"We believe these orbs represent the power stones placed across Muina," Isten Notra was saying. "You will note that if that correlation is true, we have three still to uncover. Those diagrams on the walls which do not relate to the platforms are considered likely to represent the large power stones. While the platforms are the power inlet, it appears that these power stones – large and small – are an outlet channel, drawing away and also consuming part of the aether output. Using the placement of the smaller stones in this projection, we have identified areas recommended for scouting."
Then she held up a small audio player and I winced, recognising the creepy whisper from my dream.
"We have spent considerable time attempting to enhance and separate the auditory component of Caszandra’s projection. Multiple voices are speaking at once, and we are working with the theory that each voice is transmitted by one of the stones. We have separated the clearest."
She played one of the whispers, almost incomprehensible to me still since it was old Muinan and mostly names. Isten Notra had a translation which basically said "In [place], the immutable [person] has dominion over [this particular area]. The immutable [person] and [person] are as his left and right hands. No power is greater than the immutable [person] in [place], and nothing has strength to wound or weary or naysay his will. Beneath his power will dwell the immutable [person]…" And so on and on and on. I hadn’t projected long enough for them to capture the full length of it, but it was all about the immutable this and that and how they lived at the pleasure of the person in charge of that area. Some of the whispers are male and some are female, and so far as they’ve been able to tell all the whispers are along the same lines, but with different areas and different people.
Isten Notra continued to speak aloud, even when directly addressing our interface audience: "It is believed that the shrouded figure in this room is the previously known touchstone, a child at the time of the disaster. Those of you who have observed the logs of Caszandra’s testing sessions will be aware that a touchstone is able to create a projection of any object or place described to her, including fictional places." She let out a faint sigh. "The Ena is not a realm governed by simple physics. Our histories and our investigations suggest it is an expression of the minds of – not necessarily sentients – but of the living. It is the memory of hunters and hunted, of places etched strongly in thought and hopes and fears. In each of these power stone installations, barring the lack of sarcophagi at Kalasa, we have found a combination apparently of the willing and the unwilling, all of whom may have been consumed. We believe they were using both the touchstone, the aether, and the lives of those within the installations to attempt an act of creation."
"Something more than becoming Cruzatch?" asked one of the bluesuits. "Surely they could not have done all this for such an existence?"
"No. A grander ambition altogether. These are the projections of the location Caszandra has repeatedly visited in a dream state, where it appears some remnant of the previous touchstone’s consciousness has been trapped. Our initial belief was that this was Muina’s past, but I am now inclined to believe that what Caszandra has glimpsed is instead the end product of these machinations. A space perhaps in the Ena or possibly even separate to it – sealed and unreachable, maintained by the power system of the platforms. Created by their will, and by fixing their description of this place in the mind of a child whose connection with the Ena is profound. They tailored themselves a world."
"Then what are the Cruzatch?" I asked.
Isten Notra brought up the image of the weird balloon-tent room from my dream. "This has been interpreted by Sight Sight talents as a gate. It is obviously not a physical throughway. Still, to those who created a world which depends on this one for survival, there is an obvious need to access real-space. For decades we have been confused by a number of spaces where Cruzatch have appeared to belong to those spaces, generating regularly, but with the advice of our Nuran partners we have concluded that those spaces were a consequence of living creatures reacting to incursions of Cruzatch into their worlds – a secondary instance of them. The true Cruzatch are outside our experience of traditional Ionoth, and we believe they are either aether devices controlled by those living on the parasite world, or even projections of their minds."
She displayed an image of the impossibly tall and golden people. "These are almost certainly the rulers of that world, and perhaps even the originals of the conspiracy on Muina, remade and sustained by the power stone system. To them, our activities must pose a direct and absolute threat. As we have grown more active in the Ena, so have they become more active in attempting to prevent our expansion.
"The fact that they are so eager to gain control of Caszandra suggests that just as we are experiencing increasing problems with the tearing of the spaces, the world they have created is not stable. Clearly they were unable, with a single touchstone, to create a world which existed independently of Muina. Now, the instability their system created in real-space is threatening their parasite world. It is probable that their activities on Nuri were an attempt to bolster their world’s existence, spending lives to create stability. It is possible that Nuri is not the first world the Cruzatch have used so."
There was a little silence.
"And does this solve our problem?" asked Tsaile Staben, voice brisk and tight. "What impact if the power stone system is removed?"
"Unknowable." Isten Notra’s mouth disappeared into wrinkles for a moment. "Suddenly removing the destabilising force is unlikely to be achieved without consequences. We will be forced to take an immense risk, and it would most certainly be disastrous to remove them sectionally. It is critical that we locate all of the power stones before tampering with them."
She turned to me. "Now – before we shift to the question of action. Caszandra, during your projection of this space, you objected with some considerable distress to the idea of moving the covering from the shrouded figure. Did you have any impression of consequences to that action?"
I hadn’t been expecting to have to contribute, but at least have grown less easy to fluster, and so I thought before I answered.
"Something was going to change," I said. " I felt that looking would…"
I broke off, because my voice trembled, and Isten Notra smiled at me comprehendingly.
"The act of observation makes real? With the Ena, that is a factor which we will need to keep in mind when dealing with the question of what is beneath that shroud after thousands of years." She moved on to technical details about the stresses on the walls between real space and the Ena, and the increasing rate of growth of the tears, and what we could expect to happen if we didn’t do something soon. And that we had to prepare the three planets for the high probability that interplanetary travel would be cut off at least temporarily if the platform/Pillar structure is damaged by the removal of the power stones.
The chickens have decided which way to run. It’s just a matter of managing it before the sky falls. My job in all this is to recover, keep in hiding, and maybe do some visualisations. Most importantly, no dates with Cruzatch.
After the meeting ended, I took Isten Notra to visit our quarters and see the kids. She called Ys valiant, which made Ys go all pink instead of glaring like a basilisk. Ys has a lot of respect for Isten Notra.
Kaoren sat through a second meeting about the spread of resources for searching for the other malachite marbles. They’ve decided to import some of the older Kalrani for these theoretically easy missions and will be splitting off the spares from Fourth to captain these junior squads as provisional Fifteenth and Sixteenth squads. Toren and Dae don’t know that yet.