LotS/The Story/The Right Tools/The Psychic
The Psychic
"I see everything." -- Scrawled in blood across the wall of Sun Xi's bedchamber in the imperial palace
"Is that what I think it is?" you ask.
Telemachus heaves the red metal backpack onto his shoulders. A series of lights glow at the bottom of the pack -- indicating that the item's weight is being borne by technology rather than just his boyish muscle power.
"Well, you said I couldn't bring my mech," he replies.
"If that thing blows up when you try to use it, you'd better not be standing near me," Talia says.
You file off the ship, onto a tarmac plain that seems to mirror the clear night sky -- its softly glowing lights echoing the stars above. The Princess and Lu Bu are already there, negotiating with spaceport staff over the procurement of a vehicle. Diogenes has nothing in the way of a mass transit system, and even the settlements are far from the planet's ports -- let alone the isolated dwellings. It's a world of seclusion, for those who want the comforts and reassurances of civilization without the inconvenience of dealing with their fellow man.
A hovercar large enough to accommodate you all is found, and brought over by one of the attendants.
"Remember -- you'll only be able to use the designated roads and flight paths," he says, after you usurp him by slipping into the driver's seat. "If you try to deviate, the onboard navigation system will autocorrect you."
With that final warning he steps aside, allowing the others to enter the craft.
The car rises into the dark heavens in almost complete silence, its engine calibrated not to disturb the serenity of this peaceful planet and its reclusive inhabitants.
"It's a beautiful world," the Princess says. She gazes through the window, at the vast shadowy pine forest that rolls below you, swaying beneath a crisp and starry sky.
"Too quiet for my liking," Ragnar says. "Last time I visited the place they kicked me out for machine-gunning a squirrel. What's the good of all that wilderness if you can't even hunt in it?"
"Many great thinkers choose to withdraw to Diogenes," Lu Bu says, "when they wish to be alone with their thoughts, their art, or their scientific research. I believe they would find it objectionable to have a Niflung rampaging through their forests whilst discharging an automatic weapon."
"I think people would find that objectionable just about anywhere," Talia says. "What about you, captain? Can you imagine living in a place like this?"
You glance out of the window, at the little specs of light ensconced in endless expanses of greenery. Peace and quiet for miles around.
"Maybe," you reply. But the thought that fills your mind is how difficult it may prove to convince someone to leave such a place behind.
"The most difficult part will be getting a ship to Sian undetected," you said.
"Conventional forms of cloaking will prove inadequate," Wu Tenchu agreed. "They would never withstand the sensor capabilities of the Centurians."
"Given time, TALOS might be able to engineer something," Lu Bu said. "But the timeframe may be unworkable."
"I suppose we could offer Nemo a load of credits and ask him to loan us the Silver Shadow..." Talia said, her smirk expressing just how realistic she considered such a transaction to be.
"Nemo?" Princess Illaria asked.
"A rather notorious space pirate," Wu Tenchu replied. "His operations have all taken place far from Sian space, and he does not court publicity in the same way as others of his ilk. Thus you may never have head of him. His infamy is largely confined to those in law enforcement and the criminal underworld."
"And pilots," you said.
Talia nodded. No pilot could fail to be enchanted by the stories of the Silver Shadow. A special ship, unlike any other...
Master Wu fiddled with a nearby terminal for a few moments. His final key-press was rewarded by the appearance of a new holographic projection -- displacing those chronicling Lupin and Artemis Kess, causing them to shrink and shift as they yielded their space.
The image it displayed showed a plaza at ground level, a wide, flat, square expanse overlaid with many thousands of colored tiles that formed a sumptuous -- yet from that angle unrecognizable -- mosaic. There were buildings on the far side of the square, large and lavish structures that bespoke the wealth of the neighborhood -- but adorned with neon signs and bright banners which betrayed its levity and tackiness as well. Large crowds of people were passing to and fro in the distance, and in the immediate foreground of the picture. However, a short distance in front of your viewpoint there was a big portion of... emptiness. An inexplicable gap in the crowd. In fact, you noticed that people were deliberately turning their steps to walk around the edges of that invisible space, rather than intruding into it -- as though it had been reserved for some special purpose.
"An external security camera belonging to the Trimalchio Casino on Tarlella," Wu Tenchu said. "Mounted above the building's front entrance."
There was a sudden burst of commotion at the near edge of the screen, rippling out through the people in the immediate foreground. They turned startled faces towards something behind your field of vision, events taking place within the casino. A moment later they were scattering in panic. Some ran to the left, others to the right -- vanishing from your perception. Some ran directly away from the casino and your camera viewpoint, though even their terrified flight didn't cause them to trespass into that patch of empty space. Instead they ran around it.
