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Two hours later, I’m out. I quietly bide my time, pretending to be reading the speech, until Master Endol steps out to “greet a few old acquaintances.” I lie on the floor, motionless and quiet, like a certain sea snake with a very unusual method of attracting its prey. Even after the door closes, I don’t move. I focus on my other senses. I follow the old guy’s presence till it fades into the distance and noise of the citadel. Then I throw the scroll away and skitter to the door.

Sage my ass. How could he NOT see this coming?

I've got to move my legs for my brain to work, plus I can’t stand another minute in this acrophobic’s nightmare. How can you call your civilization advanced when you don’t even have Wi-Fi? Don’t want to mention N**flix, because the producer warned us against bringing up contemporary software or services. Because those things go old yesterday. Like, anyone remember Twitter? Yeah. Me neither.

Oh wait! He’s booby-trapped the door.

Nice try, trainspotter. But Master Endol doesn’t know I have the code vision. I notice the setup as soon as I lay my paw on the door handle. I wouldn't be dumb enough to show all my cards even to my best friend, and Master Endol is barely in the Outer Rim of the friendzone. Four warp relays away from sharing pints.

It’s a super lazy alarm bell too. Is that how little he thinks of me?

After the fiasco with the brands in Nikéa, I put a bit of effort into my voodoo bomb disarm techniques. A noob would blow away the whole thing. In that case, the mana stored in the trap tends to return back to the caster and they realize somebody broke their thingamajig. What you really need to do is disconnect the trigger mechanism from the power module, and leave everything else as is. The spell's still ticking, it just won’t make a peep anymore.

And then I’m out.

Sweet freedom!

The first thing I'll do is look for a pub. Don’t drink alcohol? Yeah, right! As if there could be a lifeform like that. I bet my slickfic collection the Master is having a lager even as we speak.

“...”

O´woe is me.

After an hour of wandering, I have to admit Professor Stick-up-the-Butt wasn’t making up shit.

I find no pubs, or taverns, never mind strip clubs. Not one teen disco. The local food culture in general is stunted. I come across not one Michelin-recommended restaurant, or a BBQ van, or even a ramen stall. All I find are vending machines embedded into the walls, which hold shelves of glass vials filled with liquids of all rainbow colors. Small labels on the side tell you which plant the extracts are made of, but I don’t recognize any of those names.

The orange one looks pretty tasty. I take out one vial out of curiosity. They cost nothing. Emiri don’t use money. Why do they work, if they don’t get paid, you ask? Well, what the fuck else would you do when you’re immortal and get sick of Fortnite in a week? These people genuinely see work as its own reward. The more time-wasting the task the better.

I unplug the vial and take a sip. It’s thicker than I thought and doesn’t taste like Fanta at all. More like detergent. Removes grease from the kitchen table in one swipe and leaves a fresh taste in your mouth. It’s also packed full of nutrients, designed to keep these giants going till dinnertime, and I feel like bursting after a mouthful. Now I know how they get so big—and why they glow at night.

I pour out the rest on the plants by the street.

Okay, no booze, no strippers, no food. What else is there? They must have porn mags, right? Going by Master Endol’s unexpected backstory, they’re not completely asexual. Surely they must have developed mediums of eroticism beyond mortal comprehension. And I want to see all of it.

But garsh, this place is huge.

The citadel is practically a city inside a city. It has multiple floors stacked on top of each other and every floor carries a town of its own, full of nonstop hustle and bustle. You wouldn't see all of it even if you had a year to sightsee.

But the strangest thing is, it's all very quiet.

I hear no sirens blaring, no car horns honking. No crashes, bangs, screeching tires, crying babies, or fundraisers yelling. No drilling, rumbling, roaring, or banging. And not one ad. Nobody is in a frantic rush to sell anything to you. It’s a city as quiet and clean as a library.

I walk on and see nifty indoor parks with trees that are like made of silver and carry platinum leaves. I see lilies that glow white, and roses black as coals, and they smell of eastern perfume and smoked spice. Above and below course narrow channels and glass tubes, in which crystal-clear water runs with a melodic purl. I watch the water pour out of an opening in the wall, drawing an airy arc through the air over the street, before being collected into another channel below, where it runs on.

A serene, timeless air hovers over of every block of sable onyx and ashen marble, every streetlight and flowerpot, and gives you a profound sense of inner safety and warmth, like a shot of well-aged Henessey.

