The Wyrms of &alon

Interlude 3.20 - Der Abschied


Then he revved his wings and soared, rocketing up into the air. Wind streamed from EUe like a comet's tail as the Prince of Flight lent his power. He got to see just how extensively the drones' mining operations had grown as he zoomed beyond the mountains. The many tunnels and pits ate into the mountain range like spider-veined sores. Groves of newly constructed Impactors stood at the middle of the depression, poking out from the flesh of the land.

EUe resolved to ask Vyx what it knew about this once he returned with the nectar.

No matter how much it repulsed him, he couldn't deny the possibility that his alien friend might be responsible for everything that was happening.

EUe's sense of urgency helped him travel quickly, despite his unease. He blazed across the sky, making excellent time. Even then, though, it wasn't enough.

Faster. He had to go faster!

He felt responsible for these people. True, he didn't know them very well, but they'd been kind to him. Only one of them had called him kwekek! It was a far better reception than what he'd expected. His cowardice was still on file, and anyone who'd read about his case would known how he'd reacted to his wife and son's… deaths. There was no way that tlE-la, gEl, or lU-twO couldn't have known about it. Even so, they'd treated him like a colleague, regardless, and that…

…that meant something.

EUe spotted the elU groves a little over an hour after leaving the camp. That meant the nectar station was only minutes away.

tUel-tEa station, that was the name.

But as EUe flew over the thickly forested land, he realized something was off. Literally.

The clams.

At night, elU groves lit up with countless dots of bioluminescence, courtesy of the innumerable tree clams encrusted on the plants' prodigious stalks. And while EUe could still see the clams' calming, pastel-blue lights, there was far, far less of it than there should have been. Rather than looking like a reflection of the starry night, the view was darkened and polluted, with only scattered clusters of clams shining here and there.

It only made the sinking feeling in EUe's chest deepen.

Finally, tUel-tEa station's meadow came into view, an island of open space in the midst of the grove, save for the elder elU stalks at the heart of both the meadow and the surrounding buildings.

Stopping, EUe hovered in place and observed. He nodded. "Good, the lights are on."

That meant the dreamshard powering the station was still operational.

The belief that dreamshards would fail en masse someday was generally considered to be a conspiracy theory unworthy of consideration. Yet, with the eerie way the Ecumene's infrastructure was failing—missed deliveries, promised help that never arrived—EUe couldn't help but worry something really had gone wrong.

But, no, giving tUel-tEa a good look-over through his second eyelids, as far as he could tell, all the communions and their power conduits were in working order. Everything was functioning exactly as intended, which was good, because it meant his plan would go off without a hitch.

The nectar processing plant was located behind the elU stalk at the meadow's center. From there, a network of pipes spread out, running deep into the surrounding groves, where they ran up and branched out into suction nozzles used by harvesters to gather the plants' nectar. This was then be sent to the processing station, where it was filtered, purified, and sorted. Portions of the harvest were diverted to the massive cistern beside the processing plant, to be dispensed to the travelers partaking of the station's various amenities, while the rest would be piped into the underground nectarducts and pumped to the nearest city, in the case, the Capital.

EUe's plan was to rip the cistern out of the pipe network and then use a couple well-placed communions to install an improvised replacement right on the spot. Was it a little extreme? Yes, but it would take care of the research camp's nectar needs for the foreseeable future.

EUe wanted to believe that the lights being on meant that the station's overseer would be up and about. Unfortunately, his observation that all of the tech seemed to be in working order wasn't even half as comforting as he wanted it to be.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Something was seriously wrong.

At this hour of the day, a nectar station like tUel-tEa should have been in the throes of the night life, with travelers enjoying themselves at the restaurants and casinos scattered among the hotels and hostels. Security guards should have been on patrol, to ensure that nobody got severely wounded in the scramble for the last few available rooms at the inns.

The air should have been throbbing with the buzz of many twEfE wings, but instead, it was dead silent.

EUe suspected he wasn't going to get any answers here. But he could still get nectar.

He set down on the balcony of a nectar bar about a third of the way up the stem of the central elU plant around which the resort was built. The bar's lights were on, but he couldn't discern any figures moving around inside, just silence.

A tingle ran down EUe's spine, twitching through his tail feathers. The sense of foreboding as he slowly approached the door was almost palpable.

Suddenly, a burst of not-light exploded near the horizon. Squeaking in shock, EUe whipped his head around to look. His wings flared instinctively as his body prepared to fly and fight.

