"Aside from your memories that were just restored, I have another message for you." Summoning a new knowledge capsule from thin air, Nahida holds out the device in front of us.
"Another message?" I say. "From whom?!"
"Listen to it and you will understand," she says, offering me the knowledge capsule.
I place my palm on top of the glowing device.
> [Cannot go back.]
>
> [There are countless spaces here. Our Sabzeruz festival is but one of them.]
I jerk my hand away from the knowledge capsule and look at the two of them, confused. This is my own voice. Yet I do not remember.
"You should be missing two days worth of memories," Paimon says quietly. "Paimon will fill you in."
----------------------------------------
Two days prior, we approached the city gates, ready to leave Sumeru City for the third time. It turned out that we weren't the only ones in line.
"Why can't we leave?" One merchant cried. "My goods have already arrived at Port Ormos. If I don't hurry, they'll be stolen!"
"What is the Akademiya up to?" Another complained. "I have a real emergency, and it's not like you can predict business matters in advance."
"Direct order from the Grand Sage. No one is allowed to enter or exit Sumeru today," the guards declared. "Wait until tomorrow."
"Of course the Akademiya wouldn't share their plans with a pawn," Paimon taunted them.
"Angering me won't get you anywhere," that guard retorted. "If I knew that kind of insider information, I would have ditched this border post a long time ago."
Without official approval, we took matters into our own hands. After a wide detour, we found an unguarded, unfrequented patch of wall to scale.
Apparently I told Paimon to remain on this side of the wall.
"Are you going to leave Paimon behind?" She said in alarm.
"Leaving the city might trigger disruptions to our memories," I said. "We need someone to stay and witness events from this side."
"Paimon knows that Paimon can't do much, but we've always been together, haven't we?" She cried. After some sniffles, she wiped her tears and nodded. "If we leave together, it'll just be the same as before. Paimon will wait for you."
I promised her I would come back as soon as possible, but I never did.
One day ago – yesterday – I woke up, ready to leave the city again. As soon as Nahida awakened our memories however, Paimon jumped into my arms, emotional with tears.
"Paimon thought Paimon would never see you again!" She cried. "Y–you just disappeared!"
Disappeared?
"Paimon waited for you for hours and hours at the city wall, and you never came back!" She continued. "You promised Paimon that you were only taking a quick look!"
"She's here now, isn't she?" Nahida said. "Slow down. She can't understand you."
"Paimon doesn't care," Paimon pouted. "Paimon wanted to go look for you, but you also said that Paimon should stay. Paimon was so worried and so scared the entire day!"
I felt a heavy blanket of guilt drop over me as I listened to her story. "Although I don't remember any of this," I said, "I'm sorry Paimon. I won't leave you behind."
A few sniffles later, Paimon had been placated. "Paimon will forgive you. The most important thing is that you didn't actually disappear."
"What happened?" Nahida asked.
"Paimon kept her eyes on you the whole time," Paimon explained, "but you vanished in an instant!"
"You weren't zoning out or anything?" I said.
"No way!" Paimon cried. "Paimon was watching you with the fullest attention."
"You don't have any memory of this at all?" Nahida asked me.
I shook my head. "Nothing. I didn't even know that 'yesterday' existed." So if we left the city, our memories would be completely erased. What was really happening out there that requires such secrecy? "Can we leave behind something other than memories?" I said. "A message of sorts?"
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"Why are you staring at me?" Nahida said. I didn't respond. Given her unnatural status in this world, I was sure she could whip up something to this end. "Give me some time, and take care of Dunyarzad while I'm busy," she said finally. She produced an Akasha terminal and stared intently into space. Her fingers pinched and dragged at thin air, as if manipulating something we could not see. Half an hour went by before she shook her head vigorously and grinned. Placing the Akasha terminal in front of me, Nahida motioned for me to try it on.
"Are you sure it's safe to put this on?" I said, fingering the terminal hesitantly.
"I made some little changes," Nahida replied. "Akasha terminals send messages back to a central node, by design. I tweaked it to connect to any node – that is, to me. I can't guarantee the signal coverage outside the city, but it's worth a shot."
I gazed at the little device with newfound admiration. Nahida sure was uncommonly familiar with this entire system. Slipping the Akasha terminal onto my ear, I nodded at her.
"Speak, and we will hear you," Nahida assured me. "Now off you go."
----------------------------------------
"Paimon wasn't happy to let you go," Paimon explains, "but at least Paimon wasn't as worried about being separated."
"That was the message I left for us, when I left the city?" I ask.
"Yes," Nahida confirms. "Although the signal was choppy, we received some messages from you on the outside." She raises the knowledge capsule once more. "Are you ready?"
> [Can't go back.]
>
> [There are countless spaces here. Our Sabzeruz festival is but one of them.]
