Serial
51: Watch out
January
20th, 33 S.D. 14:41 Horan
Siersus walked down a long hallway wondering just where the passage lead him. Though he’d been given a new home thanks to Rikta and Katra, he had yet to fully understand the layout of Horan. Even now he found himself discovering fresh pathways, new doors, and hidden rooms. The entire compound seemed to be a maze of a sort, one that he’d barely memorized at best. If he went too far, he was liable to lose himself among the corridors. It would take a while before he gained the confidence to move about as freely as his hosts did.
Today, however, he felt the urge to explore things. He’d mapped his way around several known areas, but now he began to push further into unfamiliar zones. Having taken a fairly linear route, he suspected that he could easily retrace his steps, so he went forward without hesitation. As far as he knew, there were no restrictions concerning where he could and could not go, at least Rikta had never mentioned anything to that effect. Siersus gathered that neither Katra nor her brother appeared to mind a little trip around Horan.
Despite living far from the rest of the Continent at large, the siblings did not strike him as especially private people. Every part he’d come across opened up to him without fail. Perhaps they had simply never accounted for living with anyone but themselves? In that case, it made sense for there to be no limits on access. Although he often pondered whether they were hiding something from him, they had ultimately provided him with unfettered transparency. To his knowledge, they’d answered his inquiries surrounding their history honestly. Even so, he could not help but think he only held a portion of the whole story. For one thing, he couldn’t quite grasp why Horan was so incredibly vast or what its true purpose was. Maybe he hadn’t really been asking them the right questions...
Eventually, the long stretch before him transformed into a broad walkway, at the end of which sat a dead-end. Siersus came into what he thought was a circular room, but as he entered, he realized that there was no ceiling. Looking straight up above him, he saw the length of a towering shaft running on for meters. Evidently, he stood a the bottom of a deep, vertical passage.
Adjusting his glasses as his head titled back down, he glanced around himself. As he’d soon learned, almost everything in Horan ran off of seras. Every device could be activated and controlled without even having to perform a series. It was a most fascinating technology, but it was also quite obscure. Everything from doors to lights to furniture responded to vastly different inputs. Some were buttons, switches, gestures, or voice commands. He could never be too sure what action was appropriate for any given machine or facility. Here, he assumed he could find an elevator, but nothing immediately called out his attention.
He frowned slightly, turning away as he began heading back. However, just as he set foot in the hallway, a low, warbling tone sounded off from behind. Over his shoulder, Siersus noted that a small, round section of the floor had raised itself up. Staggered in layers, like a series of steps, this mound sat below the central-most piece, a glowing, hovering disc. He had no idea what he’d done to cause it to respond, but he decided he would simply ask Rikta later how it operated. In any case, his curiosity drew him towards the room again. Going up, he planted his feet on the floating platform. As soon as he did, a small, blinking sphere of light materialized in front him. He’d come this far, now what?
He stared at the bright ball for a time, trying to decipher what exactly it wanted of him. For a moment, his hand went out to touch it, yet he gave pause. Biting his lip, Siersus held himself there, trapped by indecision. At last though, he pressed his hand forward. As it passed through the brilliant orb, its color darkened from pure white to green. All at once, slits opened all around the platform he was on, and from these extended eight metal rods two meters long. After reaching out as far as they could, they folded up halfway. With a flash, a thin, pale blue light spread out around him. As it appeared to him, the platform projected a type of octagonal force-field, forming the base and guardrails for an elevator. Moments later, he was rising through the air steadily. As he climbed, he remained ever curious as to just where he was headed for.
After a somewhat brief ride, the platform eased to a halt at the top. To his left, another hallway ran for some meters until a sealed door blocked it off. As he turned, a section of the guardrail disappeared, allowing him to proceed. The orb changed back to white, winking on and off; the control to go down, perhaps? Having ventured this much, Siersus felt unwilling to quit just yet. Whatever resided beyond that portal beckoned him, so he chose to ignore the little light. Quickly, he entered the passage and approached the closed door. As he’d expected, it opened automatically when he neared. He’d yet to find one that was locked, at any rate.
Past the sliding metal sheets, Siersus saw a ramp that gently sloped up. Peering forward, he observed that it went into a larger space. He followed the curved incline and soon stumbled upon a very strange scene. Before him, as if he were staring out of a massive window, he could see outside. The mountain he was buried in seemingly melted away, leaving him with a perfect, unfiltered view of the surrounding ranges, the furious, billowing snow, and the dancing aurora overhead. Though the floor and ceiling were clearly visible, it seemed as if the wall he faced simply didn’t exist. Oddly enough, he felt no chill or draft, and the image before him remained absolutely quiet. The lighting here was, for whatever reason, lower than elsewhere too. Stretching widely to either side of him, the room filled out in an arc. Positioned at various points here and there, several seats and couches fanned the area. After some thought, Siersus guessed this place may have been a lounge or some such. Puzzled by the sight to the fore, he crept closer to the invisible wall, trying to comprehend just what was going on. As he walked towards the point where indoors and outdoors merged as one, a voice to his right suddenly warned him.
“Any further, and you will bump into it.”
