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The Last Human IV - 57 - Pearl and Crown
🕑 Added 2024-12-13 16:19:32 +0000 UTC< First | < Prev | Next >
Standing upon his spiral pillar, Poire lifted his hands. The movement was delicate, but the effect was tectonic. A vast confusion of mountainous shapes began to drip up from the ground. They tumbled and rose like leaves falling in reverse. Each one was covered in mazes of raised lines that formed precise, geometric patterns.
With a gentle twist of his fingers, the floating stones rolled and spread into a ring. Or a Crown, hung on an invisible point in the sky. The shadows of the Crown darkened the flat plane for miles beyond sight, leaving slender gaps of light where the stones never quite touched. So massive was the Crown, Poire could feel its gravitic tug as it rotated, the lowest stones nearly scraping the flat plane below. The highest, almost touching the sky. But it wasn’t the size that made him nervous. It was the power. In his left hand, Poire cupped Anu’s pearl. White Light bled through his closed fingers, illuminating the tendons, the veins, the bones. Energy hummed through the pearl, like it wanted to grow.
Anu had shown him how to reach. And yet, Poire was not Anu. For eons, the alien had honed its power across innumerable universes.
Poire had only one.
He squared his shoulders. Inhaled. Lift his hands and let them fall and shook his head. Poire shifted his feet in nervous anticipation. Pale toenails shone like dusty moons against his dark skin. He hefted his robes, and let them fall, clattering over the platform. He had made the robes from millions of mirror-reflective tiles. Each tile fit together perfectly, yet with every turn of his head the polygons changed shape, refusing to settle on a single form. Much, he thought, like the windows of the sky which still shone with echoes of Anu’s Light. The robes were his anchor, in the spaces between time. As long as he wore them, his body could never be lost, he thought. He hoped.
The tiles of his sleeves clicked as he lifted his arms, and flicked his fingers to the sky. Rumbling and grinding, the pillar spiraled higher, shoving him up to the center of the crown. The floating stones rolled, tracking him as he rose. No. Not him. The pearl. He cupped it in both hands, and pressed it to his chest, where the last drop of Anu melted through his robe and into his skin, and became a part of him.
Poire breathed in.
For an instant, he felt—he was—all the matter in this universe. Every hill, every valley, every drop of liquid, every grain of sand. Every atom, and every beyond.
He breathed out.
An unseen wave radiated from his body, carrying with it all the energy this universe had to offer. When it reached the Crown, the mazes of lines began to glow. Dim red patterns rippled. Glowed hotter, brighter. The stones began to shift. Some of them seemed to overlap, or to change shape, or to bend and flow as if extruded from thin air. Bolts of blue lightning crackled across the flat faces, leaping from stone to stone. Connecting them. Columns of clouds funneled down from the sky, as if pulled by the movement of the Crown, and the flat plane below began to crack, letting loose a rising tide of scree and gravel and boulders.
Even though he was guiding it, the movements of the Crown were painful to watch, so Poire kept his eyes on its center where a tiny, black speck hovered. Light bent toward the speck, warping the air and smearing the colors of the sky beyond. Winds blew, stirring his robes as the black speck’s pull gathered in strength. The reflective tiles clicked and clattered around his ankles and his waist. He slid the hood of his robe over his head and cinched it tight. He impulsed the pillar to wrap around his feet as the sucking winds picked up. A hair-thin thread of Light resolved into being, connecting him to the black speck.
Poire pinched the thread with four fingers. He hooked his nails into it while praying to himself, Please, let this be right. He pulled his hand apart, ripping the thread of Light open.
The sound was like thunder crackling in reverse. It hissed at the edges of the Crown, bathing the flat lands with sizzling energy and gathered strength until his teeth started to buzz and blood trickled from his nose. The sound peeled into a mighty clap, which thrashed against itself in the center of the Crown in a seismic feedback loop that pounded his ears, thrummed in his bones, and roared so loud his heart stopped beating.