Then I notice it.

How it's just a little too quiet already.

I stop to listen, but there’s no music either. No kids running around playing. No people being noisy and having fun. No chance encounters. No lucky accidents. Nobody takes a careless step, or a thoughtless turn, or bumps into somebody else. The natives just flow past each other like water and oil, and don't look back.

Do emiri live forever? Or are they genuinely alive to begin with?

All extra thoughts and spontaneous impulses have been sheared clean off of their being through the ages, leaving only the present, what’s in front of them here and now, their purpose at this given instant. And not a damn thing past that. No hopes, no dreams. Just what's real.

The place may look pretty cool, on the outside, but I think staying here longer might drive a mortal insane.

I let my feet take me on and eventually wind up in a tall hall.

It's a round, austere hall without a lot in it. One way in, one way out. High overhead in the vaulted ceiling is a breathtaking skylight composed of countless glass panels, and a clear blue sky above it. Directly under the skylight stands a large, round pool with a fountain, made of black stone. Water shoots out of the fountainhead in nine evenly spaced streams.

There aren’t people around. Nobody has a reason to come here. This hall is the highest part of the Cradle, but there are no city facilities or services. The only way forward is down.

The air's cold and thin too.

Taking the elevation of the land into account, we’re well over two miles above sea level.

Looking at the sublimely detailed interior design, they clearly wanted visitors to enjoy their time. But at the end of the day, “enjoyment” isn’t enough reason for the locals to make the long detour. It’s almost like a test of sorts. A challenge to you by the architect. As the years roll by, can you still find it in yourself to appreciate beauty for beauty’s own sake, or will cold pragmatism and personal convenience win over?

That’s wicked.

It's a challenge emiri are destined to lose, sooner or later. There's no beauty that could outlast eternity.

That was only my personal imagination, though.

But, despite what I just said, I’m not the only visitor up here.

On a bench by the fountain sits a lone emiri male, quietly reading a book. And what a guy.

A guy chiseled like a Hellenic demigod. A gentle but manly face; silvery hair, cut short and cleanly combed along the scalp; eyes which shine like a pair of gray diamonds; a visibly muscular build, but not a gross hulk, balanced on all sides. Most locals wear clothes like curtains, or futuristic jumpsuits, but this man's dressed only in a plain, steel-gray T-shirt and white cargo pants, light sneakers on his feet. He makes even that plain outfit look regal. The clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes in this case.

His figure practically radiates silent confidence and composure. Not a hair about him is forced or unnatural, but perfectly at ease. He’s got the kind of aura religious people often have, that child-like, starry-eyed, unwavering faith in the might above that saves all in the end. But the one he believes in is himself. He’s carrying his own cross and he bears it with a smile. What could shake his convictions? His god is always there with him, looking back from the mirror every morning. Amen and—

“—ACHOO!”

All of a sudden, the Adonis lets out a loud sneeze that rends the majestic air of the hall.

He puts the book away, sniffling, and scours his trouser pockets for a napkin.

“Goodness, it’s breezy here.”

Then the elfman notices me standing there, staring like an idiot, and freezes.

Oh crap, I already forgot myself. He won’t get mad at me for gawking, will he? I can't just carry on and pretend I saw nothing, can I?

The man's gaze shifts a notch up.

“...Are those real?” he asks.

He’s looking at my ears. The furred beast ears sticking out through the hair.

“Uhh, yeah?” I move my ears up and down to demonstrate their authenticity.

“Hahaha!” The guy bursts into a loud laughter at the sight, like a kid. “That’s so funny!”

I’m not seeing the funny. But at least he doesn’t seem upset.

“You wouldn’t happen to have wings on your back too?” he asks and blows his nose.

“Afraid not.”

“How odd. I feel you should.”

“I find it more odd that you think that.”

Being able to fly would be pretty handy, can’t deny that. Would spare me the trip back home on Captain Gideon’s floating casino.

“You are quite the curious thing,” he says. “What is your name?”

“Oh, I’m Zero,” I introduce myself and go over to have a seat on the bench. He doesn't appear too dangerous, and my twigs are tired from all the walking. “One Ms Zero, from Noertia.”

“Noertia, eh? So you’re human?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Guess? You mean you’re not sure?”

“Yeah, well, most people don’t have funny ears like mine. So whether I’m fully a person, or just a little bit, or not at all—let’s say it’s still pending.”

