I don’t think it’s often that Isten Notra is surprised, but she paused a long time before saying anything. "You’re suggesting that Muina itself is a projection created by the people of your world?"
Her voice was calm, kind, but the way she said it make it sound like an awful insult. I flushed hard, but stumbled on. "Muina is so like Earth, just better put together. A little larger, with far fewer hot dry areas, a better mix of land and water – and all the water fresh, except for one shallow sea which conveniently happens to provide salt! The trees, the crops, the animals – so many are almost exactly the same, or variations of the kinds found on Earth. The one major difference is that the group of people in charge had psychic abilities which made them more powerful than those they ruled."
"Earth has no tears into the Ena," Kaoren said, his mouth a flat line, his eyes still narrowed. "Nothing you have described about it suggests that it’s sustaining a parasite world."
"But the parasite world is a parasite because they didn’t have enough power to make it permanent, to fix it in place. Something which endured, like my origami cranes. What if Muina was created by a more powerful system, one which wasn’t latching on to something meant for other things. Or if they had two – a dozen – enough touchstones?"
My voice had gone a bit loud, so I stopped, and took a breath and told myself not to be upset.
"And so you take the question to Science and Sight," Isten Notra said, the smile returning to her eyes. "What does Sight say?"
Kaoren shook his head. "Sight Sight is rarely helpful with broad questions. I feel no immediate rejection, but nothing to suggest it’s true, either."
"And I see no way to prove this," Isten Notra said. "If Muina was created, there does not appear to be any active link to the creator, and there is no sign of an external power source maintaining this world. Nor does it show any sign of being located within the Ena. Is there any known place on your world similar to the room with the shrouded child?"
I shook my head, and Isten Notra leaned forward to take my head and briefly squeeze it. "Then I have no answer for you, child. What you suggest may be true, or may simply be fear and fancy. And I suspect I know why it weighs on you."
"We’re going to kill everyone on that planet."
"Very likely. Or they will capture you and place you in a room and finish what they started, with who knows what effect on Muina. Or we will not find all the power stones in time, and everything around us will tear apart. When you are presented hateful choices, you can only measure the cost of not acting." Isten Notra stood up. "But you were wise to ask this off-log. Even though the restrictions against viewing such monitoring are not so easily ignored as you seem to think, I will set a process in place to ensure that logs of your daily life are deleted within the shortest possible timeframe. As for this discussion, I will note that you wished to speak openly about your concerns regarding the destruction of the parasite world, and also that you fear to be used in the way that the child, Liranadestar, was. Your log will restart in two joden."
Nodding to Kaoren she left, and I let out a breath. He sat down, then said: "An interesting irony if we, who have trained our entire lives to kill Ionoth, were a form of Ionoth ourselves."
"That’s not what I meant!" I said, appalled. "It’s totally–"
"Different? How far is the memory of a monster from the active projection of one?" His eyes were still narrowed, thoughtful, and he gave me one of his fractional smiles. "You ask difficult questions at times."
"Projections stop when I stop feeding energy into them. Ionoth are remembered by their spaces and come back," I said. "You – Eeli–"
"Will not. You’ve given yourself your answer." He held out his hand. "Even if Muina was made, it is a true world now, and does no damage by existing. That is certainly the answer I would choose to prefer."
And I will. I have to. Just as I have to accept that we are going to destroy what’s sustaining Lira, because no other option seems workable.
Writing this down doesn’t quite defeat the purpose of arranging to go off-log, but I guess I’m going to have to ensure my diaries are destroyed eventually, and not preserved as part of Muina’s historic record.
Kaoren was more bothered by my questions than he wanted to let on, and this evening has continually tried to shift on top of me in his sleep. I’ve brought Sen into bed with us because she was struggling with her dreams too. I just want this waiting to be over, to have all the power stones found, and gone. And I’m trying to look at that positively, to think of it as saving what can be saved, and at least ending Lira’s pain and confusion.
It’s hard, though.
The expedition at Oriath is hoping to break through the shielding there tonight/tomorrow.
Sunday, October 26
Too Awful
Spoke to Lira last night. It wasn’t a dream. I was asleep in bed with Kaoren and Sen when I felt Lira standing near us, and I woke myself up and she was there standing by the bed looking at us. I wasn’t projecting, and didn’t feel any power drain, so I was pretty surprised by this and only just stopped myself from elbowing Kaoren in the ribs, which wouldn’t have been the nicest way to wake him up – I gripped his hand tightly instead as I said "Hello".
Lira looked at me, and at Kaoren as he lifted his head, then said: "Something’s changed."
"It certainly has, if you can manage to be here all by yourself," I said, sitting up and reaching out to touch her arm. Warm and alive and at least temporarily real. "Thank you for warning us before."
"You were too slow," she told me. "The flying lizard was good, though."
"Were you able to see the meeting we had two days ago?" Kaoren asked (every bit a captain despite being dressed in the Singlet and boxer-briefs he wears to bed). "Where we discussed the site at Oriath and what we believe the people who kidnapped you did?"
"The old woman who kept talking," Lira said, in a flat tone which barely masked tight distress. "What room is it she was talking about?"
"It’s underneath a palace to the south-west of Oriath," Kaoren said evenly. Then, after a brief pause added: "There is a shield about the complex, and today, just now, we succeeded in piercing it. Just before Cassandra woke."
Lira’s no fool, and she knows that there’s something dreadfully wrong with her, and she was being very brave trying to find out more. But she went so terribly white that I couldn’t help myself, and scooped her into my lap and squeezed her hard. She reacted just like Ys, going rigid, but then when I – on the edge of hysteria myself – whispered "I’m sorry" into her ear over and over she suddenly gave a great shudder and clutched me and burst into tears – great, deep choking sobs full of confusion and fear and despair. We proceeded to cry all over each other, waking poor Sen up with a start (though she maintained her characteristic sweetness by patting both of us and making little comforting chirrupy noises and even pattering off and fetching water when we started to calm down).
Kaoren waited us out, no doubt having long discussions over the interface, though he did briefly squeeze my shoulder, despite what his Sights would make that feel like for him. Lira cried herself into limp exhaustion, and then faded away completely.
"Sorry," I said to Kaoren, taking the cup of water Sen was holding at a dangerous angle. "Not very useful to make her cry, but I couldn’t help myself."
"It’s what she’s coming to you for," Kaoren said, briefly resting his hand on Sen’s head so that she knew he approved of her being helpful. "Liranadestar must be aware that when she is conscious it’s always in projection, that she is not returning to her physical self. And her captors interrupt the projection when they see it, which leaves her in a fragmentary and nightmarish state. It is comfort, more than answers, that she’s seeking."