The Expanse's Call

Bland Emissary

And now is time for my least favourite part of the day, but it's tradition by now. I'll ask the question and get the answer and that will be that. So, in this way I walk in the room and ask. "Why isn't it that I can go out to the edge past the tallest tower?"

Then I get the answer: "Because of the impermeable chord, dear." Delivered with a sigh, as always. Although, it may not have always been delivered with a sigh. Perhaps before it was such a tradition, and instead a rare whim.

And as the tradition dictates, I continue. "What is so special about the chord if it is so mean as to not show itself."

Again, as so many times before, the second answer comes: "If you cross the impermeable chord, you will die, and I don't want that to happen."

Now, I could continue. I could say old questions and responses like "What is death if nobody else does it" or "but I've done everything there is." But I don't.

What's next is to visit the chord.

The room exited, we turn left and head in that general direction. Until the outside, and then I see the tower. The Tower of Flints of here, not of some other story, but by some other name. Autherja Tower, south and great and everything. That will come later in the day. We must first visit the chord. It is next, it follows, that is how the day goes. I walk in the shadow of Auther'jja until I get to the boundary, and then the mark upon which the chord crosses.

There I sit. And nothing.

Beyond the great ending, as it is told to be, there is more. Another world that I cannot cross into. My actions hindered only by an invisible death-place of hearsay, decay of bodies who try. And I. I see different colours, a different understanding of the way things can be to me, my side. I hate it and I love it. And there holds in the land folds, shapes of gleam and pristine, of small movement far away. Not like sand, that slips through the fingers of the hand, but something too far out of reach. But I must turn away until the next day when this comes again.

I turn around and head the direction I came from, towards the everything of everything, not the nothing that was now at my back. Towards the centre point, the octoglyph, everything I know. The octoglyph, that must be next.

I walk and walk, through everything again. Autherja tower, to be explored later; the walls, later; mazes, caves, and corridors, yet later; but the octoglyph is now. It stands in the centre, all corners and edges and faces and circles and lines. And meanings and effects. Symbols that have powers, that we all know. Annulment, entropy, life, endless, distance, greatest, time, endless. It stands all by itself, nothing above, below, to the side, in such a way that it is its own support, unlike anything else around or below. A great gap, a height more than jumps or climbs or buildings. A power unto itself.

I run into her, from earlier. "Dear, why don't you go see Adhair?" I nodded and turned to the great garden: every plant, in its proper place, a great work never finished. Twin masterminds, Adhair and Adhira. And in the centre, a humble home, almost dwarfed in majesty. Just a house and shells, sea shells from the sea shore.

"Omnih! Welcome, hi! It's been a while, hasn't it?" says Adhira.

"Just a day," I say.

"For you maybe, not for me! My days end with the sun, I don't know about yours, though!" she replies. "I'm guessing you want to see Adhair, right?"

"Yeah."

"And here was me hoping I was the one due a visit! Oh well, I guess not... anyway, he's out right now, but I'll show you what we've been working on since you last left." We walk down the path and she shows me where a weed was once growing. "It's always a shame to kill something, even if it hurts others."

"They're plants though..."

"They're alive! I care about them... maybe it's just me and Adhair who think like that. It's part of doing what we do. We're carers, y'know?"

I go silent. I see Adhair, carrying in his arms a small crate, and ran over to him.

"Hi! Rhenna sent you?" he asks, and I nod. "I thought as much. Always busy doing... well I have no idea what she does." He did this with an awkward laugh, unsettling.

"What's in the crate?"

"Oh! Sea shells." He replies. "Jascah gets them for me. I love them, and he has plenty on the beach, so he lets me have them. We have a good deal." He laughed again, this time much more pleasant. "Won't you go see him, say I said thanks? He was out when I went over."

"Yeah, ok."

I head northwest from the Great Garden, towards Jascah's beach. There's a path, but I don't take it. I walk through the fields, but I make sure not to do any damage, so as not to upset the two. I reach the beach, a thing that stretches on and on forever. Spotting Jascah's house, I run up to it. He catches sight of me as I approach.

He, ruffling my hair, says, "I'm sailing out. Do you want to come?" I nod. He disappears into his house and returns with a coat for me. "It'll be cold."

I sit in the boat, being prepared to set off. We push off, and sail to a looming of clouds.

'A storm,' he says, 'hold tight.'

The great day light was gone, a darkness replaces it. A blessing for others comes. Heavy rain, that too easily can make the boards slippery. It was necessary, the coat.

'We're too far out,' he says again. 'Poor visibility, I can't see the buoys. It's too dangerous.'