The cold wind blew, as if in time to Quietus’s dark thoughts. I stood still, not wanting to think about them. No thought crossed from Quietus for a long while.
Anna and Char watched the dragon from my either side, ready to run or fight at any moment.
Is this how you attacked every world? I thought. With a meteor?
Quietus answered. The method is different, for each world. Different diseases necessitate different cures. And the pestilence of your race runs deep.
What makes you hate us so?
Death is my name. Quietus. The End of all Things. Yes. I was created by my Mother to hate, and that hatred I have nursed for uncounted eons, mostly in darkness. You know not the darkness of space, being trapped with your thoughts for thousands of years, with nothing but the fell whispers of the Dark Mother — such imprisonment I have endured between Reapings. Death brings succor, and I drink deeply of its draft — though I am never permitted to embrace it in full. How I long for that death, little Elekai. But she will not let me have it, not until all fades to silence.
You can be free, I said. It has been said, in order to know hate, one must first know love.
I have debated this vile thought for years untold, Quietus answered. And there is only nothing. You seek, and you do not find. Everything is a lie. There is only…nothing…the ultimate truth.
Something like a sigh escaped the dragon — a strange sound to come from a creature so large, so brutal. It sounded…pained. Tired.
What is truth, Elekai, but your conception of it? I have searched the depths of your heart and know that you hold no conviction. A being of no conviction is but a leaf in the wind, having no control over its course. It goes where the wind wills. What do you believe, young Elekai? I see you hope that I might be changed. Hope is but a dream, a dream best abandoned before it blinds with false brightness.
Hope does not always lead to a false end.
There is no fighting the Radaskim, Quietus thought. On countless worlds they brood, and this world is just one among thousands. Four hundred years hence, they shall return. That was the duration of our last stasis — four hundred long years. From the world of Tar’Sha’Lak we sailed the Void, four hundred years ago. The Dark Mother may be killed, but never shall the Radaskim fall. We are too many. A Second Reaping shall come, far more terrible than the first…
Four hundred years, little Elekai. Are you ready?
I sensed no lie in Quietus’s words. I only felt a numb, cold shock overtake me. What Quietus said was true. Even if we won, in four hundred years, they would return from the nearest Radaskim world.
For a long time I stood there, until Anna touched my arm.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
It was a while before I could bring myself to answer.
“I know when Xenofall is coming.”
Chapter 23
A long silence passed. I explained nothing, and Quietus said nothing further, feeling his work complete. His eyes, once again, were empty of thought or emotion. He had said his piece, and now only waited for my reaction.
“I thought…” Anna began. “Wasn’t this Xenofall? Wasn’t Xenofall us fighting Askala and winning the war?”
I had to explain everything to Anna and Char. It wasn’t easy; most of what Quietus told me was thoroughly depressing. I stressed that Quietus had not lied to me. Though the dragons railed against it with all their spirit, I was in control and they couldn’t disobey a direct command — at least until Askala had found a way to reclaim them.
Then again, the truth they revealed could be misleading, and the outlook Quietus had painted was incredibly bleak.
“So if we defeat Askala,” Anna said, “They’ll just come back again. In four hundred years?”
I nodded.
“That means,” Char said. “If we win, it’s not really a victory. It just delays the inevitable.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Even with four hundred years, it’s hard to imagine how we could prepare for something like another invasion. Even if we could, would it really be enough?”
“So they attack,” Anna said, “over and over, until they finally win.”
Char shook his head. His blue eyes seemed angry, more than anything.
“Would’ve been nice if the old man mentioned something about that,” he said. “He must have known.”
“I don’t know if he did,” I said. “Or maybe he didn’t want us to think the fight was hopeless. Maybe, even with Xenofall…there’s a chance we can still win.”
They both looked at me, as if I had that answer.
“I’m not saying I know what it is,” I said. “But four hundred years is a lot of time to search for an answer.”
Anna shook her head. “All of this is just so hard to imagine. So, the Radaskim are on that planet, and it’s apparently four hundred years’ travel time away?”
I nodded. “That’s the gist. He said that world was called Tar’Sha’Lak.”
“Right,” Anna said, wincing at the weird name. “This makes the battle so much bigger. So much more…impossible. I’m starting to realize how tiny we are.”
“The Wanderer had faith in us, that we would find the answer,” I said. “Maybe…maybe we’re a lot closer than we think.”
Once again, Char and Anna looked at me.
“What would that answer be, Alex?” Anna asked.
I shook my head, and sighed. “I don’t know. I’m still thinking.”
“Maybe he knows,” Anna said, pointing at Quietus. “You said that dragon will tell you anything, and that he can’t disobey a direct order. Get him talking.”
I nodded. “It’s worth a shot. But…it’s draining.”
Anna grabbed my hand. “I’ll be right here. If you need to break off the connection…do what you have to do.”
I nodded. I turned back to Quietus, who met me with those chilling white eyes.
It was time to find out more.
Can Xenofall be stopped?
Something like amusement came from the dragon.
Stopped? Do not waste your thoughts on this, little human. You will not even reach Askala, who dwells in the depths of Ragnarok Crater.
There has to be a way, I thought. The Wanderer would not have died if there wasn’t a way.
You understand nothing, Quietus said. We are but thoughts that take mortal shape. We never truly die, until our thoughts die. Your kind has not learned this. If you are a thought, you can live forever.
You mean with the xenofungus, I said. Your memory, your being, returns there.
Yes, Quietus thought. You begin to understand now. You humans thought to do this with machines, but life is so much more complicated than machinery — infinitely more complex, beautiful and meticulous. Life gives endless possibilities for growth, for nurturing, for evolution — machines are hard lines, angles, inflexibility.