Chapter 10
The First Brother was just breaching the hills as Kira gathered with the others at the Castle's entrance, ready to see them off.
"Are you sure you can't build it here?" she asked again. She gave a meaningful glance back through the gateway, to where they knew Jen still rested.
Aughra shook her head. "Not high enough, and this," she gestured to the crystalline building, "puts out too much light of its own. Too distracting."
{"And old pieces are there,"} Lenev added. {"More easy to shape old metal than to dig new metal."}
Ydra approached the Gruenak, hauling a woven, bulging rucksack that was almost as big as she was. {"Here, Hup helped me pack this before he went to bed. He said you're still learning what wild things are safe to eat, so this should keep you fed for a while."}
Lenev shouldered the rucksack with a grateful smile. {"Thank you. If is good, we not be gone a long time."}
Aughra nodded. "Not more than a few days. If fate is with us, Jen will wake up and have the answers we need long before then, and this will all be a waste of time. But until then, we have to seek our own answers. Can't take any chances when whole worlds are at stake."
She looked up at ShodYod, OkAc, and EktUtt, who hovered nearby. The Designer had not been recruited to join this quest so much as he had invited himself along when he heard about it, and Aughra still had her doubts about including him. But someone who understood craftwork and aesthetics might prove useful, and regardless, they needed all the help they could get.
"So let's have off, then!" She moved to stand beside Lenev, while the three urSkeks moved into formation around them, each with a hand outstretched. "You'll want to hold onto your hat, Gruenak."
Lenev started to ask why, but the word turned into a yelp of surprise as she found herself and Aughra levitated off the floor. She quickly grabbed her leather hood, holding it in place.
"Do not worry," OkAc said with a hint of a smile. "We shan't drop you."
"Come now, no more wasting time!" Aughra gestured down the living bridge. "I never did like it when you lot did this, and I'd sooner get it over with!"
Keeping Aughra and Lenev floating between them, the three urSkeks flew down the bridge and out toward the sunrise.
It felt unnatural, not having the touch of the planet beneath her feet. Even when Raunip and his long-ago Gelfling friends had learned to seek rides from landstriders, Aughra had preferred to walk where she needed to. Early on in her friendship with the urSkeks, MalVa had sometimes offered her a lift (as he called it) when they came across some particularly rough terrain in their travels through the wilds; she'd accepted, but had always felt relief when it was over. To move above the ground felt like neglecting her connection to Thra, and she'd already done enough of that.
But she had little choice now. It would take days to reach the high hill by walking alone, and that was time that could not be spared. So she'd endure this indignity, and ignore her feelings about putting herself in the hands of the urSkeks (in a rather literal sense), for the sake of Thra.
They flew across the Bah-Lem Valley, the breeze in their faces and the grass rippling beneath them. The urSkeks could not move as high or as fast as birds, especially not when carrying two beings with them, but they still passed over the ground swifter than Aughra and Lenev could ever have managed on foot. By the time the first sun was nearing its zenith, they'd reached the edge of the Endless Forest, and Lenev's earlier fear had turned to fascination.
She and Aughra did not speak as the urSkeks levitated them over the treetops. The wind was too loud in their ears, and an open mouth was an invitation to the startled summer insects that flew past them. But Aughra saw how the Gruenak watched with wide-eyed wonder, taking in the world from a vantage none of her kind ever had before.
It had always been easy for Aughra to favor the Gelfling, whose dreamfasting let them keep a connection to Thra almost as strong as Aughra's own. The Gruenaks, who recognized no higher authority and preferred to trust in their mechanical inventions, had seldom sought her counsel in the Ages past.
But they were Thra's children too. And in many ways, Aughra thought, she'd failed them worse than she had the Gelfling.
Those thoughts did not leave her as they completed the journey over the Endless Forest, crossed the expanse of the Black River, and began the ascent into the mountains.
Line
Over the last seven trine, Aughra had made several journeys back to the ruins of her observatory. She'd salvaged what she could from the ashes and rubble, but could never bring herself to try and make the place liveable again. The Crystal, and the two young Gelfling, had needed her too much, and the high hill had been too full of memories, even if she'd had the power to rebuild it as it had been.
