I stop a pace before where the beam last appeared. All traces of it are completely gone, and even as I look over the glowing pyramid to the sides, I cannot see any marks indicating its origin.
Before I instigate the beam again, my gaze passes over the pyramids. I stand at about the half-way point of structure besides me, though it is harder to be exact than most because of both its size and unsymmetrical shape.
Across the open space containing the obelisk, the surfaces of the other pyramids that look like they should connect with the others hold a sheen of energy flowing like a wave. It takes mere moments to realise that the flow does not follow the lines of inscription. It reflects the ripple of the obelisk’s and inverts it. A recreation of the Anatlan energy with tame hyle.
I reach my arm out and allow it to deform into an orb of fire. There was no pain when the beam snapped into life last time, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t be careful.
I push the orb forward. Immediately, the purple beam phases into existence where before there was nothing but cool air. The purple chain arcs through every slight flicker of fire and twists through the air before connecting to the two pyramids I stand between. It doesn’t hurt. No, I can barely even feel it.
Again, I push, but I find my flames refuse to listen. Panicked, terrified that my flames are suddenly refusing to listen to me, I tug them back, only to find no resistance. The purple beams dissipate.
Relieved, I push my flames forward again. The energy snaps back into place, arcing along the sides of the pyramids. It feels like I should be able to keep pushing forward. It feels like there isn’t holding my flames back, and yet they don’t move. The sensation is what made me feel worried; a limb that refuses to move when commanded. Except the energy doesn’t take away my ability to control fire — I can twirl it around in the energy’s grasp as much as I want — but it still prevents it from moving closer to the obelisk.
Curious, I expand the amount of myself that pushes against the energy. A swathe of flame rises through the air, doing everything to burn forward. The beam splits, widening into a plane of purple energy that covers everywhere my flames do not. It’s like pushing against a wall.
From the base to the summit, the purple plane spreads along the pyramid like a web. It pins my flame and prevents entrance. Not even the ethereal nature of my flames can pierce through.
Is it that very ethereal quality that it holds back? Such a barrier would make sense for something holding back an Anatla. My fire altered by the Void Fog might be blocked in collateral. I can understand the consideration; why allow any external party that has the suspicious touch of the threat you are trying to suppress? With the range of influence the Anatla can express over the people of the world, it is an obvious precaution.
“Leal,” I call, then regretfully, “Anoures. I can’t push through.” I show them a token effort of pressing against the purple barrier with an arm. “Can you see if you can get through?”
Leal, finally having recovered her seriousness after that stupid joke, walks up behind me without delay. Anoures, joins her side without question. Despite my reservations about the Jarl and her kind, I am slightly glad she’s here for this test; Leal has the energy of the very Anatla bound by this inscription permeating her shoulders. If I’m right about any touch of Anatla being blocked, then she’ll have no better chance than myself.
Neither get close.
Before Leal or Anoures can get within five metres, an arc of electricity sparks out from pyramid. It splits into two branches and strikes each square in the chest. They leap backward with a yelp. The scent of burnt fur and scorched mucus membrane rises into the air along with a small plume of smoke.
The arc is completely different from what prevents my passage. Unlike the purple beam of unknown energy, this is simple lightning. Also, it clearly shot out from the pyramid rather than phasing into existence.
Looking at the two staring shocked at the small char mark on their chests, but otherwise unharmed, I don’t even bother suppressing my huff of a laugh. My hand raises over my mouth, copying Leal’s effort to hide her amusement… while still making it absolutely obvious I find it funny.
“Oh, did a little zap scare you?” I know my smirk isn’t at all hidden. “I guess it would, wouldn’t it?”
Leal pouts, glaring at me, but upon seeing my grin widen, she simply rolls her eyes. Anoures, on the other hand, grins back. The action immediately saps some of my enjoyment. I sigh before walking back to Leal’s side.
Considering Anoures got zapped too, there must be a barrier to hold out all life; not just those connected to the Anatla. But the electric arc is surprising. It reveals the barrier can discern what type of beings approach, and reacts appropriately. A bit of electricity would hardly harm me, but against the fleshy creatures, its a good warning.
I believe this barrier holds no hostile intent in its creation. No matter how hard I push, it stops me, but never inflicts pain. Considering how much water hyle I’ve seen flow through the pyramid’s inscriptions, the creators could have easily rigged it to use the weakness against any supposed intruder. Especially considering their detection methods seem far superior than what we saw on the chthonic vessels.
The electric arc might have burnt Leal’s fur, but besides that charred hair, she doesn’t feel any lingering damage. If I was to guess, I’d say its purpose is to teach any creature not to try pushing through. The barrier I touched seems much more like the main defence. That, or there is a defence for every creature type that might wander in.
If these pyramids really do have sensors to determine type of creature, then that already shows just how superior the creators of this place were to the chthonic. The detectors in the metal vessels seemed to attack indiscriminately, after all.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The pyramids don’t hold a candle to the construction of the chthonic, but by the looks of it, the only purpose they hold is to be a canvas for their inscriptions. They fulfil their purpose, and that’s all that was needed from them.
Leal brushes at her chest, and turns to the pyramid. It takes her mere moments after realising she can’t approach the obelisk to turn her attention to the weave of glowing inscriptions.
I join her, both watching her eyes gradually widen and inspecting the bright lines. Leal’s jaw moves, soundless mumbles to herself.
