Alium, page 61
Darkness closed in from all sides, cloaking the transforming manifolds of silvery light in shadow, so that Ogwold could but faintly make out his own skin in the dark, until there was only a small mote of radiance left floating before him, a little fey speck of dust hovering just in front of his nose. So rare and delicate appeared the tiny thing, that he sheltered it with his palm and looked down into its spherical, translucent light as though it were the last to shine in the world. Within was curled a shape, a naked Novare child clothed in sleep. Its flesh was silver-white, and it seemed to have no features but for two eyelids softly closed. From beneath those subtle folds seeped all of the light which cocooned its image, and therein all the endless and immortal forms which had danced so freely and ubiquitously before, now so completely retreated and contained, settling hidden and dormant beneath the brow of this young one.
Ogwold turned his hand so that the floating child was cupped, and rested in his palm. “Wake up,” he said, peering over its subtle face. “Or all the light will go away.” But the creature did not stir.
Now he looked away, and found the surrounding darkness not at all vacant. Transforming shadow and smoke moved in the periphery of the child’s light, a realm earlier washed out in uniform radiance. Though its diverse landscapes and living shapes were emboldened by the severity of shade, all moved slowly towards the tiny core of light which was the child in Ogwold’s hand, for it was its slightest touch upon their surfaces which gave them being. Their stage was an endless, raging storm of dark. Ahead of its tremendous clouds, citadels and bristling cities of spires of night rose and fell rushing one into the other, and before their constant evolution rose up armies of shadow. At the fore of these surging bodies, alien geometries and withering many-limbed figures confounded the eye just as they dissolved or ballooned into new concepts more stunning. And closer still there peered and shifted the most clear-lit likenesses of many wandering and curious spirits.
But out of these countless forms, three distinctly recognizable figures struck Ogwold’s sight, and in the striking were drawn nearer to his vision than the rest, so that all the innumerable peoples of the dark were muddled into the billowing fabric of the great black storm. Of the three, two were small and thin, while the other was tall and thick. Though the lesser in stature seemed alike, they approached in manners wholly different, the first striding forth to behold the source of all light, the other following more cautiously, low of shoulder and nervous of aspect. As they pressed upon the shining place about Ogwold, he saw they were women from the gulfs of the dark. But the third figure was not so coaxed as to reveal more of its image than its solid, grim composure; it stood away in the void of blossoming shadow, only just pronounced from the thousands of other forms behind it.
The striding female spirit was first to reach Ogwold, and he saw at once that it was an apparition of Sylna, smoke trailing from her eyes, her pointed hat barely materializing, as in a shadow following her about, just slightly tardy for her appearance. She held out her hands to receive the child, and though Ogwold hesitated for a moment, as if protecting the little thing, he soon handed it to her, so that she went away and sat cross-legged, hovering there in its bubble of light, cradling it. There she stayed for it seemed a long while, her hat of shadow pulled down over her eyes, and so silent and still was her congress with the child that the second female shape did not come closer.
Ogwold felt then that he became like another distant shadow form in the great curtain of the dark storm, and the events which followed played out before him as on a stage lit by the emanation of the strange child. Even in this timeless place he felt the passage of moments as a great procession. Yet slowly, as before when the darkness had crept into the world, he began to hear a distant singing. It was sweet yet sorrowful, a solemn harmony of wisdom and beauty carrying as from all things, and it grew in volume and richness, until it was an underlying theme of this place, this light around which they were all huddled, and the very leagues of the black storm seemed attuned to its noise.
Now the second figure came forward onto the stage and into the light, and Ogwold saw that it was an apparition of Elts. Her tails were wisps of smoke, and her hair floated like light ash over the pale ice of her eyes. Still with anxious care she approached the light, but certainty was in her step. She took the child from Sylna, and she too sat with it beside her. As well she thought or listened in silence, and the song carried on for far longer than before had Sylna cradled the child in silence. Suddenly the face of the Xol was lifted, and there was a bright light in her eyes not unlike that of the child’s. Sylna too was stirred, and together they stood, holding the child in their careful hands. Still the song carried on, though it had faded as all things now into the swirling vortex of darkness all about them, and could only be heard as it was another muted being obscured in the sable fabric.
Whatever knowledge was achieved between them, the child slept on. Witch and Xol turned now to another spirit. Still stark and savage in the dark apart, the third spirit, tall and rough, had begun to pace wolfishly back and forth, a leering and restless spirit as though enraged and kept at bay by the light of a fire in the nighted woods. Yet they went to him even so, and as by whatever secret code he would not approach, so too did he not run. And it was a man that the light began to lick, of short hair and clanking armour. There at last the turning of a ray caught the emerald shard in his sallow face, and Ogwold saw that it was the apparition of Byron. The eyes of the child shot open.