The source of their panic emerged into the bottom of the screen a few seconds later, firing his laser pistols behind him at what you assumed must have been his pursuers. It was a male figure, dressed in a bodysuit. A full helmet concealed his head in its entirety, replacing his features with a smooth black plate. A short cape or coat fluttered in the air behind his legs.
The man ran in sideways fashion, moving towards the background of the diorama while still firing at the foreground. He approached the empty space, drawing ever closer to the curious forbidden area that had rebuffed and repelled everyone else.
He reached its edge. Then he vanished.
A few seconds passed. After that, the parted crowd moved to fill the previously inviolable space as if nothing untoward had ever happened.
Wu Tenchu waved his hand. The footage froze.
"His ship?" the Princess asked.
"The Silver Shadow," you replied.
"How did he accomplish such a feat?" Lu Bu asked. "A good security camera should have detected the craft in spite of whatever form of light manipulation or projection-based trickery it employed."
"It's suspected that his ship contains alien technology," Wu Tenchu said. "The vessel is capable of total invisibility, on a level which may deceive both electronic and biological observers."
"But surely the passersby should have collided with the invisible vessel, and become aware of its presence."
"Yes..." The Princess nodded. "What made them walk around it like that?"
"A psychic field, I suspect." Master Wu stroked the slender trails of his moustache as though pondering -- and vexed by -- the mystery whose solution eluded him, as few things ever did. "One designed to eliminate all curiosity and provide yet another layer of obfuscation."
"Who's Nemo?" Telemachus asked. "How did he get hold of that kind of ship in the first place?"
"No one knows," Talia replied.
"There's more than one of them," Ragnar said. "Maybe a whole gang. I think they take turns wearing that stupid getup."
"How do you know?" you asked.
"Because I chopped him in half in a bar, after the bastard cheated in a card game. The day after that, 'Nemo' raided a weapons factory on Belzabar."
"Are you sure it was Nemo you butchered?"
The Niflung paused for a moment.
"He said he was. But he might have just dressed up like him to scam free drinks from people. It was a pirate bar, and everyone wanted to meet Nemo. They were pretty pissed off when I killed him. Ended up having to kill the rest of them as well."
"Could we make an arrangement with him?" the Princess asked. "Offer him a fortune in exchange for his help?"
"That would be inadvisable," Wu Tenchu replied. "A man such as he, motivated solely by financial gain without honor, would think nothing of betraying us to the Centurians in exchange for further wealth."
"Why don't we just steal his ship?" Telemachus said.
"Sure, let's go out looking for an invisible ship," Talia said. "Should be pretty easy..."
"Even psychics haven't been able to track it down," you said. "Maybe because of that field Master Wu referred to."
"Perhaps they simply weren't capable enough," Wu Tenchu mused.
His gaze met that of the Princess, and held it for a long moment. The advisor's face was inscrutable, but her eyes widened.
"But... She won't..."
"Under the circumstances, I believe we might be able to persuade her."
She turned to you, and you felt an illogical arrogance, as though her first thought was to share the secret with you.
"When I was a girl, one of my father's advisors was a woman called Sun Xi. She was a psychic. A powerful one."
"Her visions were erratic," Wu Tenchu said. "But sometimes they revealed vital knowledge, allowing the Emperor to obtain a significant advantage in both diplomatic negotiations and military operations."
"And her powers kept growing. Her visions got more and more powerful. She could see further and further -- through space, into the past, into the future, into people's minds. It was... amazing. But in the end..."
"She could no longer master her mind." Wu Tenchu sighed, for perhaps the first time in your memory. "There was an... episode... in the palace. She was found unconscious, bleeding from a cerebral hemorrhage. She had scrawled on the wall beside her with blood from her own brain."
"She was in a coma," the Princess said. "My father's personal doctors treated her. They were able to bring her back. But she couldn't keep using her powers. It was too dangerous."
"What happened to her?" you asked.
"The Emperor had a home built for her in a secret location," Wu Tenchu replied. "Special materials were worked into its walls, which would encage her wandering mind and allow her to live out her days in peace. A peace which I fear we must now violate."
Song of a Fallen Empire
A bleeping from the hovercar's display and a slowing of its engine inform you that you're nearing a no-fly area.
Your destination is a short way ahead, where a soft spill of artificial light meets the moon and starlight to paint the sides of a small building -- a house surrounded by expansive gardens that are in turn encircled by a wall.
It seems that the proprieties of Diogenes won't allow an unauthorized vehicle to fly closer to a resident's sanctum. So you land, touching down upon the narrow road a hundred yards from the closed gateway, and proceed on foot beneath the night air -- your steps escorted by the thick forest on either side.
Cherry blossom trees wave above the wall as you approach, their purple flowers dancing to the caresses of the breeze.