The black speck split open, swallowing the wind, the debris, and the furious noise. Choking the world with sudden silence. In its place, a silver lake filled the Crown, stretching from the highest stone to the lowest. Perfectly still. Poire had expected it to be more colorful, or to move with the erratic, terrifying motion of all the Scars he had ever seen. But when he brushed the surface with his fingertips, it blurred and dented slightly, but did not ripple.
Poire took a step to the edge of his pillar. And bowed, so that his head dipped into the silver. Cold and dense—not quite air, not quite liquid—it wrapped around his head. And when he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness. His pupils struggled to adjust. Dim shapes coalesced in the void. A rust-colored star blazed dully before him, shot through with black, glittering veins. Wounds on its surface spewed red filaments, which curled back into the star’s dwindling gravity.
Poire looked around. Beyond this star, there were no others. No twinkling lights in the black. No swirls of galaxies, nor far-off novae. Nothing, but this last dying sun.
Good, Poire thought. Anu had said he would go back home. But not when. So, Poire had opened his Scar after the death of his home universe. If there was nothing left to destroy, what did he have to fear?
Ice formed over the hood of his robes, which had sealed itself over to protect his face. His feet were still connected to the pillar in the other universe, but his robes floated free in the low gravity, gently rising as the last star tugged at them. They caught the light from the dying sun, glittering a dark, dull red.
And nothing else happened. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Maybe, he thought, as his heart began to float, Maybe Anu was wrong. Maybe I’m not…
A flash of light, just out of his eyesight.
Another. A thread of Light stabbed out from the Scar, slender as spider silk. It forked at odd angles, crawling through space—then racing—then crawling again. More threads crawled after it, splitting around Poire. The hairs on his arms and neck lifted, and bolts of energy spidered over his robes. He had the sudden urge to scratch every inch of his skin.
And more threads. And more.
For a brief instant, it felt as if everything was frozen. Poire could see them, trillions of lines of color stabbing out from the Scar, drawing to the ends of this universe. He could feel himself stretching across the near-infinite expanse of nothing.
Then, the threads snapped, and reality shattered between them. As if the natural laws could no longer contain themselves, Poire felt a vibration thrumming through the universe. Away. And then back into him. The pressure was immense. It filled his skull, and made his eyes ache until he was screaming. His left eye burst first, and blood splattered the inside of his hood. Then his right. He could feel the very vessels under his skin breaking open, and he roared with blood in his throat, “Back! Take me back!” The pillar pulled him out as the fabric of the void tore itself open—
Back to the other universe. Poire fell to hands and knees, and his hood opened as he wretched strings of bloody saliva. His heart kept skipping beats as if his own arteries couldn’t fathom the change between worlds. Sucking down air, Poire grabbed two fistfuls of matter from the pillar, and pressed them into his eye sockets. Shaking like a leaf, he forced his mind to calm down just enough to reform his eyes. Even when they were healed, he kept his eyes covered, and lay on the pillar, letting out a wretched moan.
It wasn’t the pain. It was the knowledge that brought him low.
They had always called him the Destroyer. That was one thing. But to find out they were right all along…
He lay there, at the top of his pillar, for a day. Can’t give up. You’re the only one who can do this. His will wrestled with despair, and lost. They’re all going to die. They’re already dead. What’s the point?
You will destroy them all.
And when pride failed, anger reared up. Poire slammed a fist on the pillar, sending a crack spidering down its length. This was only the start, damn it. He had opened the veil between planes. Poire glanced up. Miles of silver still filled the Crown. A flat lake. Stable.
He might not be all-powerful, but he did have power. More than he ever thought possible. What would the Boy say if he saw me now? Even the Old Man might drop his jaw in wonder at the vast, unmoving ring of stones, and the Scar between.
Poire lifted his hands once more, and the Crown began to turn. The stones extruded themselves into new shapes, and revealing new lines, new geometry. Once more, he willed the pearl to connect with the Crown.
But this time, as Poire created a new Scar, he only stood on the precipice. And he spoke to the woman on the other side.
“Emorynn. Can you hear me?”
***
The Light came slowly, as if from a dream. A soft glow poured into her cold, cramped cabin until she could not pretend any longer.