As they approached now in the light of the sunset, it looked just as she'd seen it the last time: a dark crater on the crest of the hill. Old soot and dirt stained the broken edges that remained of the once-intricate dome. Inside, the rubble was filled with shards of blackened glass, and it took the urSkeks some moments to find a safe place to set them down.
"Not pleasant to look at, is it?" she huffed when she saw how pale their coronas had turned.
ShodYod, who had spent time in the observatory as both Arithmetician and Numerologist, was the most shaken. "... When you said it was burned, I still never imagined."
"Hm? What did you expect, then? Garthim didn't care what this place meant. Tore down everything in their path, and left the fire to take the rest."
She made her way to the center of the ruined chamber, kicking debris aside as she went. There, half-buried in the wreckage of the dome, was the mound of twisted, rusted, fire-scored metal that had once been her wondrous orrery.
Lenev followed after her, looking thoughtful. She swept dirt away from an exposed section of the orrery's wide, circular base, and banged her thick claws on the metal. A series of impressive clangs! reverberated, and she nodded in approval before addressing the urSkeks.
OkAc still remembered the Gruenak language, and translated for the other two. "She says it's not so bad as it appears. The structure's base is still mostly intact, so we need only rebuild the upper parts."
From his robes, the Chronicler produced a triangular crystal plate. He concentrated, and a pulse of light flowed from his aura and filled the clear plate. As he held it flat in the air, bringing it low enough for Aughra and Lenev to see clearly, it projected a small, faint image of the original orrery.
"I apologize that the recording's so crude," he felt the need to add. "I had to craft all my own materials when we first arrived here."
Lenev's dark golden eyes gleamed with keen interest. In the grime on the floor, she began using her claws to sketch out the image OkAc showed.
And, as he watched the outline laid out before him, ShodYod felt his doubts begin to ease.
"... Yes, this may work." He hovered closer, lending the glow of his form to illuminate Lenev's work as the light faded. "If we adjust this largest arm by point-three degrees, it will account for galactic drift in the last thousand trine …"
As night fell and the stars appeared above them, the new orrery took shape.
While OkAc cleared debris with sweeps of telekinetic energy, ShodYod and EktUtt worked together to levitate the damaged mechanical arms. Seven trine of exposure after the dome fell had left them rusted and ruined, so the urSkeks' first task was to reshape their chemical structure.
They moved their hands in winding patterns, and layers of corrosion melted away. Mist floated free as water and oxygen were separated, leaving the pure metals behind.
With the raw materials restored, the three urSkeks began to sculpt the arms into place around the central mechanism, molding and blending metal as a potter would shape clay. EktUtt managed to craft a copper alloy that was a particularly striking hue, and his corona flickered with displeasure when he saw Lenev shake her head.
"What's the matter with it? This color calls to mind the Phoenix Nebula! And these ripples give the impression of thought and movement. This apparatus is as much about bringing the proper state of mind as it is showing the heavens in miniature." His corona turned a shade darker. "What does a Gruenak know about art?"
Lenev glared at him. The Designer might not be able to understand her language, but she could understand his projected thought-speech perfectly well. She turned to Aughra, and said something that made the ancient sage laugh.
"She says 'I know when an alloy is too soft to hold up under its own weight. If you try to make the main arm out of that, it's going to bend after a few turns'."
Lenev nodded, and mimed bending an object crooked with both hands.
"Make the stuff stronger, Designer," Aughra went on. "This orrery's no good to us if it looks pretty but can't function."
EktUtt's corona turned hazy with sulkiness, but he did as she ordered.
The new orrery would only have a few arms, to show the movements of Thra's own solar system and the astral landmarks ShodYod had calculated would show the Devouring's path across the galaxy. When the urSkeks had finished shaping each pin and cog, they began the final step of crafting miniature versions of the stars and planets.
Lenev, who had no knowledge of such things and could not assist, turned to Aughra with a different question.
"Water? Yes, there's a spring runs down through the caves there." She pointed to the broken portal that led down into the black depths under the hill. "Just follow where the moss grows. It was clear two trine ago, should still be good to drink."
