I walked briskly through the broad, vaulted corridors of Sakura Hall, the latest piece of architecture completed with the assistance of the Gem, a mighty artifact crafted during the Millenium Effort. Pink blossoms of an unknown species drifted slowly from the ceiling to the floor, a complex illusory effect sustained merely as an artistic venture.
Unlike the rest of our grand city's buildings, Sakura Hall had no tactical value at all. It was a symbol, a powerful reminder that we had achieved enough power that we no longer had to live in fear of illithid incursions, that we could live free of those who would otherwise ensnare our minds and excise our desire for freedom.
The air my uniform caught as I moved caused it to billow out, the edges snapping and cracking like a muted whip. Its dark green color indicated my status as a Collegiate graduate still undecided regarding my permanent occupation, the jade trim communicating by its hue and designs my rank as a Primary. Save for the Council members and those with more elaborate trim I was neither second nor before anyone else of my class, the ruling Primaries. It fastened snugly about my torso, held in place by a series of buttons beneath a pectoral flap and decorated with four circular buttons arranged at the corners of a square which held no other function than to display my family's silver crest, my own sigil of the same material, the emerald-studded heraldic sign of the city, and a copper representation of my political affiliation. The latter was generally accepted as an affectation for social standing, as we were not governed as a democracy. In some situations, however, I could be called upon to assist in endeavors members of my affiliation were engaged in, as I was now.
I noted with a critical eye the pink blossoms disappearing into the ground, and floating around me as if they were carried on the air currents displaced by my movements. It was a thoughtful touch to the artistry, but I had to wonder at the strain it could be placing on the Gem. The details of its creation were not known to me – nor to anyone else – so I lacked the intimate knowledge of the Gem's workings that would provide me with fodder for an educated deduction.
I knew – as did every other citizen – the Gem's makers had given their lives in creating it, and that it was their final creation of their thousand years of crafting. It drove the city, its defenses and amenities. Some citizens believed us becoming too dependent on it, relying on its power too much to survive were it ever to shatter.
Being as Sakura Hall was a recent construction – two months open to the public – citizens of the Primary and Secondary classes and their psionic companions still flooded to enjoy its illusory effects and historical architecture.
Most of the city's buildings lacked any edges and were composed only of one softly curving material, though I'd heard tales of the Tertiary class' housing being constructed of multiple pieces of material, of the floors and walls requiring different kinds for their construction. Sakura Hall was supposed to mimic it as part of the shared heritage with the Tertiary…crudely known as the mindblind.
Secondaries I passed near bowed deferentially…if not truly respectfully, though their companions watched me carefully. A citizen's was determined by their abilities and birth, the two ordinarily intertwined. Those whose birth placed them within a Primary family yet whose abilities were too weak to allow them access to the privileges accorded that rank were considered members of a middle area between Secondary and Primary. Their birth granted the right to order Secondaries about – a reprehensible societal mechanism that should only be engaged in times of war – but such commands could be countermanded or superceded by any true Primary, and the cross-rank individual had to accept any command given voice by a Primary.
Fortunately, such situations were rare due to the nature of Primaries to pass the gift fully. Much more common were families of Secondaries breeding a member whose strong gift marked him or her for entry into the Primary class. Such occasions were joyous events, as it conferred upon the entire family of that new Primary the middle rank between its previous and its child's.
The saddest event was when a mindblind individual was born into a family, as had been a cousin of mine. My uncle and aunt tried for years to coax any latent gift out of quiescence, but Thaddis was truly ungifted. It was fortunate that some quirk of breeding had managed to create in him an anti-psionic trait; a very useful quality when a people's primary enemies are telepathic creatures. Had Thaddis not possessed the talent – or curse – of being so dangerous to the gifted, he would have been immediately relegated to the Tertiary class and would have quickly been forgotten save in situations where tempers flared and unwarranted rudeness arose. Instead, he stood between Secondary and Tertiary, though with much less command of the latter. Individuals in such positions were accorded respect due the risk inherent in their responsibilities.
I responded to the deferential bows with a respectful nod and what I hoped was a friendly smile. The difference in class occasionally threw a shade-altering lens between our relations, and what we might think of as respectful could instead be viewed as belittling or patronizing regardless of our intent. Some Secondaries revealed surprised expressions from my smile – at times pleasantly so – while others looked away to avoid causing mishap with a caustic glare, and I passed by too quickly to see their reactions moments later.
