Sirens

19th of Locus

The Siege of Calamon

"I have another question, Ithlo."

The Etherian nodded, looking over the walls to the bloody fields beside Calamon. It was still pitch black from Calamity, impossible for any man to see — but Ithlo’vatis was no man. He could see the clusters of dead and dying, the blood-soaked grass and dirt, the flames and broken siege machines… He could see the victory that Rykaedi had wrought.

Cedric continued, though he could only smell the sulfur, "Why do you all care for Liara so much? I remembered that it seemed to affect you when I attacked her within Ivalié's mind."

Ithlo did not look away from the scene. “There's one mistake to your understanding: you did not fight me within Ivalié's mind. That was his recollection of me, and the reaction had by that form of Ithlo’vatis was a reflection of Ivalié's own.”

“...Then, why Serkukan? Why do the other Etherians seem so invested in her?”

Ithlo paused, then said, "She is what we refer to as a siren. You've heard of them in passing, from fishing tales; sirens would call sailors to the sea and drown them, to eat the flesh of man. Sirens in the etheric sense do not eat people, but rather understand and consume esera with a greater potential capacity than Etherians. A siren will be noticed in their youth for their natural affinity at manipulating the twice-ley; they'll uncontrollably call for Etherians to reach them from across great distances, even through the Dirac."

"The what-now?"

Ithlo glanced at him. “I forget that you lack the knowledge that Ivalié once held. The Dirac is the space between realms which links all universes. It is pure negative space; there's no way to traverse it, and no way to manipulate it known to scholars, though some speculate that either Antithesis or Tartys function on principles similar to the Dirac.”

“I'm sorry, I barely understand what you're saying…”

“To your original question — Liara drew many of us here, as sirens are wont to do. Rykaedi tempered her into an efficacious tool, fit for designing devices capable of great things. She was guilty of doing this to every siren she came across. She attempted to do the same to you when your name was thrown into the ring.”

Cedric almost fell backward in surprise. “I'm a siren?”

“Indeed. Llestren'vatis felt you calling out across the Dirac as a youth. This led him to you as the choice for the Relistar.”

“...Why? What makes me a siren, just that affinity for the twice-ley?”

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“That is all that is known. Every other answer for the siren problem is inconsistent speculation. All we know is that you were able to manipulate the twice-ley from birth, able to call out to Llestren'vatis and Algirak and Serkukan. Most of the other Etherians in this time were dead or preoccupied with the ongoing war, or else you'd have had worse to face off against.”

Cedric rested his hands on the battlements, looked out into the darkness with a pondering gaze. His eyebrows scrunched and tensed. He asked, “Could I design devices, then?”

“If you had somebody to show you how. Liara learned from Rykaedi. You could learn from her as well, if you could trust her.”

And she did help us with this war… but does that mean I could trust her?

“Together, they designed the Tower of Pain, a complex device fit for torturing all of the Calamoni people simultaneously. Rykaedi had her own theories as for what it would accomplish. Liara drew up the models.”

“That's terrible. What did she think it would do?”

“That much, I am unsure of. Rykaedi never spoke much of it, though Liara believed it to be related to Auctdos Munor in some way. That period of time was also what earned Rykaedi the name Trancewalker, due to her fugue state shortly after the Tower collapsed. Llestren'vatis followed her into Calamon and bound her within the Jinn, which is where she remained until her latent esera brought the dead to life, and a group of adventurers went into her tomb intent on killing her. One of those soldiers fought on your frontline today.”

“...Really?” He leaned over as if expecting to see.

“They freed her mistakenly. And that was when she made her way to you.”

Then his heart sank. “They freed her… They freed her, and she… She's the whole reason why the Rejoining happened.”

“That's not—”

Cedric struck the battlement. It burst and crumbled against Serkukan's supplemental strength. His other hand grabbed the bricks tight, dug his fingers in. “They freed her. And she killed Miriam! She slaughtered those people in Azar'kara…!”

Ithlo did not react to his rage. “Those lives in Azar'kara were forfeit from the first. The Hierarchy of Fates would have seen them dead after the Rejoining regardless of if they'd survived without Rykaedi.”

Cedric's eyebrow twitched. He turned with a confused expression. “...The Rejoining would have happened anyway?”

The Etherian nodded.

“It was set in fate… There was never anything we could do. There was never…”

“There potentially was, but the odds were insurmountable. Since the Rejoining, the Hierarchy has been fragmented. It acts in certain moments to protect you, but it can no longer be relied upon to oversee the course of this world.”

“Then it's up to us…”

“It was always up to us.”

Tirolith appeared at his side, placed a hand on his shoulder. “And we'll always be here to protect you in its stead.”

Cedric's shoulders relaxed. He smiled, leaned back from the edge. “Right, right... Well, then; I guess it wouldn't be such a bad idea to meet this person. I wonder..."

And he looked up into the black sky as a new idea, a new vision, began to nest within his mind...