Licking dry lips, Lenev pulled out her copper light-rod and cranked it to life. Aughra watched as the Gruenak climbed down into the darkness. The rod's illumination grew fainter and fainter, until it vanished from sight.
By the time Lenev returned, carrying water in a large, dented crucible she'd found, the moons had climbed high and EktUtt was adding the final touches of color to their miniature versions on the orrery.
"Finally!" Aughra exclaimed. "Was starting to think you'd gotten lost down there."
The Gruenak shook her head with a smile. She hadn't been able to resist doing some exploring, she explained, and had been impressed by the elaborate network of caves under the hill.
"Well, suppose I can't blame you for that. Those caves used to be quite a sight. Aughra asked Thra to help shape them, in the long and ago of the world." She huffed. "Glad there's still someone to appreciate them."
The two of them watched as the Designer blended burnt carbon into the model of the Hidden Moon, the dark particles melting into the silvery metal. Aughra couldn't fault his work; the celestial models were even more vibrant and beautiful than the old ones had been. Perhaps letting him come along had been the right choice after all.
"And … perfection!" EktUtt touched the model with a flourish of telekinesis, and the tiny moon began to spin.
ShodYod pulsed his corona in agreement. "Now we need only wait for it to attune itself to the music of the universe."
The five of them watched as the new orrery gleamed under the stars and moons. The model Hidden Moon slowed down, and for a long moment, the whole thing was perfectly still.
Aughra frowned as Lenev whispered to her in a skeptical tone. "Yes, it will move on its own. The energy of the spheres is its power source! Just be patient …"
Slowly, a faint hum began to vibrate through the orrery. It was barely more than a whisper, but each of them could feel it.
OkAc's corona brightened with delight. "It's working!"
"It really is!" ShodYod's corona brightened too. "We did it!"
Slowly, minute by minute, the new orrery stirred to life. The five watched, rapt, until a growl from Lenev's stomach caught Aughra's notice.
"You ought to eat something," she chided. "Going to be a little while before this thing's in full motion. We can all afford a rest."
Even when exhausted and hungry, it was hard for Lenev to take her attention away from the strange, wondrous machine. But she opened the rucksack, and beamed when she found a stack of the feast-of-summer bread she'd enjoyed so much at the party two nights ago. The Podling bakers had mixed a variety of seeds and berries into the dense golden-brown bread, and had decorated it with summer flowers whose nectar added further sweetness.
She broke one flat, round loaf in two, and offered the other half to Aughra, who took it and began chewing noisily. As a living aspect of Thra itself, the planet's energy sustained her and she did not need to eat, but she'd come to enjoy the taste of food over the millenia, and the extra energy would aid her in the voyage to come.
After a moment's thought, Lenev took out a second loaf, and looked up at the urSkeks with a questioning expression.
OkAc realized what she was wondering. When the Twice-Nine had come to Thra the first time, the Thra-kind had asked the same question. "Yes, we can eat like you do."
"But should we?" ShodYod asked his comrades. The sight of feast-of-summer bread brought back old, shameful memories of his dark shard's dealings with the Spriton and their Podling neighbors. "We agreed we would take nothing from Thra that we did not absolutely need."
EktUtt drifted over to the Gruenak. "Speaking for myself, I need it. I've spent a great deal of energy today. I need to replenish myself, and I'm not waiting for the suns to rise. She's offering it freely." He gave Lenev a narrow look. "Are your hands clean?"
Lenev rolled her eyes, but held up her free hand to show she'd washed her claws as best she could.
"Hm. I suppose that will have to do."
She rankled at that, and for a moment, it looked like she might change her mind about sharing her food with the urSkeks. But her elders had raised her to always make sure everyone was fed who needed to be, and she offered the loaf again.
EktUtt levitated it from her hand. Floating the loaf in the air before him, he divided it into three mathematically equal pieces without spilling so much as a crumb. OkAc and ShodYod each summoned a piece over to them (after some lingering hesitation on the Arithmetician's part), and the three began to eat daintily, holding the bread between thumb and fingertip while they nibbled tiny bites with their pointed teeth.