I did, however, notice the telepathic conversations of some Secondaries I neared become more subdued. If it had been my desire, I could have easily eavesdropped on any such conversation within visual range – a gift bestowed upon Primaries by the Gem.
Our city was lenient in some ways: the spoken word bears next to no weight save amongst the Tertiaries and their dealings with us. In other ways it was exceptionally strict: thought, deed and expression were the measure of one's intent and a poorly controlled face could send someone to be…reprogrammed. The death penalty was an end which resulted in wasted resources, a fact that led to its excision from the city's body of law several hundred years ago.
I bore the averted faces with grace and patience, aware that what they felt for me was based on the generalizing of Primary qualities, the most recognizable of which were the negative. When a Primary did something bad, it reflected badly on the class as a whole. Retributive action was often swift, but the damage would already have been done.
At least our citizens were free to have opinions and feel enmity. The enslaved were…well, they were just this side of mindless. We rescued them when we could, but oftentimes the enslaved were born into captivity, and all they knew or wanted was their place. It didn't matter that that desire was implanted by their illithid owners, though there was a minority who – upon regaining their free will – chose to wholly embrace a life in which they had choices and decisions more complex than "Did Master want this rock put over here or over there?" One of the former group of the enslaved served as my body servant and an ongoing experiment in attempting to restore the spark of will the illithids had quenched. I refused to call him by any name or title until he chose a name for himself, a matter which had caused my parents some consternation, since as long as I considered him an experiment and did no harm to either him or the city they could not interfere in any way against my wishes.
They solved this by completely ignoring the freed slave, and occasionally I thought I felt flashes of irritation and frustration from him when confronted with a situation in which he had to interact with my parents. My commands were often phrased to cause him to engage one parent or the other on a minor matter, the reasoning being that such flashes of emotion were signs of an emerging free will and necessary for forcing it to the surface. I could have simply asked for his mind to be overwritten and reprogrammed, but I needed to know such poor souls could be saved without resort to such extreme techniques.
"Thinkinghardagain?" The question was sudden, an intrusion on an otherwise peaceful march. My psicrystal – a piece of crystal imbued with a duplicated fragment of my personality – stirred from its position at the nape of my neck, where it had been hiding in my hair. It was no larger than my fist, and resembled nothing so much as a teardrop sapphire, what was typically referred to amongst jewel-cutters as a "pear."
"Asusual," I replied in kind, passing a young female Primary and her tempestan – an elemental from the Plane of Air – dancing through the illusory blossoms. It was nice to see such an activity. It represented peace. "Whatelsewouldyouexpectofme?"
"Of course. I merely meant to caution about broadcasting. You have been…leaking."
"That'stwicetoday," I mused, resuming my fast pace. "PerhapsI'mcomingdownwithafever."
My psicrystal reached a stretchy, ectoplasmic limb – one of dozens – to touch my brow, but withdrew it after a moment. "Youdon'thaveafever,butshallIfetchaMediforascertainment?"
"Thank you, but I'll be fine. I'm merely thinking on matters outside my duty and purview."
"Forgiveness for my impertinence, but there is more to your life than duty. Even your mother has asked that you indulge in idle speculation."
We had arrived at a Portal, which led to anywhere in the city that likewise possessed a Portal. One needed only think of a destination while stepping through…or, in the case of the mindblind, to speak a destination in the moment prior. Since Tertiaries were restricted in where they could freely go, they rarely used the Portals unless accompanied by a Secondary or Primary, and so spoken destinations were uncommon.
The Portal of Sakura Hall stood upon a dais in the approximate center of the area, and the Hall blossomed away from it. It was constructed of a material I lacked the rank to know, though it shimmered like mother of pearl. Two great rings joined perpendicular to each other, and appeared to have sunk into the dais a couple feet.
As I stepped between them I laid a reaffirming hand on my psicrystal. Travel by Portal was unforgiving to those with envoys or psycrystals. There was a brief moment in which we were…elsewhere. Such separation was painful on many levels for both parties, and it was a pain we were each made to feel when we first acquired a companion. I'd first felt it on my seventeenth birthing day, when I'd generated my psicrystal.
