The Principle of Moments Esmie

Jikiemi-Pearson
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To the Black women who wrote a way to the stars, and showed me
how to dream the future.
 Contents

Dedication
Title Page

The Beginning
The Middle
The End

Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One

Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four

Acknowledgements
Credits
Copyright
 The Beginning

This is a story we are hesitant to tell, though it is true we are many

lifetimes removed from it now.
We record it because it is our history, and through our history we
illuminate our future, and through this ritual of illumination we find
the power to shape that future. We find precedent. We find order.
Indeed, the old mandate rings in our ears—Order is the Architect.
How we repent for that naivete now, after the fact.
It is with regret that we must inform you this tale survives solely
in fragments, salvaged at great personal risk. As for its ending, that
is clearest of all, having only just come to pass.
Perhaps this is not such a bad thing.
Perhaps this is a tragedy.
Perhaps that is for you to judge.
But we digress—and there will be time enough for that later.
Here, then, is how the story starts.

In the beginning, there were no heroes to speak of. This, we call the
Dead Age, as it preceded the Age of Life; the Life that our heroes
would later restore after overcoming so much peril.
During the Dead Age, shadows reigned and no plants grew.
During the Dead Age, the rain fell as acid and poisoned the rivers,
souring the oceans and drying the land. Creatures with twisted limbs
and savage mouths ruled the jagged crags, their many-hundred eyes
and wicked spines glinting in the sun’s red light.
 During the Dead Age, the planet was in pain, as the talons of
these creatures dug ever deeper into Her flesh, and the acid rain
scorched Her past all recognition. Where once She had been blue,
and brightest pink, dappled with jewelled purple and lush, lively
green, She was now muted grey, carbon-black, and crumbling.
She had forgotten Her own name—all She knew of Herself was
the agony.
Soon (by a planet’s standard—so not very soon at all by ours),
She grew weary of being corroded, grew weary of the pockmarks
and lightning strikes and tectonic shudders, grew weary of the effort
it took to push hot magma out of fresh wounds, weary of each split
of scar tissue and each gout of boiling blood forced from beneath
Her mantle to harden over Her tender skin.
So, She carved from the earth three heroes who would rid Her of
this monstrous blight, find the Life She had lost, and bring it back
into the light.
From the shadow. From the river. From the mountain.
A shield. A sword. A crown.
Adesola. Sensit. Dandeyi.
Three heroes. One prophecy: save the world.

‘A Complete, Annotated History of Chasca, Including Relevant

Translated Mythologies. Chapter: Scroll the First’ by I. Nisomn, ex-
acolyte of the Aonian Archives.

(Archivist’s note: This text by I. Nisomn is the only remaining

source at our disposal regarding the mythos of that strange
planet, Chasca, forgotten by the universe but not forsaken by its
scholars, it would seem. This key episode details the origins of the
first of three prophecies, of which two have purportedly come to
pass, and which all, as reported by Nisomn, foretell great calamity,
and can only be thwarted, or fulfilled, by three brave heroes. The
author, Nisomn, was one of our most promising acolytes, with an
affinity for preservation that saved many a crumbling volume.
Though we mourn his flight from the Guild, we wish him luck with
whatever endeavour it was that he felt could not be completed
within our hallowed halls.)
 The Middle

Much of what we now know relies on the word of those closer to it

all than we were: visions written down, memories extracted,
lifetimes preserved and transcribed. It is clumsy, but we have always
been clumsy. We see that now. If only … But, no. Even we must
learn from our follies, grave and blood-drenched as they are.
By this time, the time of the child’s birth, the Age of Life brought
into being by our Heroes was almost over, almost dead, its founding
heroes and their deeds long relegated to halls of myth and the
opening verses of the planetary epos. Though it had lasted
millennia, its peace was dealt a mortal blow by the inevitable arrival
of the Second Prophecy, and killed forever by the great and terrible
betrayal at its heart.
Here, then, is the story’s gracelessly recollected middle.

Once, there was a girl born amid chaos.

