“Excuse me?” both Bisha and Manessa said. Manessa spoke in surprise, Bisha because he’d told me not to be so blunt about what I wanted to do.

“I… that is, I need to study the weapons, try to figure out what makes them work,” I explained.

“Absolutely not,” Manessa said, and walked away.

“But Matriarch—” I followed, trying to plead with the woman.

“Matriarch Manessa, I can vouch for what Wurn is trying to do. He wants to discover the origins of the three weapons and, I can assure you, will not harm them in any way,” Bisha said.

“The weapons are invulnerable, Bisha, so their protection is not my concern,” Manessa said without looking at my friend or me as she walked toward the exit to the White compound. “My concern is that no one since Ambassador Jasper has handled the weapons to any significant degree. We have Prophets across the seven worlds who depend on their power. It would not benefit them if anything were to tamper with that energy’s source.”

“They’re a source no matter where they are,” I insisted. “I’ve done some studies on that. The orb is more like a metaphorical transmitter, it doesn’t really do anything.”

Manessa stopped and faced me. “You’ve studied the orb? How?”

“Well… it’s, you know, not so hard if you can teleport up there.”

Manessa crossed her arms with surprise and disgust. “It is several hundred meters to the top of the Pinnacle, Wurn. It comes to a point less than half a meter wide at the orb. How were you able to study this transmitter?”

“…carefully?”

Manessa turned around and started walking faster. “I will not allow any tampering with the three weapons, Wurn, and I can assure you that the rest of the Sept shares my sentiments.”

“But Matriarch—”

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, Matriarch Manessa,” Bisha said in his calming, confident way. “I know at least one Sept member who would authorize a little research.”

Manessa didn’t stop, didn’t say a word until we reached the main hall and the arching staircase at the White compound entrance. Three White Prophet honor guards stood at the staircase leading to the chamber that held the three weapons, their Blessed weapons glowing dimly as they continually scanned the area for anyone not authorized to be there.

“There,” Manessa said with her arm outstretched. She pointed to an arched doorway on the ground level. “There is the door that leads to the Tent Library. Either that or the White Library. That is where research and experiments on our past should be done. Tampering with the three weapons is not something the majority of the seats on the Sept will permit.” She emphasized the word majority as if it were the slamming of a gavel.

“Aren’t you at all curious?” I asked, unable to help nervously laughing. “Don’t you want to know how they were made, if Infinity really made them? I mean, we have people who’ve built vehicles that can fly in outer space, weapons that can level mountains, machines that can do math. And yet we can’t even comprehend how these pieces of metal can broadcast an unlimited amount of energy. Wouldn’t it benefit us to understand that?”

“No. There are no records of the time before Infinity blessed us with this mission. Therefore, it is unnecessary to know. Living in the past will not get us to the future, Wurn of the White Prophets.”

It always made me feel like a child when a fellow Prophet used my full title. I think Manessa knew this.

“The Sept is meeting at the top of the hour,” she said. “Study your past while we take care of the future.”

Manessa and Bisha walked away without giving my cowardly psyche enough time to recover. Bisha looked back as he went, trying as much as he could to offer an apologetic glance as he followed the Matriarch to the Sept chambers.

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When the door closed behind them and my mind had stopped racing, I finally shouted, “Because if we know the past we can know the future!”

Everyone from trainees to full-fledged Whites to the three guards at the bottom of the massive stairway stopped in sudden silenced and stared at me. Cowering from embarrassment, my instincts kicked in and led me toward the library.

“That’s what I should have said. I would’ve said it. I would have,” I mumbled as I went.

They were just found, the three weapons. According to every book I’ve ever read, every ancient text barely readable on disintegrating parchment, they were just always there at the site of Pinnacle.