That was several years ago, and I hadn't made a mistake in this matter since.
Maintaining physical contact as I was would take a pair through simultaneously, and all that remained was to visualize my destination.
Reacting to my mental image, the hoops of the ring flared white, and I felt a sickening lurch in my stomach as we passed through a place without gravity. I blinked away spots as I regained my bearings, automatically moving off the Portal's dais as all citizens were instructed upon their arrival to the city. Perhaps due to my absent-mindedness I forgot one of the most important things about traveling this way in comfort: shut one's eyes.
My vision cleared after a moment, but I closed them again anyway, bowing my head in respect for the Gem, whose visibility from the Portal indicated the degree of awareness of the city. Though I'd never been taught why, I had my suspicions. Our laws dictated that the first glimpse of the Gem in a day required a bow and a moment of contemplation and thankfulness for the efforts of those who had made it. On some days the haze in this room was so deep that it was possible for one to get lost when turning around, and to be unable to see the glow of the Gem from any more than a dozen feet away. Those were also the days when the city was at its quietest, when the most were sleeping. We are all part of the Gem…or it is part of us. It draws power from us, and we in turn gain strength from it and what it represents. It's a cycle that grows ever more powerful with each passing day.
Although I'd already greeted the Gem earlier, I did so again now, extending a tendril of my will towards it. Such was its power that I needed no physical contact in order to address it…nor could I actually touch it without abilities stronger than what I possessed now. The Gem hung without support in a deep, well-like chasm, a spire of finely cut gemstone several feet in diameter and illuminated from within by a pure white light. It rose up and came to a point exactly seven feet above the ground. Its chasm spread out further, a good twenty feet in diameter, and terminated at a depth of four hundred thirty-eight feet and six-point-four inches. The Gem continued on down to the place in the planet where rock begins to melt, though since my interests are not sub-terrestrial I knew not the name of that place. This was information all citizens were taught, being as it was all we really knew for certain about the Gem. Attempts to discern its inner workings were rebuffed with a sensation of being mocked, and attempts to actually speak with it were frustrating endeavors in futility. The Gem seemed at times to have the personality of a cruel trickster, but it was probably just a defense mechanism built into it to frustrate and infuriate any illithid who managed to get into the city and attempt to address or damage it.
I sensed the Gem's acceptance of my greeting, and withdrew my will before continuing on my way, though my haste was subdued by the nearness of my destination. The Portal I had arrived on stood at the end of a short hall, a sort of stunted spoke off the hub of the Gem's circular area. A lip supported by Grecian columns bordered the space, and beyond was a clear dome of reinforced crystal that allowed us to see the sky clearly and could be made darker in the uncommon event of a cloudless sky.
The Portal terminus I'd chosen was literally around the bend from Medi Sector, our treatment area. Injuries were uncommon with the precautions we took, but they did happen…and warriors got hurt out on the field. They were taken care of in short order and recovery time was measured in minutes, as the nearness of the Gem supplemented and enhanced our gifts. Rather than draw upon our own energy, we could call on our links to the Gem to draw upon its energy, and even manifest our powers at greater strength.
The telepathic babble in Medi Sector alerted me to a more uncommon emergency, and as I stepped through the broad doors and was drawn into the room's mindlink within I found out why. The illithids had ambushed several of our patrols simultaneously, and both the litany of injuries and the body count were high. It was evidence of its import that I hadn't been briefed on my way here, being as I was not the only Primary in the city…another who lacked discretion could eavesdrop on the conversation and within minutes the greater portion of the city would know.
The ranking Medi was a blunt Tertiary named Aphodrys, and the woman was frightening when her temper was roused. She worked at one of the operating tables, removing bits and pieces of debris – rock, crystal, weapon shards, etc – from her charges before having her assistant heal the wounds and another two or three bring the next forth. From the set of her shoulders she was ready to call righteous fury down on someone or something, so I set to work quietly and quickly with a mute Tertiary – identified by the red slash on his uniform's collar – assisting me as a fetch. In this, nobody of the half-dozen supplemental Medi-techs countermanded my choice, and Aphodrys herself spared only a fleeting glance in my direction and to give me a confirmative nod. Medi Sector was her domain, and not even the Council could countermand her orders where medical attention was required.
