“Don’t!” Yarsi hopped forward, grabbing his arm before he could touch it. “Why you always try to touch!?” She demanded.
“You could have said-”
“I say now! I say forever! Don’t touch!”
“OK, gods,” Eolh’s crest feathers ruffled up. “I hear you. All right?”
After a pause, Yarsi sighed. “All right.”
Yarsi didn’t think the feathered xeno was dumb. On the contrary, she thought he might be smart, especially compared to the other old people in her clan. But there were different kinds of smart, and different kinds of dumb. And right now, he was as dumb as an eggling, fresh from hatching.
That was okay, though. Yarsi was sent to help. The memories implanted in her wanted to think of her as an Adherent, and though she didn’t quite know what that word meant, she knew it was a good thing. It meant helping was her job. And Yarsi was going to do a good job.
“So, what is it?”
“This is bad water,” Yarsi explained. “Like before, in tunnels.”
“Which tunnels?” Eolh asked. “You mean that flickering rope thing?”
“It looks like concentrated Light,” the human said. “Held in place. But how?”
Yarsi was about to explain how the goddess Sen commanded all things. The skies, the mountains. Gravity, and water. Darkness, and light.
But the Big One, the one with all the wrong scales, interrupted her by pointing across the lake and saying, “Drone.”
The others followed her finger, crouching reflexively. Getting ready for something bad to happen.
But Yarsi frowned, because she saw nothing out of place. There were the old drones, yes, the ones that got stuck in the lake. Then, she remembered that the Big One didn’t know. None of them knew about the bad water.
“Be not worry. Drones in lake are trapped,” Yarsi said, “See? There is another. And fuzzy one over there is another.”
She pointed at the frozen drones, strung out in a line reaching from the high shell of the world, all the way down to the bottom of the lake. There was a faint shimmering around each one, as if the air around the drones was different from the air Yarsi was breathing. All of them, caught in the isolated glow of the beam.
Yarsi could remember how each one of them got stuck, as if she had been here herself when the lake flicked on and froze them in place. All of them, forever suspended in midair. Not dead, but never to move again.
Bad water.
The frozen drones were angled down, as if preparing to dive on something standing on the beam. The last pilgrimage. Or the last attempt, anyway.
“They can’t move?” the Big One asked. She seemed more there when there was a threat around.
How’d she get so big, anyway? Yarsi thought. And, can I get that big?
“Not move,” Yarsi confirmed. “Never move again.”
Without taking her eyes off the drones, the Big One held a hand out to the feathered xeno. “Eolh, don’t.”
“Why not?” Eolh was holding a knife, and getting ready to throw it into the lake.
All three of them turned to Yarsi, and her chest swelled with pride. They ask me? Then it was her duty to tell them.
“You throw knife, you lose knife.”
“I’ve got plenty,” Eolh shrugged. And when he threw it, the blade seemed to sink into something directly above the white boundary of the lake. A shockwave of light blossomed around the tip of the blade, and stayed shimmering there as the knife quivered.
Eolh croaked his appreciation. “Any ideas how we’re getting across?”
Now, that pride in her chest shrivelled with nerves. This was the part where they would have to trust her. And she would have to trust herself.
“Sen made the way. And the way is open,” she quoted from something. A verse from an old book from the Priests of Memory. Nevermind that Yarsi didn’t know what a book was.
“Doesn’t look open,” Eolh said. And Yarsi could read the doubt on all three of their faces. Even the human. That’s what stung the most.
So, Yarsi took a deep breath. Focused her thoughts on the ground that she could remember. And let her memories guide her.
She stepped into the lake. Not just anywhere, but at a very specific spot that looked identical to all others. Long ago, when Sen still watched over her people, Sen would open the lake for her pilgrims to cross. Yarsi hoped the way was still open. She hoped her memory was right.
She stepped into the lake, at a spot that looked identical to all the others. Eolh shouted, “No!”
But the white boundary permitted her through. And when the bad water sloshed in that thin layer over the ground, it rushed up to her feet—and went around. Yarsi closed her eyes, and sighed with relief.
“Follow me,” Yarsi said, the pride swelling in her chest once more. “I remember the way.”
***
Agraneia was struggling to see the others. She knew they were there. Part of her could still hear Yarsi’s claws, clicking, and Eolh’s talons, too. Only Poire’s silver-covered feet made no sound on the beam. She could hear their quiet breathing.
And she could also hear other sounds, too.
They were getting louder. Since when?
Since the lassertane village? No. It was long before that.
