As near as I can tell, this world has only a few rules. Every tile is different, and every tile spins and twists just like the rest. My own tile turns once every three months, and the people here seem devoted to keeping time with various clocks, hourglasses, sundials, and other strange devices. It’s pretty boring. I hope you all have landed on similar tiles.
(Letter 2, Paragraph 3, Lines 2-5)
The sun rose and fell on a floating castle and Theo argued with himself. Which was worse, falling from a great height, or fearing to fall from a great height? Theo worried he would never arrive on a definitive answer, as, in his mind, they both sucked.
The air zoomed from Theo’s lungs as he fell back onto the hot stones of the castle’s place of arms. Theo felt the aches and the pains of a hundred falls as he gathered himself on the floor. He waited for his heart to pound, for his pulse to race out of control, to panic. It never came. With a grin, he rose to face Litvak.
“What are you grinning about, Falling Boy?”
“Nothing, ma’am.” He said, trying to shutter his grin.
“Exactly, your form is still dreadful. We’re done for the day. If the bruising is too bad, please see the doctor. I feel I have invested far too much time and effort in you for it to be beaten out of you already.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, though he still held a trace of a smile. Her words were harsh, yes, but even he could tell that he was improving. He had been in the air for over fifteen minutes this time. He had even managed to glide.
“Professor, where can I find Elwyn? I haven’t seen him all day. He said he was going to help me with ‘not being the clumsiest boy in the sky’ which is pretty rich coming from him.”
Litvak turned back to face him, her face as unreadable as the stones of the castle. “He’s on assignment, Theo. He won’t return for several more days.”
“Assignment, what’s that mean?”
“He’s away.”
“Off the castle? Where would he go? Did another island float up without me seeing it?” Theo asked, smiling softly at the thought of the other boy flying from castle to castle. But then he saw Litvak’s face.
Her eyebrows had come down on her forehead like thunderheads, and suddenly Theo realized where his friend had flown off to.
“Into the storm? What in god’s name would cause him to do that?”
“Careful, Theo. You know not of what you speak.” Litvak said, but though her face was still, and her voice calm, her feet had floated off the floor, and little swirls of wind whipped about in her shadow.
“Why can’t I know? Is it dangerous or something?”
“Far more than you realize.”
Theo’s heart shuddered into overdrive, and he tasted acid on his tongue. He smelt the scent of lilies on the air, the same floors that had decorated Huck’s casket.
“He is? Where is he? Did I do something? What can I do to help.”
“Attend to your lessons, boy. That is all you can do.”
“Wait, professor. I’ve been here for weeks. I’m breaking myself to pieces trying to learn to fly, and you’ve been a wonderful teacher, but maybe if I knew what was going on I could help. This place, it doesn’t make sense.
“Why is the castle upside down? It clearly wasn’t meant to be that way. Elwyn disappears and never tells me why. People all over the castle have worse scars on them than I’ve ever seen. I see flashes at night below the castle. You’re working on something! And I bet it's something important, something worth doing.
Litvak shot forward, looming over him like a towering storm cloud. “Just because I’ve agreed to train you doesn’t me I trust you, Theo Lambert. You appear above my castle without explanation and expect us to throw you all of our secrets? No.
“You have to earn that sort of trust.”
She settled back on the ground, now much shorter than him. She turned away from him and walked into the central tower, the tower that Theo was forbidden to enter, the tower that was guarded at all times by armed men and women.
“I just want to help my friend. Please.”
“You are not yet ready, Theo. We are not yet ready.” She disappeared into the darkness.
Hot disappointment rose in his chest. He looked at the trap door beneath his feet. He wished someone would come along and drop him into the sky, far away from here.
Theo let his feet take him where they would. He found himself walking from the place of arms and out into the castle grounds. New bridges of stone connected the towers to each other, joining the strange upside-down worlds of the castle’s inside,
He walked across the bridge, skimming his hands across the rough stones. From this spot he could look down and see the east and west towers stabbing down into the blue void below. The tiles on their roofs had gradually fallen away, the nails having never been intended to hold against gravity’s pull.
