As the elevator sped towards the core of Sen’s hollow world, gravity loosened its hold. Poire could feel his limbs lighten and the pressure easing off his shoulders. But the weight in his chest? This only grew heavier, like claws gripping his heart and squeezing his lungs. Breathe. Just breathe.
The elevator was an oblong orb made of glass, connected to the beam. Poire could look straight down, and see a thousand more beams rising up under his feet. A gargantuan webwork of metal and composite regolith, suspended in the shadows and the light of the hollowed-out planet. The nearby beams flickered past, while the ones that were hundreds of miles distant seemed to slowly rise out of view.
Yarsi was awake, but she would not look at the others. Instead, she was sitting in front of the glass, staring up at the spot where her village had been. This far away, there was no sign of the mountain construct, or the hanging gardens, or any of it. All Poire could see was a shadowy patch of rock, hundreds of miles above.
Even now, the constructs might be tearing her village into pieces. For thousands of years her people had survived under the threat of those machines. They waited for Sen to return. Or for a Savior to come.
But Sen had abandoned them.
And you? Poire thought to himself. What did you do?
You came, and you brought death. And you did nothing to stop it.
What could I have done?
He replayed their flight in his head, over and over. But Poire was only a child among his kind, and he had no great gifts. No suit of war, no powers of creation. No impulse expander that he might somehow latch onto one of the machines, and bring it down. He was only a child, born in the Conclaves, and even that sheltered existence, he had failed his purpose. His cultivars’ tests, even those he had failed. Always the last. Always the furthest behind.
Why did I come here?
But it was too late for that.
Poire clenched his jaw, and swallowed the past away. There was nothing he could do to change it. He just had to keep moving. To find Sen, to talk to her, to ask her every burning question—even when the answers terrified him.
Only…
Only, the thoughts came back, dripping and black. A guilt, as heavy as iron. A hatred, as hot as any forge, with the heat directed inward. Why did you come here? The more he tried to push them away, the more he felt that he was suffocating. Like he had swallowed a piece of the hottest sun, and it was stuck inside him, raging to burn through. To burn him alive.
Poire hadn’t realized he’d been breathing so heavily. When he looked up, the others were staring at him. Agra, and Eolh with a deep concern.
And Yarsi, with a sadness. As if she knew what he was feeling. As if she pitied him.
That was so wrong. Her family was dead. Her people—all of them—made extinct only a few moments past. She should be broken. She should be losing her mind, and instead she was feeling sorry for him? It made no sense. She should hate me for coming here. She should be screaming at me. But somehow this xeno child was ready to just accept this fate.
Back in the sewers below the Cauldron, when it had just been him and Eolh, Poire had almost crumbled under the revelation of his own people’s death. He had refused to believe, even when he could see. He had run more than once, he had gotten so angry he started breaking the statues the avians made of his people.
And how many are dead because of you? And everything you did…
I saved them. I saved the city.
And what of the ones you didn’t? The soldiers. And what of Yarsi’s people?
Poire balled his fists, and covered his head, begging for the thoughts to bury themselves. “I’m trying,” Poire said to himself. “I’m doing everything I can.”
It will never be enough. You will never be enough.
A scaled hand, slight and slender, touched his arm. Gentle claws dug into his skin. Yarsi had picked herself up, and was kneeling in front of Poire.
“How?” Poire managed to whisper. “How can you be so much stronger than me?”
Yarsi bowed her head, the layers of scales on her long neck separating. With one hand, she touched the memory implant, an unnatural piece of machinery jutting out from her spine.
“I know this will happen. I see it.”
“And you still came with me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“All die. Even if I stay. All die. Maybe not for long time, but we are mortal. Not gods. But even gods need help, sometimes. When I first meet you, I know you already. I know what you want. I know you can make change. You help all.”
A sharp pain in Poire’s chest. A sadness that flickered into anger. “And what if I can’t?”
Yarsi frowned at him, an indignant pout. “Bad question! Ask better question. What if you can?”
