The Last Human IV - 8 - Twin Worlds (Patreon)

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***

Whose hands are these? She wondered. She turned them over. Soft skin, no scales at all. And pale, too. Four slender fingers and a thumb, with smooth, short nails. No claws to grip or gouge or scratch at all.

These aren’t my hands. Yarsi stood at the lip of a crater, smoke stacks rising in the hollowed basin, turning her hands over. Where am I?

The crater had a familiar shape. A ridge rose up in the distance, a dusting of snow over battle-blackened stone. The basin was filled with miles of smoldering earth, and not much else. And yet, in the dream, she knew this place.

The Cauldron?

The city was gone. A bombed-out ruin of churned rock blanketed with powderized stone. One of the mountains was cracked. And she knew everyone had died. Somehow, she knew it. All the millions of them. And all the people that she knew. The Queen. Talya. Agraneia. Khadam.

“No,” she whispered. “Go back.”

Clouds of dusted erupted over the crater, billowing and reaching and suddenly sucking themselves back to a point in the center of the crater. A huge device melted up, like candle wax falling the wrong way, taking all the clouds with it. It rose from the center of the crater, its casing smoothing itself into a rod-like cylinder, shrouded in flame, and rising back to orbit. In its wake, it raised the temples, repaved the streets, uncrumbled the mountains, and brought the trees back into being.

It put the Palace back into place around her. It put the sun back into the sky, and took it out, and put it back, again and again. People rushed around Yarsi, too fast for her too see, all of them walking in reverse.

It was night when the movement slowed. The Queen was in the room with her. Sleeping on her sofa, head lolled to one side as she snored deeply. The Queen woke up, and walking backwards, crept out of the room as if trying not to wake Yarsi.

Yarsi’s eyes fluttered open.

A beam of moonlight poured in through the curtains. She looked at her hands. Dark claws, and mottled scales. Mine, she thought. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about them still felt wrong. Hers, but not hers…

They must be mine, she told herself. I cannot be anyone else.

A scuffling outside caught Yarsi’s attention. The door to the Queen’s chamber creaked open, and someone crept into the darkly lit room, quietly shutting the door behind. Yarsi snuffed gently at the air, her powerful nose picking up the smell of Ryke’s perfume, her feathers, the scent of the other councilors and all their alien smells. Yarsi could even guess her last meal: something citrusy, and the savory scent of a well-grilled mahi fish.

The Queen’s talons clicked on the stone and she dropped into the couch by the foot of her own bed. Yarsi sat up, and looked at her.

“Oh, you’re awake?” the Queen stifled a yawn. “No, don’t get up. You get the bed tonight. I’m just going to lay down for a moment…”

Within a breath, the Queen was asleep, and her snores lifted to the ceiling.

Just like in the dream.

There was no way Yarsi was going to sleep now. She climbed out of bed, and the cold marble chilled her feet. Two massive curtains blocked out the city from the rest of the Queen’s chamber, and Yarsi was almost afraid to pull them aside. What will I see, if I look out there?

Will the city still be there?

Like a child hiding, she pulled the curtain enough to see with one eye.

It was the shape of the moon that caught her attention. There were two of them, two claws of pale gold. This planet did not have two moons. And the clouds that shone silver under the moon were doubled as well, twin mountains made of air and water, one attempting to eclipse the other. And the shape of the city at night—towers rising like new-sprouted seeds, seeking the dark sky above. Two of each building. It hurt her head just to look at it. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus her vision, but it only brought the doubled world into clearer focus.

A feeling jolted her mind, like a forgotten tool falling loose from its hook on the wall.

One set of stars shifted, and wheeled in the wrong direction, as if trying to line up with the others.

One of the cities began to shift and crawl across the Cauldron’s floor.

Two moons grew nearer, becoming one, but not yet.

It was almost time.

The android would be here soon.

And yet, Yarsi hoped—so fervently—that she was wrong.