He forced himself to walk farther out he had ever been, passed the safe confines and enclosures of the castle proper. At last he found himself at the curtain wall, where it clung to the great roof of rock above Theo’s head, some hundred yards in front of him. In between castle’s core and this far off wall was the yawning mouth of open sky, and a span of rock no wider than two feet.
His heart started to pound as he saw the narrow bridge, which seemed delicate as a ribbon in the wind. A single slip from that would send him tumbling into the open sky, back into the maws of the storm.
The wind roared so loud that Theo could not hear himself counting in his head, could not hear the rhythm of his racing heart. But he heard voices on the gusts.
“Coward.”
“Friendless.”
“Useless.” The wind whispered, and each voice sounded like his own.
That familiar helpless feeling roared through his chest, and he longed so desperately to be free of it that before he knew it he had stepped onto that bridge above infinity.
The wind rattled his sides and shook his bones, and Theo took three steps before he could stop himself. He kept his eyes locked on his feet and the ribbon of stone they walked upon. He tried to ignore the blue to either side.
Litvak’s instructions filled his head, and he moved his arms and angled his chest, and now the wind rushed along him instead of battering him.
He rode the wind, until his feet seemed to just graze the rock beneath, and now he seemed to dance in between the lashings of solid wind.
Is this what Elwyn felt when he flew? Why would you ever touch the ground again?
And even though the wind pulled at his cheeks and stabbed at his eyes, Theo grinned, until he looked up and found solid rock ahead of him. He had reached the safety of the curtain wall.
“Woohoo!” He roared. “Take that, you stupid storm.”
He was still giggling as he began to explore the gateway carved in the solid stone of the curtain wall. Inside, the wall was as hollow as a drum.
Dust and grime coated the floor, and it was clear no one had been here in some time. Theo passed through a broken door and into what was once a barracks. Here a massive hole broke the solid wall of stone. Beds, tables, and chairs cluttered the walls, having been blown back by the terrible wind.
And he was not alone.
A strange thing sat on the edge of the broken room. It had coarse gray skin with large cracks that splintered its hulking body as if it were made of dry broken earth. High black wings flowed from its shoulders and were folded underneath its arms. Its mouth, filled with rows and rows of dull yellow teeth, sucked the air. It had eyes of swirling silver, like smoke trapped beneath glass. It studied him, its eyes roaming across his body and face with a dull brutal intelligence.
The thing rose off its haunches and lumbered towards Theo, its stocky legs flexing beneath its weight, its talons scraping the floor.
Theo stumbled away. His back hit hard stone, and he realized that he had retreated in the wrong direction, the door was several feet to his left.
The shambling thing bore down upon him, and Theo saw that its arms ended in cruel claws the color of stone. Its eyes locked with Theo’s as its clawed hand reached out and shut the door.
“Theo.” Its voice was so unlike its appearance. It was smooth and kind, the voice of a friend.
Theo backed further away, his flailing arms searching for something, anything to defend himself with.
“Theo.” It called in its siren voice. It lumbered toward him, claws outstretched, the scent of ozone leaking from its mouth.
Theo’s searching hands found a beam of wood from the broken bed, and with a whirl Theo brought it over the creature's head, once, twice, and then a third time.
The beam cracked in his hand, sending splinters shooting into Theo’s palm.
The creature’s head spun around, but as Theo watched it turned back to him, its silvery eyes flashing with light. Its claws slashed at Theo.
He lurched back just in time but fell onto the broken wood beneath him. The creature lunged forward, the wood cracking beneath its feet as Theo crawled away.
Theo threw planks and boards and sheets at the creature, but its claws slashed them away as its wide mouth sucked and groaned that same word over and over “Theo. Theo.”
It wrapped one of its claws onto his leg, its talons ripping into his skin. Theo cried out, just as his hands found the handle of something made of heavy steel.