It was the dying day of that same civilisation our three heroes
had fought to begin, so long ago. As the child took her first dust-
choked breath, ideals shattered and monuments crumbled, but her
eyes remained stubbornly shut, firelight glimmering off eyelids sticky
with fluid, brows faint and indistinct—so she did not see the violence
of the world for what it was.
(Yet … Did not see the violence of the world for what it was yet.
Later, she would. Later, it would be written in the stars; every single
one of them a part of it. Empire. But not yet.)
 The girl’s mother gathered her to her chest with shaking arms,
pushing sweat-soaked hair from her face and gazing at her daughter
with a blind sense of all-encompassing wonder. She marvelled at the
child’s waving hands, curled into fists, fingers as delicate as the
bones of a bird, wrists chubby and dimpled, thinking if only her
father could see her now.
But her daughter’s father was dead and had died protecting them
and all he loved from ruin, so it was a difficult thought, to say the
least, and one she pushed quickly aside.
(That idea of absent family, of missing heritage—of not being
quite sure what to do with that idea, of pushing it quickly aside—
would turn out to be a recurring theme. A sparking pattern in her
neurons and the neurons of her progeny; a line in a prophecy; an
echo of that violence writ in starlight.)
The cracking of stone and the deadened sound of falling ash
faded into the background as she moved her fingers to the artery
running along the side of her daughter’s neck. A sudden flutter
against her fingertips—more like a moth’s wings beating than a heart
—filled her chest with giddy laughter, and oh, it was so easy to
marvel at this new life, this child that might not see the sunrise, and
yet was so full of light, simply because she did not know what the
sunrise would bring.
Her mother knew though, so she pulled herself to her knees. She
had never felt pain like this, yet she stood, because if she did not
then her daughter never would. The palace was collapsing, the
hallways groaning and crashing down around her, but she walked
on, her daughter cradled in her arms.
There was no ship waiting for them in the atrium, so the queen
drew in a breath and spoke one into being—word and will coalescing
into metal and fuel and a chamber of ice made for sleeping.
The effort nearly killed her.
And so, the queen of a planet whose people had fought the
bloodiest civil war in three millennia pushed her daughter into the
only holding pod of the conjured spacecraft, closed the hatch, and
watched it launch.
 And so, the queen of a planet whose people had fought the
bloodiest civil war in three millennia—and destroyed themselves in
the process—collapsed to the granite floor of her castle and wept.
For her daughter, who was the sole heir to the throne, and the
last hope of their people.
For her daughter, who was already hurtling across the galaxy
towards a new life, inside a cryogenics unit where she would sleep
for year upon year, until the time was right.
For her daughter, who would grow up abandoned and confused,
never to inherit the crown that was her birthright.

Excerpt of a vision relayed by a trustworthy source whose identity

cannot be revealed at present.

(Archivist’s note: You must excuse my poetic licence. Artistic

liberty is something I am rarely afforded, and this tale begs to be
transformed into scripture; everything about it is epic.)
 The End

And now for the ending, the part we are most familiar with and can
at least tell in its entirety.
This closing is many years removed from both the beginning and
the middle—perhaps this is why we failed so astronomically in
anticipating it—but it draws them to completion nonetheless.
It is not impartially told; that would be nigh on impossible with a
story like this.
On the contrary, we see the importance of sentiment now. Of
empathy in our history telling. Of an open heart.
That was, after all, what you opened this volume in search of,
wasn’t it? A story. Well, this one is about people, of course, and the
incredible things they are capable of when faced with equally
incredible, seemingly unconquerable injustice. It is a story about a
girl and her friends, and how hard times made heroes of them,
whether they wanted to be or not. It is a story of loss, and
adventure, of daring, and of courage burning bright in the bleakest
of times. It is a story about love.
And this is how it ends.
 Part One

‘We turned the Earth, our home, into a wasteland, and left. Now, we
have arrived here, alighting upon a wasteland with no other choice
but to make it our home. Like a fable, nature has given to us what
we gave back to her, and so we must rise to the task of turning this
desert into a soil rich enough that we may begin to sow within it the
seeds of our future.’