“I see.” He nods in understanding. “Well, for what it’s worth, you look close enough to human in my eyes, Zero.”

“Hey, thanks.”

I’m not sure he meant it as a compliment, but I’m still a bit flattered. Humans may have more downs than they have ups, as a species, but I’d still rather be a person than just “something”.

“You’re just as small as they are,” he adds with a smile.

Definitely not a compliment. You’re just a giant yourself!

“Say, are humans still fighting each other?” the man goes on to ask.

“There may be some of that going on.”

“Oh. What a pity. I keep waiting for them to get over that. But every time I go see how things are over there, I find only more of the same. The faces may change, the deeds not so much. A pity indeed. I knew a few pretty good humans once. But that was a long time ago.”

“Wow, you’ve gone to the human lands before? When was that?”

He thinks for a bit. “Let’s see…The passage of time is a bit fuzzy for me. They were assembling that big bridge thing in those days. You know, the one over Lemuria, up in the sky. Ah, right, there's no Lemuria anymore.”

“The Lunar Bridge?” I throw a wild guess.

The man's face brightens. “Yes, yes, that’s what they called it.”

“...”

That was before the beginning of the age. Now I regret asking.

I make an effort to change the subject.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Eh?” The man looks sincerely surprised by the question. Like he didn’t expect it at all.

What’s wrong?

“...You don’t know who I am?” he asks, looking a little disoriented. “Oh my. The humans I met before swore every man would learn my name, and never forget it. But time shows no mercy for you mortals, it seems. A bit tragic, really.”

What the hell did he do?

“Well, I am Giolgnam,” he then says. “Giolgnam An Dhuí Sar-Tarentum. That is my name.”

Emiri names are always a handful.

Instead of calling their kids Jack or Jill, they give names that are like short poems describing the circumstances when the child was born, or what the parents were thinking at the time. So the kid wouldn’t forget his origins. Giolgnam’s name translates roughly as “the ring of great bells at the rise of red dawn”. Red dawn is supposedly what comes after blood has been spilled at night. A little ominous, if you ask me.

So he's supposed to be somebody famous? Can’t say the name rings any bells for me.

“Okay,” I say and nod. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Gil. Can't make any promises for the rest of humankind, but I’ll try not to forget your name, at least. Oh, can I call you Gil? By the way, what’s that you're reading?”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I’d like a book or two to kill the time, since it seems we’re going to stay for a while. But I came across no bookstores on the tour before.

“This?” Giolgnam lifts his book. “Oh, I wasn’t actually reading it. You can have it, if you want.”

“You weren’t reading?”

It kind of looked like you were.

“No.” He laughs. “I pick up a book when I wish to think in peace. It helps me focus, you see? Letting my eyes pass quietly along the lines. And people don’t find it half as strange to see a man reading, as opposed to a man staring off into space by his lonesomeness. I get concerned questions when I do that.”

“Haha, I can see that. What were you thinking about then?”

A wistful look comes into Giolgnam’s eyes and he sighs. “The past, mainly.”

“The past?”

“Yes. When we emiri speak of the past, there is only one thing we could mean. Galanthea. The Golden Land.”

Galanthea. What they called the world in the time before the Covenant. The mythical age when the Gods were still part of daily life. When prayers had real meaning.

“What was it like?” I ask.

“Ah, this is one thing I envy about you humans,” Giolgnam answers. “Many times, I find myself wishing I was born only yesterday too. So I wouldn’t have to remember. So I wouldn’t have to face how much we lost.”

“Was it a bad time then?”

“No, no, not at all.” He quickly shakes his head. “It was—better. Everything was better. The world you see before your eyes now is but a shadow of what it was. A dim echo of a voice, the speaker of which is long gone. Ah, I have no words to describe it.”

His expression is distant, like he’s seeing a scene from another reality. There's pride and awe in his eyes, but also pain.

“No,” he says then and closes his eyes. “It is futile to talk about it. What’s gone is gone. No amount of words and reminiscence is going to bring back any of it. Don't mind me. I’m only an old fool rambling about the past now. You young ones don’t need my ilk to drag you down.”

It sounds kind of farcical, coming from the mouth of a guy who looks barely 30.

“Well, it’s not like I can’t understand at all…”

My own past may not span long, but I have my share of regrets too.

I think about the crappy village of Buckinworth.

