Chapter 26

“It is no coincidence that spellforms are comprised of interlinking fragments of arches, that the language of the aions is one of circularity and ceaseless repetition that we must introduce false ends into so that their pronunciation can be achieved or that mana can be bound in a simple circle. The circle and its derivatives are magic, in its most fundamental form. An energy that never depletes, never departs and never changes. It is eternal, flowing back into itself even as we use it. An end that is also a beginning. A beginning that is also an end.”

—Sacred Geometry, Archmage Karth Veilbohr

The chair restraints had released sometime between the lurching impact of landing and the end of that explanation, but Sylvas was still at a complete loss as to where they were. Nobody had said anything about space stations in orbit around Strife. All this time, he had through that they were completely isolated down on the surface of the planet, a distress call and a jump-gate away from any sort of help, but the whole time the Ardent had people hanging in orbit above them.

The pilot was ushering them out with all haste, pushing the recruits who were sluggish down the ramp and calling after them. “Main deck is up ahead; everything branches out from there. Head left for administration, right for sleeping quarters, down for boring technical crap, up for fun, if you make it to TiChi’s bar, let them know I sent you and they’ll give you the first drink on the house. If you make it to TiChi herself, gird your loins, that woman is a maniac. If she winks at you, run. If she asks for me, tell her I died.”

It all seemed like well-rehearsed sales patter, but he was the closest thing that they had to a guide to the station beyond the shuttle, so Sylvas paused as the man tried to shove him out. “We’re meant to meet up with representatives of the Veilbohr Institute.”

He got a clap on the shoulder and shove for his trouble. “Sounds boring, try the admin wing.”

“Thanks.” Sylvas forced himself to say as he was shoved out.

The light was markedly dimmer than he would have expected, but there was no shortage of light-sensitive species among the Empyrean, so he supposed it made a degree of sense to keep things darker and let those that needed the light conjure some themselves. He didn’t bother, he had his other senses to guide him, and Kaya, when her eyes creaked open, would be able to see just fine. She had managed to hoist herself to her feet on landing but was swaying pretty distinctly as she came down the ramp until she caught a hold on Sylvas again. That gave Gharia ample distraction to slink past without him having a chance to talk to her. The docking bay that they’d arrived in seemed scarcely big enough to house the shuttle, let alone the heaps of storage boxes piled up all around it. The shuttle and the boxes matched, with that same white sheen of Ardent gear, but everything else looked distinctly older, not rusted as such, but certainly worse for wear. Exhausts from the various ships that had come and gone had stained most surfaces in an oily slick of colors, worn away on the sharp edges where things had collided or been worn down. Metal glinted from the edges and corners of the grating flooring they were crossing. As for the walls of the place, what little that was visible behind exposed cables and dangling pipes, there was a uniformity to the paneling that felt familiar, but that Sylvas couldn’t quite place. Like he’d walked by the architect’s work before but never given in much note.

Out of the bay, along a corridor that didn’t look much better, and then the station opened out. The main deck, as it had been introduced was a vast circular space at what Sylvas presumed was the center of the station. Its construction was cleaner, the overlaying wiring and spells less intrusive, and with a start he came to realize that what they were looking at wasn’t of Ardent construction, or some other station brought in by the Empyrean for them to use. “It’s from Strife.”

The panels, arching up to points like church windows, interlocking with inverted ones descending from the ceiling, were a perfect match to the shapes that the temple complex had been constructed from down on Strife. They matched the inset spaces in the cliff complex, where lights were now installed and candles used to be burned. Just like down on the surface, the Ardent had come along and laid claim to the abandoned remains of the civilization that had been here before like some sort of macabre hermit crab, occupying the dead shell of what had come before. No wonder the Veilbohr Institute were already here, this whole place was a relic of the world that had been. 

A follow up to the first revelation hit Sylvas then. The people of strife who had summoned Eidolons and brought about their own downfall had not been in the same phase of technology as his people back on Croesia, they must have been hundreds of years ahead, capable of flight into space, and setting their gaze further afield than their own planet if they’d built something like this place. It had been easy to imagine, another primitive species like his, being taken advantage of, manipulated and tricked by the seeded information, but the idea that a planet could come so far as to reach the stars on their own, only to fall at the last hurdle to joining intergalactic civilization seemed even more cruel, somehow.

At the same time, it eased his own guilt, just a little. If even these people, capable of space flight and all the rest, had been taken in by whoever was seeding the galaxy with misinformation about the Eidolons, then it was no surprise that his own world had fallen to it.