"Sun Xi always loved the blossoms in the imperial gardens," the Princess says. "So my father had some of the trees planted here for her."
There's a small communications panel near the sealed entrance, embedded in the midst of a pillar's decorative swirls. Illaria steps over to it, and places her palm on an object shaped like a smooth gemstone.
Perhaps half a minute passes, its silence broken only by the rustling of branches and the hoot of a distant owl. Then a beam of illumination fires from the gemstone. It widens in its flight, before giving way to a swirl of color that resolves itself into the image of a middle-aged woman wearing Sian robes.
"Greetings, Mistress Sun." The Princess bows her head.
"Illaria!"
There's wonder in the woman's voice, though tinged with neither fear nor delight. Merely surprise, devoid of good or ill, pleasure or dismay.
"Forgive our presence here. We had no way of contacting you to request permission for our visit."
Sun Xi gives a small nod of acceptance. Her home is devoid of all communications devices beyond that linking building and gate. And no one on Diogenes knows her true identity. Hers is the life of a hermit, her isolation total. Until now.
"It is... pleasant... to see you again," her holographic form says, each word soft and subtle, emerging as though from a dusty chamber in which they were laid to rest.
"I fear that what I have to say won't be pleasing to you, mistress. We've come to ask for your help."
The holographic woman gives a deep sigh, like the gentle breaking of a barrier. When she speaks again, the words flow more freely.
"I am grateful to your father for the kindness he showed me, Illaria. But you must return to him, and tell him that I cannot re-enter his service. The risk is too great, both for me and for those who would be around me."
"My father is a prisoner, his life threatened. That's why we've come here."
Anguish crosses Sun Xi's face.
"Tell me... Tell me what's happened to our empire."
Blood and Weiqi
The Princess beckons you, urging you to stand alongside her in Mistress Sun's gaze. For your stories are one, bound up with that of the empire and its ruler.
You bow as you introduce yourself. Then you join in the tale, your voice and the Princess' sharing in its unraveling.
Together your words describe the events upon the Child of Heaven, and the Centurian attack. They chronicle all the sorrows and misfortunes, all the little victories, that have filled the expanse of your lives between then and now. You allow the true depths of your feelings to spill into the story, knowing that you must reveal to her the full magnitude of the shadow which has fallen across the Sian Empire.
She questions you, seeking the knowledge to understand what has transpired in her absence from the wider universe. She asks you about the UHW, and TALOS, and the other factions and organizations with whom she dealt in her days as one of the Emperor's advisors. You answer each query as best you can, with Lu Bu interjecting and offering his precise knowledge and recollection to fill the gaps. The tangled mass of interstellar politics is heaped before her, to pick through as best she can.
At last the words stop, and Sun Xi sighs once more. Her bubble of tranquility has been burst by the horrible knowledge you've brought to her doorstep. Her paradise has been stolen.
"I... I do wish to help, Illaria. I would give anything for your family. But the moment I stepped from these walls, I... I can't say what might happen. It's been years since I was forced to endure the presence of so much as a single other mind."
"Let us try. Allow my captain and I to enter your home," the Princess says. "If even that proves too much, I swear that we will leave and trouble you no longer."
"Yes..."
Sun Xi bows, and reaches a holographic arm beyond the border of the image. The gate whispers open on its near-silent runners, sliding across the inner side of the wall.
"Your other friends may wait in my garden."
You all pass through the gateway, into a lavish realm of trees and flowers. A robot is trundling in the distance, administering to a bed of red blooms with a watering can. Other than that there's no sign of movement, beyond the gentle swaying of the stalks and branches. A beautiful garden to be gazed upon from behind glass, its paths untrodden even by their owner.
The Princess leads the way to the house, a picturesque building shaped in an indistinct but somehow pleasant architectural style. The two of you stop before its door, which gives way with a hiss -- as though an airtight seal is being broken.
Behind the door is a small lobby, its walls decorated with paintings of various shapes and sizes, depicting an equally vast range of subjects -- from seaside landscapes to a detailed magnification of a human iris and pupil.
A robot drone, similar to the one you saw in the garden, stands in the middle of the little room. It's a simple contraption, a modular cylindrical body with well articulated mechanical arms and a rectangle embedded with an orange circle by way of a head.
"Come inside."
The voice comes from robot, but it's Sun Xi's.
The Princess steps inside. You follow, and the door hisses itself shut behind you.
The robot turns to one of the walls, in which a doorway slides open, and beckons for you to follow. You're about to do as bidden when you see that the Princess has stopped. She's gazing at one of the paintings, a smile on her lips.
She turns away at last, and follows the robot. You glance at the picture after she passes into the next room. It's a watercolor painting of the imperial palace, rendered with more enthusiasm than skill. The artist's name, in childish cursive script, is scribbled in the corner. It reads: 'Illaria'.
