Something had happened. Ranvir couldn’t prove it, or even point out what had changed. Yet he knew it. He felt it clear as ice, deep in his bones. Sitting cross-legged — it seemed to help his focus — in a small pocket-space, he intently observed the other spaces around him.
The tenuous connection of his tether-sense reaching through the Liminal was the only connection between him and any of these other spaces. His senses crossed a non-existent distance to touch on all three subjects carefully.
The Liminal wasn’t ‘real’ as such. There could be nothing within it, yet the pocket-spaces and planes persisted. In a place without space, distance, or even time, there yet existed something.
The change was infinitesimally small, which was a hundred-million times bigger than any other change that had ever happened. The Liminal wasn’t infinite, for there was nothing to measure.
Stretching his senses to the beacon in Korfyi, Ranvir reached no further than twenty or thirty meters. And so far only because he reached through the influence the plane had on the Liminal. Which was the only thing that could influence the realm as far as Ranvir had seen.
Until this morning. One of his spaces had shifted. He didn’t know if this had happened before and he’d never noticed. It was such a slight change. But a change nonetheless. But since it had changed, that had wide-spreading consequences for Ranvir’s understanding of the planes, realms, and pocket-spaces.
Erosion had always seemed the only way these spaces could disappear. The wear of second-order energy or matter sanding them down until they tore apart. Yet, there was clearly more to it.
This led him down other avenues. Folds on Korfyi that had been misplaced or lost, though yet never broken. Most departments within the Sentinels were filled with stories of folds getting lost, but everyone ‘knew’ these were just clerical errors. Reports were mistaken, and the fold was eventually rediscovered before it broke.
But where could they go? Where did they come from? They couldn’t all be created like his pocket-spaces. Someone would have to make the first one and from there lead into others.
Planes like Korfyi and Vednar were made largely from second-order material, substantially different from first-order. The folds that bound to Korfyi were often entirely with no second-order substance. Belnavir was entirely second-order ‘stuff.’ Mana was the only substance Ranvir had found of the first-order on all the spheres.
So where did all these things come from? And where were they going?
There wasn’t any distance in the Liminal, so everything should’ve gotten to their destination already. Ranvir frowned, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. The rough skin of his bird limb sounded loud in the small room. His wings rustled disquieted, brushing against the walls.
There was no distance in the Liminal except in the presence of large planes. Belnavir — the most stable plane — had the greatest effect on the non-existing realm. Ranvir would have to study it for fluctuations in its reach.
The theory was ludicrous in the end. A plane large enough to have such a far-reaching effect on the Liminal would be beyond large. It would dwarf Belnavir… Ranvir didn’t even know how many times over. He couldn’t even imagine where to begin.
A space of that size would have to rival the Liminal itself, a realm without dimensions. Ranvir worried at his lip, then straightened and brought himself back to the school.
----------------------------------------
Some time later, Kirs found him.
“It’s me,” she called, aware he’d known she was coming long before she reached the door. She hadn’t even bothered to knock.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Come.”
She pushed the door open, took one look at him, and clasped her face in her hands. “Ranvir, we can’t do this again.”
He momentarily stopped his pacing to give her a disparaging look. “We’re doing nothing. Nothing is happening and nothing is changing.” Hopefully.
She gave him an arch look, one eyebrow raised as stared him down. Approaching his desk, she picked out the top book. “A dictionary?” she asked, glancing at him. Running a finger down the listings, she skimmed them, but didn’t seem to catch on.
“I’m fine,” Ranvir said, waving a hand. “Just processing some ideas.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You run from emergency to emergency, Ranvir. And if you can’t find one, you seem to fucking conjure them up from the depths of your mind. What’s next? Your powers are going to take over your mind?”
“No!” Ranvir exclaimed loudly.
She blinked, staring at his raised finger. “What the fuck is going on with you?”
“I’m not gonna lose my body to my powers. It’s not happening.”