*
The ogre’s stomach pitched, and all that had suspended him vanished. He fell back and away, and the light darkness was stripped of that faint, seeking light which had given it form, such that it was whole, and just as when there had been only light, now there was only shadow. Then there were hard arms wrapped around his waist. A white flash opened his eyes. The silver walls of Zenidow rose up around him, and there above, slowly spinning on its axis, was the great sphere. Only moments must have expired since he had touched the changeful surface, for though he had all but fallen from the platform, his hand was still extended before him as when it had reached for the sphere. Behind him, quaking, split-legged and breathing hard, was Byron who had stopped his falling.
“By the gods you are strong for a Novare,” Elts was saying to the mercenary.
“Or this one is light for a Nogofod,” he grunted.
Sylna replaced her bow between her shoulders, and laughed a long tinkling laugh. It was refreshing in the tense majesty of their surroundings. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he could lift Ogwold off the ground! Carrying that sword around at all hours of the day as he does.”
Byron shoved Ogwold forward back into the middle of the walkway, and at once slumped over his knees. “I think not,” he said, huffing and straightening up.
Ogwold stumbled, righted himself, and looked back up at the sphere. Then he turned and his face brought the laughter from them all. “I know how it can be woken,” he said in a tone none before had heard from his lips. “It told me in a dream.”
Sylna’s eyebrows shot straight up. Byron squinted, righting himself and crossing his arms. Elts smiled, and said, “It is a mental thing, is it not? You were contacted?” She quickly went to the Alium, and before anyone could stop her, she placed her own bare hand against its surface, and closed her eyes. There was a short silence before she turned back. “Ah. Nothing for me, though it is an exhilarating thing to feel.”
“That’s part of it,” said Ogwold. “All three of you played a different part.” He then related the details of his vision. The others listened silently, and when he was done they stood for some time thinking.
Sylna was the first to speak. “This child is of course the Alium. Ogwold was the first to discover it, and so he gives us our vision. I am next by the logic of this vision, to attempt the wakening.”
“It wouldn’t listen to me,” Ogwold said. “But you brought something out of it, a voice. Still, it seemed to me that Sylna understood its meaning as little as I. That’s when Elts approached, and then something surely changed.”
The Xol murmured. “Perhaps the song is merely the aura of some psychic language more discreet. A member of the Xol could more likely hear it.”
“Then what is Byron in all of this?” Sylna cut in.
“He was the last piece,” Ogwold said slowly. “When you and Elts brought the Alium to him, he resisted, but even then its eyes were opened.”
“I don’t know why that should be.” Byron’s eye shut in annoyance. “I’m only with you now by my oath to Ogwold.”
“I believe him, you know,” Ogwold said, turning to the others.
“As do I,” said Elts. “What you have done for Zelor and I is already deserving of great trust.”
Sylna frowned. Returning her gaze to the great sphere, she went and placed one slender, ringed finger against its changeful surface, then followed with the rest of her hand, closing her brown eyes. A few moments passed. There was only the endless drone in the enormous chamber. Sylna could feel the orb slowly rotating beneath her touch, but nothing came to her beyond the strange fluid sensation of its impossible material. She drew away and frowned curiously up at the thing.
“No vision?” Ogwold cocked his head.
Sylna laughed nervously. “Really it is incredible that you had such a contact just through touch. There is something different, I suppose, about you, Ogwold. It can’t have gone so naturally for Nubes; he was gone away to Zenidow for many months; and anyhow, on his return, he told me there is only one path to the Alium’s dreams, whenever I should come so close.”
Ogwold gasped. “Through the Fabric!”
Elts agreed. “Meditation is the only way we mortals might approach an object so inscrutable. Sadly, I am dumb to the Fabric. If Ogwold’s dream is a message from within, it is rather Sylna who might find the thread between us.”
The witch nodded, stepping forward as she turned her hat nervously against her brow. “I shall try of course, though I cannot perceive the Fabric so easily. My practice requires time and silence.”
*
Sylna unshouldered her bow and knelt before the immense sphere. Her spine was straight but relaxed, chin tilted downward. She closed her eyes, and there was a palpable stillness about her. Slowly she raised the slender white wood, drew back its silver string, and levelled the arrow of her soul. In the draw were tension and resolution both, at first contending one against the other, now finding that sudden equilibrium whose discreet source was her personal window unto the invisible world.
In the moment of total balance, a still hush radiated from her aim, pulsed over the curvature of the great orb and spun smoothly outward through the wide and quickly brightening walls of Zenidow. Where it passed, the high walls were opened, falling into a bottomless silver-white ocean so awesome and changeful in its geometry that the dimensions of ordinary reality were like the slightest froth upon its massive waves.
If even that most superficial foam was too brilliant, the raging walls of the chamber were so clamorously bright and violent in their folding as to blind the eye that lingers. But that evolving and scalding light was almost dim in contrast to the great radiant complexity of the hovering sphere itself—like an enormous all-seeing eye—in the midst of the living metal, as though the sun itself had been lowered into the room, so pure and wondrous that naught but light was in its seamless face.