EktUtt couldn't hold back a hum of pleasure as his corporeal form absorbed the sweet, hearty feast-of-summer, turning the material directly into energy. Since urSkeks did not need their mouths to speak, they saw nothing rude about talking while eating, and he kept on doing so. "I've missed how flavorful the food on Thra is. AyukAmaj was right, it's a shame he couldn't bring any ingredients home."
"It is quite nice." ShodYod's corona warmed.
Lenev politely swallowed her own bite, and said something to OkAc.
"Yes," the Chronicler agreed, with an amused ripple of his corona, "I'm sure it's much better than mushrooms."
While they ate, and shared the water Lenev had carried up, the orrery continued to pick up speed. At last, Aughra deemed that it was ready.
The observing chair that had once been attached was long gone, so the urSkeks condensed a pile of dust and debris into a crude seat. The stone-like mound was far from comfortable, but as she climbed up, Aughra found herself too excited to care. As remorseful as she'd felt for neglecting Thra in her voyages across space, a small part of her had also missed the experience. She might be focused on a single mission now, but she was still wildly curious about what she might find.
"I'll try and return as quick as I can," she told the others. "No wandering the heavens for centuries this time. If I don't come back by nightfall tomorrow, you wake me up."
She settled into position. Above her, all the cosmos spread out in the clear night, and she reflected that she couldn't have asked for better conditions. The high hill had always been a perfect place for stargazing, and with no dome between them anymore, it was easy to imagine herself walking into the sky.
Slowly, as she concentrated, the hum that was the eternal music of the universe began to enter her mind.
She closed her eye …
… And opened it again in the astral plane.
The realm spread out around her, reaching forever in all directions. There was no true sense of dimension or distance; it was more like a dream than any tangible place she could see or touch.
The harmony of the cosmos surrounded her (the Uni-Verse, she remembered Raunip had sometimes called it), and she floated in it as if the music were an impossibly vast sea. Most of the song was deep and steady where it played across the emptiness of space, but Aughra could also hear the livelier islands that were faraway stars and planets.
And she was part of the music too. She had no ungainly body to weigh her down here, no missing eye to limit her sight. It was as liberating as she remembered, but she still did not feel tempted to explore freely. She had a path ahead of her, and she must not stray.
The orrery served two purposes in aiding her explorations. It helped tune her in to the Uni-Verse, and it helped her mind imagine those distant places she had not yet seen. Now, as she drifted in the astral dreamspace, she visualized the handful of models on the new orrery.
The first one was a place she'd already visited once: Zo-Kanaph, a supergiant star visible during Thra's summers. The gaseous planets that orbited it appeared lifeless at first glance (for what creatures could survive on a world whose atmosphere was one eternal storm?), but Aughra had seen on her last voyage that tiny beings, barely more than living motes of dust, lived in floating colonies in the skies of the smallest planet.
Traveling in the astral realm wasn't like flying with the urSkeks. One moment she pictured the image of Zo-Kanaph's smallest planet, and the next she was there.
Her projected self floated in a dense cloud of churning blue-green gas colder than the deepest winter on Thra. Flashes of lightning surrounded her, but neither lightning nor cold brought her any discomfort. Her physical body was safely back on Thra, and nothing here could touch her.
Seems more violent than I remembered, she thought as she watched the storm. Is the star finally reaching the end of its life? What will become of the little ones when that happens?
But she did not have time to dwell on that now. She turned her gaze skyward, to where the orange glow of the star just barely reached through the thick atmosphere, and pictured her next destination.
From the stormy Zo-Kanaph solar system, to the sparkling ice of the Ydaj Comet, to the fiery clouds of the Phoenix Nebula she projected herself, following the path ShodYod had mapped across the galaxy.
And at last, on the other side, beyond the light of the farthest star visible from Thra, she glimpsed what she was seeking.
Aughra had seen black holes before. Even their unimaginable power could not harm her when she traveled this way, and she had approached a few during her centuries of exploring. They were intimidating, but still a part of the natural order, and worth gaining knowledge of.
What she saw now was not a black hole.
