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The quiet between you and anyone else would be disconcerting, enough to throw off your measurements and interrupt your thoughts. But that was precisely why you’d invited Zandik out to the open fields tonight.
You needed to look up at the sky and anchor yourself one more time to the unchanging stars above.
This was your last night.
Tomorrow, you would be somewhere else. Perhaps in a pocket between leylines. Or dead.
At some point, the theoretical had to become tangible. And the only way to know was to try. You’d defended your third dissertation and now could wander as you pleased with the title of Dashtur, provided your project was approved.
What the Sages didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
“I’m sorry I won’t be going with you,” you said, the words so soft you wondered if you only spoke them in your head.
As you pulled your eyes away from the astrolabe to write down measurements, you caught movement out of the corner of your eye. Blades of grass bent and gave way underfoot, their destiny already predetermined to contain their own semi-destruction.
“Sohreh will miss you,” Zandik replied.
“ Sohreh will miss my chai,” you replied, casting a pointed look at him through your lashes. “Her theories about evolution are contrary to the laws my darshan has established regarding the world we live in. She does not appreciate my company.”
Not like you do.
Zandik didn’t so much laugh as he did scoff, silence taking his tongue again. He was not good with sentimental moments and you asked him here knowing that.
Between the three of you, Spantamad and Amurta and Rtawahist came together in a unique way that often put your integrity and ethics in the line of fire; it was not uncommon for darshans to work together but when it came to the child from the forest who was one of the youngest scholars this century…
“The ruins won’t be anything remarkable, I’m sure,” he said at last. “Not compared to the Primordial Sea that was discussed in those texts of yours. And certainly nothing like the machines of the desert. The Eremites speak of technology different from that of the Dahri. Smaller, more agile devices and creations, utilizing electro energy stores in crystals. They supposedly convert the beating rays of the sun.”
In the distance, you peered over your telescope and saw the cresting point of King Deshret’s empire. The light emitted from the pyramid made your work difficult some nights, polluting the sky and ruining the magnificence above. Special lenses had to be created for various pieces of equipment purely to counteract the phenomenon.
Without them, you wouldn’t have found the corner of the constellation you were looking for.
“Ah, there you are,” you hissed.
You adjusted the pitch and focus before you held up your sextant to measure the coordinates. After a moment, you continued Zandik’s topic.
“You say supposedly but you speak as if you know.”
Zandik approached, closing the distance, and held a purple crystal set in bronze between his thumb and forefinger. It was a few inches long, easily rivaling some of the jewels you saw on the Sages’ fingers.
“Where did you—?”
“Caravan Ribat.”
You scrunched your face; it took at least a day to get to the edge of the Wall, let alone a round trip. It was difficult in a group when there were so many tigers out that way. A Corp of Thirty escort was often needed if scholars wanted to go that far west.
“The benefit of being an outcast,” he said, a smug smile tugging at his lips.
He was going to get himself killed one day if he kept to himself and continued to look into devices not sanctioned by the Akademiya. There weren’t many but anything from the desert was considered primitive and not worth the time. After all, Deshret succumbed to Forbidden Knowledge; he was a prime example of looking too deeply.
“What do you intend to do with it?” you asked as you ignored the hammering of your heart.
“I’ve begun to hypothesize that there might be some compatibility between the mechanisms of the Dahri and Deshret’s creations. They both rely on elemental energy and pull from the leylines beneath our feet. But they utilize it differently…Deshret was clearly inspired by those who came before him. Imagine what might be possible if we could harness that power for ourselves, instead of giving it to machines without cognitive abilities…”
He continued on well into the night, regaling you with ideas while you measured and counted star after star, charting your course. After all, you needed a map to determine the direction to go in.
And a memory of this night. Of him.
As you walked back to the Akademiya, equipment in your arms, Zandik shattered the quiet that came peacefully with a conclusion of a tangent, startling the nearby shroomboar. It gave a huff but then fell back into a slumber, no doubt dreaming of Zaytun Peaches and Sweetflower.
“You’re onto something, you know.”
“Elaborate,” you chuckled. “I’ve got at least three ideas bouncing around any given time.”
“Defying fate. How most think it impossible because the stars never change with the seasons. Constellations burning out and on occasion, renewing themselves. Everything is made up of energy, even stars, and the laws of entropy dictate that energy cannot cease existing, it just takes a different form. And if everything is elemental energy, then the ley lines that house them are veins , no? Or perhaps roots for something else. Plants leech their energy from the soil and the sun.”
“Humans are unrooted, though,” you countered.
“Not to the stars. It is impossible not to look up and stare. Find a single human who does not take a second every night to look up.”
“It’s a little too abstract just yet. My expedition should yield some evidence one way or another, as will yours. I do wish the timing was better.”
Zandik looked up for a second, red eyes scanning the sky and tracing lines that you knew by heart. His constellation was up there, somewhere, but you learned early on not to pry when he didn’t give his alongside Sohreh and the others. He kept it close. And around you, the Rtawahist student who dared to consider that stars should be moveable, that between gravity and the rotation of the world, things should change .
“We’ll meet again. One way or another,” he said at last. “Under a different set of stars.”
You could tell from the angle of his head and the purse of his lips that he had more to say. So much more. Much like his constellation, he held them back, whatever sentiments he held in his head kept so far under wraps that you were certain not even drink would pry them loose.
He looked at you just once before you parted ways for the night and you buried the selfish pang in your chest to steal him away. Your work was done here.
His, on the other hand, had only just begun.
Snow crunched and cracked under your boot as you trekked through the tundra, auroras dancing above you. Your lungs burned not with excretion but from the frigid climate, so cold that it seared your very bones.
Why had he come here of all places? Couldn’t he have gone to the desert, where at least the sun showed itself year round?
Hunting down your old companion was something out of a Fontainian murder mystery. Sumeru changed drastically upon your return and you came to find that traveling through the veins of the world affected not only space but time. Somehow, Zandik defied the average lifespan and while the trail grew cold, the Eremites in the desert knew the description you provided so vividly that you wondered if you were hallucinating.
Funny. He left his homeland and yet still maintained a professional connection with the mercenaries of the desert. A single solitary crumb.
One that, upon your arrival to the facility, made you question if you had enough evidence to back up who you claimed to be. The human mind eroded quickly after a certain decade and your companion was, well…several centuries old.
You were taken aback when you recognized short teal hair and an enthusiastic gait, wild gestures and a boisterous tone. The side of him that only showed itself when your group was deep within a debate and working on weaving various threads together for an idea.
But that wasn’t actually Zandik, you quickly discovered, when you were led to an office that held an air of foreboding.
“You’re not him?” you asked your escort.
“I am, but I’m not. I remember you but I’ve never met you. He knew of your arrival hours ago. The door is open.”
Questions filled your mind and began to overflow but the not-Zandik turned heel and left before you could ask another. How had a scholar from Sumeru, one accused of various sins in his pursuits of knowledge and accused of the murder of his friend (were they just friends, you wondered), now the Second Fatui Harbinger ? A role that rivaled a Sage, so close to divinity, he might as well have…
You pushed the door open and met a pair of red eyes so striking, you would know them anywhere.
“Hello, Zandik.”