Startled, Siersus spun about, searching for the source as his body shook but once. Whirling around, he managed to spot a figure behind him. Sitting on an oversized ottoman, her legs folded under her knees, Katra looked at him, smiling gently. He hadn’t even noticed her, much less sensed her seras frequency. As his heart rate began to normalize, he spoke brokenly, pushing his glasses back once again.
“Oh! Umm... Katra. Hello. Hello...”
“Be careful not to go any further, or you will hit the wall.”
“The wall?” he asked, glancing back. “But I don’t see anything there...” He raised a hand and moved it slowly towards the expanse. However, he found his fingers pressed up against a surface, the same smooth metal that lined much of Haron. “Hmm...” he frowned slightly.
“It does appear as if you could go further, like you could step right off the face of the mountain,” Katra said. “Sa, but rest assured, there are some 20 meters of solid rock separating us from the outside world, and from all of that snow,” she laughed a bit.
“What is this though? Some sort of window?” Siersus asked.
“Not entirely,” she answered. “It is just a wall, the same as any other you have seen, however, an image of the Northern Fringes is projected onto it, in real-time of course. As such, it certainly presents a very convincing illusion.”
“Indeed,” Siersus said, turning around and dropping his hand.
“Now, what precisely brings you here, Siersus?” Katra asked as she clasped her hands together on her lap.
“I was just looking around Horan. I suppose I somehow found this place by accident. Where are we anyway? What is this room?”
“This is the Western Vigil. From here we can see over much of the land as well as the aurora, all without ever having to leave our rather comfortable abode. The Northern Vigil sits near the peak; Rikta prefers that one, but obviously I like this one better.”
“A vigil?” Siersus repeated. “Aren’t those rituals or something?”
“That is the meaning of the word in Gandian today, but in the language before it, the word meant ‘to watch over’, which seems quite apt in this context.”
“The language before Gandian? Old Galdish?”
“Not exactly, much older. The name eludes me though, as it has time and history. But traces of its existence survive, in memory perhaps.”
Siersus had never heard of anything preceding Old Galdish. Galand had once been a small nation in Gandia, but somehow its language had gained the unofficial status of a standard. What many people called Gandian was technically modern Galdish, but since countless nations had adopted it, most referred to it as the tongue of the land. Asten shared a similar history, as he recalled. But whatever could be the true root of Gandian?
“I come here a lot,” Katra said, staring off into the distance. “It reminds me of what we are doing all the way up here.”
“And what might that be?” he asked.
“Come over here, please. Have a seat,” she said, sweeping her arm to the side at a chair next to her. He obliged and sat down. “I am sure my brother has told you about the origins of serialization, sa? About Nabel and us?”
“Yes. He and I had a discussion on the topic a few weeks after the incident in Palostrol.”
“Then you understand Nabel’s motivations. He would wipe the art away from the Continent if he deems it too dangerous in the hands of people. But, as you have heard and experienced yourself, he has extreme methods. The extermination of his own clan. The slaying of Sambur Eltin and the subsequent abduction of his former students. These are not the acts of a peaceful man. He has a history of such behavior. We believe it is only a matter of time before he does something else again, something worse than anything we have known him to do. So, we watch from here.”
“Ah yes. The ultimatum he served Losha,” Siersus said, looking up at the ceiling for a time. “Allowing the art to spread, only to tear it down if he doesn’t like the direction.” He could only shake his head as he talked aloud. “What is he thinking?”
“He probably wants to be proven wrong. He may think that someone else could achieve what he failed to do properly. But... he may well find a way to justify a war against serialization someday.”
They sat in silence for a while as they merely watched the thick snowflakes rush around the peaks and valleys. It hadn’t actually snowed in days, but the wild tempests blew the powder about with great gusts and gales.
“What exactly do you watch him for? What will you do when he does something terrible again?”
“Well, we had hoped to talk him out of anything. Failing that, we would take matters into our own hands, if need be.”
“You mean fight him?”
“If need be,” she nodded. “But there are other ways to stop him. We just have to keep looking.”
Siersus leaned back, tapping the rim of his glasses steadily for a while. It was a personal gesture he unwittingly did whenever his mind grew pensive.
“What can Nabel do anyway? If his intent was to merely kill a handful of serialists, that certainly seems to be within his powers. Once the world adopts serialization, however, how could he threaten the entire Continent? I understand that he is probably the strongest serialist alive, but if he ever feels the world doesn’t deserve the art, won’t there simply be enough people opposed to stop him?”
Katra turned over to Siersus for a moment and sighed as she subsequently looked away for a while. “Allow me to digress for a few minutes in order to answer that question,” she said as her eyes returned to him.
“Horan is a splendid place, is it not? It is full of so many wonders, like that wall for example.” She waved her hand across the room’s length, and as she did, areas of the wall temporarily reverted to their native, featureless facades. It were as if she blotted the view with only a wave. “Machines that can use seras, the energy of the human soul. An astonishing feat, sa?”
“Yes,” Siersus nodded. “I have been eager to examine and learn how so many of these things work. Even a simple doorway seems to hold innumerable, technological mysteries.”