From the diary of a human settler on Gahraan, born aboard the

ark ships, killed during the Emperor’s discovery of the settlement.
 Chapter One

[planet: Gahraan] + [location: The Lower Quarter] + [year:

6066]

Asha Akindele was knelt in prayer, chanting the sacred words of

imperial petition and invocation that had been graven unwillingly on
her memory since birth.
Her heart beat steadily in time with the rhythm, her hands
opening and closing to its chorus.
We welcome our Emperor—may He rule forever—into our hearts
and into our minds, unflinchingly.
Her mind, however, was somewhere else entirely.
Equations were solving themselves against the pale red backdrop
of her closed eyelids like flowers blooming. Each one yielded yet
more numbers, spilling out unknown quantities like gems tumbling
from a geode, cracked wide open and sparkling in the red noonday
sun. Her head hurt—partly from the loud droning of communal
prayer, and partly from trying to wrap her mind around complex
mathematical theory in the middle of a temple during a deference
recitation—but she soldiered on. As always.
Eventually, the service ended.
Thracin bless us, may He rule forever; Divine Right is Divine
Might.
Divine Right is Divine Might.
Divine Right is Divine Might.
The maxim of their government and religion and ruler rang out in
whispered reverence through the assembled body of worshippers,
and Asha mouthed along, playing her part even as she blinked
rapidly, her eyes growing reaccustomed to the blue light that filtered
through the temple’s crystal walls.
Years ago, she’d discovered that the only way to bear all those
hours spent kneeling with her head bowed in respect was to close
her eyes and discuss, in the privacy of her own mind, exactly how
she would leave this planet, given the chance. She had started with
the big ideas. Where would she get transport? Steal it from the
Imperial Academy of Aeronautics on the other side of the dome.
How will you fly it? I’ll learn. I’ll modify the tablet they give everyone
at fourteen to access their timetables and ration points and use it to
hack into the Academy files. I’ll watch their classes at night, over
and over again, and I will learn.
One particularly vivid fantasy often sustained her: the sight of her
own grinning face in the cockpit of a stolen jet, middle fingers up to
the rear-view cams, guns blazing as she blasted the whole place to
ash—
Someone nudged her, telling her to hurry up. “Thracin bless us,”
she murmured hastily, rolling up her mat and joining the line of
people shuffling towards the exit. The headache looming behind her
eyes only seemed to intensify with each step, but the thrill of
knowing what she held locked safely inside her mind was worth it.
Even if it would never leave the confines of her imagination.
Lost in thought, she accidentally bumped into the person in front
of her. Everyone was drawing to a stop. The line of people flowing
out the doors had halted. A gasp rippled through the crowd, people
stepping back. What’s going on? After a few moments, through a
gap in the bodies, Asha glimpsed the reason for the delay.
A woman had fallen, collapsing between the rows of worshippers
to lie unmoving on the ground. Unconscious due to exhaustion
probably. Nothing too dramatic, Asha thought. And yet she was
reminded suddenly of an image from her childhood: her first day in
the weapons assembly warehouse. The boy next to her had touched
a delicate, thinly membraned plasma filament without gloves. The
slim cylinder had snagged on a fingernail and torn, sagging and
spilling its valuable fluid onto the workbench. He had been taken
away for punishment, kicking and screaming. She’d never seen him
again. All she’d been able to do was stare at the broken energy bar
emptying its gleaming contents onto the bench like blood from a
corpse.
The fallen woman wasn’t bleeding—not yet—but Asha could
imagine her blood spilling just like the plasma had, red instead of
luminous blue, and infinitely less valuable.
Hulking Lithian guards were already shouldering their way
towards the accident, weapons drawn, reptilian limbs bunched with
muscle and desperate for a fight. Asha could practically smell the
lust for violence rolling off them—that distinctly inhuman stench of
scale sweat mixed with the viscous, milky residue of their acrid
saliva.
One of them kicked the woman with a clawed foot, sneering as
she groaned weakly, tears cutting tributaries down her ashen face.
Soldiers of the Consortium.
A gang of monsters and sadists, who cradled blaster rifles in their
similarly clawed hands like they’d been born to use them, teeth
sharp and eyes cruel, grease-slick indigo scales glittering in the
sunlight—body armour provided free of charge by millennia of
evolution on their home planet, Lith, a craggy place covered in
sandy rock, not too dissimilar to Gahraan. Her own fleshy human
softness was constantly made horrifying in their beady eyes by
contrast—lean meat and viscera wrapped in dark brown skin—skin
thinner than metal foil, and so much better at conducting pain than
electricity.
Keeping her face carefully blank was second nature, the dullness
in her eyes less a learned protective mechanism than a by-product
of a life lived in terror. A second guard swung back the copper rod
he carried as an accessory to his rifle, his arm falling to strike the
weeping woman with it. The bright crackle of raw electricity flashed
in the dim light, leaping from his scales, turning the woman’s soft
weeping into agonised screams. Her elbow slipped, lightning-quick in
her convulsions, scraping against the polished floor … and there it
was. Blood. Welling to the surface of a friction burn, of all things.
 “What are you?” the guard hissed, teeth flashing in the sun.
“What are you?”
“Nothing,” the woman gasped, as was expected of her. “I am
nothing.”
The guard unleashed another burst of electricity with a flicker of
his forked tongue.
“That’s right.”
The man who stood next to Asha shook his head in disgust, but
even that movement was subdued. His eyes darted around, looking
for someone to share in his disdain, in this small act of moral
rebellion. She recognised him. He worked two rows across from her
in the factory on the textile recycling day. A bit of a troublemaker, in
fact—something which had immediately endeared him to Asha, even
though the most basic sense of self-preservation should have
ensured that it didn’t.
She wanted to meet his eye.
Thracin, why was she like this? If her mother had been there, had
seen her even think about looking at that man, let alone meeting his
gaze, she would have dragged her home and beaten her until she
didn’t have thoughts, let alone eyes to look with. And Asha wouldn’t
have blamed her. People who looked back at troublemakers ended
up lying next to them on the incinerator floor.
Then the man’s eyes darted in her direction, catching her hesitant
glance and pinning it down like a spider would a fly.
She froze.
Just look away, she thought. Asha, just look away.
She nodded back at him. It was a tiny movement, more like a
compulsion, stilted and terrified.
Adrenaline pounded through her.
Stupid girl, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But of course she had done it.
Asha didn’t think a universe existed in which she had not.
The light of the midday suns blazed brightly above her as the temple
disgorged the last of her line into its crystal courtyard. Above her,
the shimmering hexagons of the terradome that enclosed the oasis-
centred settlement were busy filtering out the harmful UV rays and
extreme temperatures that were par for the course on a terraformed
desert planet such as Gahraan. Life was inside this dome, and the
four others that clustered together in the barren valley that their
great-grandparents had thought fit to start a new world.
Outside, there was nothing but scarlet sand and searing heat.
That should be our motto, she thought wryly. Never meant to
support life but supporting it begrudgingly anyway.
She glanced at the building behind her. The temple was a
glorious, beautiful thing. A beacon of belief and faith—a monument
to Emperor Thracin and the empire he had created to save the
galaxy and its hundred inhabited worlds from annihilating each
other. It shone with its wealth—just like everything Thracin owned
(except humanity, Asha thought, except me)—like the polished
chrome barrels of the guns they assembled every day, like the sword
he held in all his statues, like the very stars in the sky—each one a
sun or a planet that belonged to him, because—what didn’t? His, his,
his, the whole galaxy shining because he decreed it so. Because he
liked to cloak depravity in crystal and call it ‘salvation’.
Her heart beat faster just to think it.
Careful, Asha. Remember your scripture; Divine Might is Divine
Right. Do not forget what you are and what that makes you. Do not
forget your place.
She exhaled shakily, eyes closing for the briefest of moments
against the sting of hot tears. Because righteousness felt so good for
a moment, but when the thrill was gone, fear was all that remained.
Fear and rage, feeding each other in a vicious, endless loop, until
she could barely tell them apart.
Walking down the slope of the hill and into the main square of the
city, she saw imperial priests of the gentle species, Whid, their long,
pale limbs enfolded in white robes, congregating by the path
opposite the temple, as kids a little younger than her milled around
