Redenites were not rodents, Poire had learned, though the similarities were striking. They were a small, whiskered people who came from the darkest parts of the deep jungles on Gaiam.
Their clever hands and curious minds made them talented tinkers and crafters, but their true strength was their ability to work together. They lived, ate, and interacted almost exclusively within their family clans, which meant this species had a natural affinity for the cooperative nature of factory work.
When they immigrated to the Cauldron, many generations ago, they filled up the lowest stories and the basements of buildings. They did not hate the light, but they were sensitive to it. Their mottled-pink skins were covered in fine fur and their huge, black eyes were accustomed to near darkness, so out in the world, redenites always covered their faces with heavy masks or wide-brimmed hats, and full-length clothing that fit tight to their bodies (to prevent getting caught in machinery).
More and more, they became dependent on their augmented gear, so that even at night it was not uncommon to see a clan of redenites, leaving some tavern still wearing their masks or to see their prosthetic limbs glistening in the moonlight.
Poire wore a redenite mask now, and for the first hour it was so hot, and sweaty, as to be nearly unbearable. Even though there were breath holes on either side of the mask, the filters trapped the heat of every breath.
At least the air here was cooler than on Gaiam. Less humid. And the wind was almost crisp, compared to the sweating, rainforest standstill of the Cauldron. And the gate was like ice, sticking to the soles of his boots.
But already that coldness was fading as the metal platform was warmed by the Cyran sunlight.
And the crowds around the gate jostled, ready to swarm the newcomers, to sell, to buy, to be the first to make deals in the frenzy. Thousands of aliens, cyrans and avians and countless other beings he had never seen before. It was hard to see them clearly through the tinted glass eye-coverings of the mask, but that didn’t stop the feeling from washing over him.
It started with the sound. All the crowds, all those voices began to stir and twist inside his head, becoming a single, unbearable roar. Almost like the sound of the wind.
And as the edges of his vision began to turn black, he thought he could hear voices.
Human voices.
“...done everything we could?” This first voice was a woman’s, he thought. Someone he had never met before.
“No!” another voice answered, fading in and out. “...must be more. This can’t be it. This...”
“...that the choice was made long ago. There is no way back...”
They were arguing, but over what Poire couldn’t tell. And then, the sound drowned out all the voices, and a light began to glisten. Twin crescents, one over each eye. Filaments of multi-colored light warping and shaping. He had to reach up, to make sure he was still wearing his mask - he was - because now, he could see through the tinted glass. As clear as daylight.
He could see the crowds, all those xenos with all their impossible bodies and alien mutations, shining in a light that should not be there. He could see them all, skin and fur and scales and strange alien faces, bodies with too many limbs or too few. The light seemed to settle on all of them, falling like dust from the sky.
And then, Poire could see them change.
Where the dust settled on their skin, he could see flesh rendering itself. Peeling off, and peeling up. Not burning, just… changing. There, a beak fractured into a thousand geometric shapes. And there, a pack animal’s shaggy head began to ripple and transform. Even the ground itself, where the dust fell, began to crack and split apart, until even Poire’s legs began to believe what he was seeing and it was a struggle to stay on his feet.
The longer Poire stood in the crowds, the more the light grew. And the more it hurt.
He turned to Eolh, but Eolh was talking to another avian, though her hat and her head were melting into each other now. He turned to Laykis, and found at least that she was so far untouched. He stumbled into her, and she caught him.
And then, she was helping him walk. Following Eolh and the other avian. Moving too quickly through all those thousands of bodies, surging onto the gate.
By the time they reached the tent, he was bleeding from his nose and from the corners of his eyes, and it was getting in his mouth and his head was hammering.
He had seen… what had he seen?
He had seen the aliens, the people. Had seen them seized by the light. Their eyes wide open, their mouths agape, all their faces fixed on that awful gray horizon, where something shimmered just out of sight.
The last thing he felt was a pair of metal arms, catching him. Then, his mind shuttered closed.
A light brought him back. A bright lantern, jammed so close in his face it turned his eyelids red.