Sylvas had expected there to be elevators or staircases leading between the floors of the station, but instead there were ladders, running up and down through the floor below and the ceiling above, spaced like the spokes of a wheel around the exterior of this central chamber. The very center of the room seemed to be mostly comprised of various desks, where administrative staff were answering the myriad questions of those who had newly arrived with bored expressions. There were more recruits here than Sylvas could grasp to begin with, then he realized that not all of them had come from their campus. There were dozens of faces he didn’t recognize in the crowd, all in the same uniform as him, but a quick glance at their respective uniforms soon gave away that while the naval track officers at the Blackhall wore white jackets with black, these others wore plain white, and grey trim respectively. Just as there was a space station hovering over Strife without him having any knowledge of it, there were other campuses down on the surface that he hadn’t had the first clue about. And, as it turned out, they were all taking their shore leave together.

The noise in the station was overwhelming, every booming word echoing back and forth in the closed quarters, and all the rabble of the recruits finally allowed to relax and talk freely was deafening. Maybe if Sylvas had lived a less solitary life before he had joined the Ardent, things might have been different, but as it was, he was more uncomfortable here amongst the people who would someday fight alongside him than he would have been if faced with a battle-line of charging eidolons. He did not stop to ask at the central desk about the Veilbohr Institute, or anything else, heading off with all haste towards the administrative section that the pilot had suggested. An arm was hooked through Kaya’s dragging her along, and when she stumbled, he was surprised to see Bael on her other arm, keeping them all upright. He gave an appreciative nod, but neither man slowed.

In the next corridor there was a brief window in which Sylvas felt like he could breathe. Bael was watching him with that strange, analytical expression that he got sometimes, as though he were introducing new variables into some model of Sylvas that he was building in his head. Well, much like Vaelith, this elf didn’t have the full measure of Sylvas either. Still, some sort of distraction from his own discomfort was in order. “What happened with Gharia last night?”

“I wasn’t privy to the private parts of your conversation of course…” Bael hedged his bets carefully.

“Of course.”

“But from what I was able to piece together it seems that you may have missed the window of opportunity to breed with her.” He said it as delicately as he could, but it still wasn’t gentle enough.

Sylvas choked. “What? Why would she think that I wanted to…”

And so another of the elf’s impromptu etiquette lessons began. “It is customary among the Najash to indulge in a somewhat adversarial courtship. Dealing the one that you are interested in a non-lethal injury is the initiating incident, followed by a not insignificant amount of bickering in the following timeframe until the egg-laying season is coming up, at which point…”

“Stop.” Sylvas held up his free hand. “Stop explaining.”

“As you wish, it seems that your ignorance in this matter may continue to cause you grief in the future if you don’t learn the intricacies of…”

Sylvas cut him off. “I thought we were friends.”

After a moment to parse that Sylvas was talking about Gharia rather than him, Bael shrugged. “Well, presumably it helps for the father of your hatchlings to be a friend.”

Sylvas still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “Why would she think that I was interested in…”

Bael cut him off, mercifully. “I believe that you expressed a similar sentiment last night, and the line was crossed from playful but vicious flirtation and into rejection and cruelty.”

They walked along in silence for a few seconds as Sylvas mouth flapped open and shut like he was a beached fish, until finally he managed to muster up, “I had no idea…”

Bael attempted to comfort him. “I am sure that she will realize in good time that your rejection of her at one of her most vulnerable moments was a result of you being a slack jawed backwater moron of no education rather than the whole thing being an act of malevolence.”

“I really didn’t know.” Sylvas looked devastated enough that anyone would have been convinced. “You have to believe me.”

“With all due respect, it isn’t me that requires convincing. Whether your entire courtship was just a ploy on your part to secure her alliance or if you were completely oblivious to her feelings towards you, it makes no difference to me or my opinion of you.” He paused for an instant. Considering. “Though I suppose I would have slightly preferred to think of you as socially competent…”

Kaya’s head was bowed, but in the middle of Bael’s speech she snorted, “Lizard-stanzbuhr babies.” 

Sylvas eyes widened. “Is such a thing even possible? Can Najash and humans…”

Bael took his time formulating his answer to that a little more carefully. “Not to my knowledge, no, but I suspect that the invitation was less about attempting to secure a successful clutch and more about the proposed activity that is typically preceding conception?”

“Oh!” It finally dawned on Sylvas what had actually happened. “She wanted to… But I… Oh.” 

He was silent for another long moment as they trudged along, before the full weight of what had happened sunk in. “Oh no.”