“Emorynn. Can you hear me?”
This voice did not belong to any of her followers.
Emorynn lifted her head. Her skin crackled, and her calcified veins dug into her bones. Pain—that’s how she knew this wasn’t a dream. The disease encrusted her lungs, so that even her shallow breaths were agony. Black ridges flowed down the backs of her hands, and when she pushed herself up, her fingers felt as brittle as ice.
Emorynn brushed away the thinning strands of her hair, so she could face the Enemy. His robes shone like sunlight. His face, wrinkled and dark and ancient. And tired. That was new.
“What took you so long?” she said, her throat full of calcified shards and blood.
“You knew I was coming?” the strange, glittering being asked. The Destroyer actually sounded surprised.
“Of course I knew,” she spat. “You brought this upon us. Death. War. And this—” she held up her bad hand, a black appendage that glistened in the glow from his robes. Black fingers curled in a claw, chipped and cracking. “You are the Herald of the End. You are coming.”
“Yes,” the Destroyer said.
“You will destroy everything.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Emorynn asked. She had meant to say it with fierce anger, but the question sounded pitiful, even to her ears. Weak, and pleading. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“Emorynn,” the Destroyer said, as if he knew her like an old friend. “I’ve only ever tried to save you.”
“You’re lying,” she said. Utterly certain.
His face did not change.
“Aren’t you?” she asked.
She knew him too well. Hadn’t he been in all her dreams, since the day the Light had touched her? She knew the dark, burning seriousness of his gaze. She had come to hate the hard, grim line of his mouth.
But she had never seen him smile. A sad smile. A smile that made her question… everything.
“Do you want to know?” He asked.
“Do I…?” Her breath caught. “That is all I have ever wanted.”
Then, the Destroyer raised his hand. And offered it to her. A palm, pressed against an unseen window. The tips of his fingers shone with a brilliant light. Real—but not quite here. Not of this universe.
This is wrong, some part of her thought. I shouldn’t be talking to him.
But what does it matter, now? Emorynn thought. He has already won. I might as well understand Him before He destroys me.
Her clawed hand reached for his, and slipped through the open tear between her universe and his. His fingers wrapped around her fist.
And she knew.
In an instant, every memory, every emotion, every desperate thought of Poire’s became hers. The Boy. The Man. The powerless god. The last of his people.
“Oh,” she quaked. This time, the transference of knowledge did not break her mind. Only her heart. “Oh.”
“I am not your enemy, Emorynn.”
“But I warned them against you. I told them that you would bring our end.”
“You didn’t lie.”
“I made them hate you.”
“They are only afraid.”
“The machine—” she gasped, “We were so scared. We unleashed the Sovereign. We damned ourselves.”
“Destruction comes, with or without the Sovereign. The Light will pour forth, and devour all.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I need your help.”
***
Emorynn and her followers lived on a forgotten dam, far away from the Sovereign’s growing might. Only the most devout followed her into the distant stars, and of these, so few were left. Each one bore the marks of the disease, though none were as advanced as Emorynn.
They watched over her, day and night. Feeding her, bathing her, caring for her cracked skin and the wounds that would never heal. They listened to what she said, and recorded it, though they believed no one would ever hear it.
They remembered the day she stopped talking to them, and started talking to Him. An unknown being, an unseen other.
Some of her followers thought that finally, she had gone mad. The disease had reached her brain, they said, and they began to abandon her, leaving the dam only to fall into the Sovereign’s clutches. But a handful remained until the very end. And they wrote her words with faithful exactness.
“There is nothing,” A frustrated Emorynn croaked on her dying bed. And paused, as if listening to someone else.
“Nothing.” she said again. Tears streamed down from her one good eye. The other was entirely black. “I wish I could. Even if I had a thousand years, I can think of nothing to save them. You know how it ends.”
Pause.
“It was a dream. Only ever a dream.”
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Comments
P. S. Hoffman
With every step, the path grows more narrow. A reminder of what awaits for all should Poire fail. And a reminder of what happens when he reaches the end… It is the wrong path. It is the only path. It is the wrong path.
