Ly knew she should be listening to what Kokum said but ,damn, she was exhausted. The boat’s rocking was giving her an awful case of nausea. She rested her head on her hands.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I get carried away when I get excited,” said Kokum.

She shook her head. “It’s not you. This day has just stretched me to my limits.”

“You are lucky to be alive after all. I think you’re the first person to survive an encounter with the Ilium.”

“Mhmmm.” Ly studied the boy who had saved her life. His lengthy legs occupied the little space the boat had, though it was what clad his legs that really interested her. Two gray cloth tubes covered the boy from his ankles to his crotch where the tubes joined to form one piece. The united cloth continued upward to the black belt strapped to his waist. Crystal buttons decorated the front of the long sleeve shirt which completed the ensemble.

Her eyes drifted to the object beneath Kokum’s seat. Four strips of cloudy crystals were molded into a spherical cage.

“Are you alright?” He asked her.

“I’m fine.” Ly straightened her dirty half-burnt tunic. “You aren’t lying to me are you? The True Gods are here? I can meet them?”

Kokum blew a stray twist off his nose, the coiled hair settling next to his left eye. “One True God. And drop the “True” from your statement. Also she prefers the term goddess to god though she wouldn’t get too fussed about it.”

Ly patted her lap nervously. “Right. Right.”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried! It’s just. . . I have dreamed of meeting the True- I mean- the Gods since my mother told me my first story.”

“Goddess. Emphasis on the singular here.”

“Where are the other Gods?”

“No one knows. The evacuation after the capital fell was bungled according to the records are ancestors left behind once they arrived here. You’re the first being, god or otherwise, to enter our realm for the last thousand some years.”

She should be grateful she was here rather than facing the fate her father’s scriptures promised her but she couldn’t stop a bit of sadness at n being able reunite with her mother. “Is it possible the other Gods created realms for themselves? Realms people like me could end up in?”

Kokum placed the boat’s wooden paddles on the two-pronged forks nailed upright on the boat’s sides. Their boat drifted aimlessly between two tiny islands, or at least it’s what Kokum called the sandy land patches on the water, while cracked his fingers.

Ly eyed the sparse bushes which were the only vegetation on the islands.

“Hey.” Kokum gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’re safe here. Well, more or less. Illium aren’t the most subtle hunters.”

“Didn’t seem like it,” she mumbled to herself.

“Okay. It might be best for you to prepare your story before we arrive at the village. You’re going to be swarmed with questions the second people see you.”

Her mind struggled to organize the events that led her from her shrine to meeting a True God in the flesh. “I have a silly question. We aren’t dead are we?”

“No,” Kokum laughed. “I am certain we are not dead.”

“I told you it was a silly question.” His laughter was infectious and brought a timid smile to her face.

“Maybe I should finish telling you about my world then you can tell me your story.”

“That would be great,” she said, relieved.

Kokum lifted his left leg over his right which allowed Ly’s legs to share the space. “There are around 400 people living on the main island. It’s a bit crowded but Unmei can’t extend her protective shielding any further. Maintaining this world is a great sap on her being.”

“Wait. If she created this world why does it drain her to maintain it?”

“How do I explain this?” Kokum’s blue eyes widened as he snapped his fingers. He plopped the device underneath his seat on her lap.

Confused, Ly lifted the spherical cage to study it closer. Ly almost flung it into the water when a blue spark danced down her arm. The spark caused no pain but it stirred her memory of the nightmare. Kokum didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. He flicked the off her skin.

It spun for a moment in the hair then vanished to nothing.

“What you just saw was Noa Objectus manifested. It is the warp of the fabric of the universe. Like the warp on a loom, its threads must be held by something to be manipulated. This distaff is my loom to draw power- ”

“And Unmei’s body is the loom holding this world together. ”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Your slick.”

“Thanks, I guess.” She handed the distaff to Kokum, wiping her hands on her tunic once he retook it.