Each injury I saw to was categorized by whether it required surgery and whether it was critical or superficial. Wounds requiring surgery were those Aphodrys was taking care of and so I simply marked each patient needing her attention unless the patient was at the brink of death. Those latter I touched a hand to the area around their most serious wounds and channeled a bit of energy from the Plane of Positive Energy. Not the most fancy of terms for a place whose entirety is burgeoning with energy that encourages growth…in small doses. Were anyone unprotected against the plane's nature to be transported there they would be almost instantly incinerated by the primal forces. My patients' wounds healed enough to staunch the bleeding, though if they moved too quickly they would easily be reopened. My task was stabilization.
Once I made that first cycle through the room I began anew, this time going over each of those possessing non-threatening injuries and restoring them to full health. Every one I thus healed then received a direct and implicit order to rest near my psicrystal, which had moved down my back and out of the room at my silent behest. Being as they were all Tertiary or Secondary they couldn't ignore my order, but I told my psicrystal to watch faces closely, and alert me immediately of anyone attempting to flee. Sometimes the illithids attempted to sneak an operative in through the ranks of the wounded.
We tried to be thorough.
The emergency was quickly and efficiently resolved as the other temporary Medi-techs drawing inspiration from me and using their gifts to restore health or ease the pain of their wards. Most had to go about it in a roundabout way, first transferring the wounds of their patient to themselves, then healing it that way, but there were a few who could do as I could and channeled positive energy to eliminate as many patients as possible.
Eventually the Sector was cleared of those with minor injuries, and all those were waiting under the watchful "eye" of my psicrystal. We temporary Medi-techs tended the wounded, either offering support and comfort with our simple presence or carefully preparing the worst cases for surgery. One of the Medi-techs – a Shaper – used an ectoplasmic servitor to transport the bodies into the back room while we did our best to divert our patients' attention from the necessary activity.
The body count was low, fortunately, and I took a moment from my chore to survey the room. What had begun as hectic and panicked telepathic babbling and moaning – on top of the physical moans of pain – was subsiding into a low chatter as the other Medi-techs communed and shared notes. What one knew, the others might not necessarily as well, so they spoke and increased their effective efficiency. Aphrodys gave her own commands as well…when she bothered to look up from her task or was asked a question. Most of her responses were spoken, though if she needed to get a point across she would take a moment to clearly broadcast her thoughts. Such was Medi Sector's imbuement that virtually anyone – even the mindblind Tertiaries – could speak mind-to-mind, contingent upon their presence within its confines.
My attention was called back to my current patient when he grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip, and his jumbled thoughts were a cacophony of disparate words and phrases. It was like he'd taken the entirety of his vocabulary, stirred it up and was trying to pour it into me. Gently, I extricated myself from his grip as I built up a barrier against the torrent of words. His expression twisted into one of frustration as he cracked his mouth open and whispered a hoarse word, renewing his grasp.
"War."
Though I wasn't unfamiliar with the primary spoken language, it took me a moment to track down the meaning of the word. The only time Primaries and Secondaries spoke aloud were before the age of four and when dealing with Tertiaries outside of areas like Medi Sector. I'd spent nearly twenty years communicating almost exclusively by mind, save for my elective lessons in extraplanar languages, and telepathic speech is less dependent on words than it is on the intent and emotion behind those words.
Once I found the definition – such a weak thing on its own – I frowned, sending, "Weareatwarwiththeillithids,yes."
"N-no," the warrior licked his lips, and I lifted a glass of water to them, allowing him to drink. "Else…something other. It comes…illithids fear."
"What…?" I met the man's gaze, noting the almost panicked look in his eyes before making a decision. Doing something I felt I'd never have to do, I sank into a half-trance and stretched out a tendril of will to a matrix supported by the Gem, following my connection closely to the place where it met a collective. Sorting through the threads, I found one leading towards one of the Council members. It didn't matter who…they were almost always in constant contact with one another, so one was as good as any other.
The sensation I sent along that thread was like a polite knock on a door. I could have barged in and began speaking, but the Councilor would have had difficulty sorting out my words and I would've needed to repeat myself.