Sliding his second eyelids all the way down, EUe watched, stunned, as several bright bolts streaked out from the direction of the Capital like a volley of shooting stars. The communions at work were too intense for them to be anything other than other Gatherers.

More Gatherers were being deployed? And there had to be, what, twelve of them?

That was nearly a quarter of the entire corps!

The sonic booms launched by the Gatherers' communions rustled the groves when it finally reached tUel-tEa station. In the distance, the Gatherers' not-light signatures dwindled into nothing, lost in the deep, deep sky.

A moment later, another dozen Gatherers launched from the Capital, this time speeding straight up into the night.

That was when EUe realized he couldn't see even a single airship overhead.

His heart nearly skipped a beat.

There were always people going back and forth between the planet and the atmospheric isles. Traffic was a constant of the modern world.

Then he heard a wordless scream. The source was close nearby.

EUe lowered his gaze just in time to watch in horror as a lone male flew out from one of the hostels and up into the sky, only to veer out of control, crash into the central elU's stem, and tumbled down. He fell like a swatted fly.

As the male fell, EUe glimpsed the not-light festooned through his body. The communions were unlike any he'd ever seen before.

What the fuck is going on?!

EUe was panicking now.

He sped downward. He rushed to the nearest nectar bar and flung the door open.

No. No no no.

There were three people on the floor. Two of them were lying on their sides with their wings covering their faces. The third…

The female crawled forward across the varnished wood floor with her trembling limbs. Whole swaths of feathers had fallen off her body, revealing the pits of many ulcers. Filamentous growths streaked beneath her naked skin like black lightning.

Coughing, black ooze and green dust spurted out of her mouth and onto the floor.

"Get away," she said. Her voice was raspy and low. Her wing twitched. She reached for EUe with a single hand. "Away…"

Then her last strength left her, and she collapsed, as dead as the bodies underneath her.

EUe flew out of the nectar bar so quickly that the gust in his wake pulled some half-dozen half-empty nectar bottles along with him. The bottles tumbled out through the door, spilled over the edge of the platform, and plummeted to the ground below.

Terrified, and not knowing what else to do, he called on the power of the Golden Herald.

"Ela-tU, give me strength…"

The communion was much for his own security as it was to help him do what he was about to do.

Ela-tU wasn't the King of the Gods for no reason.

When you communed with Ela-tU, you tapped into his limitless strength. The power He bestowed came with a sense of assuredness, the confidence of that moment when the battle finally turns in your favor.

Not-light and true-light crackled through EUe's body in equal combination and the dreamshard in his chest burned like a sacred ember. All his senses were tightened; his strength was unmatched. With Ela-tU's blessing bright in his veins, EUe could have punched down buildings if he wanted to. All the tiredness, hunger, and stress that had been weighing down on him evaporated into nothing as he flew around the thick elU at tUel-tEa's heart.

EUe bolted down to the cistern at the base of the stalk where the network of pipes converged. He didn't notify the station's overseer about what he was going to do, but he justified that by noting that, in all likelihood, the overseer was dead.

Whatever flak he'd get for overstepping his boundaries paled in comparison to his fear about what was happening to his world.

Setting into a hover beside the cistern, EUe placed communions at either end of the damn thing, and then grabbed it with both hands and pulled. The pipes groaned, and then snapped as the cistern broke free. EUe triggered the communions a moment later, using Ela-tU's strength to pinch the cistern's broken ends closed, sealing the nectar inside. The pressure was so intense, it heated the cistern's metal to a red glow, and even though the thing was as big as a house, in EUe's arms, it seemed to weigh little more than his nectariat.

All that was left was to fabricate a replacement for the borrowed cistern and fasten it in place. First, however, he needed to stem the flow of nectar from the wide-open pipes.

And that was when he saw it: the nectar, dribbling out from the broken pipe.

EUe e dropped the cistern in shock, which hit the nectar-slicked ground with a heavy thud. He put his hand over his nares.

The smell was nauseating.

The nectar burbling onto the grass and dirt was contaminated. It stank of acid and fermentation, and an overwhelming, earthy sweetness. Instead of familiar golden fluid, the gunk spewing out of the pipes was viscous, phlegmy dark ooze dusted in green specks. Threads clogged the pipe like black roots, and the gunk sizzled, crackled, and popped where it spilled onto the grass.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.


Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter