1 — "Planetary Silhouette"
Nakiva sat back with a hissed sigh, long fingers massaging his forehead. It would not be long before he was called again and he had little or nothing new to report. As if this came as a surprise. It was not easy to focus his sight beyond the barriers of the palace and it became even harder when he was asked to look so far away. There were infinite planets out there...Infinite civilizations and situations. How could she expect him to find just the right one? The proverbial needle in the haystack? He was beginning to think there was nothing to be found.
A warm, stale breeze blew in from the open window, stirring papers and ruffling Nakiva's dark purple hair. The wind stank. Though it moved the air within the barrier, all it succeeded in doing was circulating the exact same air over and over again. There was no way to escape the smell, the sickly mixture of dust, neglect and death. Traces of the old sickness still clung to some places, as well, dredging up memories of the not so forgotten past. He would have closed the window long ago, but there was no point. The smell would still be there. The breeze just brought it to one's attention.
The room in which he sat was dark, intentionally so to make his task easier. Too much light interfered with the viewing pool. Candles were scarce, anyhow, and not to be used lightly. They were only used in times of extreme need which had become fewer and far between as the number of inhabitants had lessened. The window offered no illumination either, the sky outside hidden behind a curtain of darkness that had not been penetrated in an endlessly long time. In all likelihood, of those still living in the palace, there would not be many who remembered what day was...or that there ever was such a thing in the first place.
Nakiva remembered...somewhat. He had been sleeping when the barrier was erected, but he had seen day before then. It was a distant memory now, stored back with the other pieces of information he did not need. He sometimes dreamed of it, though, of the sky. The elders said it had been pale blue...but he dreamed it was more. Blues, purples, reds, oranges of all shades...ice and fire blending together over a rising, blazing sphere. Odd how he would remember such a thing. It was not right, somehow. The colors he saw were too dynamic...burning too vibrantly and too fiercely to sustain themselves for an entire day. Perhaps too many years had tainted his memory.
Aside from a worn desk, the room was scarcely furnished — a plain bed and three bookshelves all that remained from the previous owner. Nakiva had made few additions, not having many possessions worth worrying about. The bookshelves were lined with the few books that had survived the fires and the desk was covered in scrolls and papers, mostly notes, diagrams and maps of the world outside the barrier. A tall wooden perch sat in one corner, a dark shape, barely distinguishable from the shadows, holding tenaciously to the scratched bar. Segra, Nakiva's Familiar, was sleeping with her head beneath her wing, her current form of crow one of many she preferred to take.
A large stone bowl filled with water sat among the papers on the desk, the liquid clear and still for the moment. It was a makeshift viewing pool, at the least. The true pool was outside the palace grounds and therefore outside of Nakiva's reach. He had to make do with the bowl which offered only blurry, unfocused pictures, when it offered anything at all. That was yet another reason he had for frustration. How could he find anything with such wretched tools?
With an angry curse, he brought his fist down on the table, crushing an unluckily placed scroll and jogging the water in the dish. Segra woke with a startled caw, flapping her wings to keep herself balanced, then glaring over at Nakiva sulkily, feathers ruffled. He did not pay her any attention, his gaze focused solely on the bowl before him. The water had been disturbed by him hitting the desk, lapping up the sides of the bowl. Normally, it would settle back and be still but, for some reason, it had not yet done so. Instead, it was rippling on its own now, concentric circles spreading from the water's center.
Nakiva leaned forward and peered into the water, eyes wide. Could it be? After all this time had something finally been found? For a moment, the water offered nothing by the steadily increasing ringlets, flowing out from the middle. Gradually, however, the surface began to change, smoothing out and becoming as still as glass. It darkened, deepening into the vast blackness of the night sky. Tiny hints of starlight speckled the blackness with surprising clarity.
He frowned. What good did this do? All of space looked exactly the same when it came right down to it. This vision was useless. Except...he bent closer to the bowl. There...in the upper right corner...he could almost see something. It was not so much seeing something, actually, as not seeing anything. In one particular spot of the sky, the stars appeared to be blocked out, a circular shadow superimposed over their glittering presences.
On closer inspection, it appeared to be a planet of some kind. Or a moon, perhaps. A faint view of the pockmarked, barren surface would surely seem to suggest the later. But was there life on it? There had to be or why else would he see it? An empty, lifeless planet was of no use to them. He examined the star patterns, trying to find constellations that he could later use to identify this moon on a star chart. Oddly, there seemed to be a cloud of debris surrounding it and every now and then, he could catch sight of the briefest of flickers, as if this cloud conducted some sort of electrical charge. That strange phenomena would, at least, make it easier to find.
The water trembled, distorting the picture. Nakiva did not try to keep hold of it. He had seen everything he needed to pinpoint where that moon was. He watched as the vision dissolved back into the rippling liquid then sat back again in his chair, this time with the barest hint of a smile touching his mouth. Though he could not yet be completely sure, he felt a certainty that he had not felt in a long time. The moon was the key. There would once again be Believers.
He would be powerful again.