Kokum spun the distaff on his forefinger. “Yank to the warp too tight on the loom and it breaks. Or the loom breaks. Either way the result is a ruined weave. Except switch out a ruined weaving project with the entire world disintegrating. Get it?”

She pondered the new information he gave her. “You called Noa Objectus the universe’s weft. What’s its warp?”

“My father can be the person to explain that boondoggle. Now, it’s your turn to talk.” Kokum started rowing again whilst she prepared her story.

Ly opted to not tell him about the nightmare she experienced prior to awakening in their world. She doubted it would do anything besides make him think she was crazy. Also, though she hated to admit it, dwelling on it stoked a suffocating dread within her.

The tiny islands dotting the multiplied the longer Kokum rowed while he listened to her talk. Despite her throat going sore, she didn’t stop talking till she explained all she believed relevant.

“Dear God.”

“Goddess.”

He shot her slight smirk. “So the student becomes the teacher. Unmei is going to love you.”

“I hope.”

“Well, I know she will. The stories your mother told you were true. Our Goddess would never behave the way those beasts did.”

Our Goddess. How it thrilled her to hear those words from someone else after seven long years alone in her faith. A cacophonous bang startled her back to reality. She spotted a bright white light soaring upwards, the encroaching night a perfect backdrop. It dissipated to tiny shimmery sparkles at its zenith.“What was that?”

“It’s a sign we’re almost home.” No sooner did he declare this than a somewhat large island appeared on the far off horizon.

Three other lights, accompanied with their own irritating bangs, illuminated the sky. Ly gripped her knees as the island grew ever closer. Boats thrice the size of Kokum’s crowded the sandy embankment. Spherical paper lanterns swung on the brush lining the dirt path to the forest’s interior.

Kokum tied the boat to a chest high peg flanked by the biggest boats amongst the fleet. She stared at the hand he proffered to her.

“I wouldn’t bring you here if it wasn’t safe,” he assured her.

Safety wasn’t anywhere near her biggest worry. Her family had been entrusted to keep the truth alive till the Gods returned. The fact she was here was a testament to their failure. Ly remembered her mother’s soft voice.

You released Me from suffering. You released Me from death. You became Me. You showed Me love. Those who remember these words are shall never suffer true fear. The last part was all her mother. A parting message with the full knowledge Ly’d have to suffer the coming trials without her.

Wherever she was, alive or dead, her mother would tell her to go to the Goddess smiling. So she did.

Arm tucked under Kokum’s, they descended the slight slope to the village. Children, dressed in the same outfit Kokum wore, ended their race up the path to gaup at them. Her tentative wave sent them scattering.

“Kids, what can you do?” he joked.

Ly tugged her shorten tunic to make sure nothing untoward was exposed to view. They exited the path to a find a sea of people gathered at its entrance. Unmei’s very presence rendered the crowd to an undefined dull mass. The crude statue she and her mother carved to worship her failed to do the Goddess’s heavenly beauty.

“Goddess, I’ve spent years dreaming of this meeting. ” She dropped to her knees as the deity approached her. Her inscrutable brown eyes captivated Ly and also reignited her shame. “I’m sorry my lineage lost to the False Gods. I-”

Unmei laid a single mahogany finger against her own lips. Ly quieted. The crowd, including Kokum, were enraptured in the scene.

“I see in you a child who has shouldered heavy burdens meant for much stronger shoulders. I do what I did for your answers. I release you from suffering. Be joyful. You have found the sanctuary your ancestors forewent so true faith continued to flicker in the darkness. Consider it a reward.”

Ly swallowed a sob. “Thank you.”

“Told you...” The Goddess’s raised finger silenced him.

Unmei came close enough to Ly that the young girl could count every thread on the woman’s silky sapphire colored dress. Ly had to crane her neck to its full length just to meet her gaze.

“Sorry to say but your guests can not partake in your reward.”

“Guests?”

Whispers raced through the crowd while Kokum stuttered questions. She again silenced them all with a single lifted finger.

“I came alone Goddess. My father and sister were more interested in comfort than upholding the tradition and I had not a friend the second they branded me an outcast.”

“Corporeal beings are not to who I refer.”

Realization dawned on her. “The nightmare really was real.”

“Nightmare? What nightmare? I don’t understand,” pressed Kokum.

“Surprising. The way you obsess over the old manuscripts I would expect you to know.” She returned her attention to the scare kneeling girl before her. “ Breathe brave one. If I have learned during these centuries in exile is to purge unwanted guests.”

Ly sucked in her breathe as Unmei. She heard panicked screams then sank into blackness.

*******

Gold traded a room full of endless staircases for a room filled with locked doors. The six-sided enclosed space held a door at every side. She thought to break another totem tear hole through the door but the totems were resistant to breakage. Her final attempt shatter them got her smack in the face.

She stalked the room’s perimeter, a hand searching the wall for any possible breaks. The sole positive to her transfer here was the improved light. Soft sunny rays exuded from the ceiling above her. Were she equipped an athletic build she would have tried to climb to the light to investigate. Instead she sat next to her bag.

Doing nothing was not an activity Gold partook in yet there was not much else for her to do. Her simulated body itched and twitched at her stillness. It also seemed she was incompatible with doing nothing. Gold reached into her bag to inspect the totems again when something fell on her hair.

It was a thread. A reddish blue pinky-wide cord that stretched down from the ceiling’s radiant center. Two gold inlaid circular inputs were pressed into the cloth at Gold’s shoulder height. Under other circumstances, she would have ignored this obvious trap. Yet, there was the chance this could give a clue to work with.

Gold laid her thumb on the nearest input and permitted it to connect to her systems. It seized control the left of half her sensory systems. Almost like she was being split apart then transported to wherever the rope ended.

Flames engulfed wherever Gold looked. Steamy heat prickled her skin to an uncomfortable degree while soot seared her nostrils. A heavy presence hemmed her in on the side she retained feeling in. Maniacal laughter reached her active audio detector.

Red.

A golden flash disrupted the visual data for several minutes. The first clear image Gold received clicked everything together.

It was not Unmei, her luminescent form filling the most area, who brought the cold calculated epiphany to Gold. No. It was the skinny brown arm shooting flames at her.

Why the simulation didn’t really seem to be a simulation at all. Why Red drew the Low-Sentient to join their “deal”. Why the girl was able to leave the place on her own.

They were inside the Low-Sentient’s head.

A million plus questions still needed to be answered but Gold now had at least a theory to work on.

Her active audio detector managed to catch Unmei’s words before Ly’s next attack flung her away. “Push him out.”

Could she do that? Red’s maniacal had only increased since Gold retreated mentally to formulate her theory. She didn’t think he even knew she was there.

More destructive images reached her. Gold held little love for the Low-Sentient, to her they were no better than cattle, yet anything good Red supported was unlikely to be good for her. She heaved her entire against the place she felt the highest pressure.

His maniacal laughter ceased , the also pressure relenting , or just a moment then it slammed back. She lost audio and visual as she was nearly flattened. Gold refused to give up.

Little by little she fought her former friend for what she understood now to be the Low-Sentient girl’s conscious.The numbness on her right side receded the more territory she gained. Red’s maniacal laughter had turned to animalistic growls.

A final push severed the rogue AAI’s connection to the remaining sensory inputs. Gold forced Ly to land on a closeby island. She was too pondering what to do next to notice Unmei sneaking up behind hair. Gold felt soft flesh touch her muggy forehead.

It was her turn to be severed from the inputs she battled so hard to get. Gold blinked at the door filled room’s bright light, her visual inputs taking their time to adjust to the change. The reddish-blue thread sprawled in its entirety on the floor. Both gold inlaid inputs were sealed shut.

She doubted this would be her only time connecting to it.