It almost made sense. Poire chewed on her words, and tried them out. He sighed, loosening his anger. But the pain wouldn’t let go. All he could think of were Yarsi’s people, and his own people, and Khadam and the fear in her voice when she realized who he was.
Outside, the hollow emptiness of the planet sailed past. A forest of beams hung down into the void, growing into each other, becoming like branches of enormous, man-made trees. Many of them were cracked, and some had collapsed completely, long forgotten by their makers.
“Why didn’t you warn them?” Poire asked Yarsi. “Why didn’t you tell them they were going to die? You could have helped them leave.”
“I saw death, but not know when. I thought I have more time,” the lassertane wiped her eyes. Despite the flood of emotions choking her, she tried a brave smile. “But I also see you. And I help you. And you help all. It is foretold.”
What am I supposed to help? Your people are all dead.
And who foretold this? Sen? What did she see about me?
Once began, he could not stop. A raging storm of questions swirled in Poire’s mind, full of doubt and despair. What if am this Destroyer? What if Sen knows, and she intends to kill me?
I don’t want to destroy anyone. Why would I want that? Poire grabbed at his chest, trying to open his lungs but it was so hard to breathe. What if I can’t stop it? His fingernails dug into his skin, and his armor writhed over his forearms, as cold as ice, but all he could feel was the white-hot shame flooding through him. Threatening to drown him in his own useless anger.
What if I should’nt be here? Poire thought. What if I-
Stop. The voice that spoke inside his head sounded exactly like his own. It broke like a bolt of thunder, and brought his spiraling doubt to a halt.
Stop, and breathe. Stop, and think. What is the point of this? You can only know what you know. And right now, you don’t know anything except that Khadam wants you dead, your friends want you alive, and Sen…
Sen knows more than you. She knows you are coming.
And if you weren’t supposed to be here, then Sen would have said something. Right?
With a shuddering exhale, Poire lifted his gaze. Saw Yarsi blinking up at him, nervously.
“I’m sorry,” Poire said, taking her hand, “I lost everyone too. Everyone I knew. I don’t know how you’re here. I’m so sorry.”
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Yarsi said, “Not your fault. There was nothing you could do.”
Poire nodded, as if he agreed. But the pain in his chest flared again. For someone who was supposed to be the Savior, he had heard that too many times. There was nothing you could do.
Then what good am I? What good can I possibly do?
But now his head was throbbing, and it hurt to keep his eyes open, so he slumped against the back of the elevator. Behind him, the beam was a blur of movement, as they continued to sink into the world. All the while, the pressure grew. His head felt like it was being hammered open from the inside.
No one sent me, Poire thought. I didn’t come to save anyone. Why do they talk about me like I chose this?
His head felt like it was being hammered open from the inside, a slow steady ring. And he wished beyond desperate hope that he could go home. Just for a moment. He wished that everything would just make sense for one moment.
Eolh brought over food, and the four of them ate together. Slow, quiet, with no one saying a word. Agraneia faced the inner corner of the elevator, not taking her eyes off the beam. After they finished, Eolh tried to get Yarsi to take some rest, and Poire noticed that Agraneia still had not moved from her spot on the floor. She stared, rigidly, at the beam. Behind her, the glass flickered with shadows and light. Tens of thousands of beams criss-crossed, racing down towards the center of the core where some brilliant light lay hidden beneath their geometric tangles.
Agraneia’s eye flicked to Poire, and then back to the beam. “I am afraid to look down. Or up. Or to the side. I did not like what I saw.”
“We’re safe in here.”
“Yes,” Agraneia said, though her eye line did not waver. Every movement was tense.
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
“No,” Agraneia said, “I do. And that’s okay. I am,” she hummed as she considered her words, “I am dealing with it.”
There were wrinkles around her eyes. And a few scars crossed her forehead, her cheeks. She glared at the blur of the beam, as if it was the only thing keeping her attached to gravity.
“Your people,” she said, as casually as if she wasn’t holding a staring contest with the wall, “Are capable of making impossible things. Perhaps you are too.”
Outside, all the beams seemed to be sliding together. Driving down to one central point.
“They could,” Poire agreed. “But I won’t. Not without their training. They built on old knowledge, adding a little each year. It has all been forgotten.”