Eyes hooded over the glare, Sylna attuned her other senses to the Fabric, feeling the gentle precision of her bow, and slowly grew accustomed to its greater glory in this space. The deathless light about her began to even, and in time she was able to look upon it and study its nature, marvelling at how idly Elts had spoken of perceiving such wonders already. Often she had wondered about that chief characteristic in the Xol which Nubes had so commonly described; to be born psychic, to awaken first in the light of the Fabric.
And just as Elts had said, though the transforming sameness of Zenidow’s walls seemed to extend their weave out unto the lay of Altum beyond, the great sphere itself seemed wholly unconnected from its tapestry, for not a single thread extruded from its form. All around its circumference she searched, and up and out through the high walls beyond it, the deeps below it, but still it hung before her unattached. So it was that she too began to feel a solitude here, and turned her attention to her own threading, see how it connected to Zenidow, where she might have some link with the mountain. She saw now how thick were these cords between her and the platform upon which she sat, and looking to the company as well revealed that they were all but stitched into the very substance of the place, perhaps more cohesively and neatly than in any other place in the world. This, she thought, must account for their ability to manipulate the walls and open the doors to the heart of the place, but none of these uncountable threads strayed even near to the great orb itself.
And so she discovered it, looking down once more upon herself, as if it had been lying just before her nose, a silken line which led from her own heart almost invisibly out over the open chasm where no other slightest form of Fabric seemed to reach, disappearing into the core of the sphere. It was as if all her life she had followed this one cord all to Zenidow, and she wondered how in her meditations never she had seen it or distinguished it from the other lines which bound her to the world. Softly the bowstring twanged. In astral form Sylna sent forth the manifold of her consciousness in a silver needle streaming into the Alium.
At once the boundaries of its radiance encapsulated her, but there was no pain or increased brightness, so that—accustomed as she now was—she moved lucidly through a field of white. So endless and complete were its dimensions that she could not know whether yet she sped on to its nucleus, or if she had come to a halt there already, or if there was a centre at all, as though she had come upon an entire universe here removed in its physics from that she knew. Then she heard it. A sweet melody of one note, yet somehow rising and falling in tone. Just as the details of the surface of the orb were at once different and impossible to distinguish, the different sounds of this sweet, eternal voice were at once the same sound and many others. Everywhere in the endless white ether where Sylna now floated could this sound, these sounds be heard, so that coming from all places, and welling up within her, she was completely enthralled, and time ceased to be.
It was as Ogwold had described in his dream. Remembering that distant name, Sylna recalled herself. Though the song continued, she was able to distinguish her own soul from its great totality. Now she heard truly that the song was of one voice. Though there were many others, perhaps all voices, helixed and coded into that strand of pure harmony, it came as from one mouth, as from one being, and that being was Alium.
*
The music of the orb at once became apparent to Elts. It was as though it had always been sung to her, as if she were remembering it even, from a time lost. She listened carefully as the words flowed out over the room and through her blood, coming as from all directions while Sylna sat peacefully in meditation, enraptured in the astral world, while Ogwold and Byron watched her grow ever more attentive on some invisible thread of meaning to which they were not yet privy. Then Elts began to sing:
The Old King in a prison of flame waits,
For what gods would oppose his Usurper.
Three so loyal met to forge that rescue
Long ago, but the black fleet’s hunt was wise.
Red eyes saw and darkness fell, yet godly
Light struck the rebel forge, and so you lived.
As All on high, the One, had changed their work
Your makers raged against the Enemy,
And cast you sleeping to the endless stars.
Now listen, child—dream of your wakeners.
First shall be Ogwold, last son of Caelare,
Brother to Nogofod, spawn of the sea.
Out of wonder comes he to you seeking
Dreams of his own. Where once was a strong arm
Comes loss; where once was a solitude comes
Growth—for in you, he is reborn by touch.
Next shall be Sylna, Ardua’s heiress,
Daughter of Primexcitum, doomed to fire.
Stormcaller, she will send from Pivwood,
Tall and ancient, the guiding tongues of light.
As you were for her lost father fashioned,
Only she can uplift your voice from sleep.
Third shall be Elts, last daughter of Caelare,
Scourge of an Empire in its mantle dressed.
She summons the wind with borrowed magic,
Yet of the Xol there are few so prescient.
Though this place of rest she will seek in wrath,
Her listening mind will be humblest and clear.
Lastly, among them walks a mortal pure.
Byron—you will know him by his lonesome
Eye, green-stained in the nightmares of his foes.
So too will he cut down the one who would
Destroy you, but knows he not the true weight
Of his blood: the decision rests with him.
Sylna had returned to the surface of the Fabric with the first words of the song, and listened quietly with her bow resting across her lap until it was done. Ogwold sat heavily on the ground as his part of the music was deciphered. Byron’s face was all shadow, his arms tensely crossed.
When Elts had finished she bowed her head, and her tails were posed in the aspect of thanks. “Such was the lullaby of the Alium,” she said, and there was a long silence thereafter.
“But who is the singer?” Ogwold mused.
Byron smirked. “A fair question.”
“Nubes must have heard and interpreted only pieces of it,” Sylna muttered. “He knew that I was in it, and Ogwold…”