Katra smiled. “I had heard you once created seratic devices of your own. It is no wonder the subject intrigues you.”
“Well, they were rather simple contraptions...” he said humbly.
“In truth, neither Rikta nor I built anything here. All was largely as you see now.”
“What?” Siersus asked, his face twisting up in perplexity. “You had nothing to do with Horan’s construction? Who built it then?”
“We did refurbish a few things worn down by age, but as far as we know, we are the only ones so far to have ever stepped inside these walls, save for the original creators, of course.”
“You know this how?”
“Access logs, data files,” she said as she held up a hand. By some unseen command of hers, another projection came to life before them, a pale semi-transparent screen. Within seconds, a litany of text began to scroll upwards. It was all written in recognizable characters, the alphabet shared by Gandian and Asten. Nevertheless, nary a word made sense to him. He noted bits that seemed familiar, but their true meanings escaped him.
“This is all...?”
“Records of all those who have entered and left Horan. The dates,” she said, pointing to a column on the right-hand side, “are listed here. We have not completely deciphered the dating system yet. I know it would seem easy enough to figure that out by looking at the most recent logs in comparison to our own calendars, but this is not the case.” Katra tapped the screen and immediately the list halted. A series of red, urgent words stretched across several rows.
“Here we have a most curious error. From what Rikta and I have been able to translate, it notes an anomaly occurring at an unknown time. This oddity, this same malfunction, is indicated in all the other logs of Horan’s systems. That is not all. After this event, for reasons unclear to us, the dating system changes.”
“It changes?”
“Sa. It then turns into something directly comparable to dates we understand. Everything else before that is an enigma at best. What we do know is that before Rikta and I found Horan, no one had stepped inside for at least a millennium, perhaps even longer.”
“Now, to answer your original question, about what I fear what Nabel could do. Nabel, as history claims, was the first serialist, the progenitor of the art. Some 150 years ago in the Central Plains, he brought forth the principles of serialization, but even then its spread was short and limited. What are we to make of Horan then, a place far older, created by ones who seemed to have incredible insights into serialization? What conclusions do we draw about this place existing before Nabel?”
“There is a definite inconsistency,” Siersus said, taking off his glasses to wipe them a bit. “It would appear that either Nabel is oblivious to the fact, or he has been lying about his role in the art’s creation.”
“I know it may be hard to believe me, but I have the deepest suspicions neither are true. I honestly think he is hiding something terrible. What would cause people who had such an advanced grasp on serialization to vanish with scarcely a trace in the world’s memory? Surely we would have heard of them and their fantastic devices, even if only in legend and myth. Alas, they has been forgotten, erased even.”
Siersus paused to consider the implications of what they were discussing. Serialization was in fact far older than he’d ever imagined, not just before Master Eltin’s time, but even before Nabel’s. Yet, it had never been known to the Continent. What reason could explain this?
“You think Nabel is after whatever caused that unknown event you previously mentioned? If the world were capable of losing the art once, it may well happen again. Triggering such an event would more than play to his hand. He’s pretty dedicated to eradicating it, if he feels it is necessary.”
“We are not sure if the event described in Horan’s logs is the same that caused the disappearance of its people or serialization. However, that is what Rikta and I feared, ever since we began to investigate the past. Whatever left this place abandoned, whatever covered its marvels from history, it must have been something very grave and no doubt dangerous.”
For a moment, Siersus thought about the ride that had brought him to Horan. “Katra, do you think it has something to do with those strange buildings? You know, the ones literally stuck in the mountains?”
“Sa,” she nodded slowly. “That is the theory anyway. We do not know enough to say for sure, however.”
“Hmm... If I might ask, why do you think Nabel knows of serialization’s deeper roots? Why do you think there’s truth behind his assertion that he’s the original serialist? He’s not thousands of years old. Rikta, Nabel, and you all grew up together, so he’s barely a couple hundred years old himself.”
Katra looked down at her legs again; her speech hung at the back of her throat. “... Before he left, after he killed the Viska and many Belnos, he said a number of things to me, things which I did not understand at that moment. I had never heard him talk like that before. I had always assumed he had been in an unstable state of mind, but in retrospection, it was all very telling. As frightened by his demeanor as I was at the time, I do not recollect everything he said, nor do I feel comfortable repeating some parts even now. Still, he said this peculiar statement, that even ‘in this new world’ he had ‘failed a second time’ to stop people from pursuing the art maliciously. He said one he would have to return to his ‘final and former measures.’ I did not know how to comprehend it, however, every time I think of a possible link between Nabel and the secrets around us, I cannot but help feel a strange chill.”
Siersus still held a number of questions he wanted to ask, yet the answers he’d gained today had his brain swirling with activity. He needed to process and digest what he’d learned so far. Once more, they simply sat together in the Vigil, gazing upon the Northern Fringes.
“You know, it is sights like these that calm me down,” Katra said. “It takes my mind away from the sort of topics we have spoken about. Sometimes, I am overcome with a sort of sadness, like I had forgotten something far away. It were as if... as if I should remember what happened to this place, to its people. I guess I find myself scared, unsettled. But not when I am here.”
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