You rejoin the Princess and the robot in a chamber decorated in ancient Japanese fashion. Some of the walls have been made to resemble wood and paper lattices, though your scrutiny reveals that they are in fact constructed of less flimsy materials. Double-doors of similar aesthetic close off another room. These throb with dancing illuminations of dark and light blue. The warm glow of a lamp shaped like a flower bud completes the gentle bewitchment of the chamber's lighting. A few pictures and ornaments adorn the room's serene sparsity, along with a low table. A thick glass weiqi board rests upon that piece of furniture. It's the same shifting blue as the doors, between the engraved lines of the grid. Two ceramic pots of stones -- one set black, the other white -- stand beside it, ready for battle.
The twin doors part, one slipping away to either side in utter noiselessness. Between them stands Sun Xi.
Her step is unsteady as she enters the room. There's a smile but also a grimace on her face. You move forward to take her arm, but she waves you back.
"A moment..." she murmurs. "Just a moment."
She takes a deep breath, and the lids close over her bright eyes. When they reopen a few seconds later she seems to have regained her composure. She bows, a gesture you and the Princess return. The robot merely observes your courtesy, evidently not programmed for such niceties.
"Your mind is strong and firm," she says, meeting your gaze and holding it with her eldritch, color-filled orbs. "That will be important, if I'm to travel with you."
Illaria goes to her, and this time the psychic makes no motion to avert the coming contact. She embraces the Princess with a tentative hug, her arms touching Illaria's back so softly it's as if she fears that one or both of their bodies might shatter like fine crystal.
"Sit. Please."
You sit on the floor mats surrounding the low table, around the weiqi board like generals around a campaign map. At Mistress Sun's gesture, a robot emerges from the next room, bearing a tray of delicate pink and white sake cups.
"Drink this. It will aid you in what must follow."
You take one of the cups proffered by the robot, trying to mask your curiosity from your thoughts as well as your face.
The sake tastes... That's all you can say of it. That it has taste. Its exact flavor seems to escape your mind -- as though your taste buds have become disconnected from your brain, unable to convey their experience.
"The herbs will help," she says.
The robot slides away after the empty cups have been returned to its tray. Sun Xi fixes you with an intent stare that seems to end well behind your eyes.
"I wish to help, as I told you. But for me to leave this place, and its protections, I must have anchors. People with thoughts steady enough to serve as my rock, my lynchpin."
She looks to the Princess, releasing you from her scrutiny but leaving the force of her gaze behind.
"Your presence will help. But... forgive me... this one is stronger. Her thoughts are... firmer."
The Princess smiles.
"I have placed my life in the captain's hands more than once. You only honor me when you praise her."
Sun Xi's eyes regard you once more. They seem almost luminous now, their color imperceptibly but unquestionably different from what they were but a moment ago.
"However, I must be sure. I must know that your thoughts will remain steady no matter what happens. I wish to test you."
You bow your head.
"As you wish."
"Do you play weiqi?" She smiles as your face betrays your surprise. "I do not pry into people's minds uninvited. Your thoughts are safe until you open them to me."
"I can play."
"The way a woman plays weiqi reveals much about the quality of her mind. But our game will be more... trying."
Your eyes instinctively travel towards a painting you noticed earlier, a copy of a famous Chinese original. It depicts an episode from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
"Yes," she says. "Are you willing?"
"I am."
"Good."
The robot who escorted you into the room takes up a position beside Sun Xi. Another, presumably the one who departed with the tea tray, rolls in and stands at your left-hand side. There are two metallic clicking noises as slender blades appear at the end of each robot's arm.
A Second Chance
Blood pours from Sun Xi's arm, flowing down her flesh in disregarded rivulets. Her luminous eyes are fastened on the board, plotting her next move.
You feel the blade biting into your own flesh, and the crimson escaping from the wound. But you don't glance at it. Your gaze is likewise upon the grid and the black and white stones which vie for victory on its geometric battlefield.
You place a white stone where two lines meet. Your hand has barely relinquished it when a black stone follows from the psychic's. You seize another white token of war, and place it in turn -- doing your best to match her speed, to calculate, attack, and defend with the same rapidity.
Stones are placed, forming patterns of life and death, as the blood from your twin wounds forms patterns of its own.
The game continues in silence but for the dripping of crimson and the clicking of stones against the board.
When it ends, she is the victor. She bows her head, and you do the same.
"Very good," she says.
Mistress Sun signals to her robots. The blades retract into their arms with dual clicks, and are replaced by other tools instead. For a few moments they administer to your arms -- until your wounds are closed, and the blood cleaned away.