“You’re too close,” Laykis said. Her voice sounded close. “He can’t see you if you’re that close. Look, you’re blinding him with that.”
There was the squeak of rusted metal. The light dimmed.
Laykis said, “There, that’s better. He’s opening his eyes.”
Poire squinted through the light. Something hard and rubbery was pressed against his face - the redenite mask had fallen off and digging into his cheek. He sat up, and as he did, the light followed him. It was coming from a small droid hanging on the wall of the tent. Plump tentacles clung to the tentpoles and thread-bare carpets, using them as a perch. The tentacles were connected to an over-sized sphere, where a single eye-light, as large as Poire’s fist, wiggled nervously.
Poire rubbed his gloves over his face, staining them with his own blood. They were leather, and they hid the other gloves underneath. The ones he had taken from the Magistrate.
Laykis was crouching over him, and other than the droid with the too-bright eye, there was only a single, dim gas lantern hanging from the wooden frame of the tent. There were a few old crates, weathered and gray, lying around the tent. All of them were empty, or filled with moth-eaten bolts of cloth.
“Where are we?” Poire asked. His mouth was so dry, his tongue felt as though it was made of stone.
“A merchant’s tent. We just left the gate.” Laykis said. “We’re not alone. Can you put the mask back on?”
Poire nodded. When he swallowed, it was like sandpaper running down his throat. It felt like there was an animal trapped in his brain, bashing against the bars of his skull. He pulled the straps over his scalp and shoved the mask back into place, adjusting it so that it sat more comfortably.
“Proximity. That is my current theory.” Laykis said. She cocked her head, her eyes analyzing his face. “It’s the people. So many of them, so close to you. That is what triggers the visions. I wonder why.”
Poire said nothing. He didn’t know either, but at the moment he didn’t feel like speculating about anything. All he wanted was for the hammering in his head to stop.
“Perhaps,” Laykis continued, “That’s why my Maker lived alone.”
But that didn’t make sense to Poire. There were hundreds of people in my conclave, Poire thought. How come this didn’t happen there?
The merchant’s droid was pressed tight against the canvas wall, its single eye still trained on Poire. Rust flaked off its tentacles, and the dozens of joints looked stiff just by the way it was clinging to its perch.
Poire swallowed again, trying to summon the saliva to speak. His voice came out in a rasp, “Is the droid safe?”
“It’s friendly,” Laykis clicked out her affirmative. “I’ve been talking with it. The merchant only keeps it to handle basic accounting and counterfeit detection.”
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Poire patted a spot on the dusty carpet next to him, trying to encourage the droid to come over. It was shaking, but it slowly crawled its way down from its perch, one tentacle detaching at a time as it climbed down the tent pole. It stopped at his feet, a puddle of tentacles and a grapefruit-sized body staring up at him.
Poire gave it’s head a pat, and the droid shivered, its eye closing slightly. It almost looked happy when it did that.
“You need some maintenance, don’t you?” He said softly. Poire started picking at the larger flakes of rust that were stuck inside the droid’s tentacles. Cleaning it was therapeutic, somehow. Made the headache soften, made the howling sound of the vision feel more distant.
Laykis was staring intently at the two of them. He could almost see the thought processes warming up her core, and the way she cocked her head. As if she was puzzled - not by Poire’s vision - but by this little droid.
“It likes you,” she said, but Poire could hear the question in her voice. “Almost like it knows you.”
Outside, he could hear two muffled voices. Eolh and another avian. They were making a deal, by the sounds of it.
All the while, the droid’s eye drooped as Poire idly brushed and cleaned away the rust.
And because he couldn’t get it out of his head, Poire decided to talk about it.
“I saw a light.”
“In your vision?”
“Everyone was looking at it. Watching it climb on the horizon.”
“The sun?”
“No,” he said. “It was a cold light. It felt like it was growing.”
***
There were cracks in his statue. They spidered up the columns, where chunks of marble were starting to split and crumble to the floor of the temple. Dust on every surface, and cobwebs in every corner.