"Yes…?" The word was rife with intent and curiosity that carried with it meaning on its own. Rather than take the time to speaking my name, I simply sent her the image of my sigil and my family's crest, and gave an abridged version of what I knew. Granted, it wasn't much, but it should be enough to get the Council moving on determining what the illithids feared. It was probably a contributing factor in the low body count of this emergency. For a long time the Councilor was silent and I feared I'd lost the connection somehow, but then the older woman responded with "We'lllookintoitimmediately.Wemayhaveallies."
The connection broke and I withdrew, returning my attention to my patient. I nodded to indicate others knew, and the warrior sighed fitfully, relaxing significantly. It was only when it came his turn for surgery that I realized he'd relaxed too much, was too limp.
I felt sad, certainly, and framed a prayer for his psyche's safe journey to his ultimate destination. We were raised to feel our emotions, but not to be used by them. I felt grief at the loss of a loyal citizen, and pride that he had died for his duty to the people of our city, yet that did not mean my life could not continue. This man's psyche…or his soul –perhaps the two were interchangeable – would not suffer in the hereafter, and the remainder of his existence would pass however he wished. This was merely the loss of a corporeal form, a transition by death into a different reality.
As I straightened to arrange the warrior's hands into a position of repose I felt something press against the palm of my hand, and extricated it from the corpse's extremity. It was a yellow crystal shard about the same size as the last joint of my middle finger, glowing ever so faintly. It was rough-hewn, but the angles were too precise for it to have just been chipped out of a vein…though the glow was a bit of a giveaway. My eyes narrowed to slits as I sought to understand the stone, a matter requiring of anyone no more than a few moments of focus.
The stone contained a couple powers of minimum complexity, both of which I possessed as part of my repertoire…so this warrior could not possibly have been a Secondary. I moved his arms out of the way and began checking all about his person for his insignia. A patrolman would have removed them while out on duty, storing them in a pouch or pocket somewhere. I needed to find out who this man had been, inform his family of his death. Duty required it. Courtesy commanded it.
My quick search spilled his belt-pouch and revealed many more power stones, though I decided to attune to them later, when I had a couple minutes. I added them to my own pouch to analyze further at a later date and continued rifling through his clothes. One of the other Medi-techs noted what I was doing and sent a wordless query to me.
"I'msearchingforhisinsignia," I answered, a little impatiently. The Medi-tech was a Secondary, and thus I needn't have felt beholden to answering…but my upbringing was very strict about answering questions in this sort of situation.
Then again, neither of my parents had foreseen me pawing through the clothing of a dead Primary in search of the symbols of his family.
"ThisoneisaPrimary." I felt a sense of surprise from the Secondary and understood where she was coming from. The man I'd tended had not been dressed as a Primary, was almost indistinguishable from one of her class. There was always the possibility that the warrior was a Secondary and had picked up the power stones from a fallen Primary, but the odds were low. Patrols took whatever Primaries wished to accompany them, and it was not in the nature of my rank to be seen as lowering oneself to such menial and mundane chores. It made my bile rise each time I witnessed such selfish behavior, but I was not powerful enough to do anything about it, and dying from a decision to accompany patrols myself was not a very wise thing to do. "Iamrelativelycertainthatyouwoulddothesameshouldtheneedarise."
"Asyousay,LordPrimary." The Secondary's words were colored with shame and anger, though the connection was broken before I could query as to what the latter regarded…not that I needed to. Any being would feel indignant at being made to feel foolish, but this situation with the dead warrior was making me feel snappish.
At last I managed to find the man's insignia – hidden in a pouch beneath his shirt and above his right buttock…clever – and had to stare at the device for several moments before it finally got through. I didn't want to believe that this man was who this device claimed he was, but…
Reaching once more into the Gem-supported matrix, I followed the exact same path as I had in order to arrive at the same Counselor. Once again I observed the same protocols and awaited her query. Her feeling was tinged with significant impatience, but it evaporated when I sent her a mental image of the dead warrior's face, accompanied by his insignia.
All was silent for nearly a minute, and when the Counselor returned her attention to me I received the impression that she took a deep breath before speaking to me once again.
"Tellme…whatdidhespeakof?" The Counselor's "voice" was filled with grief and sorrow far beyond what should have been present. Had he been a son or brother? A lover?
"Itwashethatdelivereduntomewithhisfinalwordstheknowledgethatsomethingcomeswhichillithidsfear.Hedidn'tspeakofaughtelse,butIcomfortedhimasbestIcouldwithwhatknowledgeIpossess." There was a moment of silence again, though I quickly grew too uncomfortable to allow it to stretch, and spoke again. "MiladyCounselor?Hediedinhisdutytothegoodofthecity.Inthehereafterheshallbevisitedwithparadise."
"Knowyouthisforcertainty?" The Counselor spoke hastily, and I let my head sag slightly.
"No,Idonot.ButIbelieveso." There were two concepts held dearly in our city: belief and knowing. Knowledge was the presence of empirical evidence, while belief was intuitive evidence. It was a matter of course that our abilities stemmed from an admixture of both. The result of our abilities was present in every aspect of our lives, though there were no physical differences between our brains and that of a Tertiary. We didn't believe there were, but we believed we could do what we could. It was a complex concept that very nearly defied words, but as those two concepts defined virtually every part of our city from present on back to its inception – belief that we would be free of illithid tyranny and years of slowly mounting proof that we would – it held a very dear place in all our hearts. I could sense the Counselor relaxing, despite whatever difference we were from each other, and I waited until she spoke.
"Ithankyou,LiamFarenofHouseDaerlin.Yourwordsmeanmuchtome,andtheygivehopewhenIwouldhavedrowned.ThewisdomofyourHouseisnotunderstated." There was a hesitant silence before she continued, the link becoming significantly more tenuous. "I…amFerinaLuxidre.Youmaykeepwhatevermybrotherhadonhispersoninthewayofpowerstones.I'massuredhetookseveralwithhim.Oncemore,Ithankyou.MaytheGemforeverguideyourthoughtshome."
The connection broke, but I stood frozen, like some statue of a Primary. It wasn't the gift of the power stones, though I was free to have taken them anyway unless she specifically asked for them back. It was that she'd given me her name. There was neither rhyme nor reason to it that I could fathom…
Members of the city weren't made aware of who sat on the Council, or at least not very often. It was a matter of personal safety for the majority of them, and some preferred to be capable of walking down a boulevard without it being prettied up just for them. In my opinion it was a good way to govern realistically, but other citizens looked on their secrecy with suspicion in spite of having grown up with such a tradition. To be trusted with such a secret was…heady. But I could find no logical sense to it, and that worried me.
Iwouldsaythatshe'snervous…sotheCouncil'sdiscussionmaynotbegoingwell. I closed my eyes a moment and steadied my nerves. The Council ordinarily made wise decisions, but occasionally it stalled for a lack of intelligence. Therefore this delay may be caused by investigative measures being taken.
After washing my hands clean of blood I asked Aphrodys if she required anything else, but she shook her head, saying, "No, thank you. You have saved lives today."
"Youarewelcome." I gave her a respectful bow, sent Ferina's brother's body one last look and left to deal with the recently healed patrolmen.
My psicrystal had been clinging to the wall just above the group, but as it sensed me coming nearer it climbed down like a spider with three or four times as many legs as necessary and crawled up my leg to take its customer spot at the nape of my neck. One of one of the warriors who'd stood at attention a respectful distance away followed after, a familiar red-head taller than me who kept his gaze carefully below my chin. As my bodyguard he had permission to look me in the eye, but the unusual deference indicated a larger problem.
I didn't delay in my questioning.
It helped that I knew him.
"AlexMoreydor,explainwhathashappened." The warrior was technically my bodyguard, but we had little need of such within the city. Therefore he accompanied the occasional patrol when circumstances allowed, and I saw no reason to deny him that. He wanted the exercise, anyway.
"Sir,itwas…something.I'mnotentirelysurewhatitwas." Alex was genuinely confused, the feeling communicating itself very clearly via the telepathic link. "OnemomentwewerestalkingtheedgeofKerosfall,andinthenexthalfofuswereunconsciouswithmassiveinjuries." His words brought with them an image of the massive waterfall whose purple waters plunged into a bowl rimmed with gnarled, petrified trees and tiny rivulets which swelled into one immense river some years, after the winter thaw. Accompanying the geographic visual was another, though it was a confused jumble of colors and sounds. Occasionally it would appear to clear, but then it would return to the chaotic kaleidoscope.
