Chapter 33
Soul Shape
Oh, no. It’s my turn? But Fia hasn’t even gone yet. Shit, I am not ready.
Fia took his robe and gave him a gentle nudge, and he steeled himself before walking towards the statuesque Icthian women. They led him by either hand down the steps into the depths.
As the warm water rose around his navel, the true enormity of the pool came into clarity. Far, far below, there was a web of glowing coral-like structures that gave off a soft purple light. It was a beautiful glow, interspersed with blurry, shifting shadows of plants or creatures among them.
He steeled himself with a breath, and the duo took that as an unintentional signal that he was ready. They both pulled him beneath the surface before he had a moment to protest.
Immediate panic struck him as he fought the urge to expel all his air and thrash. The water rushed by, and he had plunged deep enough that he could feel the pressure whining in his eardrums long before he could make out the dark figure that rose before him.
Through his squinted, blurry vision, he saw a humanoid shape.
It was not unlike that of the other Icthians, but massive.
Thrice the size of Fia at least, with tendrils that floated in the water for several feet in every direction.
He was so fascinated by the sight that he hardly registered the fact that he was seeing underwater with such clarity.
It was dark, but despite that, he could still make out fine details.
While he knew the Sovereign was ancient, he hadn’t considered what a millennium or more of age would look like for an Icthian.
She was so pale that her scales were translucent.
In some places, he could see through her abdomen into the twisting network of vessels beneath.
Her limbs were bony, hands tipped with grayed and terrifying claws that extended far beyond use.
The currents in the water ushered him closer to face her, floating about a meter away.
He was level with her eyes, though hers remained closed.
Wait, where did my diving buddies go?!
He had been so awestruck that he hadn’t realized that he was floating, un-chaperoned. He looked around wildly until a bright blue glow caught his attention.
The Sovereign was looking at him, through him, with cerulean eyes that glowed fiercely despite their milky sheen. And as she did, his world slowed to a crawl. Not like the way adrenaline can drag time out, but in a far more tangible sense.
He watched an air bubble he had expelled in surprise form in front of him, break into two, and rise. The speed at which it moved was glacial. He reached out to catch it, but the response from his limbs was so delayed that he felt locked in place.
“Do not fear, little one. I have simply borrowed a moment to speak with you. Will you speak with me?”
The voice echoed in his mind and in his chest. It was ethereal, soft, and maternal. Her lips were not moving, but he knew it was her. The Sovereign.
“What would you … like me to say?” he asked. His mouth didn’t move, but as he formed the words, he could feel his sentiment shared between them.
“You have brought not just one, but two children I thought lost. I wish to know the shape of the soul of a human who would do this for us.”
“I don’t really know how to, uh, describe my soul-shape.”
The voice that came across almost sounded like laughter. “You do not need to put this into words.”
As he heard the words register, the surrounding water shimmered brightly in odd patterns, leaving the imprint of images in its wake. Images that he recognized. Familiar faces, familiar places. His life was flickering in the water like a fragmented, multi-layered virtu-reel.
“I will only see what you focus on, what you grant me to observe. I will not delve unbidden.”
He peered through the fractal visions of his experiences, his mind’s eye drifting towards one warm memory from his childhood. A day spent mag-skate racing with his brother.
“There’s nothing interesting to share, really. My life has been pretty simple. See?”
He watched on as the memory he focused on blossomed wide, and with a flash, he was there again.
Marius was buckling his mag-skates on him, being big-brotherly and making sure his helmet was on tight before they turned on the skates. They spent the night finding out which buildings had walls made of enough steel to skate along. Much to the annoyance of several shopkeepers.
As the memory dimmed, he felt an odd glow in his heart. He had always envisioned his childhood through a jaded lens, but in that moment, it felt genuine and cherished. He was once that excited little brother, enjoying mischief for mischief’s sake, unburdened by expectations. For better or worse.
“A simple life, and a beautiful one. Will you show me more?”
He did not know how much time had passed, but Davik felt as though he had spent hours walking through the depths of his life.
Though they used few words, much had been exchanged.
The Sovereign illuminated the outline of a memory she had an interest in, letting him pull it to the forefront or let it fade away.
And she stayed true to her word: she didn’t go where she wasn’t invited.
When she brought the echo of that day forward, the night he nearly hit the existential eject button, he was at a loss.
It was the one moment he feared reliving above everything else.
Even just the shape of the memory wracked him with shame and guilt, and the Sovereign seemed to sense his trepidation.
“You have shown me much of your joy, but little of your pain.”
It was not a demand, but he could feel her insistence behind the words.
“It makes me feel vulnerable. Weak. It’s … I don’t want to see myself like that.”
The essence of that night faded before him. She replaced it with something different. A memory with colors, shapes, and figures for which he had no reference.
“I do not expect you to offer vulnerability freely. I present an exchange. Truth for truth. Pain for pain.”
He reached out with his intent, his curiosity vastly outweighing his own trepidation.
A collision of foreign senses hit him like a wall.
It was scent and sound, but slanted in a way that was indescribable.
Vision, but from a perspective he struggled to recognize as his own.
Words spoken in a language he didn’t speak, but could sense the meaning of.
He was tall, graceful, surrounded by figures both human and Icthian.
In the mind’s eye of this memory, he knew: these were the leaders of humankind.
The figureheads and arbiters brought here to settle the terms of a pact.
The Icthians here were appealing, imploring to be granted access to Earth.
This was a moment in a time of beautiful potential, before tensions had split them into all-out war.
This summit had been in a deadlock for days, after years of delays and concessions.