in small groups, unsure of what to do with themselves.
 On an ordinary day, they’d all be in the weapons manufacturing
warehouse until their backs ached and their vision blurred, hunched
over their stations, putting guns together for Thracin’s soldiers, or
third-party stakeholders, or distributor chains, or private security
firms—an infinitesimal selection of the myriad corporations that
propped up the Consortium like a million grasping hands.
Today, though, with working responsibilities cancelled for the
Anniversary, the rest of the afternoon was to be filled with
‘RECREATIONAL TIME’, as their timetables had proclaimed this
morning. ‘TO BE SPENT IN PRAYER, OR EXERCISE, OR EDUCATION
AT CULTURAL SITES’.
Asha had requested ‘PRAYER: TO BE COMPLETED WITH FAMILY’,
just like most of the population, as it meant a few rare, unsupervised
hours at home with loved ones. In Asha’s case, she would be able to
talk with her mother, Iyanda, who she had barely spoken to in weeks
aside from mumbled conversations at bedtime, after her own
graduation to the adult warehouse had turned their timetables
almost identical.
That had been four weeks ago, by the Consortium calendar. The
bureaucrats in charge of all such dreary processes on Gahraan had
absorbed old Earthern standards, not bothering to complete any
research on their own, and settled on eighteen as the age of human
maturation. And so, on her eighteenth birthday she’d said goodbye
to her benchmates and the slower pace of life in the adolescent
warehouse, and joined the ranks of the adult workforce.
The past month had been the most tiring and mentally draining of
her life.
So she was grateful for today’s opportunity to rest, even if it
meant spending half of it kneeling in simpering gratitude to the
tyrant who had sentenced her to this life in the first place.
‘REQUEST APPROVED’, read her wristband. ‘ENJOY YOUR
PRAYER, IN HONOUR OF THE HUNDRED YEAR PEACE’.
The Anniversary: one hundred years of peace.
One hundred years since Commander Thracin had stood on the
drawbridge of his ship amongst the dark rocks of A’lkari, and said,
now, peace, before crowning himself head of an empire, as if the
inevitability of empire wasn’t perpetual war with itself and its
disparate organs.
Asha could have cried at the irony of it.
I spend all day building guns, she thought. Guns for a peaceful
empire.
What she wanted to think, however, was, Thracin, you are a liar,
and a tyrant, but that was sedition and treason, and she was too
frightened. Terrified of the Emperor and his million guns, the guns
she built for him, but far more terrified of the thoughts that crowded
her every waking second, the thoughts born of her hatred for the
throne he had stolen, along with the right of them all to govern
themselves. The right to decide when they worked, if they worked,
and to what end. The thoughts that said, one day I will leave this
wreck of a planet, one day I will find you, one day I will make you
pay.
But any anger she felt was quickly smothered by a great rolling
wave of fear, that pendulum of rage and terror, ever swinging. All
she could see now was the woman, convulsing on the temple floor;
the troublemaker, trying to make eye contact and finding her,
implicating her, with a single flick of his gaze.
She felt sick.
And that’s why you’ll never leave, sneered a voice in her mind
that might have been her own, or a priest’s, or even the Emperor’s.
That is why you will only ever plan, and wish, and dream, and never
act. You’re scared. You’re always too scared.
Asha scowled as she turned down an alley, grinding her jaw in
frustration. She knew she should have conquered the anger by now
—the anger at her circumstance, at the system, at the way the world
worked, at the way that power and opportunity and luck, even, were
all held up by inequality at their very foundations—but maybe that
just wasn’t the way her brain worked, and maybe there was too
much to be angry about.
Before she knew it, she was ducking into the alleyway behind
warehouse number 7 to stare at a rusted old monument in a small
square that most inhabitants of Gahraan had long avoided—for good
reason.
 At first glance, the monument comprised a melted lump of metal,
supported on a sturdy pole that thrust the twisted mass of pipes and
jagged-edged plates a few metres into the sky, superimposing it
against the faint, tessellating hexagons of the dome that flickered
above them. A pathetic beam of sunlight fought through the roofs of
the neighbouring buildings, shining on the thing, illuminating the
grime and the red dirt blown into every rusty crevice.
A polished plaque at the base of the monument read:
HERE LIES THE ENGINE CORE OF THE PRIMARY SHIP THE HUMAN RACE
EMPLOYED TO LAY SEIGE TO THE EMPEROR’S GREAT DOMINION

But if Asha looked close enough, she could see faint scratchings
on the plates of metal. Letters, or numbers, maybe, written in one of
the old Earthern languages. Mandarin, perhaps, or English—both
were still spoken occasionally in family homes, amongst others.
Spanish, Yoruba, Hindi, French. The ability to read any of those
languages had been lost in less than three generations after Thracin
came to power—writing of any kind was banned in the human
settlement, and the older members of the community had long given
up scratching letters in the dust.
And yet the memory of the message inscribed on the engine core
all those decades ago lived on.
And now, to the stars.
A few years ago, she had spotted two lines of writing on a thin
sheet of metal near the bottom of the core that she had previously
missed. It was close enough to run her fingers over, though she
didn’t dare to touch it. I wish I could read it for myself, she had
thought at the time, cringing at her own illiteracy for anything that
wasn’t the sanitised, clinical symbols of Universal Standard and
wondering at all the other messages that had been lost, or
purposefully mistranslated, and had felt like she was being hit over
the head, repeatedly, with a cudgel.
She looked around now, at the grey walls that surrounded her, at
the red dirt beneath her feet. This was their punishment, for building
ships capable of interstellar travel, for failing to save the planet that
had birthed them; an indefinite indenture, working to repay their
debt and all of its compound interest, until one day, if the Emperor
was to be believed, when they would be free to go out into the stars
again and find a future somewhere else.
Work hard and you will be rewarded.
It was the kind of narrative only a certain type of person could
subscribe to without it being called self-deceit. She was still figuring
out exactly who that was, but she knew with absolute certainty that
it wasn’t her. That it would likely never be her.
Beneath the engine core, there was another metal plaque nailed
into the floor. It was a statement of ownership, a claim to Gahraan,
staked by the person who owned the planet, and didn’t need it, but
wouldn’t give it to the people who did, because an investment
meant more to him than the quality of a few hundred thousand lives.
“How could we have known,” Asha murmured to herself, “that it
was him?”
THIS LAND IS OWNED BY EMPEROR AI’VAREK THRACIN, GLORY BE TO HIM AND
HIS MIGHT, PURCHASED IN THE SIX THOUSANDTH YEAR OF THE GALACTIC
CALENDER. INVADED FORTY YEARS AGO, IT NOW BOASTS THE LARGEST
MANUFACTURING PLANT IN THE SEVEN OUTER SECTORS.