Theo lunged forward with the knife of a long dead soldier and plunged it into the creature’s stomach even as its right claw lanced at his legs. Over and over, he tore into the creature’s middle, and it gave a howl of fury and threw him to the side.
Theo thudded to the hard stone, stunned. He climbed to his feet and tried to stumble to the door.
His leg gave out, hot fire pulsing through it.
The creature stood over him, leering at his pain. Its eyes flashed like crooked lightning and its mouth loomed wide as it leaned over him.
Something flashed at the edge of Theo’s eye, and he blinked.
A spear sprouted from the creature’s mouth. It reared back, choking and sputtering. A battered and bloodied Elwyn stood in the blasted opening of the wall. His jacket was torn, his face doused in blood. Theo felt his heart start again as he saw him standing there.
“Get away from him.” Elwyn snarled.
The creature’s claws tried to wrap about the spear but couldn’t get a grip. It beat its wings, rising off the floor.
It lunged for Theo, but Elwyn hurtled from the ground and into the air, both arms wrapping about the spear and thrusting it into the creature’s mouth, pushing it back and away.
He did not fall but remained floating in the air. The wind whipped dust streams around his flying form as he pushed the spear with all his might.
The silver tip of metal pierced through the back of the creature's neck, yet still it struggled and flailed. Its talons locked its feet to the floor, and its muscles began to strain.
The creature forced its head up the length of the spear, its horrible eyes locked on Elwyn’s as it dragged its way up even as it died. Its gnashing teeth came closer and closer to the boy’s hands.
Elwyn hung in the air, every muscle straining. His face twitching with dried blood as he snarled at the monster. Theo’s ears popped as the pressure in the room changed. Every molecule of air seemed to gather about Elwyn’s body and with a boom Elwyn rocketed forward, throwing the creature from its feet. The flyer pinned the creature to the wall.
It slashed its talons one final time, and then life fled from its body. It hung from the haft of the spear, its lifeless body swinging inches from the ground.
Elwyn collapsed to the floor.
Theo gaped. He had just seen a devil fight an angel.
Elwyn groaned with pain. Theo dragged himself to his feet and swallowed down the sob of agony when he put weight on his leg. He limped over to Elwyn and turned the other boy over. The damage was even worse upon closer inspection. A large chunk of Elwyn’s side had been carved away by what appeared to be a cruel and jagged butcher’s blade. Elwyn’s fingers clutched at Theo, his eyes rolling.
“Ambush. More than we expected,” Elwyn gasped. “Please! Please, get to the Professor, tell her she needs to send every winger she can. They’re tearing the expedition apart!”
Elwyn shook once more and became still. For one terrible second Theo thought the boy had died, until he saw his chest rise and fall.
Theo considered his options.
He could run, hobbling back across the ribbon, leaving Elwyn as a distraction for the other monsters. Or he could throw a boy twenty pounds heavier than him over his shoulder and carry him over a bottomless abyss a hundred yards wide while being pursued by terrifying monsters that knew Theo by name.
He stared at Elwyn's slack face still caked with blood and grime. He turned and looked at the corpse of the monster that had almost torn the life from his body.
Theo made his choice. He crouched down, gripping Elwyn by his arms and hauling him onto his back. As the other boy’s weight settled on him a haze of red pain cloaked Theo’s sight. Every movement seemed to send hot knives into his wound.
He stepped forward and yowled with pain as he put weight on his injured leg. Elwyn moaned as a shudder of agony shook Theo’s spine.
But fear drove Theo forward. Fear of that monster that whispered his name like a lover’s. Fear of the creatures that could do something like this to Elwyn.
He jumped at every shadow as he stumbled forward. His ears searched for the sound of his whispered name or the scratch of a talon as he hauled himself step by step.
He dragged them both across the ribbon, leaving a trail of blood across the stone. A crowd formed as they watched the infamous Falling Boy haul Elwyn across, but the bridge was too narrow for anyone to come help him.
