I stared at the shimmering rune Elara had left behind. The first message had been a simple and straightforward one of comfort: You're safe here. But my Kensho, just settled and sharpened by the Conjunction, was insisting that there was more to it.
This was my element. Back in London this was the thrill that had driven me. Not just getting access to a server, but finding the ghost partitions. Not just bypassing a firewall, but reading the notes the original coder had left in the margins. Every system had its secrets, its hidden layers. And this Echo, this bit of crystallized memory, was a system.
I sat down on the cold stone floor, crossed my legs and closed my eyes, sinking back into the internal space where the Astrolabe lived. The shimmering glyph of Elara's Echo was an object in that mental space alone. The first time I'd touched it, I'd just "played" the file. This time, I was going to decompile it.
I focused my Kensho, not on the Echo's message, but its structure.
I imagined it to be a knot of woven light. The surface threads were the basic message; the feelings, the images, the basic concepts. Simple. Elegant. But underneath, my perception picked up on a single thread, which was woven with a different tension, a different light. It was a data packet covered in a layer of metaphysical camouflage.
My mind latched onto it. I didn't try to force it open. That would be like attempting to hack a server with a sledgehammer. Instead I did what I always did, I listened. I analyzed the shape of the lock, the flow of the encryption. The protection wasn't a wall, it was a riddle. A simple resonance key.
The surface layer of the Echo pulsed with the signature of "Sanctuary" and "Safety." This hidden layer, however, was tuned to a totally different frequency. It was a concept that I'd felt with sickening intensity just a short while ago.
Danger.
I changed the focus of my attention, my sensitivity. I gave up on trying to open a friendly message and tried to access a warning. I projected the feeling of the hunt, the memory of Mr. Peepers' obsidian claws, the cold dread of being seen. I "knocked" with the resonance of the very thing the cave was supposed to protect me from.
The knot of light unfurled.
A fresh wave of sensory information flooded me, deeper and much more complex than the first. This wasn't a whisper, it was a full and detailed report, left behind by a professional.
Elara's voice, a clear, calm alto, sounded in my mind, not as a thought, but as a true, audible memory. " –log entry three. Aethelgard. The Choir is not just an immune system, it's a hive mind. The Shepherd isn't its master, it's a primary node, a localised consciousness for this whole part of the forest. My first assessment was wrong. It does not just hunt dissonance. It learns from it."
A cold spike of fear lanced through me.
"My Veil held for three cycles," the voice continued, laced with a professional frustration. "I augmented it with the pollen of the Sun-Petals; bright gold blooms that grow in the dry earth, to mask my signature. But the Shepherd started to adapt. It wasn't seeing through my disguise, it was learning my resonance, my particular 'flavor' of quiet. It was beginning to listen to my silence. This Dead Spot is the only true blind spot in the Forest because the Veridian Flow is totally absent. To the Shepherd, it does not exist. Do not stay long, but do not leave until you are ready. Once you step back into the Flow, it will be listening for you."
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The memory shifted. A complex star chart burst into my mind, a part of the Astrolabe's Orrery of Worlds. It included this world, Aethelgard, and a single, feeble Wayline extending from it.
"There is a Wayline nexus two hundred klicks north of where we are," Elara's voice continued, taking on a note of urgency. "But there are guards on the route. The Shepherd is a node and it serves a heart. There is a source to all this, a hub of intelligence. My probes detected a huge concentration of the Flow at the center of the forest. The locals, the obsidian-skinned folk, call it the Grove of the First Song. I believe it's the consciousness of the Forest. And it is sick."
The star chart was melting, a corrupted image flashing for an instant. A grove of these radiant trees, but an ill, sickly, green-black light. The air was heavy with spores. The Veridian Flow, which I'd felt as a pressure, was a raging, cancerous torrent.
"The Choir is not simply trying to save this forest," Elara concluded, her voice grim. "It's a symptom. A fever. Some corrupting force has infected the Flow. The Forest-mind is in an actual state of constant paranoid frenzy. I cannot face it alone. I am leaving this marker and a warning. Do not approach the Grove. Use the Wayline and escape. Aethelgard is a lost cause. Elara, out."
The Echo faded away to nothing, leaving only the cold, silent stone of the cave.
I sat there for a long time, the implications of her message settling over me like a shroud. I was a trespasser; a germ that had wandered into a body that was already wracked with a terminal illness. The Shepherd; the flute player, had not been a malevolent entity. It was a white blood cell.
I was just a one more anomaly in a system going haywire.
Escape.
It was the sane thing to do. It was what Elara, a Wayfarer who was clearly leagues more experienced than I was, had done. It was the smart play.
So why did it feel so wrong?
I thought about the Shepherd. It had seen my soul, declared me a "noise," but it had not ordered my destruction. It had shown me the way to a safe place. It had recognized a difference. You are not rot, it had said.
And the Grove. The "sick" heart of the forest. My mind, my Kensho-driven, puzzle-solving mind, latched onto the problem. A system with a bug. A machine with a broken part. I didn't see a lost cause. I saw a challenge.
This was my weakness, the same that had landed me in this predicament to start with.... I couldn’t leave a puzzle unsolved. The thought of just running away, leaving this beautiful, dying world to its fate, chafed against my pride. Elara saw a threat to be escaped. I saw a puzzle to be solved.
A soft chime snapped me out of my reverie. It was the Astrolabe. A message appeared. I tuned inward and noticed a new symbol had manifested on my Schema, circling around my Star. It was a small radiant symbol that resembled a stylized grasping hand.
I focused on it, and the knowledge flowed into me.
[Remembrance Manifested: Kinetic Grasp]
- Source: The memory of being crushed by the gravity of the Wayline's initial pull. The overwhelming, raw force of physical pressure, now crystallized into a usable form.
- Effect: A basic telekinetic push/pull.
- Cost: Slight Lumen per use.
I focused on the glyph in my mind’s eye. It was the first real ability of mine. Not something picked from a bookshelf or given to me by a deity, but instead, it was a result of my own experiences. The Astrolabe did more than track my progress; it harnessed my memories.
I opened my eyes and focused on a small loose rock lying in the cave about ten feet away. I raised my hand, duplicating the same shape as the symbol. I thought about the sensation that was the crushing pressure of a wayline, gathering a small spark of Lumen from my newly increased reservoirs, and pushed.
The rock skittered across the floor, bouncing off the far wall with a soft clack.
It wasn't much. I couldn't lift a starship. I probably couldn't even win a fistfight with it. But it was mine.
A slow, wolfish grin spread across my face. It was the first genuine smile I’d had since I'd left my world.
Elara's advice was sound. The smart move was to run. The safe move was to find that Wayline and never look back.
But since when had I ever been interested in the safe move?
The Grove was sick. The world-mind was paranoid. The Shepherd was listening. It was a beautiful, complex, and utterly broken system. And for the first time, I had more to bring to the table than a quick pair of feet and a smart mouth.
I had a goal. I wasn’t going to run. I was going to find the bug in the code. And I was going to fix it.
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