"Could you have been struck by an illithid attack?"
"Andhavethemleaveourbodies?Ourbrains?" Even couched in a respectful form, I could sense Alex's wry amusement.
"Ofcourse," I inclined my head slightly, a smile ghosting across my lips. It was as close to an apology as Alex would get in public…as close to one he could get.
"Thesensationwasentirelydifferentaswell," Alex continued, pressing a few fingers against his temple. "Thiswassomethingnew.Andmemoryfailspertainingtohowexactlyitfelt.AllIcanrecallisthatitfeltdifferent…moreprimal."
"Likeacannoninplaceofascalpel," I mused, then stepped forward, brushing past Alex to question the grouped patrolmen. One by one it was verified that what Alex had said was correct and common to each of them. One of the greatest benefits of speaking mind-to-mind was the ineffectiveness of lies. One could lie, certainly, but the emotions in the voice would betray that lie, and the individual's own guilt would transfer imagery or sensations informing the truth of the subject in question.
I was on the verge of reaching out for a third time to the Counselors when frantic movement near the north end of the Gem Hall caught my attention. It took me a few moments to process what I was seeing, but by then Alex had tackled me to the floor. A shockingly large, razor sharp lance of crystal flew through the air where I'd been an instant before. It plunged half its four-foot length into the wall at the end of the hall, sending shards of construction material spraying through the air, and once it had rested there a moment it began to dissolve into a steaming cloud that vanished quickly.
Ectoplasm, I thought dimly, still struggling to get my thoughts in order.
"Comeon!" Alex snapped, the anger in his voice cutting through my stupor like a razor. "Wehavetogetoutofhere!"
"Reserves," I murmured, reaching a hand into the pouch I'd liberated from Luxidre's brother. Perhaps there was one I could use.
My fingers closed around one, and my eyes narrowed to sleepy slits as I addressed it, getting a feel for its creator's style with this particular stone.
That'lldo. "Wait." I stood up, Alex lessening his pull on my free hand. Clenching the crystal in my fist, I stared at the attackers. They looked like humans, but their flesh seemed to be half-rotted, and in places bone showed through flesh. "Undead?Thatmakesnosense…thecreationoftheundeadisaforbiddenpractice,andallknowledgeofitisexcisedfromdeserterswhentheyarecaughtandreleased…"
"Tellthemthat," Alex renewed his pull, and I stumbled after him a few feet before I got my balance back. Tightening my grip on the power stone, I pointed my index finger at the mass of undead. Before I could activate it, though, one of the entities hurled another crystal spear at me, manifesting it out of thin air. My bodyguard tripped me rather than allow it to strike me, but caught a glancing blow from it as it plowed past and into the wall, spraying more material our way.
"Undeadthatusepsionics?" I didn't bother getting to my feet this time, instead hurling my will to survive into the activation sequence of the power stone. It flared brilliantly, and deep within the teeming mass a ball of fire erupted, catching many of the walking corpses in its lethal radius. Other Primaries – many more powerful than I and in no need of imprinted stones to wield powers beyond their ken – in the area caught on and soon that end of the Gem Hall was a hellish inferno of constant flames.
Alex stopped pulling, and we paused a moment for the fire to die down. A few bodies still smoldered, but they no longer moved.
That wasn't what held our attention, though. In the middle of the mass of re-killed corpses stood a man dressed in clothing I'd never seen the like of. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of faded blue pants, and a red-green plaid shirt hung untucked from narrow shoulders. His approximate age was impossible to determine, though at a casual glance he could've been anywhere from twenty to forty.
The man brushed back loose bangs and stared sleepily at the nearest Primary, who evidently decided she'd seen enough. Electricity danced between her fingers a bare moment before a bolt lanced out to strike the stranger. It struck and splayed out against an invisible barrier a few feet away from the newcomer, who waited patiently until the electricity faded. He snapped his fingers, and the attacking Primary turned to quartz in an instant, with no time to react.
Almost as though he knew exactly where everybody was, he unerringly faced the next-nearest citizen and began walking slowly toward them.