The Sovereign knew they would concede and concede until they were whittled down to nothing.
That fear, the weight, the incalculable millions of lives that had been given to come here as their homeland withered pressed to the forefront of her mind.
Earth was the only planet they had found that could support their spawning pools. But the Icthians were denied access out of a surfeit of caution by the planet’s stewards.
The little blue world had endured human-wrought disasters that nearly destroyed the atmosphere and biosphere. The Federation, a collective force that grew out of the planetary preservation effort, wielded the authority, technology, and military might to protect that ripe haven.
But it was a practically uninhabited planet now. A massive conservatory, with terrifying orbital weaponry prepared to destroy anything that dared stray too close without approval from the Federation.
“You have to understand,” one of the mealy-mouthed humans insisted. “We just need more data to support your request. The University of Selvaki has a longitudinal study of the effects your pools would have on the coral reefs. That really needs some more investigation before—”
Davik felt his, no, the Sovereign’s voice booming into the room.
“It is not a request! We have waited for over fifty years. We have given, and given, and given. You have done nothing but take!” Her fist, massive and clawed, crashed upon the table to punctuate the shouted words.
“My people are dying with no way to reproduce, Ambassador Portia!” the Sovereign thundered.
“We have complied, we have bowed, we have been patient. And my capacity to tolerate your excuses has run dry. Your species is thriving. Thriving and claiming new worlds by the grace of the gates and stasis technology that we have gifted to you.”
The ambassador was petrified. Davik could feel the Sovereign’s fury building with every word, her massive heart thundering in his senses. The edges of his perception were tinged by an odd notion, a sixth sense: the Chorus.
She could see — no, feel — the temperament of the Icthians in the room. Twelve brightly glittering minds, all flickering with emotions of mingled fear, concern, anxiety, and exhaustion.
“We—” the ambassador sputtered before she gathered herself. “The cloning trials are yielding positive results. Waiting will not be a death sentence. We have already produced two viable Icthian specimens, Madame Sovereign. There are alternatives!”
Davik could feel anguish coursing through the veins of the Sovereign as her agonized cry rippled through the room. It was not just her voice, but her own resonance, that was filled with a deep sense of hopelessness, loss, and rage.
Rather than tame the echo, she let it spill from her, unfettered. An unimaginable pulse of woe and violent hatred suffocated any shred of resistance that the Icthians around her wielded.
The Sovereign’s own assistant, a gentle-hearted Icthian with bright yellow scales, succumbed to the feral thrum first. Through the eyes and heart of the Sovereign, Davik watched in abject horror as the assistant tore the stuttering ambassador’s jaw in twain.
The entire room erupted in savage, desperate brutality. All wrought by her.
“This is my darkest shame, little one. This is how the war began.”
The rush of air finally reaching his lungs was so sickly sweet that he almost choked on it.
Davik wrenched free from the grasp of the two golden Icthians and clawed up the stairs to lie flat on the somewhat-dry ground. His mind was reeling, and he was panting as if he had just run a mile in a blink.
He had shared a lifetime, but somehow it still felt like only a moment.
The Sovereign had wanted to see the shape of his soul, and now he felt an awful lot like his soul had been put through a meat grinder, and he needed to figure out what shape to put it back into.
Carissa was up next, and she hesitated as the duo of attendants came to her.
“Davik?” she asked, giving him a little nudge on the shoulder with her foot. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Weird as fuck. Not bad. Just kinda … You know how you feel right after you get out of a really good virtu-reel?”
Carissa snorted. “Kinda dizzy, but like dizzy in the brain? And like the real world isn’t bright enough?”
Davik nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. “On the nose.”
That seemed to assuage her reluctance, and he leaned to sit upright just in time to watch her descend. Fia sank beside him, her shoulder pressed to his as he gathered his bearings.
There had barely been a moment to enjoy the touch before she resurfaced. With a twinge of embarrassment, he realized that he must have been underwater for less than a minute.
Carissa looked as out-of-it as Davik had felt, and she sank down to sit beside him. They both watched as others dove down and returned to the surface in such a short amount of time that Davik felt newly baffled by the whole ordeal.
The only one who didn’t delve below was Theos. The Pactbind kept him at an arm’s length, even here. It made Davik feel a little guilty. The Sovereign could talk to a human like him, but not her own bound kin.
A soft touch on his cheek drew his focus. Fia offered him a quick kiss before rising, and he watched her supple body sink down into the water and vanish. Unlike his solo venture, she descended along with Vek and several other Icthians around them.
I don’t like her having to walk away, but, fuck me. It’s a marvelous view.
Davik and Carissa whiled away the time catching each other up on their shared weirdness in the now far less crowded room. The Sovereign had been very curious about Carissa’s religious upbringing and her experience as a pilot back when she served in the Sol Forces.
“It was really odd,” she said. “I would think she’d be angry about my time serving Sol. But she kept requesting memories of raids on Icthian holdings on the Rim, when my team was destroying their transports. It wasn’t bloodless stuff. But she didn’t seem upset to see it. Just sad.”
Davik nodded. “I got the impression that the ones out there are more … Well, you know, you always have love for the black sheep in your family. They’re still family. But you also are not surprised when they end up arrested.”
“Kinda feels like small potatoes in comparison, but, yeah. Similar flavor to it. Apparently, the Icthians out there split off from the Fleet way back in the day, even before the war. Some sort of power struggle. She didn’t give me any juicy details like you got, though.”
“Yeah, juicy details, alright. I’m trying to wrap my head around it all,” he mumbled.
The surface of the water was still, dotted with the occasional flare of light from below.
What I would give to know what was going on down there.