"You allowed your flesh to be opened. But now I must ask for your mind to be opened as well. To truly test your fitness, to know if your strength is equal to the task, I must travel into your thoughts and test you there as well. Don't grant permission lightly. For every woman has thoughts they would wish to remain hidden from the world."
"My blood, mind, and soul all belong to... the empire."
You almost uttered two other words instead. There's a faint smile on Sun Xi's lips.
"Do what must be done," you say.
Princess Illaria's hand touches yours. When the rest of the world vanishes, its warmth is all that remains.
Incandescent realities swirl around you like existential whirlpools, churning up matter and making flotsam and jetsam of all creation. Motes and infinities of color paint themselves across the void. A thousand sounds reach your ears, until they ring with crashing oceans and exploding stars, calling birds and crooning songs of love and loss. Bizarre medleys of scent and taste add themselves to this synesthetic tempest. You smell lavender noodles and petrol flowers. Chocolate kidneys and limestone pizzas envelop your tongue.
But the grasp on your right hand is still there, unchanging even as the universe dances.
"She means a lot to you, doesn't she?"
You look round, breaking the grasp of your hands in your surprise. It isn't the Princess who's standing there, who spoke to you. It's Sun Xi.
Sun Xi, but not as you saw her before. Her eyes blaze like tiny suns, in colors that change with the passage of each sundered second. Her skin is radiant, infused with a golden glow that shines with the very essence of life. The simple, plain robes she wore have been replaced by glorious garments woven from the fabric of impossibility.
"That's good," she says. "Let it give you strength."
She smiles. Then she explodes. Colors and sensations erupt in all directions, becoming part of the raging maelstrom around you.
"You've experienced many victories," her voice says, the sound emerging from everywhere and nowhere, eternal and sourceless. "A life studded with challenges met and triumphed over. Each one has made you stronger. Bolder."
Something is taking shape in front of you, a scene assuming solidity in the colorful ether.
"But there are defeats as well. And it's in facing these that your measure may be judged."
The colors are forming outlines now -- three distinctly humanoid figures coalescing from the incomprehensible rawness. Recognition tears its way into you as the transformation nears its completion.
A ferocious beast roars at you, a reptilian monstrosity with both cunning and savagery in his eyes. You're on the Zenith again... Your vision latches onto the still assembling shapes to the right. General Rahn. And the Princess. They're struggling, fighting over the glowing object clutched in his hand.
Your thoughts scatter before an invisible blow, and reform into something both real and unreal -- an unintelligible mass of dream and memory.
You're going to lose her... Rahn's device will take her, will snatch her away from you and whisk her off into the void.
Have to stop him, save her...
You step towards the pair. But the alien moves into your path, roaring a challenge that makes the world tremble.
Have to save her...
Lineage
Your fist smashes through the Besalaad's skull, breaking inexistent scales, shattering ephemeral bone. Its head explodes into a riot of drifting colors. Its body follows it into luminous annihilation a second later.
You charge through the enveloping primordial mist, force your way through to the other side. Fasten your eyes on him. And her.
The device is glowing, blazing like a sun searing its way through the wall of reality. Flames dance on the insides of your eyes. It's going to try to take her, to burn the two of them out of existence and leave emptiness in its wake.
Not this time.
You run. You leap. You grab.
The device is in your hands. You hurl it aside, casting your failure to the four winds.
Rahn screams in agony as he explodes. The Princess smiles as she evaporates.
"Remember this feeling," Sun Xi's voice urges. "Remember it well."
The colors swirl and part once more, the bulk of the phantom Zenith dissipating into the intangible matter of creation. But a few fragments of its undone mass remain. They flit through the air like frolicking sprites before colliding. Then they gather together, forming the shape of Mistress Sun.
"In times gone by my kind were called far-seers," she says, the words beginning in the ether and ending on her newly regenerated lips. "Because our minds can see into the distance, whether measured in space or in time. When I served in the imperial palace, I saw glimpses of recent past, present, or future -- enough to shift events in our favor. But as my powers grew, became uncontrollable, I received flashes from inconceivable gulfs of years or miles. In one I saw the galaxy die. In another I saw Terracles performing his labors."
Somehow it's that statement which allows you to find your tongue for the first time in this overwhelming place.
"You mean Heracles. And he wasn't real."
"No, I don't. And he was." Her eyes flash. "Time isn't easily bent to one's will. It slips from your grasp like an eel. But some people have strong bloodlines, lines which can be followed. You're one of them. I can sense that. It's part of what makes your mind so potent, your soul so sturdy. So let us see your forebears..."
She takes hold of your hand.
The moment her touch meets yours, stillness gives way to rushing motion. Your consciousnesses shoot through the universe, propelled along turbulent currents that twist and turn as soon as you try to focus on them.
Decades are peeling away like shed garments, history withdrawing like the tentacles of a grasping monstrosity. Images whoosh around you, so fast that only single glimpses reach your comprehension.