Theo’s chest rose and fell like a blast furnace. The wind tore at his face and ripped sobs from his lungs, but he wouldn’t let Elwyn slid away.
Yet his body was failing him. His blood coated his leg and Elwyn’s soaked into his back. The wind’s pull had become an unstoppable force, and with every step it felt like a boulder was thrown on Theo’s shoulders.
The storm called for him, begging him to fall into the cool of its embrace. Pain would cease. Anxiety would end. Theo would be over.
Or he could keep trying to be a hero, Theo thought. He couldn’t help but laugh a little through the pain. Him a hero? Impossible.
Impossible.
He dragged himself forward another step. And then another. The wind pushed him along, denied for now, but not forever.
It would claim him in time.
When he reached the other side, they pulled him into their midst. But they could not pull Elwyn from his grasp until he whispered the boy's message into Litvak’s ear. Only then did he allow himself to collapse.
When he came to, he was lying under a blanket looking at the stars. Someone had placed a pillow under his head. His skin felt like it had been scraped with an iron rake. His leg felt much bulkier than before, and when Theo raised the blanket, he saw that it was covered in bandages where the creature had slashed him.
It had known his name. A demon had wanted to drag him into the sky. Theo felt his stomach swirl with nausea and threw off the blanket. He climbed to a sitting position and saw that Professor Litvak was kneeling beside him, her eyes closed, and her hands clasped in front of her in silent prayer.
Gone was her customary flight jacket and high boots. Her shoulders were slouched as if crushed beneath an immense weight, and for a moment Theo forgot his own pain and felt sorry for her. Then she opened her eyes, and the steel slid back into her expression and posture.
“What were you doing in the curtain wall, Theo?”
“I wanted to see if I could cross the bridge. I did.”
“What did you find?”
“A monster. Professor, what was that thing?”
“What happened to Elwyn, Theo?”
“He was like that when he found me. I was fighting that- that thing. It was about to kill me, and then Elwyn showed up already covered in blood. He fought it, killed it, and then collapsed.” Theo closed his eyes, traveling back to that scene, “he said something about an expedition, that I had to tell you something. He said that the expedition was in danger, that those things were in the storm. Professor, you have to send help!”
“I sent help three hours ago, Theo, when you told me the first time. You’ve been falling in and out of consciousness ever since.” She said, and to Theo’s great shock she put her hand on his shoulder. “You did well, boy.”
“Where’s Elwyn? Is he okay?”
“He’s safe, he’s in the infirmary. You saved his life. I sent the rest of the wingers down to find the expedition. It will be some hours yet before they return.” She looked down, as if trying to peer through the stone and into the dark clouds below.
“Professor, what was that thing?” Theo asked once more.
“That was a stormcrow. And it’s time you learned what we do here.” She rose. “Come with me.”
Theo clambered to his feet and put delicate weight on his injured leg. He followed the Professor as she led him deeper into the castle. Theo saw crowds of people waiting at windows and near ledges. The crowds held lanterns made of paper and wood with small candles inside. They set them loose into the wind, and the lanterns danced and whirled as they spun down into the storm. Theo rushed to a ledge and leaned over and saw hundreds of the frail lanterns spiraling into the clouds and lightning far, far below.
“What are they doing?”
“Calling the expedition home.” The Professor said, as she led him past more and more of the candlelit crowds. No one seemed to be asleep tonight. The immense bulk of the great keep hung beneath them like an enormous bat. Two guards stood by its wide mouth; pikes firmly planted in the stone. The professor nodded at them as they passed, and Theo felt their eyes slide over him, assessing him, judging him. He hurried up to stay with the professor.
The tower was carved into the very heart of the rock the castle clung to. The air was clammy and ancient, and Theo felt as if the rock’s immense bulk had settled on his shoulders. The professor led him to a flight of stairs that spiraled up into the rock. Grabbing a torch from a wall bracket, the professor led him up into the castle’s depths.
At the very height of the staircase, when Theo was convinced, he could walk no more, Litvak led him down a narrow hall carved into the rock.
