Próklisi

Act 5 – The Face of Mira

 Próklisi followed the pull of the challenge. Somebody was calling him, not by name but through action. This was new, unexpected. He was the one who created challenges, others did not make challenges for him. The meeting with Thanatos was still fresh in his mind, as was his brother’s creation… no, his transiteration, the grim reaper. Próklisi wondered if he had accidentally given a mortal some of his power, as Thanatos had done intentionally. The idea wasn’t impossible, though he couldn’t think of when it may have happened.

He decided that, in this case, caution may be appropriate. See who the challenger was, find out what they wanted, and deal with them as needed. When he stepped into the strand he chose to appear in orbit around the planet. This was Aelthir, a small ringed water-world. From here it looked like nearly the whole planet was ocean. The truth was that much of the world’s land mass was a scant few feet under the waves, and would be uncovered during low tide. If low tide was a constant the world would be closer to evenly split between ocean and land.

This world belonged to the Virelai, a species of crustaceans that could handle being both in water and upon the sandy beaches of their world. Their bioluminescent shells sparkled and shifted as though they mirrored the constellations in the sky. Próklisi could feel that the Virelai were facing an existential challenge, and were struggling to fight back. He had never been called to an existential challenge before, those were still under Kanna’s domain, and often meant the natural end of a strand.

But Próklisi was not his brothers. Chronos would see when the strand was meant to end. Thanatos would feel if the strand was meant to live or die. Even his sister Nyxial would have some inkling to the world’s survival. But he was Próklisi, he was challenge and competition, meant to push mortals to evolve beyond their limitations. And the Virelai were certainly being pushed… evolve, or die. That was the challenge they were facing.

They were fighting the challenge, they had not created it. Though, Próklisi thought, their willingness to fight for survival may have helped the challenge’s call reach him. Próklisi dropped beneath the waves to get a closer look at what the Virelai were working on, and working against.

As soon as the oceans waves closed over him, Próklisi knew there was something unnatural in the water. Small ripples of blackness floated by occasionally, not wider nor longer than a blade of grass. He reached out to touch one, and it burned away as he neared, the ocean screaming in response. He continued down, and saw many Virelai, some swimming slowly, others being carried by their brethren, towards a pearlescent building held together by seaweed. A hospital, at least from the looks of it.

Próklisi entered the hospital, still unseen to the Virelai. This was not a competition he built for them. It was not his rules they were following. Who was in charge of those rules though, would soon be clear. The halls were filled with sick and dying Virelai, the bioluminescence that caused the constellations on their shells to flicker was dimming. Próklisi could see a hair thin blackness flow where their bioluminescence should glow.

He drifted past sick and dying alike. Each had notes written in Virelai ink stating how long the individual was expected to survive. No treatment plans. Tests to identify, but not to cure. No signs of hope. This wasn’t the heart of the challenge. This was… surrender.

Próklisi carried on through the halls. Somewhere in here there were those willing to face the challenge they were going through. Someone was fighting back. He had gone through three floors now, he could sense the answer he was seeking was near. Then he saw it, a single room. Above the curved entryway was written ‘Recovery’.

Próklisi drifted through the wall, and could see dozens of the hospital staff consulting their notes, taking samples, their antennae waving in wild excitement. Two Virelai lay curled in beds of coral and seaweed, resting. Their bioluminescence was bright. No, not just bright, it was different. It didn’t just show as specks of light dancing about their shells, but it gave a soft glow, looking like a nebula drifting amongst stars.

He drifted up behind what he took to be the lead Virelai medic, reading the note in his clawed hand. Orders from some ranking official it seemed. ‘The Lamentfire cannot be cured. It is the cure. A fifty percent increase in our lifespan cannot be ignored. Find the cause, and be it a strain or our own biology, we will have it spread quicker than when this plague first arrived from above two generations ago.’

Plague… that could only mean Asthéneia.

But why would his sister go through such a convoluted, and apparently time consuming, plan to call for him? If she wanted to talk, why did she not call, as he had when he called their brothers for help? Pieces were still missing to this puzzle, but now he knew the challenger, and had some understanding of the challenge.

Knowing it was Asthéneia who had crafted this for him, well, that at least made it easier to locate his challenger. He felt out through the strand. Pillars were not always aware if another was near, but they could always locate their siblings if they simply focused on the essence of their sibling’s domain. Asthéneia was close, standing on a high shore only a few hundred miles away.

Próklisi was there in moments, rising from the water, steam flowing off his metallic skin as the flames that were his hair blazed in what he hoped was a dramatic fashion. There she was, rot and gangrene standing watch as cold and devious as her domain. He approached, began to raise his arm to accuse her and contest her actions.

His arm didn’t make it above his belt. There was someone else standing on the shore. Another woman. Her eyes, her face… they were unmistakable. “Mira?” he stammered, the word fell flat, as surprised at her presence as he was.