You see lines of warriors charging beneath the Sian banner, fighting to spread the empire across the stars and vanquish those who would dare cast covetous gazes upon its worlds. You see beyond this, to a time when the children of Earth -- now settled so far away from their native system -- began to adopt the trappings of their ancient ancestors, clinging to that heritage for comfort and to bind the people of their factions together.
Time continues to evaporate into an insubstantial mist, flinging you further along its length.
Human colonists are settling their first worlds, mankind seizing its destiny among the stars -- still planting the flags of the nations of old Earth.
This nascent diaspora withdraws in turn, slipping back towards that little blue and green ball of rock and water where it began. Bombs fall and bullets fly. Cannons boom and cavalrymen charge. Swords strike shields. Clubs crush skulls. Millennia of wars fly by on their endless path of destruction. Alliances, nations, provinces, city-states, tribes, and families war with one another in turn as the timeline floods back to show mankind at its most primitive.
And then...
Your tunnel of vision moves away from Earth, shunning it and focusing elsewhere in the Sol System instead. Lumps of rock are gathering there, their flight reversed. They're coming together, creating... a world.
Sun Xi squeezes your hand.
"As I suspected. Your blood has strong ties to this ancient place. The true cradle of humanity."
"But..."
That idiotic interjection, that aborted statement of confusion and contradiction is all you can manage as the passage of time hurls you down the history of a world you never knew existed.
There are men and women. And other things besides... Aliens? No, not aliens. They belong here. This is their world as well. And some are familiar. Not from reality, but from the dreams of writers and artists...
"Yes..." she says. "Echoes of this place have always been with our race."
The images which flash before you are confusing. Here you cannot connect them to the known expanses of human history as you could before -- can't slot them into your preconceived notions of time as though they were jigsaw pieces fitting into place. You understand nothing of what you see.
"We're being drawn somewhere," Mistress Sun whispers. The awe in her voice is unsettling.
Visions continue to pass in a blur, quickening now. Her grasp tightens on your hand.
"No!" she cries. "You're-"
Your hand slips from hers, eludes the clutch of her desperate, snatching fingers. Then you fall.
You plunge towards the distant surge of images, towards the mélange of unknown existence. The maelstrom of colors and tastes and sounds and sensations rushes up to meet you, to cradle you or else smash your tumbling form.
Your life flashes before your eyes. But it gets lost among the thousands of others which flash by them as well.
The tempest is right below you, seconds away. You're about to hit it and-
The universe splits in half. Reality and surreality tear together, opening like an immense mouth to reveal a blackness so pure it's blinding. You hear Sun Xi's distant cry of terror as it swallows you.
You feel consciousness make its tentative return, awakening you from... from what? A vague recollection of falling flits across your thoughts. But nothing attaches itself to that notion, no memories take shape around it.
You open your eyes to end the unsettling confusion. If you know where you are-
Nothing happens. The darkness remains infinite and unbroken, an immense and formless black mass pressing in on you from all sides. The terrible specter of blindness fills your frantic thoughts. But only for a moment. Then the true magnitude of your plight smothers you.
You have no eyes. No mouth. No limbs.
Your mind is adrift, floating in an eternal void. You scrabble for understanding, to comprehend how you came to be trapped in this nothingness. But no memories rise to the surface of your turbulent thoughts. Who you are... what you are... These things have been buried beyond your reach, crushed into oblivion. Your identity has been stripped away along with the rest of creation, devoured by a black hole so massive that it's swallowed everything that ever was or shall be.
Misery floods your disembodied consciousness, an inner darkness mirroring the nothingness around you until their combined forces threaten to tear your flimsy, nameless existence asunder.
You've failed... That lone sliver of knowledge pierces the mantle of your despair, becoming its lynchpin. You can't explain it, have no knowledge of the task or purpose which was once yours. But you feel failure's barbed tentacles nonetheless, ripping at what's left of you.
A silent scream echoes inside your broken mind. It tears at your unraveling sanity, shredding your little semblance of self-awareness. In time that too will be gone, and your obliteration will be complete.
Wait...
A glimmer of perception flickers across one of your counterfeit, fleshless senses. There's something else in this realm of nothingness, an island of existence in the black infinity... No, not something... Someone! You're not alone!
The spark of their existence is dim and distant -- impossibly distant, separated from you by a gulf of oblivion perhaps measuring trillions of light-years. Yet the simple reality of their presence in this unreal place transfixes you. It shines like a beacon, beckoning you, promising companionship and comfort, strength and salvation.
You urge yourself towards them, spurring your drifting consciousness into motion through will alone -- launching yourself into a wingless flight.
Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia...
These meaningless words drift across your thoughts in a vain attempt to chronicle the intemporal odyssey. You cast them aside. All that matters is your goal.