>
> [I've entered another space. Before me are flowing sandstone and howling fish. Impossible and surreal sights.]
>
> [All these spaces are empty except for those that contain mute puppets rather than people. I can't sense any human presence.]
Countless spaces – what does that even mean? These descriptions lack all semblance of reality. I cannot imagine what these spaces feel like, yet my own voice tells of these surreal sights.
"There's one final part," Nahida says. "I received it only late last night."
> [These spaces have been disappearing one after the other. Absorbed by something like a sun in the sky.]
>
> [*beep*]
>
> [Now, even the final space has also disappeared.]
>
> [Behind me, a lot of spaces appeared again from thin air. I get it now! Those spaces are actually–]
Static ensues.
"Why did the message end there?!" Paimon groans. "What did you want to say?"
"Yesterday ended," Nahida explains. Addressing me, she smiles. "Given this new evidence, what do you think those spaces are?"
Those bizarre spaces outside the city had one thing in common: the lack of human presence. Were those spaces part of the real world? If so, it would be downright catastrophic for them to disappear like that. Given the beeping sound, these spaces must have existed before the start of a new day. So the last remaining space – that must be the Sabzeruz festival, where we wake up every morning. Now, what are those other spaces, and why do they appear every day?
"Put in perspective," Nahida says, "the Archon War, with all its horrors, was just a game where some gods fought over seven seats. No matter how spooky things might appear on the surface, maybe they all point to a small and simple secret."
A small, simple secret. Deep within my gut, tiny a seed of understanding takes root. I found the answer last night, so I must know how to find it again.
"Are you ready to take your Sabzeruz exam and graduate from the festival?" Nahida offers.
"Ask away, Nahida," I say.
"First question: where are we?"
We've been trapped in a perpetual samsara of the Sabzeruz festival, one space of many. Of those many, only this festival has any human presence. It feels like a dream, but people from Sumeru don't dream, right? That cannot be. There is no biological basis for the lack of dreams – unless people's minds were manipulated without their knowledge! That's it. The Akasha compiles the wisdom of the entire populace and grants knowledge to the people , Nahida had said. Compiles, as in extracts .
"We are trapped in a dream," I conclude. "The Akasha steals our dreams – those empty spaces – and places us all here." This also explains why removing our Akasha had zero effect; we were never in control of our real bodies.
"Correct!" Nahida smiles. "Now how did you conclude that the Akasha is capable of this?"
"You told us yourself," I say. "The Akasha is an extension of the God of Wisdom's power. If the aranara can control people's dreams, it makes sense for this ability to fall under the Dendro Archon's expertise."
"But why does the Akasha have to steal people's dreams?!" Paimon protests. "Why not some other way?"
"Dreams are fantastical, complex, and full of imagination," Nahida murmurs. "People's brains are the most active when they're dreaming. In other words, dreams are rich bundles of human wisdom."
I'm not convinced that those dreams of "flowing stone" and "howling fish" had any semblance of "wisdom" in the conventional sense.
"Next question," Nahida continues. "If the empty spaces are dreams, what is the samsara?"
If each space is a dream, then the samsara too is a dream – the only one with human presence. To harvest as many dreams as possible, the Akasha has transplanted us all into a single dream. "The samsara is a 'dream factory,'" I say, "and the Akasha is the 'dream consumer.'"
"Beautiful analogy!" Nahida beams. "Final question: who am I?"
"You are Lesser Lord Kusanali." It feels as if I've known all along, yet my conscious mind refused to acknowledge this fact until now. "Before the samsara, we were actually inquiring about you everywhere," I say. "I didn't expect to meet you under these circumstances."
"At your service," Nahida smiles. "Now that you've completed my little quiz, do you have any remaining questions for me?"
"Why didn't you tell us outright?" Paimon exclaims.
"You can't wake a sleepwalker," Nahida replies. "Your notion of dream and reality would tumble into irreversible confusion, and your little minds would explode."
"Why didn't anyone else notice?" I say.
"Even you needed help remembering," Nahida replies. "Most people 'wake up' each morning none the wiser."
"Can this go on perpetually?" I say.
"Aren't you tired?" Nahida retorts.
Yes, I am. One last question: "Why is the dream about the Sabzeruz festival?"
"I know right?!" Nahida exclaims, uncharacteristically vexed. "Why my birthday? I don't know what the sages are up to, but they're up to no good."
"How could the sages do this behind their Archon's back?!" Paimon replies, furious. "This is ridiculous!"
"It is unforgivable to deceive the people of Sumeru with no regard for their safety," Nahida agrees. "Yet in the end, I'm just the Moon," she whispers. "The real Sun is long gone." She glances helplessly at us, and I cannot help but feel empathy for this young Archon.
[*beep*]
We're out of time today. My vision is going dark. "I'll tell you how to break free of the samsara tomorrow," are the last words I hear before everything fades away.