“Maybe you will remember.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Poire said.
“Then maybe you will learn.”
“Look. You need to understand I am not like them. These people you worship like gods—they were powerful. I am not. I am lucky to be alive at all.”
“You survived. They did not.”
“The only reason I survived is because… Is because they didn’t want me. They tried to save my cohort. Not me. The only one who cared about me… She saved me. I’m only here because of her, and because of luck.”
“As am I,” Agraneia grunted.
Poire frowned at her.
“I was born into fortune.” She lifted her forearm, and pointed at one of the scales there, shining amidst all that blue. Luminescent, it caught and flickered in the light of the elevator. “Everything I have, I have because of these. Otherwise, I would have no training. No academy. I know it’s not the same, but…” Agraneia shrugged.
Amid that scarred face, her soft eyes looked wrong. All that vulnerability, peeking through the cracks, somehow it helped. He felt something loosen in his chest.
“What do you fear, godling?”
His chest tightened again. A grip of agony that Poire refused to show. But there was no hiding the pain from Agraneia. She crossed her legs, and leaned forward, lowering her voice.
“It can help to talk about it. Don’t tell Eolh, but I learned that from him.”
“I’m not supposed to be here. It should be someone else. Someone who knows how to do great things. I don’t know who I’m supposed to save, let alone how. And…” Poire paused to swallow the lump in his throat. “I only want to help. I don’t want to be a god.”
“Well, you are.”
Poire was about to argue, but Agraneia cut him off.
“I am lucky, godling. But you are more than I could ever be. Do not deny the truth. I do not know if you are a greater god, or a lesser one,” Agraneia frowned, and Poire thought it was all too clear she leaned towards lesser. “But one thing I do know is that you are a god. Do not concern yourself with what should be. Do not chain yourself to a future that may never come. There is only the here, and the now.”
“And what if I’m not good enough here and now?”
“In Cyre, we have a saying when fate is out of our hands. We say, ‘If the gods will it.’ People ask if our crops should fail this year, and we answer: if the gods will it. Will my son return from war? If the gods will it. Will she ever smile at me? If the gods will it. But you have no gods. You have only your will. You have no fate. You have only your choice.”
“And what if my fate is foretold? What if I have no choice?”
Agraneia shrugged. “Tell fate to fuck off.”
Poire couldn’t help but laugh. And then, he kept laughing until Agraneia was laughing with him, and Yarsi and Eolh were staring at them like they had both gone mad. Maybe they had. The pain was still there carving canyons in his chest, but somehow he felt that he could bear it. He could do it, for those that needed him.
Only, the pain grew worse. It throbbed to a beat louder than his heart, until Poire thought he could hear it, not just from himself, but from the walls of the elevator. Rising, falling and making the very air in Poire’s lungs thrum.
And finally, Poire knew where it was coming from.
He knew it before Eolh crowed the words.
“We’re here.”
Overhead, tens of thousands of beams intersected with each other, forming a kind of metal mesh that blocked out the ceiling of the world. The elevator descended through the center of that mesh, and suddenly all the beams were gone.
Instead, they were singing into a globe. At its center, a flat platform as large as a city hung suspended in midair. No, not a platform.
An inverted pyramid. The faces were made of some white metal that Poire had never seen before, a kind of metal that shed its own light it hurt to look at. It filled the elevator with a whiteness impossible for Poire’s eyes to comprehend, so that even his skin seemed to glow. Eolh’s feathers were pale and bright, and Agraneia shimmered.
The elevator screeched to a halt, grinding against the metal. An error chimed in Poire’s head, alerting him that the elevator had reached some critical error, and could descend no further. Sen’s old infrastructure was dying. Nothing, no drone, nor repair construct, was around to keep it running.
But they were close enough to the rim of the pyramid. Poire impulsed and the glass elevator peeled itself open. A gust of wind filled the elevator, and wrapped around Poire, cold and all-too familiar. The air smelled just like it had in the Conclave, all those years ago. But the light was so much brighter than he remembered.