Your fellow sufferer is moving as well, pulling their mind towards yours with the same unyielding determination. Two disembodied beings threading the darkness, piercing the void with spirits made unconquerable by the force of their longing.
The faraway spark grows larger, flashing and pulsing like the muzzle of a firearm. With nearness comes knowledge, the edges of your thoughts brushing theirs like extended fingertips, gleaning information with each tentative contact.
They're human, like you. A woman. She too was hurled onto the invisible tides of this black ocean, sundered from her body, left adrift without memory or identity.
The light expands, becoming the defiant blaze of a warship's cannon. The furthest tendrils of your thoughts are intertwining with hers, uniting in an unbreakable bond, using it to draw yourselves closer together.
She's a warrior, like you are. An adventurer. A leader, commander, and fighter. A hero. So different from you, a child of a different world and time. And yet so similar, so inexplicably familiar...
The light flares with all the glory of a sun, illuminating the darkness. Your minds press together like interlocking fingers, flowing into each other like two liquids poured into the same vessel.
Her memories are laid out before your probing gaze like the streets and structures of a city, a bustling realm of dark alleys and broad streets, mighty castles and lofty towers. You swoop through it all, drinking in thought and sensation -- sensing that she's doing the very same, reaching into your thoughts with a passionate desire to learn and know.
The things you see are... remarkable, amazing. Unearthly. Men and creatures clash in the streets of memory, immense presses of humanity and monstrosity fighting battles that will echo across the soul of mankind long after those who fought and fell are forgotten. You see dozens of infernal horrors and powerful beasts, each glaring at the woman in turn -- always knowing deep within them that they've met their match, that their destruction is inscribed upon the threads of her destiny.
An image rises from the midst of those others, thrusting its way to the surface of the grim procession as though yearning to meet your gaze. Cyan eyes burn before you. A voice, like a woman's but tinged with a strange, inhuman accent, sounds out with the disturbing detachment of one in a trance:
"I see further still, to a time when your blood will flow across the void, blazing beneath a thousand burning suns."
The words echo in your soul, struggling in vain for comprehension. You sense that they're significant, yet they pass you by without understanding.
You soar from that place, flitting to another portion of the woman's memories with a child's gleeful desire to explore and touch. Warmer recollections are here, images that give your newfound companion strength and sustenance, comfort and certainty.
There's a man, silver in hair and wise in eye, but still strong and hearty. Two swords, one silver the other orange, dance in his hands. Music floats across your vision, flitting away to reveal a pretty woman with pointed ears and angelic voice. Her fingers stroke the strings of a harp, bringing forth the music of the heavens. There's a warrior in bronze-colored armor, who stands atop a wall and defies the enemies of his people. Crowds of men and women line up behind him, drawing courage from his presence -- ready to follow him into battle. You see another man, this one dressed in red and green robes as though he were a priest of some kind. Stacks of dusty books surround him, tottering with the weight of ancient scholarship. He smiles in delight as he dashes an inky quill across a piece of parchment, setting down his thoughts for future generations to ignore. Next your eyes fall upon a beautiful blonde woman, her body draped in dark blue furs. Bright white symbols dance upon her upturned palms, mirroring the hardness and coldness that rest within her eyes like an expanse of frozen tundra.
Your attention is drawn upwards, to a form flying above all these others -- soaring and darting between the spires of mind and memory like an immense azure bird. No, not a bird... As you rise, drifting on currents of anticipation, and the creature descends, you see that its body is reptilian. A dragon. A blue dragon. Thoughts spark within you, memories once thought lost reasserting themselves and taking shape like flesh knitting itself over a wound.
The dragon's scaly body slows its descent, until he comes to rest right before your face -- his bulk hovering at eye-level with great flaps of his leathery wings. The creature gazes at you with deep orange orbs. This drake is important to the woman. A constant companion, a true friend... a source of identity which has helped shape her into who she is. Yet you sense that his importance transcends that, extends well beyond a single human life -- no matter how glorious that life may be.
A flash of colorful images come to you -- not from the woman's recollections, but from your own. Images you saw when you were falling, glimpses that at the time meant nothing yet now mean everything. Snatches of history and destiny, chaos and kismet. This dragon will fly across the centuries, shaping things as he passes.
No... Not just centuries. Remembrance echoes across your thoughts with the force of a symphony reaching its crescendo. The writings of the First Emperor... The tale of the blue dragon spirit who aided him in battle, and helped secure the future of the nascent Sian Empire.
The dragon's reptilian lips curve into a smile as the knowledge overwhelms you.
You know who you are. Memories form around your consciousness like a panoply, as you sense the other woman's forming around her. Your forays into the depths of each other's thoughts, the wonders you've witnessed, have returned your identities.