Yarsi ducked back under the curtain, and stood over the Queen’s bed. The marble felt too cold now, and too hard against her feet (my feet, my claws). The Queen had rolled over on the couch, and her snores were soft and peaceful.

What if I’m mad? Yarsi wondered, almost praying for it. She thought, perhaps she should go to the Gate by herself. After all, it was only a dream. Why was she so certain it was real?

Three slow, hard knocks on the door made the Queen turn over, and mumble, “Yarsi, would you get that?”

It was the god. Khadam stood there, her chin held high, and her biomechanical eyes (how do I know that?) searched Yarsi’s face, always judging. Calculating. So different from the other god … the Savior Poire, gone forever.

“It is time, isn’t it?” Khadam asked.

Yarsi opened her mouth to say I don’t know, but nothing, as ever, came out. She settled for a nod.

“Ryke,” Khadam called into the moonlit darkness of the Queen’s chamber, “We’re ready.”

The Queen’s feathers whispered and scratched the couch as she slowly, agonizingly pulled herself up. And when the three of them went looking, they couldn’t find Agraneia in her room. Khadam suggested they might find her in the Wingmaiden’s chambers, and she shared a knowing look with Ryke. There, Agraneia answered the door, muttering a few guilty words and trying not to wake Talya as the cyran got dressed.

A small rig waited for them on the Palace’s promenade. A quartet of guards, huge avians with proud auburn feathers stood on the deck in their ceremonial armor, and one diminutive redenite sat at the controls, a cowl pulled around his head so that only his whiskers and his huge, nocturnal eyes were visible.

As the rig pushed off and descended into the Midcity, Yarsi watched the fake stars, sliding closer to their real position. Watched the clouds curl and wisp, and slide into place. And the slivers of the twin moons, overlapping. One was memory, the other reality, and they were so close to each other they were almost the same thing. And the closer they came, the heavier the weight on her chest.

“You okay?” Agraneia rumbled in her ear. Yarsi nodded, pretending that she didn’t feel like she was being crushed by truth itself. I must not crumble, she resolved. I must be strong. Whatever happens—

But when the cyran put out her organic hand, Yarsi gripped it as tight as if she were drowning.

“Claws,” Agraneia said.

Yarsi loosened her grip, but only a little.

***

The twin moons overlapped so closely, that it shone as one too-bright body.

The Gate, which had once dominated the great avenue that bisected the city, now seemed small compared to the grand new high rises and residential complexes that lorded over the Midcity. Xenos milled about, late-night merchants and early-morning laborers, spilling out toward their factories. Some of them had noticed the Queen’s guards, and a crowd had started to gather, though they formed a respectful perimeter.

Yarsi could no longer see the twins of memory, and yet… nothing. She danced from foot to foot, feeling like something was eating her from the inside. Not wanting to be wrong, nor to be right.

Agraneia turned her neck from side to side, rolled her strong shoulders, and yawned. She stretched her arms out wide, and the liquid silver glinted in the moonlight. Ryke stood, silent as a ghost. Reverent was the word that came to Yarsi’s mind, though it was not a word that she should know.

And Khadam, the last living god, chewed the inside of her cheek. A hard scowl on her face, accentuated by the golden lines of her implants. Yarsi feared her the most. To disappointment her …

With every passing second, nothing changed. With every passing second, Yarsi hoped. And still did not know what she hoped for.

Maybe these dreams are nothing at all.

Before the small god gave up his mortal life and went through the Mirror, he gave Yarsi an amulet inscribed with a holy word. A powerful word. Yarsi had waited until after he died to speak it aloud. Override. It was the last word she spoke, before the dreams began.

“How much longer?” Khadam asked, eyeing Yarsi.

“At night, she wrote,” Agraneia said. “We could be here until dawn.”

“No, she woke us up. She knows the time.”

Now, they were all looking at her. Yarsi couldn’t bear to meet their eyes. Instead, she kept her sight glued to the stars, and the moon above. Is that the last sliver of light?