The templelands, she thought. But here, walking through the lake, following the lassertane, the sounds were getting louder.
Flashes of light, in the corners of her vision. Movement, always just out of sight. Someone shouting or crying, moving quickly through her field of hearing. A distant laughter, as if the reveler had seen the most beautiful thing in all creation.
Focus.
Don’t lose sight of her. There is only the beam.
And the beam was covered in mist. And there were trees in the mist.
Something in the red bush, over there. The enemy must’ve been crouched there for hours.
Waiting for you.
The bush shook, but the enemy came from somewhere else. A lassertane, maw open, black tongue hanging out, as he shrieked and flung himself at her. The yellows of his eyes, growing larger-
She jerked, almost losing her footing. The trees were gone, the mist was not mist, but the soft white glow from the shallow lake whose waters refused to touch their feet.
Agraneia put a hand to her temple, trying to massage away the thoughts. When she closed her eyes, she saw his, staring back at her. She had forgotten about that moment, in the jungle. Had forgotten how her hands moved automatically, throwing one of her knives up under his chin. Feeling the blade sink into scaly flesh. Spattering her own face with lassertane blood.
You were just doing what you had to do.
A lie. All of it, her whole life, a lie.
But now, she was surrounded by lies. There were faces she had never seen before. Cyrans. She saw flashes of herself killing them. Painting herself with their blood. The thrill of death, riding up and down her spine as she chopped and hacked and stabbed and-
She could see herself running through daylight. The clouds overhead left rays of light in the streets, barely choking out the sunlight. There were temples made of marble, rising in the red distance, where clouds of smoke blotted out the sun. The trees were on fire, and the streets were filled with blood. She had her knife to someone’s neck, and they were laughing. And she sliced, knowing with utter certainty that it was the right thing to do. And hating herself all the more, as she moved through the billowing smoke and flames and-
Not smoke. Nor was it mist. It was only the light from the beam.
Agraneia stood alone, in the middle of the lake.
Where are they?
Her heart, already beating, started hammering in her chest. All this massive, empty space, and yet she couldn’t see anyone.
She turned around. The beam went on forever. The tide of the shallow lake rolling away from her. And a thousand more beams made up the background of everything, reflecting a light from far below.
She turned back around. And clutched her chest, almost gasping with relief. They were up ahead. Yarsi was waiting for her, at the edge of the lake. Poire and Eolh, somewhere beyond. How did I not see them?
“I waited for you,” Yarsi said. “I make sure you get out.”
“Thanks,” Agraneia grunted, still blinking away the sounds and sights that weren’t real. “I… Thanks.”
“Also,” Yarsi pointed at the other two, “I didn’t want to get hit.”
Something had fallen from high above, and made a dusty blast mark on the beam, scattering clods of dirt and stone chips on the ground. Eolh and Poire had picked up the rocks, and were chucking them at each other. Hard.
How long was I out? Agraneia wondered. And what in the eight hells do they think they’re doing?
Poire pulled his arm back, and threw a dirt clod sideways at Eolh. Aiming right for Eolh’s head.
But Eolh threw his hand up in front of his face, and caught the stone on his metal hand. It exploded, and the both of them threw their heads back, cackling like greenfin idiots.
“You were prudent to stay out of it,” Agraneia said, breathing an easy sigh as she stepped over the white boundary of the lake.
“What’s prudent?”
“It means it was a good idea.”
“Oh,” Yarsi said. “Well.”
“Well?”
“I hope you help me.”
“Help with what?”
Eolh held nothing back, as he used his whole body to throw a clump at Poire. The liquid armor caught it of these easily enough, jutting out strands of that sticky chrome right before impact, catching it so gently that Poire could simply take the clump, and throw it back. Eolh crowed in dismay.
“It’s not fair,” Yarsi said. “I can’t throw. I’m smaller.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Help me!” Yarsi beamed, letting the fold of her cloak fall down to reveal her own pile of dirt clods, one as big as Yarsi’s head. Agra picked that one up, and looked at the two idiots across the beam.
“Which one?”
“Feather face!”
Agraneia grunted her approval. She pulled her arm back, and aimed. And lobbed it.
A squawk of anger. The clod of dirt exploded against him, turning all his feathers a dusty brown.
Yarsi was cheering, and jumping in circles around Agraneia, and the cyran couldn’t help but smile to herself.
For a brief moment, the whole world was quiet, except for the shrieks of laughter and pain and false outrage as they threw dirt at each other.