They walked into the heart of the mountain until they reached a large room with a high ceiling. Rows and rows of seats lined the walls, each facing a point in the center of the room where a strange lantern rested upon a stone table. Litvak gestured to Theo to take one of the seats, and he collapsed into it.
Litvak produced a lighter from her pocket and lit the lantern. The lantern’s light shone into a series of mirrors built into the device, which bounced it around and through a transparent screen, and an image flickered to life on the far wall.
It was a monochromatic sight, pale whites on dark blacks mixed with shades of gray. It was an image of the castle he had spent the last few weeks in, but it was decades younger. Its turrets and walls were the same, except they pointed up instead of hanging down into the sky. A castle planted firmly in the earth long before it had to cling to rocks in the sky.
“What you are about to see is heretical, but true. This knowledge has led to shattered families, hundreds dead, and the destruction of everything we once held to be sacred. There’s no going back from here, Theo. Are you sure you want to know?” Litvak asked, her face ashen white and backlit by the ghostly projection behind her. She looked, for the first time since Theo had known her, haunted. He nodded.
“The castle you now sit in is almost two thousand years old, and it once had a twin.” Litvak began to pace as she spoke. “In those millennia we two schools had always been places of learning, twin lights drawing in scholars and students from across Poa. Our school was called Hypnos University and our sister school was the College of Kronos.” The professor changed the slide, and a new image slid onto the wall. A castle, but different in style than the one that Theo now sat in. This one was far taller and was supported by flying buttresses and other supports as its towers reached for the sky, as graceful as birds in flight.
“This tile was a place of great peace where we strove to understand the universe. Two thousand years of learning, and then the world fell to pieces.” The image changed once again. Theo saw an immense sky with the setting sun casting two castles into shadow, yet some deeper darkness was falling from the corner of the picture. The slide changed again, and then again, and now the image fell into the center of the frame, tearing a screaming hole of darkness through the setting sun and the night sky. The slides clicked through, and Theo watched as the center of this darkness plummeted to earth in between the castles, cracking the very foundations of the ground and sending shockwaves across the land.
The next few images were hurried and unfocused, as if the picture taker, knowing death was only seconds away, took what images could be taken. One malformed image showed darkness filling the new made cracks in the earth. Another captured great columns of rock thrown into the sky like toys. A final image showed Kronos castle cracking in two.
“The total deaths from the cataclysm are still unknown. Records taken from the other side of the world say that it seemed like the very planet was screaming in agony. Imagine what it must have been like here.
“The universities died that day, but our work was just beginning. The other tiles declared that the cataclysm was the result of an asteroid strike, of a celestial accident. And they abandoned us to the immense crater that was all that was left of the twin jewels of learning. And that was the end of it, or so it appeared.” The slide changed. Hypnos castle, battered but unbroken, rising into the air, clinging to the underside of a mountain.
“We learned that the rules had changed. Gravity had lost its potency and our castle took flight with the survivors clinging to her like frightened children. And we ourselves had changed.” The slide moved, and now it showed a man and woman floating off the floor, looks of utter astonishment on their faces. “Like our castle, some of us could fly. But even with our new gifts and in the midst of our great tragedy we were still scholars, and so we asked ourselves the question. Why? Why were the fundamental rules of the universe now broken? And why only here? We sent our new gifted into the sky and into the ground to discover the answer. What we discovered shattered our very understanding of truth.” The last slide cycled through, and now a square frame of white light hung on the wall, like a window to a far-off land. Litvak turned, and her eyes burned into Theo as she spoke.
“The god Vovatum, creator of Poa, died seventy years ago, and his corpse fell into our castles and shattered the land.” The sentence hung in the air like a tattered flag.
“God. All-knowing and all-seeing and all that, died?”
“Yes.” And the word was a slamming of a tomb.
“How do you know?”
“Because we had seen his body plummet to earth. Because the very laws of his creation began to break down just after his death. Castles do not fly, Theo, and neither do people. It is simply a law of the universe, or at least it was.”