Poire impulsed the armor to cover his face and shield his eyes. He impulsed the metal to iris open, slowly, so his eyes could adjust.
Down at the nadir of the pyramid, where the four beams almost met, the source of the light could not be more obvious.
A scar.
There was a nascent scar at the center of the planet, and it sat at the tip of the inverted pyramid.
“What the hells?” Eolh said. “Is that supposed to be here?”
“She built the planet,” Poire shouted over the wind, “I thought she hollow it out, but she built it. To contain this.”
The Scar’s forked limbs moved. It was a tear through the void as wide as a moon. It formed a valley in existence that should have cleft this world in half, but somehow did not. And how it glowed...
Lightning rolled out of its nameless depths, flickering like tongues made of pure energy that crawled down the valley walls, and the air at the valley head seemed to roil and steam and refract the light in glittering, alien ways. As if the air was changing into something else. And all the while that glow pulsed, grim and gray, a rhythm in perfect time with the throbbing in Poire’s head. The faces of the pyramid bit into either side of the Scar, this city-sized building dwarfed by the Scar’s majesty.
A jolt of lightning shot out of the Scar, a flash of winding energy that ran up one of the angles of the hollow pyramid.
“It looks angry,” Agraneia said. “Very angry.”
“I don’t remember it like this,” Yarsi’s eyes were wide. “Not at all.”
“Here.”
“Poire?” Eolh asked. “Is it safe to go near that thing? It does look a little upset.”
“Very upset,” Agraneia added.
“He’s here. I can feel him.” This last came from no one. Yet Poire could hear the voice as if she was standing right before him. Sen was calling to him, from down at the nadir of the pyramid. Poire cupped a hand to his eye, and tried to squeeze away the pain that lanced through his skull.
“Poire?” Eolh asked. “What is this?”
Poire couldn’t say anything. Not because he didn’t know. But because he thought he did know. And the answer was inexplicable. Only those who had been through could understand. Only his cohorts from the Conclave.
Agraneia grunted, and pointed down at the pyramid’s nadir. “Something’s down there.”
“Come to me, Poire. Come to me, last of our kind. Come and be reckoned.”
“It’s her,” Poire said. “It’s Sen.”
“Poire? You sure about this?” Eolh asked, his black eyes wide with concern.
Almost as if in answer, the walls of the pyramid flashed with light. A shape was caught on the nadir. It looked like a shredded piece of cloth, whipping in the wind. Only, the cloth itself was made of pure Light that flashed like lightning, and the tattered ends of the shape snapped and jolted through space, moving too fast to see and making the air shimmer prismatically.
Sen’s voice called to Poire, as if she was speaking through all the beams of her world. “Come, last one! Come, before it I cannot speak!”
The door was open.
All he had to do was take a step forward.
Yarsi grabbed his hand. Her scales were rough against his skin. Her face was full of utter fear, and her claws dug into his palms. But she would not back down.
“We go with you.”
“Thank you, Yarsi.”
Then, Yarsi looked down at the rim of the pyramid, and that vast flat ramp down to the nadir. She seemed to deflate, all that bravery evaporated in a moment. “OK, but how we get down?”
Poire put his foot out of the elevator. The metal rim of the pyramid shifted its shape, lightly twisting that flat ramp into a step that caught Poire’s foot. As if it was waiting for him.The other three followed in his footsteps, down towards the Scar with all its gray light and white lightning. Down into a pale mist that shimmered. Poire could not help but breathe in time with the swelling and falling of the air around them.
Shapes floated at the nadir, where the pyramid met the Scar. Shapes that Poire remembered, and had tried to forget. Glitches of broken light that moved in ways that should not be possible.
But the shapes did not come through. They were stuck, as if the nadir held the Scar in place. Is this whole pyramid the Mirror? Is this what the Emperor wanted to see?
A distinctly human voice spoke to him as he approached, and when it spoke, Poire thought he could see something in the nadir change. Not a face, but some insane abstraction of one, fragmented in all those maddening shapes and angles. A face that was looking up from the bottom of the inverted pyramid, and right at him.
“Oh, I see you now. Why do you shine so bright?”