Pinnacle has always been the home of the Sevens Prophets. It was chosen because, for one, it is quite possibly the most defensible spot for a city ever devised. It sits on a concave plateau resembling a mountain with a massive scoop taken out of it. Only one path leads to it, a mile-wide, shallow-rising hill that’s been paved and walled and repaved for thousands of years after millions of souls have traveled to the city.

It was here, it has been documented, that the three weapons were created and found. A whirlwind spanning throughout the oceans and land of our planet swirled and spun the globe as if propelled by a force beyond the atmosphere. It spun and contracted till it reached a focal point in the center of Sevens’s largest continent. As the whirlwind became a thin, powerful cyclone, the ground erupted beneath it. An earthquake that nearly cracked Sevens in half pushed rock and soil from the center of the planet straight up and shooting a mile from the surface, shattering the two rivers that crossed the area. Before the dust could settle on this mountain, a colossal beam of energy burst from outer space and blasted the tip of the mountain, destroying half of it in an explosion that knocked Sevens briefly off its solar orbit.

When the flames and stone and wind had settled, a brave few scaled the strangely flat path that led to the top of the crater that used to be a mountain. In the center was a black pedestal made of pure onyx. There the three weapons lay, their power glowing as a beacon. In crystalline letters burned into the side of the onyx were the words Unite in Peace.

The Pinnacle is the building where the Sevens Prophets operate. Built to house the three weapons and the offices and homes of the Prophets, it marvels the eye even to this day. We know how and when it was built. Prophets used their powers to construct this wonder when there was barely a village on this plateau. The rest is history.

Prophets recruited, city founded, principles created, world peace, universal peace, all history I’ve read and studied and lectured on and found absolutely nothing new from. The meat of the matter is what came before.

“…was built around the three weapons and the onyx pillar that held them. When removed, they would be usable. When united, they floated on their pedestal and glowed,” I read aloud from a dusty book. The wood-bound manuscript went on to describe the first attempts at creating a Prophet leadership and discussions on dividing up the colors.

For a few chaotic centuries, the Prophets themselves struggled to form a unified body. At first it became a nationalistic idea focused on expanding the boundaries of the nation Pinnacle was capitol of. Then it became isolationist, focusing on making Pinnacle a perfect city to shine as an example to the rest of the world. A series of freedom then equality then discipline then peace themes followed till the Prophets finally emerged as non-partisan peacemakers, interpreting the hope of Infinity to be as such.

I’ve read this book countless times. There’s more known about the first battle the Prophets fought in than the weapons they somehow were able to use. This book was the first to ever mention the three weapons and it was dated over a hundred years after the first recorded acts of the Prophets.

I turned to the page depicting that first battle. It’s one of the closest guarded secrets of the Prophets. Thousands of years ago it was dated, and showed soldiers lined up in formations much like they’ve always been. Instead of a battle with clashing swords and flying arrows, the age-stained sketch showed lines of Pinnacle soldiers slaughtering their enemy with Blessed weapons. In the middle of the Pinnacle army stood a massive man with the Pure Crown on his head, Law raised and glowing brightly, and Heartsflame shooting a crimson beam into the enemy.

A mural of this sketch was painted in the Tent Library, hidden in the back by old bookshelves.

I paced around the library, thinking out loud and bothering some studying trainees. “Nothing new, nothing new,” I said as I approached the far wall of the library. “It’s all old manuscripts and illegible parchment. There were people here to find the weapons — there were armies to fight with — why isn’t there any record on them? Why do we know nothing about their origins?”

I reached the end of the library and stared at the corner of the black frame holding the mural of that first battle. It was dated. The numbers and losses were known. But for all we knew, this group of people was the first sign of contact with the three weapons.

“I don’t buy it,” I said, staring at the frame. “If Infinity created the weapons for us to use, why doesn’t It help us? Why hasn’t It said anything other than unite in peace for so long?”

“I know we’re supposed to come up with our own definition of what Infinity is,” Bisha said quietly as he walked toward me, “but that sounds an awful lot like you don’t believe Infinity exists.”