Litvak reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled forth a silver chain. The chain was dull and worn with the long passage of metal against the skin. At the end of the chain was a gold circle with small triangles of bronze radiating from it. The circle had two lines in its face forming a right angle. It looked like the sun with a clock superimposed on it.
“My great grandmother once wore this chain, and at the end of every day she gave thanks to Vovatum that she lived in his world and was one of his people. She passed it on to her daughter, and to her daughter, and then to me. It is the only thing I still have of my family, an heirloom of devotion. And now it is meaningless, because our god is dead.” Litvak, and with a sigh she tucked the chain back under her clothes.
Theo looked at the Professor, an old and lonely woman in her night coat. She had tears in her eyes as she looked at Theo, but there was far more fierceness than sadness in her gaze. She believed what she said.
But do I? Theo thought.
“You still have not explained, what was that creature that tried to kill me? How did it know my name?” Theo asked, Litvak’s hand fell away from her symbol.
“It knows all our names Theo. It knows everyone’s name. I told you that god died, but I didn’t say what happened to his body. Immediately after the Cataclysm a storm formed in the hole his body had broken in the world. It is the largest storm in existence, covering hundreds of miles in every direction. It is unstoppable, all consuming, and forever. We call it the Godstrom.
“Those creatures live in it and are a part of it.” The professor put a new slide into the magic lantern and Theo tried not to vomit as an image of a dissection appeared on screen.
It was the creature from before, or one very similar to it. Its gray and cracked skin had been pulled back and Theo could see its rippling musculature beneath. One broken wing was pinned to the tale with spikes, delicate veins spread out through its thin wing tissue. Its blood was sickly green, and its eyes seemed to see Theo on the other side of the room.
“Stormkrow, a brand-new species. They are well suited to dwelling inside an eternal storm. Lightning has no effect on them, their eardrums can withstand the repeated effects of intense thunder, they can navigate and fly through gale force winds, and they know the name of every single person on the planet, because they are eating Vovatum’s corpse.”
“What?”
“It is difficult to even stomach. But yes, that is what we think is happening. They’re carrion birds. Krows pecking at a divine cadaver. We believe some of his omniscience is passed with each consumption. Thankfully no such transference has occurred with his omnipotence. They can be killed, with great difficulty, though there are thousands of them.”
“Do they have any consciousness?”
“No. They are mindless as maggots, as far as we can tell. They have not learned the names; they are merely repeating that which they have absorbed. Our scouts have observed them reciting the names of flowers and types of fauna, the names of cities, and on and on. They contain all the god’s thoughts, but none of their own. Perhaps in time, with continued consumption, they will develop a kind of consciousness. But for now, they are less than beasts. They attack everything on sight, even each other. It is the one thing that has allowed so many expeditions to the storm to survive.”
“But why send expeditions at all? There are monsters in the sky below you. Why not just fly away?” Theo asked before he could stop himself.
“I would think the answer was obvious, Theo. We need to recover god’s body before the stormkrows devour it. Vovatum is dead, but we won’t let him rot. Some hope we might even find a miracle down in that storm, and he’ll come back to us.” Litvak looked at Theo, and the tears now freely fell down her face. “It’s a test of the faithful you see.”
Litvak led Theo back through the narrow and darkened passages of the deep castle. She pointed to certain passages as they clambered back down the stairs. She explained that the libraries lay further in. The professor told him that he now had access to the library, that he had passed his trial by fire so to speak. Yet Theo was only half listening. Inside his head he tried to count his breaths.
He nearly had a psychotic break when he thought there was just a floating castle and flying people, and now they were telling him that there were real demons in the world and that they were eating a god’s corpse!
His body moved mechanically as he walked, his movements jerky and imprecise. Litvak had to catch him once or twice as they went down the stairs.
He needed to learn to fly as fast as he could, get the hell off this rock and find his friends, Theo thought. This place was insane, and he needed to find them before the next shoe dropped.