Incidentally allowing me to determine that yes, he was barefoot.
Alex didn't bother waiting around for the next crystallization, putting his full strength into dragging me to the Portal. I was still somewhat stunned at how easily the intruder seemed to be resisting what other citizens were throwing at him.
We managed to step onto the platform just as the intruder glanced at the Gem. I felt its power drain away in an instant, leaving a dull crystal structure. It toppled to the side and started to sink, but began rising. Air rushed up through the Gem's chasm, and the increased air pressure shattered the roof. Shards of its material fell and crushed or slashed the citizens of our City, but the stranger merely walked on without concern while the pieces bounced off his unseen shield.
The Gem continued to rise, and the air temperature in the Hall began to do the same. Alex took the initiative and signaled for the Portal to activate. His goal was a little unclear, though.
"Anywhere but here!"
The Portal began to flare and Alex grabbed me in a tight embrace that would ordinarily have been unseemly, and I dimly sensed him willing us away.
In the moment before we vanished, I heard a sound that dashed my hope: the Gem, shattering.
A flash of bright light blinded me, before I was plunged into darkness.
I…drifted. There's no other word for it. It was like sleeping, but possessed of a vague awareness of the passage of time. The span was an eternity of nothingness in which I felt nothing but an oddly peaceful weightlessness. Like sleep, I dreamt occasionally…half-remembered images of screaming, of a city trembling and streets flooded with the living dead and one ageless face calmly tearing people apart.
It came to me that I should be worried about something. The problem was I couldn't remember what, nor did I particularly want to. I was drifting away from something…I had to go back.
Where…?
My grip tightened on…something, and a pair of arms encircling my shoulders tightened back. Reality hiccupped, and an oscillating green light pierced my tightly clenched eyelids. As existence rushed back into place around us, so too did it rush up within my mind. It was like waking up all at once, and it took me a minute to order my thoughts.
It seemed like Alex was going through the same ordeal as we clung to each other while our minds cleared.
"Whatisthisplace?" my psicrystal asked, crawling down from my neck. We stood underneath a freestanding arch, time-darkened and weathered. A chill breeze – something I had rarely encountered – swept through the room. It was cylindrical, though as I turned about I spied three broad corridors with vaulted ceilings. The ages had taken their toll on the architecture, however: parts of the ceiling were missing, revealing an incredibly bright night. Tiny pinpoints of light studded the sky, and it took me a moment before I realized what they were.
Stars.
For the first time in my life, I was seeing stars, as it was before the illithids extinguished them in the eons preceding the Millienium Effort.
"Beautiful," I mused, for a moment freed of my worries about the city and its citizens. Then it came back and my first instinct was to search for any undead still present…but logic dominated my instinct and I calmed, realizing that if there were stars here, the undead would not be present. But that meant we were not in our world anymore.
Alex had quickly checked each of the three halls, leaving me free to examine the arch. It was reminiscent of the Portal in Sakura Hall, though the shape was off by being pentagonal and there were three blackened crystals set into each of the three above-ground vertices. The color was fairly accurate, but I only determined that after using my sleeve to wipe off some of the accumulated dirt. There was one major difference, though: Sakura Hall was open and expansive, its vaulted ceiling held up by Grecian columns, yet this one – despite the similarity in height between the two – was a narrower room, and the three halls appeared to have much lower ceilings. Apart from the vague resemblance to Sakura Hall, this Portal appeared nothing like any of the other Portals within the city…and I knew them all.
I brought myself up short, checked where my mind was running. I was trying to link this place and the city together as some form of…of absolution, as a way to come to terms with being so far from home.
It hadn't been so obvious to me how accustomed I'd become to being linked to the Gem when I had been, how comforting it was to hear other citizens, even if only as a barely audible hum. This world…it was silent! Dead! I began to feel claustrophobic and stumbled my way to Alex, who turned at my unusually loud approach. Without finesse I crashed into him and clung for all I was worth. His wordless query was answered by my feelings of overwhelming loneliness, and in response he simply held me, projecting random trains of thought in an effort to mimic the constant communication in the City.
One thing was constant in Alex's mass of thoughts. In the darkness of that first night in this new world, he assured me that he would never leave me alone.