Naive old Bengholm. That dumb goat we had in the yard. And—and Selia. Oh, Selia.

Isn’t it weird? Back then, I could think about nothing but how bad I wanted out of there. And now, I’d give anything to turn back time, to go back and fix my dumb mistakes. But I can only cope with the fact that I'll never be able to. What’s past is past.

“You do understand.” Giolgnam looks at me with a relieved smile. “Though you are so young, you hear what I say. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing to thank me for…” I mumble and look away.

“No, I appreciate it,” he insists. “My own kind tends to view my pangs of nostalgia as something of a weakness. They harbor no patience for sentimentality. If you can’t let go of the past, you will one day be crushed by it. Against popular belief, we emiri can die of old age; the heart fails under the mass of time and the sorrows that pile up. You have to learn to sever your ties early to go on, but some of us—have ties too deep to be forgotten. In the eyes of my kindred, I am a limping old hound whom vultures already circle. Maybe they are right. Maybe there is something broken in me, to still cling onto it after so long. I won against many great foes in my time, but I cannot win against the road I left behind me.”

“Hey, that's not true!” I retort without thinking.

“Hm?”

Before I know it, I've lapsed into an animated speech,

“Clearly, those people have no clue what they’re talking about. There’s nothing weak about holding the past close to heart. The past is what really makes you strong! Hell, I wouldn’t be here now, if not for everything that came before. I may have had more bad days than there were good days, but I wouldn't want to forget any moment of it, even if I could! I mean, okay, I sometimes drink my lights out for that—but that’s temporary! Everyone's got moments of weakness like that, it's life. And it's fine, as long as you pick yourself back up afterwards. It's not an addiction, if you can stop whenever you want to. If you want to. No. The actually weak ones are those who kill their own hearts only because life's too much for them. And then they have the guts to act like they're somehow enlightened! Geez, that's just denial! It's nuts! Meanwhile, we actually tough people carry the past with us everywhere we go. It’s our badge of honor. Every scar, every heartache. And that you're still holding onto it after all this time—That's badass, tell you what.”

I don’t know how or why I got so heated all of a sudden.

Somehow, having others look down on you for not following the mainstream really struck a nerve.

Then I remember I’m preaching to a guy older than time, and get acutely self-conscious.

“...That’s just my personal take on it,” I mutter and look away.

But Giolgnam doesn’t seem offended.

“Even regrets and grief can become a source of strength?” he muses with a smile. “Not baggage that drags you down, but a weight that hones, sharpens…It’s a beautiful thought. So very—human.”

Was that a compliment? I can never tell with this guy.

“You know, I am very glad I met you today, Zero,” he then says and picks up his book again. “I got to experience something refereshing. In repayment, would you like me to tell you a story? About the distant past your kind has already forgotten.”

“Ah, why not?”

I'm not much of a historian, but I suppose it beats Master Endol’s speech. Killing time was what I came for.

With my approval, Giolgnam begins to talk about a time when they didn’t count days or years.

And, listening to his strong, steady voice, I find my consciousness soon drifting off…

X : XXX : XX : XX

There is a grand hall constructed of the idea of white stone and the solidified prayers of a thousand monks. The hall is six hundred and sixty-six meters long, two-hundred and twenty-two meters tall, and no less wide. In the middle, precisely three hundred and thirty-three meters from the entrance rises a grand, five-sided pyramid of stairs, ending in a tall stone throne on the summit, shaped like a budding, bone-white lotus.

A chair built to receive god. Maker’s Seat.

The first gift the created of Val Astea prepared for their creator.

Those people, goti, are gathered in the hall to pay respects to their one true god.

The word “goti” means nothing in any language known. They are a race unbound by time, or space. When the other gods shaped their followers, they gave each a balance of strengths and weaknesses, and a focus to strive towards. A drive to seek personal improvement and improvement as a species. Some say emiri were given too much, but goti were given nothing.

When goti were first made, for the first three thousand years of their existence, none of them would speak or move. They were absorbed in silent meditation, reflecting upon the boundless glory of their maker. Then, after three millennia had passed, they stirred from their thoughts and raised a church in the name of said god, Brann, the Ultimate of the Sun, and summoned him to bestow them a purpose. And Brann came.

He was not happy.

“You would accept me as your God and Maker without question?” he asked the creatures surrounding him. “Will you not challenge me to test my power, and see if I am fit to rule over you?”