This version of Mira didn’t seem to recognize him, her head tilting in confusion as Asthéneia stepped between them, saying something Próklisi didn’t catch. He was too focused on Mira. Four times now… four. This was no coincidence. “This shouldn’t be,” he muttered. “I watched Mira die on Zorath. I held her as her lifeblood drained. She looked exactly—”

The new Mira laughed, the sound of bells drowning in tar. “I have had many names, golden boy. None of them yours.”

Even the voice was the same. But there was something different… her features were twisted, carved with gangrene and rot down to the bone. Thanatos had said there would be clear signs… Asthéneia had made her un-mortal, had given Mira a part of her own powers. Próklisi turned to face his sister, his anger bursting out from his skull in leaps of flame. “You defile her!” he said accusatorily.

“You dare,” Asthéneia said, voice soft and venomous, “You dare suggest you knew my muse before I made her immortal?”

Próklisi turned the full weight of his gaze on Asthéneia. “This plague ends,” he declared. “I challenge it, and once it is gone I will have the truth.”

Asthéneia bowed, smiling her gangrenous smile, “No my dear brother, when I win and our plague survives on even one strand of Aelthir, you will answer my questions in truth.”

The two set about the rules of the challenge. In one hundred seventeen years Aelthir would pass through a plasma nebula, this was a set temporal event for the world. The radiation and storms of the nebula were scheduled to end all life on Aelthir in that year. Próklisi had until then to cleanse every infected strand of the plague, but Asthéneia could not start new plagues on strands she had not yet touched. She could only work with what had already been started.

The War of Inspiration began. Próklisi had already seen the work the Virelai were doing, he simply needed to speed up the process. He descended into the floating cities and walked among the Virelai as a golden apparition, whispering to them “You can surrender, you can die. Or you can give of yourself so that your children, and theirs after them, can live on.” The Virelai who heard the whispers felt a sudden, impossible surge of pride. Scientists who had already lost limbs to Lamentfire dragged themselves to laboratories. Artists painted equations in their own glowing blood. Children too weak to swim dictating hope and dreams to their parents. The single burning thought Próklisi poured into every mind: We will not die screaming. We will die cured. We will be remembered as the ones who beat rot.

Asthéneia did not dawdle, she had a part to play too if she hoped to win. She flooded the oceans with new strains, light-eaters that turned cure-attempts into blinding agony. Memory-worms that made researchers forget their own names mid-equation. A variant that caused the body to heal into grotesque, painless tumors, life prolonged, but dignity erased. Plagues that made the cure itself cause agony.

For a century the war raged across every timeline of Aelthir. Próklisi’s inspiration against Asthéneia’s corruption. Cities rose and fell in fire and ink. In most timelines the Lamentfire burned bright, oceans of screaming light. But in the central branches, the Virelai began to win. A retrovirus was born: Auroracide. It rewrote Lamentfire into harmless bioluminescence, the pain and damage was removed, but the benefits remained and became constant. The first cured city sang in pure, painless color for the first time in generations. Word spread like dawn. Próklisi appeared before Asthéneia on the highest spire, golden mask radiant.

“I won,” he said simply.

The gangrenous Mira stepped forward, rotting fingers stroking the sunburst mask. “Did you?” she asked sweetly. She kissed the golden cheek. Where her lips touched, gold began to rust. Próklisi recoiled. Asthéneia laughed, she raised one hand. The cure worked perfectly, on every timeline except one.

There was a single branch, a single timeline, that Asthéneia had kept hidden. Some aspect of her domain allowed her to cloak an entire timeline from his view. She had mutated the retrovirus with but a touch there. It did not cure. It perfected the Lamentfire. Every cured Virelai woke unaging, painless, and utterly empty. Glowing shells with no memory, no desire, no soul. They drifted in clean, silent water, beautiful and vacant. A gallery of living statues. Despair deeper than any scream because there was no one left inside to scream. The other timelines died cured and proud, as Próklisi had bidden. But the hidden timeline, that one Asthéneia kept. A private gallery. Próklisi stared at the empty glowing husks, mask dimming for the first time in eternity.

Próklisi felt the hidden timeline bloom into existence and staggered as though struck. “You… kept them,” he whispered. “You kept the worst death of all. You… twisted my victory.”

Asthéneia stepped close, black tears dripping onto his golden cloak, eating holes like acid. She whispered, “Never, speak my muse’s name again. She was never yours to save.” She paused, her voice shifting from venom to curiosity. “But before you slink away, golden one, tell me of these cloaks and masks. Thanatos, Nyx... they wear them now. What do they signify? Do they grant power?”

Próklisi straightened, his arrogance flickering back like a dying ember. “They mark growth. Each Pillar who wears one has faced an internal challenge and emerged transformed. Stronger. I, as the embodiment of challenge, was forged with mine from the beginning.”

Asthéneia disregarded him with a wave of her hand, black droplets scattering like ink. “Then I too have met my challenge. I have twisted victory from your grasp, turned hope into hollow eternity.”

Asthéneia and the fourth Mira left hand in hand, leaving Proklisi alone in the last strand of Aelthir. He pounded his fist into the sand, turning it to glass in an instant. Another defeat, another loss. He had faltered, again.

He roared out in anger “No! The challenge was met! It still had meaning, it… it must… have meaning…”