They left the inner keep. The sun had begun to rise, and everyone was running to the place of arms. Theo and the professor joined the throng and began to push through it. Excitement rose in his chest, replacing the fear. The expedition must have returned.
“Everybody move!” Litvak roared, her voice slicing through the din. The crowds parted, and Theo and Litvak charged through the gap. Men and women were climbing through the launch bay. They had on flight gear just like Elwyn’s. Equipment fell from them as they clambered onto the stones. They carried spears, and some of them had long sabers dangling from their belts, blood flecked. Their clothes were slashed and torn in many places, and some of their members were splashed with ichor both red and green. Yet they grinned at the growing crowd, and they seemed to bring the dawn with them as the assembled people cheered and roared.
Litvak stepped up to them, and the members of the expedition wiped the smiles from their faces as they jumped to attention. As one they brought their flat right hands to their mouths, parallel to their lips. The professor returned the gesture with great solemness, and then she too broke into a grin. The crowd roared again, and some of their number rushed forward to drag the flyers into deep embraces, heedless of the gore that covered them. One of the expedition’s members, still wearing her flight helmet and mask, moved off into the corner, far from the crowd. Litvak followed with Theo in her wake.
She had dark hair shaved close to her scalp and dark brown eyes. Her face was a mask of scratches and scars. The word “Striker” was sewn into her lapel. Her and the professor clasped arms.
“How did you fare, Miriam?” Litvak asked.
“Poorly. We were attacked before we went 1500 fathoms down.”
“That high?”
“Yes. In greater numbers than I’ve seen in a few years.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Four. We lost Dolfo in that first attack. And then Dutch and Ginger another thousand fathoms down.” Miriam said, her voice cool and casual as she spoke about the deaths of the men and women under her command.
“You kept going?”
“Had to. I wasn’t going to lose three of my best just to go sightseeing. Besides, Elwyn was baying for blood after Dutch died. He would have killed me himself if we stopped. Poor bastard. We lost him too.” As she spoke, she unclipped a water bottle from her belt and upended in on her head.
“Elwyn’s alive, Miriam. He made it back to the castle five hours ago. A stormkrow followed him that nearly killed our young friend here.” And she gestured at Theo, who smiled sheepishly at the other flyer. “Elwyn managed to kill it though.”
Miriam’s eyes shifted to Theo, and he tried to stand up to her cool appraisal. She did not look very impressed. “Yeah. Elwyn mentioned him. Falling Boy, right?”
“Yeah, Falling Boy.” Theo said, a little happy that Elwyn had spoken about him.
“Striker,” Litvak said, suddenly very serious, “what did you find down there? Was our intelligence good?”
“We found something. I’ll let the eggheads work out what the thing is. Looks like some sort of jellyfish to me. We brought it along.” She gestured back at the mass of equipment by the entrance to the place of arms. “Three people died bringing that thing back, Professor. Make it worth it.”
“I will.” Litvak went to the largest piece of equipment, an egg-shaped package wrapped in studded leather as large as an oven. The professor fiddled with the mess of locks around the package’s middle. The hatch clicked, and the egg hatched open on hidden hinges. The inside was hollow, though the shell was thick with brass and wires and other mechanisms that Theo did not understand.
With trembling hands Litvak brought forth the thing that three people had died to bring back. She laid it on the stone with care and moved back to admire it. It had four thin rubber tentacles attached to its body. The carapace was oblong and a dull gray with the slightest of shines. It had a slight mouth from which a bright yellow tongue poked out.
Its tentacles swung down from its body, ending in strange mandibles. Each one had three prongs, like the clawed foot of a chicken. More strange designs and protuberances covered these mandibles, as if the creature were afflicted with sores.
Without thinking Theo found himself reaching out for the strange mandible of the device from the clouds.
He ignored the shocked gasp of Litvak as his hands wrapped around the controller, just as it had so many times before. Without thought he fingers flew across the buttons, pressing them in patterns.