Two moons became one.

And then, nothing.

Yarsi searched the sky. The stars. And the city, and all its lights, all aligned. No more twins anywhere. She couldn’t see the memory, only the reality.

And on the Gate…

Yarsi gasped. The faint outline of someone shimmered over the disc. A human? No, a machine. But no one else saw it. I was wrong, she thought. She hoped.

“Yarsi?” Khadam asked.

But Yarsi could only shake her head. And frown. A mixture of joy and relief and regret and sorrow boiled in her, making her stomach feel wrong, her hands feel stiff like the scales had grown too tight, and her brain …

You are mad. You were mad all along.

The moon slipped past itself, until there were two twins again. Two crescents. Now, everyone will know what you are.

And what will they do with you, now? You should be ashamed. To think you were so important—and yet, you only distracted them from their work. Their holy work. Who do you think you are?

My hands. These aren’t my hands. Whose hands are these?

“Look!” someone shouted, not loud, but so sudden that Yarsi jumped and let out a rasp. She bumped into Agraneia’s tensed arms, and huddled against the cyran. The guards clutched their weapons, ceremonial halberds wielded more to deter crowds rather than to wage war. They fanned out, using their bodies to shield Ryke and Khadam.

But it was only the Gate. Its heavy semi-circular arms hummed as they began to move. Huge, curved metal chunks, rotating around the Gate. Spinning faster now, becoming an impassable wall as they swooped in great circles, sliding frictionlessly over each other and the disc and gathering speed. Blurring.

No, Yarsi thought. Please. Because she had seen the future.

Let this not be, she prayed. Because she did not know how someone as small and nothing as her could ever carry something so great.

“Claws,” Agraneia grunted again, this time with more force. And Yarsi realized she was digging her fingers (not soft and smooth, but calloused with scales and tipped with piercing claws) into the cyran.

Sorry, she wanted to say.

Light broke the veil of night. A thread stretched from the gate to the heavens and beyond, a thin white line disappearing somewhere far beyond the stars. The power of the gods come to touch this small, fragile planet. Blinding and perfect, it made the moon seem dark and lifeless in comparison.

Through the blurred arms of the Gate, at the center of the Light, stood a second outline, forming over the first. Lithe, slender limbs made of metal. Shoulders and a smooth head held high, a perfect statue. The sudden change in motion sent a wind that kicked Yarsi in the chest. She would have fallen, if not for Agraneia’s strength. The thread of Light burst, and showered the Midcity with a misty, sparkling ring, and the Gate’s circling arms pulled themselves to a stop. And then, Yarsi was blind again. The light of the stars, too weak.

The twin moon was gone. The twin clouds, the twin stars, too.

Only one metal person. Her name, they said, was Laykis. Where should have been her nose and her mouth, there was only scarred metal on an otherwise featureless face. Two white eyes glowed in the darkness. They narrowed, slightly, suggesting a warm and friendly smile.

The android placed her hands together and bowed deep at the hip, her metal joints grinding and scratching as she did.

“My friends,” she said. “I bear the great news.”

What news, Yarsi wondered, could ever be great again? Now the android was here, Yarsi knew that everything else she had seen was true, too. The Cauldron would crumble. The moon would crack in half. Her friends would die … What news?

Every clanking step the android took, felt like a death knell for this world. For everything. The pit in her stomach yawned open, and she felt as though she were falling. Let this not be. Please, oh gods, please. I have seen what is to come. I have seen the future, and the utter despair that waits for all of us, and who will save us? No one. No one.

Laykis put her fingers under Yarsi’s chin, and lifted her snout until Yarsi could see only the genuine joy in the android’s eyes. “Fear not, young one. The way will open. Seek the future beyond sight, and you will find it. So says the Savior Divine.”

Yarsi’s eyes widened. He is dead, she thought. Poire is gone and we are all alone.

“Poire is alive,” Laykis said. “And he has shown me the way.”

***

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