“I wasn’t worried about it happening.” Then under her breath. “Five minutes ago.”
“What did you want, Kirs?”
“We’ve been working on some countermeasures for Saleema and wanted you to stress test them.”
“I’ll take a look at it,” Ranvir muttered. He wouldn’t lose his body. Right? Sure, the stories of the Red Raid spoke of Bacenor — the oldest and perhaps strongest of the Arkrotasia — fighting to remain in control of himself against a spirit of war. But his was sealed, mostly. And he’d fought with Graywing for control over his body. Graywing, who now appeared to be waking up within the enclosure created for it.
At least Loce probably wouldn’t attempt to take him over.
“I can tell that this is really getting to you. Maybe talking about it would help?” Kirs glanced at the chair.
The office was a bit of a mess, especially after Ranvir had raided the Legea Sentinel’s reports on fold locations. Then he’d gathered a few different dictionaries from across Elusria City. Of course, he corroborated with some notes from other notable space users. Both braced and tethered.
Notable might be a stretch, but they weren’t incompetent. Anyway, he hadn’t kept the tidiest office before he’d left. Amalia, who hadn’t known his system and was in emergency mode, made it even worse. This newest research was just the deathblow.
Ranvir swept the chair clean with a brush of his power, dumping loose leaf paper, folders, and books into a mess in the middle of the pocket-space he’d recently left. Taking his own chair, at least his desk was clear enough that they could still see each other.
“Talk to me, Ranvir. What’s really bothering you?”
Ranvir shook his head. “I’m just being silly,” he waved it off. “Though the whole body thing is a little disturbing. Thanks for bringing it up, by the way.”
“Don’t,” she said, her face tightening. She gestured angrily towards him, the ceiling, his ‘notes.’ “Don’t just brush me off! I’m not a child, Ranvir. So don’t wave me away like one!”
Ranvir took in a deep breath. “The world is a lie. Kind of. At least, how I understood it. We understand it, actually. Mostly the Liminal…” he let go. Venting to Kirs about his discoveries. He felt silly doing it, but all his thoughts, considerations, and feelings just flooded out of him. He’d started and seemed unable to stop. As time passed and words vomited forth almost randomly, he felt… better. And a less silly.
“And it’s interesting when you look at the effect mana has on the environment within Belnavir. Beasts and bonded both give back mana to nature, which can be replicated on other planes. We haven’t seen the signs here yet, but there are berries with storm mana within them back home. More interesting, there are sand berries as well.
“The bonding is so different…”
So maybe he had a lot of things he wanted to talk about. Eventually, he circled back to the possibility of a plane big enough to affect the entirety, or at least, most of the Liminal. Which somehow led into the effects on regular animals eating mana-infused food, since Menace had been eating some of Ranvir’s mana fall off.
And then he led around to how he thought the Korfiyan way of creating mana items could help with the lumber work back at Rime’s Shadow.
Eventually, Ranvir quieted down. He felt out of breath, not physically, but mentally. His throat was a little sore, and he was pretty sure Kirs couldn’t follow his train of thought.
“I think that about proves my point,” Kirs said, drumming her fingers on the table. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but the rest of us want to help. If you’ll let us,” she got up and shook out her hair, sighing as she ran her fingers through it. “That thing about the different systems affecting how your spirit behaves is very interesting,” she noted. “We might want to look into that later.”
She was referring to how space and sand mana had also gotten into the environment after he bonded with Graywing.
“Later,” Ranvir agreed, shoulders slumping slightly from sudden exhaustion.
“But first, we’ve got to deal with the Purist and Saleema situation.”
Ranvir agreed, a kernel of disquieting light flickering within himself. A previously buried bead of sickly yellow that unsettled his stomach.
“It was nice talking to you, Ranvir.”
“It was nice talking at you, Kirs.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped out, revealing Vasso’s slightly hunched form. Wide-eyes speaking of hurt and anger.