Echoes Of The Seven

This Interlewd has been translated from Ra’lan for your reading comprehension.

The man looked upwards, letting the starry night kiss his skin. The perpetual evening was cool, as it always was, and that was no bother. Not that the evening was without stress. No, his eyes were focused on the glimmering sheen of golden light dancing through the sky and fracturing the darkness between constellations. A beautiful sight- had he not known what it meant.

“And so, the third has fallen.”

A skittering across his foot brought his attention downwards, where a small, weasel-like creature had brought itself to rest while craning its neck to stare upwards at him. Eyes were beady and glittering blue with sapphire, while the fur around the face and wrapping over its body held not fuzz, but the glint of bronze. However, it was still as soft as real hair when the man knelt down and picked up the artificial creature, placing it on his shoulder before looking back towards the broken sky.

“I didn’t believe you, Vojemala, but it seems you were right one last time. I could feel her. Just like you said we would.”

He sighed, turning and walking back inside the workshop. It was busy with movement- all manner of creatures hopping, climbing, or flying around tables and shelves stacked a hundred high and twice as wide. However, not a single bit of fur or feathers greeted him. It was steel. It was silver. It was bronze, and it was gold. Miniscule gemstone eyes glittered in the runic lights that had not dimmed in centuries, yet flickered for the first time an hour ago. As a metallic eagle blew past, he darted one hand up to hook a finger around one of the feet talons.

His feet left the ground, light as a feather and with no greater strain than if he were lifting his hand to address a crowd. Up and up and up the silver eagle carried him, curling back under the high ceilings and just overtop the highest platform of which he dropped onto. His eyes glanced downwards through the scaffolding woven almost like a cocoon around a colossal steel body before he stepped down into the tangled mess. At the same time, a golden iguana crawling over a wooden support passed by with a chisel held in its tail- one that he grabbed to start tapping gently against the metal. No hammer was needed- the chisel itself seemed to part the steel as if it were water, carving new patterns into the runes.

“Perhaps it is finally the time that you spoke of, Vo. The choice in which you warned.”

Yellow, golden light began peeking from the seams that his chisel left behind, while similar trails of woven strands followed his fingertips and spread out over the metal. Where the strings touched, the metal parted, carving runes even further than where his chisel touched as the magic of Artifice willed the very creation to change.

”A time will come that we stand at the precipice between two endings,” he recited. ”Upon that dawn, we can only pick which way we’d rather fall.”

His hands stopped, the light stilling in the movements and the entire workshop even going silent for a moment as dozens of constructed beings suddenly went still in the man’s contemplation.

He gripped the chisel tighter.

“There has to be another way,” he said. “A third choice, where we keep Miknalor repelled and ward off the new threat. One where we don’t choose what buries us, but we choose how we keep going when the dust clears. But how? I could learn if I leave…”

Control Trap: Alda 1 shifted beneath him, rolling in the scaffolding the moment the words passed his lips. Not far- just a matter of inches but still making the man readjust his stance. He patted the creation with one hand while the workshop fell back into life- the temporary pause from his anxiety lapsing.

“Ease yourself, child. It was merely a thought. One must consider all options before making a choice, correct?”

He let out a tense breath. “Though a tempting thought it is. The Abstract is so weak now, I might not even need to make anything for such a feat. I suppose if I willed it so, I could exit and behold the world that grew from our sacrifice. I could learn so much. I could help this new Artificer against the threat her era faces.”

The man frowned, resting his palm flat against the steel of the Guardian. “Though the question remains, how does she exist? There should not be anything left of the Seven to bestow their gifts. We ensured that much. If a new Echo has been formed, then the hold of another must have fallen. Or perhaps we missed something? A trace of power lingering behind?”

He shook his head. “No, surely not. If a trace of the Seven still lingered, it would not have taken this long to form a new Echo. One of the other Eternities must have fallen. Then there could have been a new Echo.”

He leaned back against the scaffolding, the bronze weasel on his shoulder scurrying to crawl and nest in his scraggly beard.

“But which of them was released? The Crucible? That Titan was quite the force before she got tethered. She might have gotten out, but then how did she break the others free? How did she best Rallan? Hmm, could one of my kin have turned their backs on our goal? Did they release their charge?”

He grabbed the weasel in his beard and tugged it free, staring at the gem eyes. He imagined the elegant face of a brown-haired woman staring back at him.

“Was it you, Vo? Did you warn us of a future you intended to cause?”

The constructed animal gave a small squeak in response. The man shrugged, then ruffled fingers through the bronze fur atop the weasel’s head.

“Ah, but of course you can’t answer me. You aren’t Vojemala. You’re just a friend I made to keep a lonely man company while I fulfill my duty.”

His eyes flicked around the workshop large enough to fit the entire Abstract of Eternity in every axis, then still have room for a herd of fossilized whale skeletons should he desire them. Hundreds of metallic animals were in a blur of movement as they sorted, unsorted, and re-sorted thousands of pounds of materials. Even more were helping to carry in more raw ingredients from the bay doors in the back that were then sucked up into the storm of metal.

“Six hundred and thirty-seven friends, and yet not a single one that can hold up their side of a conversation.” He let out a sigh and slumped to lay down on top of the Guardian. “And here we were centuries ago, thinking that it would be easier for our guilt were we not in the presence of the other tethers. To think that I used to enjoy being alone.”

The Guardian hummed with power beneath him.

“Can you imagine it? The world outside? The food and the cultures and- gods, the people! I’d love nothing more than to have an honest to goodness conversation with someone! Anyone! About the weather. About their day. What they last had to eat. Their names. Their hobbies. Anything!”

He sighed. “Even if it was just asking a child what their favourite colour is.”

Moments of silence passed- well, as much as they could in the cyclone of movement through the workshop.

“But that is the curse I bear. Such is not allowed from me any longer. It is here that I must remain to fulfil my duty, and it is here that I will continue to do so… while talking out loud to a bronze weasel and a big chunk of metal as if you were alive and pretending that I’m not crazy.”

After a few more moments, the man flipped over and opened his empty palm. He had idly dropped his chisel in his one-sided conversation with metallic beings, but another chisel slid perfectly into place that was passed from a silver monkey swinging on a chain. He brought the tool back down, right where he had been working. Power funneled through his skills, feeling the metal mass beneath him become almost putty under his will. He spoke as he worked.

“The second ended his own life a year after we trapped the Mother. Four hundred and eighteen years later, the third is slain by a newcomer. Now I am the only shackle. The first, and the last. That is my burden.”

The metal of Control Trap: Alda 1 suddenly began growing outwards, almost liquifying as new material reached from within. The man continued working even as ridges and grooves riddled the steel surface like waves on water, and all the metal took on a multicoloured hue. Cyan with red stripes and green dots. Cute.

“I, Balzonest Exxinter, swore an oath, and I shall keep it. I will hold my post. I will hold this prison together. Should this new threat prove a more grave fate than Miknalor, the new Artificer shall have to face it alone, for I will not abandon my duty. Alda must not roam free- not while I live.”

Balzonest twisted the chisel to turn the entire Guardian from cyan with stripes and dots, to a solid yellow so saturated that it was like the creation was made from paint instead of metal. Meanwhile, the bone-like ridges that had grown from the Guardian melted back to almost form indents of smiling faces across every inch. He let out a long sigh and rested his free hand on the surface.

“My favourite colour is purple. Not that you can understand.”