When he first built his statue, the Emperor intended the inner sanctum to be the most sacred temple in all of Cyre. To endure for all time. But now, there were cracks in his statue. Spidering down the stone pillars, making rifts that ran like roots along the floor.
Even the wreaths and vines and potted plants that had flourished in his sanctum were now dead and drying. He ran his fingers against the vines that grew across the innermost wall. As he walked, he pulled a fistful of those thorny, twisted stems, and dragged it behind him until the whole dead wall tore away in a crunching wrench.
My own priests, he thought, have left my home to ruin.
The Emperor paced ever so languidly towards the outermost balcony of his temple, feeling his great muscles roll and tauten and flex under his deep olive skin, smooth and perfect as the day it had first been created. But while his body remained, his temple…
Where were the flowers? Where was the water that ran through the fountains?
Where were the piles of gold and incense, and the rich offerings from his warriors’ latest conquests?
Had they not, under his direction, taken entire worlds while he slumbered?
He had only been asleep for a few decades, but now, even the once zealous priests had become old and mad and shuffling. They thought they could steal from him.
Well.
There was time to fix that. There was time to fix everything.
Cold stone caressed the soles of his feet, as the Everlord of the Cyran Empire came to the balcony’s edge. Feeling the smooth marble on his fingertips, basking in that sultry ocean wind. Salted to perfection. Letting it dance over his nearly-naked being. He wore only the lightest robes, for the sake of decency. It was a courtesy to his people, but he thought it a shame. The Emperor’s body was perfect. By every measurement that ever was. He should know - he had grown it to his exact specifications.
For the last half hour, a messenger had been kneeling at the open entrance far across the temple, her head pressed to the stone floor. She wore the colors of priesthood, the same crimson and gold they had worn for a thousand years. Minor fashionable improvements had been added, to the shoulders, and the waist. But even now, the messenger priest looked much like they had, a millenia before.
The Emperor had noticed the messenger priest, and had chosen to ignore her, until he grew tired of wallowing in the disrepair of his statue temple.
“Come,” he said to the messenger, his voice booming through the temple. Resonant and strong.
The messenger scrambled to her feet, and hurried over to the Emperor, bowing obsequiously the whole way, so that it took a good while before the Emperor could even hear her.
“Hail to thee, Most Divine and Honorable Emperor. Oh, my conqueror and King. Oh, Lord of all the worlds, both known and unknown.”
“The message.” The Emperor said, cutting off the priest’s adulations.
“Delegates have arrived, Lord, from your rebellious subjects on Gaiam.”
The Emperor had seen the gate open. That pinprick of light that pierced the heavens. But even without sight, he would have felt the gate and all that gathering of power, rolling through his city.
“Rebellious?” the Emperor’s voice rolled around the temple, not quite shaking the ground.
“Yes, my lord. There was a mutiny on Gaiam. Violent, an attempt to overthrow-”
“There was no mutiny.”
This seemed to confuse the messenger, who scrunched up her brow so that the glittering scales around her eyes disappeared into the pale blue of her face.
“My Lord?”
“I saw no mutiny,” The Emperor answered, “What I saw was one of our own who was permitted to lose his way. Who was permitted to cause suffering where there should have been only prosperity. Our people on Gaiam did not rebel. They survived. Make no mistake.”
“But they are making demands-”
“Are they not a part of our glorious empire? Are their affairs not our own?”
“But… but they killed a Magistrate. They murdered cyrans in cold blood.”
“That Venerate orchestrated his own death. He was not fit to rule.”
This only deepened the messenger’s confusion. The Emperor always had to remind himself how short their mortal memories were. Even from year to year, they could make themselves blind to the most blatant details. Cyre had never been one city, one people, one world.
Often, not always, but often when he slept, he found that a kind of tribalism always seemed to take root. But the Emperor had more pressing matters to deal with, and these cultural corrections could come when there was time to breathe. He would clear out the weeds, like he always did. Later.
The Emperor returned to his balcony and gazed down upon his city. The grand marble palaces and red-shingled villas that grew over those verdant hills. The river, where the twins became one, and fed out into a harbor sprinkled with white sails. Birds wheeled in the sky, their white wings blending in to the broken crests of the ocean’s waves.
If I could stay in this moment…
But he couldn’t, because this was it. This was the moment where everything would start to change. After this, he may never sleep again.
“The human,” the Emperor said at last. “Was he with the delegates?”
“The mutineers, ah-” the Messenger touched a webbed hand to the scales on her throat, clearing her gills as she corrected herself. “The Queen did not send him through. We believe she intends to play a more careful game with the god. Nonetheless, they are ready for you.”
The Emperor waved a great hand lazily through the air, “Let the Veneratian have them.”
“My lord? These are the first envoys. You would let politicians make our first impression?”
Politicians. The messenger said it, as if the priests were somehow above politics. Everyone is a politician.
The Emperor said, “The first impression was made years ago when we came through the gate and burned their city. The Queen knows what we are capable of.”
“The Lords of the Veneratian will not forgive what happened to their Magistrate. They will want blood, my Lord. If you want the people of Gaiam brought into the Empire, couldn’t you just meet them and make it so?”
The Emperor’s eye was following a great winged bird to the edge of the ocean, watching it rise higher and higher. So graceful. So effortless.
And then, he saw something that caught his attention. It caught in his gut like a hook, dragging him out to sea. A flare of light on the horizon, almost invisible in the afternoon sun.
“It cannot be,” he said.
The Messenger must’ve mistaken him, thought he was responding to her pleas about the delegates and the Venerate.
“Then what should we do, my lord?”
When the Emperor’s gaze fell upon the messenger, the messenger dropped her head and bowed. Even in those sweeping robes, this priest looked so small. So fragile, in more ways than one.
The Emperor turned back to the horizon, searching for what he had seen. Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I only wanted to see it. Still, he had to be sure. The Emperor kept his eyes locked on the horizon, searching.
But the messenger was waiting. So, with another part of his mind, he scanned through the piles of texts and political records he had collated in the brief weeks he had been awake. And found the one he was looking for.
“It’s time to change,” the Emperor said. “There is a cyran. Kirine is his name. Ensure he is given room to speak before the Venerate.”
“My lord, Kirine is merely a tribune. And an unloved one, at that. Why not choose one of the consuls? Vorpei and Deioch are both wildly popular with the Venerate. Or, perhaps, one of the high priests will suit your needs?”
The Emperor slammed his fist on the balcony, splintering the stone. “Those sniveling leaches deserve nothing. If they could not uphold my temple, how can I trust them to uphold my word? No. You will find this Kirine. Let him know that I will need him soon. Until then, he is to spread his message with whatever means he sees fit. Money. Servants. Anything he needs, he will have.”
“My Lord,” the messenger shifted uncomfortably. “The imperial coffers are low. Where should the money come from?”
The Emperor conjured up the financial records - both official, and unofficial - from the last few decades. For anyone else, it might take years to unravel the source of this poverty. But for him, it was immediately clear. They thought they were clever, didn’t they.
A spiderweb of extortion, laundering, and simple theft. Priests and Venerate and nobles of all sources. They thought by spreading the blame, they would all be equally blameless.
A lesson was in order.
“Bring High Priest Esortatus to me.”
The messenger’s eyes went wide. Swallowed, and stammered out a single, “My lord?”
“Bring him to me, or I will find someone who can.”
The messenger bowed, pressing her head to the floor for a long while. And then, she rose and rushed out of the temple. Most likely, even she had been part of these thieving plots, and she knew what was coming.
But the Emperor watched her go, satisfied. Knowing that, at least in this, his will would be carried out.
Then, he turned his gaze back to the sky, where the scar was beginning to crest over the horizon. The Emperor pulled up a thousand years of astratician’s charts, averaging them together and overlaying them on the scar.
It was so clear, now.
The tip of the scar was a little brighter than it should have been. A crack had formed where there had never been one before. It was coming to a change.
And that could only happen because of two things.
Either the Library, after thousands of years of mathematically perfect synchronicity, had failed...
...or there was a living, breathing human on walking on the surface of Cyre.
Either way, this was a precarious moment. He would have to act swiftly.