500 Words - Action

[caraig]

To Ng, a few footsteps could take him anywhere within the domain of his civlization. Of the thirty worlds -- once, there had been hundreds of thousands, but he remembered this with neither pride nor bitterness -- he could begin his walk from the chambers on one, take a step outside the chambers and be on another, and complete the last few steps on a third. It wasnot as if space was meaningless; far from it. Rather, space was interchangable.

It was for this reason that his last few steps were paused, and he could not go further without performing certain actions.

If one were to try and say where he was, he would in theory be located in a planetoid located in deep space in the First World, in a volume rotated somewhat out of the three dimensions that harbored the volume the approaching ships threatened... but that would be slightly misleading. There was no machinery here to sustain life; the planetoid had been cooled to background temperature. ANd yet there was life, and it was, for the moment, Ng.

To his perceptions within the cavern, it was as accomodating as any other location within his civilization. He had light, warmth, gravity beneath his feet. Of course, he would feel that way in deep space as well, if he so chose. As it was, he had long ago stopped wondering if it was his own innate nature which created a comfortable environment around him, or the nature of the civilization, culture, and people itself.

Before him, however, was the path to a decidedly different realm.

It was, on first glance, an archway carved in the stone, with a pool of blackness within it. This was not merely what one might see in a puddle of oil or ink. This blackness was utterly unreflective. It reflected nor refracted any light. It was the absence of any light whatsoever. It was, quite literally, nothing. It made Ng shiver.

He felt a presence beside him, and without turning he nodded a little. "Amelia, thank you."

The spry-looking person beside him smiled in her voice. "How could I refuse? You know I never complain about doing this for you."

He continued looking at the black-filled archway. "I only wish...." His voice trailed off.

She was silent as well for a moment, before nodding a little. "We will tell ourselves in time that the brought it upon themselves."

"As we have told ourselves three score times in the past." He roused himself. "All right. Let me in, please."

In a civilization where anyone can walk anywhere, there are still things that must be secured from casual grasp. Amelia was one of those the Archons trusted to be gatekeepers, and despite her comfortable rapport with Okana she was utterly unswayable from that duty. Just as it was her duty to secure the gates and whay lay beyond them from the unwary, so too did she open those gates. This she did now, and the pool of nothingness evaporated before Ng, allowing him to walk a few steps forward into the place where shadows dwelt.

This realm had little in common with the First World and it's myriad dimensions, and if anything even less so from the higher planes and otherspaces that his people had come to understand so intimately. It was Shadow, and Whisper, and Image, all of these names and others. It was here that secrets were kept, and it was here that weapons were kept.

A volume had been claimed for the weapon of endless night. A mere few light-years across if one measured only by a handful of dimensions, it's barriers warding against incursion and Amelia and other gatekeepers preventing errant entry, no more secure place could be devised.

The weapon knew he had arrived, and it welcomed him silently. Ng relaxed some; the weapon knew him, and they had worked together many times in the past. While he would be disturbed by the gate to this Whisper realm, this, at least, was something familiar.

He stepped forward, and found himself within the weapon. This time, it would only be him aboard it. There were many he could have brought with him. But the forays of the weapon into the First World were no longer tours he cared to undertake with others anymore. He knelt on the cherry-wood floor, before the low, ankle-high table, sighing and runnign his fingers over the table. He had the weapon depart through the gate.

The weapon -- it had no proper name -- seeped through the many layers of existence, became intangible and barely perceptible, and slipped out of the gate. Amelia felt it's passage, and wished Ng a safe journey. Though of course there would be nothing that would harm him.

Rotation through dimensions, slippage between planes of being, leaking through the cracks of reality, through the infinitesmal angles of Planck's subatomic nightmares, the weapon travelled. Very shortly, it surrounded and ecompassed the entire fleet as it approached the system, still within what they would call transcontinual space, but which Ng knew to be just one of the lesser faces of the First World. Should he choose to, even here, it could be all over within moments. The ships could be cast adrift into the void, thrown into planes of awareness that would drive the crews insane, regions where the physics would make the molecular steel of their bulkheads run like water.

Ng paused, and waited. Not yet, he thought, and the weapon obliged without question. Through it's senses he could see the fleet, the crews of the ships, everything about them. Ng paused, and wondered why he was waiting. It could be over now, and he could make it so painless as to make an euthanasist weep with envy. It was so easy with where the ships were now, too....

He waited, and watched as the vanguard of the fleet shifted from transcontinual to rational space. He realized that he was waiting for some sign that he would not have to unleash the weapon upon them. And it was then that he felt the Archons watching him, silently and without pressure but pressure nonetheless.

He shook his head, and watched as the rest of the fleet shifted. He waited a moment more, then made the weapon manifest. I'm sorry.