It resembled one a little: a darker void amid the darkness of space, that seemed to warp light and matter around its edges. But it was far too small, no larger than the planet of Thra (strange as it felt to think of Thra as small). And black holes did not perceptibly move through space like a living thing with purpose. A black hole would not produce the discordant note in the Uni-Verse that Aughra could hear now.
Discordant, but familiar.
I've heard a song like that before, Aughra thought as her astral self drew closer. It almost sounds like …
Sudden terror seized her. She saw the Devouring halt in its path, and realized, too late, that it had seen her.
Whatever the Devouring was, it had a mind. That mind, that awareness, reached out to Aughra now. And, powerless, she reached back.
Their minds locked.
And Aughra understood.
Once, a new planet had been born from the dust of space. Like Thra, the urSkeks' world, and many others across the universe, it had been blessed to hold a facet of the Crystal of Truth. Like all Crystal-bearing worlds, the young planet had formed a mind and spirit of its own, and as it had cooled from its molten stage, it had rejoiced in the thought of life taking shape upon it.
But it was not to be. By pure misfortune, the young planet had formed too close to the massive, rending gravitational forces at the center of the galaxy. One by one, its three suns and three moons had been torn away, and the planet itself had broken apart before even the first spark of life could form.
The planet, and its Crystal, had died. But its restless spirit had lingered, full of voiceless agony and despair at what it had lost.
And from the darkness at the galaxy's heart, that spirit had emerged as something never seen before.
For Ages now, this ghostly entity had wandered across the galaxy. Cold and alone, eternally hungry, it sought out the warmth and light of Crystal-bearing star systems. Driven to absorb them, to devour them, in the vain hope of filling its own unspeakable emptiness …
Aughra understood all of this as she stared into the Devouring's mind. And the undead planet gazed into her mind in turn, one Crystal-bearing world to another, and learned of Thra.
For a moment, Aughra could sense its indecision. Her world and its Crystal seemed a tempting morsel.
But the Devouring released her. It had already chosen its next meal.
The planet-sized void began to move again. Though it traveled in a straight line, Aughra could see now that it still spun faintly, the warping at its edges rippling in a ghostly echo of a rotating planet's atmosphere. Ahead of it, off in the black distance, she could just barely make out the light of a three-star system.
She knew which world that had to be.
Aughra willed herself back to the astral dreamspace, beginning the journey of returning to her body. With her last glimpse, she saw that the Devouring was moving faster.
Line
Back on Thra, Aughra opened her eye to late afternoon sunlight.
"She's awake!" OkAc exclaimed beside her. At the sound of his voice, ShodYod and EktUtt quickly floated over, and Lenev, who had been sleeping nearby with the rucksack for a pillow, snapped awake as well.
All the horror Aughra had felt when she learned the Devouring's true nature now flooded into her physical body. She gasped, now that she had lungs to gasp with, and bolted upright so violently that she tumbled off the seat.
ShodYod reached out, slowing her fall telekinetically. "What's wrong? What did you see?" he asked, growing fearful himself.
"How …" She panted, trying to calm down. "How long was I gone?"
"Less than a day," the Chronicler reassured her. "If you'd slept any longer, we would have awakened you as you asked."
Aughra continued catching her breath, leaning against the base of the orrery to steady herself. "... I saw it. The Devouring. And it saw me."
EktUtt's corona flickered in puzzlement. "What do you mean by that?"
"It's a world like Thra. Or used to be. A world that never had a chance to have a name." She shuddered again. "Poor, wretched thing. But we have to stop it! It'll never stop on its own. It'll consume every Crystal in the universe, all for nothing." She looked up at the urSkeks. "And it's after your world now."
ShodYod's corona turned so pale it was nearly invisible. "How long do we have?"
"Perhaps a week. Perhaps less! Aughra doesn't know how to measure these things." She turned to Lenev. "Get ready, fast as you can! We've got to get back to the Castle. Not sure how we're going to fight something that's already dead, but we'll have better luck finding answers there."
Seems I was wrong, she thought to herself. Perhaps the dead can harm the living.
To Be Continued...