“Theo, what are you doing? Get away from it right now!” Litvak exploded; her voice appalled at this desecration of an artifact from the storm.
Theo complied, but as he placed the mandible back down the device exploded with brightness. A cone of light shot out of the device’s top and etched a floating image in the air.
The crowd gasped, and the expedition members reached for their weapons. They leveled rifles at the patch of light floating in the air, the click of cocking guns piercing through the screams.
And then the light filled with color, and the colors spun into shapes. Theo’s eyes bulged as the light filled with images of impossible places.
A castle appeared in the light, although this castle was tethered to the ground unlike their own.
The scene changed. Warriors battling in a floating temple.
Another change, monsters dueling in a vast arena.
Still more images appeared until they became incomprehensible, too awash with movement or light.
Theo stumbled away from the device even as Litvak stood stock still, gazing with open wonder at the flickering scenes. But Theo’s own blood was pumping like rocket fuel as he endured the bombardment of the images.
The device’s show stuttered to a stop, showing one final image carved into the air. This one image, unlike the others, stayed locked in place. It depicted a sphere circled by two smaller objects. These spheres swung in orbit, and Theo at once realized he was looking at a planet from space, this planet. Poa and its two moons.
The scene zoomed in and the assembled university beheld a cross section of a narrow part of that sphere. Fanciful images of castles appeared on the surface of the sphere. A dark mass loomed at the top of the image and slammed into the space between these castles, and the bottom of the image tumbled away. One castle fell with it, the other rose. A mass of swirling darkness climbed from the bottom of the image, reaching for the castle that flew. Within this darkness, points of light began to appear. The light shone bright and true in the swirling void. Slowly, beams of light began to connect these shining motes until a path reached from the heart of the darkness to the castle that floated above it.
The image hung in the air and did not move. The denizens of the castle, the last scholars of the Final University, stood in stupefied shock. And then Litvak’s voice ripped through the air.
“Record that image now!”
At once the crowd lurched into motion. Scholars still in their dressing gowns produced paper and pen and began sketching the device’s image. The returned expedition produced cameras to record and to capture.
The scholars worked in frenzied silence for several minutes, doing all they could even as the image hung unmoving in the air. And then the gasps and curses started ripping through the crowd. Ink curdled and faded away on the page. Film and photos corrupted as soon as they were exposed to air. Only the device’s image stayed true, as if jealous of the attempts at replicating it.
Litvak shouted over the rising clamor, commanding the scholars to memorize the image as best they could, to burn it into their brains more deeply than their own names. Yet as she spoke the device’s light began to flicker and fade. Soon the image vanished and the device once more resembled nothing less than a strange rubber squid.
Litvak rounded on Theo, “Bring it back.”
Theo stumbled away from her to the edge of the place of arms. He clutched the stone column there, grasping it like a drowning man. His chest heaved as he looked into the abyss, and for one terrifying second he thought of flinging himself into the depths. Litvak rushed to his side.
“Make it show that again, Theo.” Litvak ordered.
Theo did not respond.
“Theo, what is that thing? Tell me how you set it alight.” Her hand clutched his shoulder, her nails digging into him just as the talons of the krow had. “That thing it showed, it was a map, wasn't it? It was a map that leads right to the heart of the storm.”
“It’s not a map. It’s an N64. A video game console.” He said, his voice toneless and dead.
“What’s that?”
Theo did not answer her. He looked down into the endless storm below. Monsters lived in those clouds that knew him by name. One of them had tried to kill him. A god’s body was beneath that storm, rotting away and eaten by carrion beasts.
“Theo, what is that?” The Professor demanded.
They had found an N64 in that storm. Theo hadn’t seen one since he was a kid. He remembered summer nights spent on the couch playing games for hours and hours on such a device. He remembered all the happiness he had found in its bright lights. What was it doing above god’s corpse?
“Theo, what are you talking about? What is that thing?” The Professor said, her voice rising now.
Theo looked into the heart of the storm; his mind dominated by a single thought. Was one of his friends trapped down there?