“We have reflected upon your might, Lord,” the goti responded. “And found victory in conflict impossible. We would be destroyed. If we are destroyed, we cannot serve you. Therefore, we must yield without battle. You are our Creator. We exist only to carry out your will on this worldly plane where you have placed us.”

“What boring creatures you are!” Brann said. “Even if you acknowledge the task as impossible, you should fight anyway, and seek to transcend your limits.”

“Our lives are yours to command. If you wish us to die, then we shall die.”

There was no hesitation in their voices. Goti had no regrets. For them, the past was now, and now was the past, and the past was the future. But that didn’t mean they weren’t attached to life, or afraid to die. Their commitment to their god was simply greater than their fear of him or the Void.

“Did I make them too wise?” Brann contemplated in annoyance. “If you set out to fight knowing you will die, then die you certainly will, and your destruction would only waste the resources consumed to give you shape. You already know my answer, or you would not have shown yourselves before me, but done right away that which you believe I desire, instead of building this meaningless house. Very well! Then do as you will. The purpose I bestow upon you is to find your own purpose. I have no need of you.”

Brann departed with his final order, his last insult, and never returned to the Maker’s Seat again.

To the church meticulously raised in his honor.

To the race he'd created in imitation of the other living.

Brann had only made goti to see if he could, because he had never even dreamed of creating life before, and that was as far as his curiosity went with them. He never saw the point of the exercise, or why the other gods found it an object of importance. A paradoxical conclusion to an empty effort.

How could I not pity the goti?

Having the god-confirmed knowledge that you exist for nothing, yet being denied the mercy of death—Where do you go from there? How do you justify being alive? What mission could you take to bear? It was hopeless. No purpose could endure the length of an unlimited lifespan. Sooner or later, they would return to this same question again, and for people that had no time, that moment was always in front of them.

The Maker's Seat. That vacant cathedral, everlasting but without any use, became the symbol of that unfortunate species.

Watching their tragedy unfold, I could only wonder—why was [I] made?

Was I only another whim by a god who had exhausted his possibilities?

Not once did I dare to ask that question. And then it was too late.

The gods went away.

The answer can no longer be found anywhere on this earth.

That—that alone was too much to bear. Not knowing. Being blind and ignorant.

God, or whoever; please give me something.

A person to love.

An enemy to defeat.

A world to save.

“My existence served its purpose”—I just wanted to be able to say that at all's end.

I was a wheel in this great machine, thanks to which our world could keep spinning.

I wasn't only air, the addition or removal of which would change naught.

Even now, I'm still looking for my answer.

To live means to keep looking. To endlessly keep looking, with no guarantee of ever finding anything worthwhile.

It's been so long. Have I made a step of real progress in any direction?

I don't know. I can't tell.

I don't know. I know nothing.

How much longer must I look?

How much longer must I bear this agony alone? I don't even know that.

Honestly, I'd be all right even without an answer by this point.

Come to think of it,

We wouldn't have so much trouble looking for answers

——if only we got rid of everyone asking the questions.

“Ha—?”

I bolt up with a start and gasp hungrily for air.

The sound of water. The sound of silence.

I’m back on the bench on the lofty fountain plaza of the Cradle.

Holy Mary, that was one messed-up dream. The freaky creatures and places I saw so clearly only a moment ago are already fast fading from conscious memory. But the feeling I had in the dream still hangs on. That ghastly, horrible, abominable feeling of being utterly helpless and lost. I shudder and hug my thin shoulders.

But it was just a dream. A fantasy cooked up by my subconscious mind, based on the story Giolgnam was telling me.

What did he tell me, exactly?

Now that I think about it, I can't remember any of it. The man himself is long gone. I sit alone.

Seems I tapped out right in the middle of his tale. Hope he wasn’t too insulted, having his audience doze off on him like that. Then again, seeing as I'm still in one piece, he probably didn’t mind that much.

I look next to me. Left on the bench is the book Giolgnam was reading. A parting gift?

I pick up the tome and take a closer look at the cover and the title printed on it.

Thirty Things Growing Tomatoes and Making Friends Have in Common.

“...”

Even if he picked it up only for show, I think he could've put a little more thought into it. What a weird guy.

Somewhere in my gut, I get this funny feeling I’ll see Mr Gil again, someday.

Maybe I'll have a story of my own to tell, by the time that happens.