You are Captain [Player Name]. And you can't remain here. The empire needs you. The Emperor needs you. Illaria needs you.
Two oceans of mind and spirit begin to recede, drawing away from one another -- waters parting, never to meet again. It's a sad farewell, a mournful separation from one you've known like you'll never know another. But at the same time there's triumph. You each know what you must do, where you must go.
The last lingering traces of your union drift apart like two hands slowly slipping from each other's grasp.
In the unfathomable distance, across the perpetual blackness, you see a glimmer. Your way home.
You plunge towards it.
Sun Xi
There's a hand on yours, its grasp warm, soothing, comforting.
Your eyes open. Princess Illaria is beside you, her face illuminated by her smile. It's the same smile that was there before the world left you behind, or you left it -- only broadening now with the elation of your return.
"Unbelievable..." Mistress Sun whispers.
Her luminous eyes open and blink as though having awoken from the depths of slumber. She stares at you in fascination.
"You went beyond the veil, past the barrier. And you returned! It should be impossible... Tell me, what do you remember?"
Your brow furrows as you try to grasp hold of the strange thoughts, of many minutes of memory that were driven into your brain in the space of a second.
"We were on the Zenith..."
There was something else -- you're sure of that. A deep whisper in your mind tells of things of unimaginable importance, of boundless meaning. But they're beyond your reach, drowned in the sea of thought.
Sun Xi sighs, and nods.
"Your mind is protecting itself, sealing such things away. But no matter."
She stands. You and Princess Illaria do the same.
"You've shown me a great deal," Mistress Sun says. "I know that your mind is powerful enough to anchor me, to steady me. But I fear that I must put you through one more test."
A wave of her hand sets her robot servitors to work. One of them lifts the weiqi board, and sets it down in a corner of the room. The other moves the table away to another corner.
Sun Xi steps into the middle of the cleared space. She bows, and you match the gesture out of instinct. It's not a bow of greeting or casual courtesy. It's a martial artist's bow...
"Powerful psychics run great risks. Not just for themselves, but for the world around them. If one of us becomes... unhinged... our personalities lost and our minds eclipsed by rage or anguish, we become a threat. A threat that must be ended, by any means which prove necessary. If I'm to travel with you, I must know that you're capable of stopping me."
"Mistress Sun-" the Princess begins.
The psychic raises her hand, silencing her.
"Forgive me, Illaria. But it must be done."
Her glowing eyes meet yours, and you feel her fingers clawing at your mind.
"Enough!" she gasps. "I yield!"
You release her wrist, remove the first two fingers of your other hand from the pressure point behind her ear, and shift your knee from her ribs -- freeing her body from your weight.
She accepts your hand, allows you to help her to her feet. You support her unsteady frame, suppress a smile as she rubs the spot behind her ear with a rueful look on her face.
"You're skilled. Your mind's defenses held me at bay, and your attacks disrupted my thoughts -- subdued my powers."
"I was trained to battle many types of foe."
"I'm ready to go with you now. I'll help you free the Emperor."
"Thank you, Mistress Sun," the Princess says. She moves to her side, presses a gentle kiss against her cheek.
The three of you pass through the door leading into the little lobby, and stand in front of the sealed portal beyond which lies the outside world.
The psychic smiles -- turning first to you, then to the Princess -- as the door hisses open.
You step out first, intending to summon your companions. But they're already standing in a neat row, ready to greet her. They're silent -- even the Niflung and Talia suppressing their usual exuberance, as you requested of them before you arrived here. If they're truly doing as bidden, they'll also be stilling their thoughts so as not to overwhelm Mistress Sun with the full effect of their natures.
The psychic walks through the doorway, from the golden glow of artificial light into the silvery sheen of the moon and stars.
Then she screams.
Comment:
In the Sub-Chapter Lineage it's higly likely, that the other character, you meet should be "you" (or your character) in the Game "Dawn of the Dragons" (also released by 5thPlanetGames.
I realised this while reading this part, because the characters and people mentioned reassemble characters, who appear in DotD.
For example the blue drake mentioned would be your partner "Solus" in DotD or the Woman with the pointed ears, (playing the harp) would be the Elf Medea. Or the Man with the two blades and grey hair reassembles Roland a retired adventurer.
Sun Xi also mentions Terracles, who is a Legend actually mentioned in DotD in the 6th Chapter.
All these similarities force me to think of this part of the story, as an (if not the sole) entwining of both these storys. It must have been the geniuses work at 5PG, but this is just an amazing piece of craftsmanship.
I promise to turn this in to a stand-alone-article, but at the moment I sadly have got no thime for doing that. I ask for letting this edit pass for as long as that.
Thanks, TaiLee (LotS) or Ryushia (DotD)