“Solvei, there's so many different types of hyle.” Her finger traces along the inscriptions, sliding between energies. “Fire, water, pressure, electric, earth. There’s even the rare ones like momentum and nature. Every hyle I know is here, and yet there are so many more I don’t.”
Her hand follows a line of a dark grey hyle that glows even in opposition to its dim colour. I stare at it for a second before I realise I know this hyle. Decay. Never have I seen it anywhere besides Kalma, and yet here it is on the other side of the world.
“Our estimates placed the most likely number of elements at thirty two… but there’s already more here than that.” Her eyes flick across the stone before us. “This small section of inscription holds fifty alone.” She lets out a chuckle. “This is the second time I’ve had my entire understanding of the way things work completely shattered.”
“Is it not possible to mix them?” I ask.
“No.” Leal denies immediately. “It’s possible to convert between hyle types — with great inefficiency — the inheritance ritual is a perfect example of that. But mixing them is impossible. Think of it like electricity passing through your fire; one hyle type can have effect on others, but they never actually combine into some new hyle that way.”
“I don't even know why they would need this many. Each added hyle type makes an inscription exponentially more complicated. I think three is the max of our current understanding. Only the Riparians can work with more than that, but they’ve been known as the best for millennia.”
Leal continues to ramble on, a notepad appearing in her hand as she does. While she talks and scrawls, I cast my eyes over the inscription myself. I may not have the best understanding of the fundamental theories that Leal knows intricately, but I know enough about how they work that the lines don’t look alien. Well, not completely.
With the way the lines interweave amongst each other and interact in completely unfamiliar methods, I find my gaze drifting. It is hard to focus on any one line when they all look so similar. But there is one section that I have no trouble following.
The fire hyle spreading through the pyramid forms a perfect image in my mind, and what I see from it seems wrong. There are so many gaps where there shouldn’t be. In the small scale, as with the few stones before Leal, the inscriptions appear to hold to convention. But viewing the entire inscription from afar, it clearly shouldn’t work.
Yet it does.
There’s something we’re missing; I know it. I force myself to look at more than just the fire lines, seeing where they end and if there is any purpose to their sudden extinguishing. What I find is that, no, there isn’t any convenient shift of one hyle to another or some explanation for why it ends — at least not one I can see — it simply ends.
A tinge of familiarity strikes my mind, but it isn’t until I see the repetition of each of those end-points that I finally realise what I’m seeing.
Up close, the inscriptions are fundamentally the same as I’ve seen from New Vetus and all the northern nations. They are the same as the overly large lines crossing the chthonic vessels. But when ignoring the individual lines and viewing the whole thing on a macro scale, the inscriptions become something else.
“Áed patterns.” I realise.
“What?” Leal asks, and I realise my thoughts slipped.
“Áed inscriptions,” I say, pointing to the separation points where the pattern repeats. “They’ve somehow integrated our inscriptions into their design.”
“But how is that possible?” Leal asks after recognising the sections I’m talking about. “The áed’s versions rely on a passive energy source; these are all actively flowing.”
For a moment I’m surprised she even knows that much, but then I remember she spent most of her time at the Agglomerate researching our inscriptions.
“They’re definitely ours, but incorporated in a way we would never think of. A way we would never need,” I say after looking further. “You think they learnt from áed, or, considering how old this place must be, had we learnt from them?”
“That assumes your own inscription type wasn’t more widespread at some point,” Leal says, dropping into a seat at the base of the pyramid and pulls out a second notebook and pencil. “Here, start up the top and try to copy it down as perfect as you can.”
She throws the book at me and I catch it easily, deciding I might as well do as she says. It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting close to the obelisk, and I don’t want to push too hard against what holds an Anatla back.
Considering how easy it is to feel the fire hyle flowing through the quarter-pyramid, I decide to start with that and sketch the other lines later. On the flat summit, I sit down while gripping the small length of wood between my fingers.
Maybe it’s because I’ve never actually needed to hold one before, but I find it feels irritatingly out of place in my hands. Long ago, when my elders had taught me to read and write, I was never allowed near the elders’ precious writing implements. And after… well, there’s been very little need.
Setting aside the pencil, I control my flames to mimic the shape of the pattern inscribed through the pyramid, and burn it into the page. It means I can’t write on the other side, but the pattern comes out surprisingly well. A near perfect replica appears burnt into paper.
For the next few hours, Leal and I continue our sketches. Unfortunately, only the fire inscription transferred easily. The rest, I had to do a lot of double-checking to make sure I got it right. Having the ability to create more than one set of eyes really helped speed up the progress.
The biggest challenge is trying to recreate such a densely packed inscription into the small pages of a book. I’ve gone through near every page, and still there are many places that might be impossible to recreate. It’s simply far too complex to be properly represented in a book, regardless of the number of pages used.
At one point, after Leal and I met in the middle of the pyramid, we decided to move to the next pyramid over and sketch the differences between what we’ve already seen.
Though, after Leal noticed how exactly I’d been drawing — having watched me sketch a section of inscription through a page in a few moments — she’s been giving me oddly murderous gazes every time she glances my way. Is she that mad I’m slightly burning her pages?
“Hey girls, I know you’re busy taking notes and all,” Anoures, who’s remained quite for the past few hours finally raises her voice. “But wasn’t that island to the west when we arrived?”
Leal and I turn together to the large tri-ridged island lacking any pyramids resting atop it. It is as Anoures says, the island is north. I glance at the Ember Moon — it sits far lower in the sky out here than anywhere else, but it is as north-west as ever — the island truly is north. The same direction we came from.
Have we moved? Or did it?