Asha sighed. This small exhibit was simply a reminder that they
stacked machinery parts in a factory all day, their whole lives, and
that they would continue stacking those same parts until the
resources the empire expended on them became more than the
resources they produced, or they got sick, or got back problems, or
looked at a guard wrong and were disposed of. It made Asha want
to scream, or throw something, or violently stab someone—
preferably someone whose name rhymed with ‘basin’—but she
couldn’t. There were a lot of things she couldn’t do though, so she
was used to it. Oh, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make her angry.
Angry was Asha’s second skin, one she hadn’t taken off in years. It
was coded into her DNA, right alongside survive and by any means
necessary.
Asha walked to the opposite side of the small square, where a
larger alleyway would take her to the parallel thoroughfare. It was
the long way home, but it was still a way. She’d be late, and her
mother would be mad, and they’d probably fight and then go to
sleep.
Just another day.
Walking through the alley, she turned onto the street. The sun
was setting. In the distance, a hazy cluster of buildings at the edge
of the dome flashed orange in the pre-dusk light.
The Imperial Academy of Aeronautics. The black and white
banners of the Consortium billowed in the breeze, but the school
itself was empty—all the students had returned home to celebrate
the holy day.
The school did not admit humans, of course. It was a boarding
school for the talented children of the galaxy’s elite, and its creation
had been the catalyst for the indentured servitude of humanity. She
wondered if they taught the students that—if they knew the true
history of the small planet they called home during the school year.
Here was the version she knew.
Humanity, hurtling through the stars in a fleet of rapidly
degenerating generational ark ships, forced to abandon an Earth
that had been deemed ninety-eight per cent uninhabitable in the
2070s, had been praying for a miracle, and had found Gahraan
instead. Initially, Terraforming had been limited to four key spots—
one around each landing site. They had built a new life out of sand
and recycled metal, all the while daring to dream of the future. It
had been that way for two years. Two years of peace. Of existing on
a planet no longer dying under their feet.
Until Thracin had won a war they hadn’t even known was
happening, finished his unification of all the inhabited worlds in the
galaxy, and begun the business of building his empire. First Tetrarch
of a council of four, he had crowned himself head of a galaxy-wide
association of corporations that called themselves the Consortium
and promised to deliver their citizens into a new age of prosperity,
driven by competitive markets and controlled by an elite few. By the
time humanity had realised Gahraan was an outlying planet of a
galaxy teeming with life, three thousand years more developed than
they were, it was too late.
 They had listened to his victory speech so many times over the
years that it had become permanently etched into the mind of every
citizen, just as he had intended, and Asha was no different. The
words echoed softly in her memory, accompanied by the images her
mind created in response to the audio crackling out through
speakers in the square, or in the temple, or at home: a tiny figure in
front of a huge crowd, lifting a sword to the sky, and then sheathing
it in the ground of his stronghold planet, A’lkari.
“And now, peace. A hard peace, enforced by any means
necessary.
“We have fought too long and too hard against archaic powers to
fall victim to the structures that brought ruin to them. Their
insularity was their failure, their refusal to progress their downfall.
They believed dogged preservation of the old ways would save
them, but it was only by creating a new path that we were able to
save ourselves. And so, I promise you: this galaxy will be united
forevermore. No citizen will be constrained by the limits of their kind.
No citizen will be without opportunity to better themselves. For,
under my governance, each one among you shall be the arbiter of
your own fates. Work hard for your fellow citizens, and your fellow
citizens will thank you. Work hard, so that the empire can work
harder for your peace. Work hard and you will be rewarded.
“Let it be so, as I have decreed it.
“Divine Right is Divine Might.”
It was the same slogan he’d used when he ordered his troops not
to leave the places they had freed, until his kindly ‘liberation’ came
to mean ‘unending occupation’, and his sphere of influence came to
hold the entire galaxy. Before Thracin’s ascendancy, all the planets
had been on the brink of mutual destruction, each trying desperately
to protect their territory from alien threat. Thracin had appeared
seemingly out of nowhere, and his campaign to unite the hundred
known worlds under one banner, one system, one empire that would
bring increased profit and abundance to all, had gained followers so
fast that, within a decade, they were a major player on the galactic
stage. Thirty years later, they had succeeded, becoming an army
somewhere along the way. Universal Standard, previously a
mercantile tongue, had quickly become the standard language of the
empire, as all the species of the hundred worlds—still reeling from
the fallout of the war started by their territorial forebearers—found
themselves moving swiftly into an age of high-volume inter-
planetary trade and commerce—in product, customs, and the
imperial rhetoric that circulated constantly, swapping back and forth
and back and forth until it had seeped into the ground and the stars
and all the space in between.
It was only when Thracin sent scouts to scour his various
properties for locations suitable for his Imperial Academy of
Aeronautics that the human settlement was discovered, and its
people enslaved.
That had been decades before Asha was born.
Gazing at the glass windows that glinted in the distance, a
familiar feeling rose in her chest. Obsession; hatred. It was hard to
tell them apart most days. Usually, she didn’t try to, and today was
no exception. Instead, she thought about her plan. The one where
she would finally have enough intel, enough courage, and enough
pure recklessness to cross the mile of desert that separated them,
break in, and steal a ship.
It was an impossible dream.
Of course, it was.
But that meant it was safe.
She wondered if the sight of the place would ever stop cutting her
so deeply. Probably not, she thought, and turned away, jogging
down the shortcut past the incinerator to the darker, meaner streets
of the Lower Quarter. Her mother was expecting her home.

A figure much too tall to be human was standing in her street.

At first Asha didn’t even see them—dark, skulking figures were
easily lost in the darkness of the desert at night, and a long, black
cloak rendered them shapeless, putting Asha immediately on edge.
She froze, watching from halfway down the street as the person
knocked on the door to her family unit.
 A cold sweat pricked under her arms. They never got visitors they
didn’t know, and her mother was home alone.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage as her mind went into
overdrive. Childish fears surfaced first: What if it was an imperial
scientist, one of the Magekind, come to snatch her away for one of
their sick experiments? She’d seen it happen a few times, but not
recently—sleek ships disgorging pale, white-robed people who
wielded strange weapons, who took twenty or so humans back with
them to run tests on. But this alien’s cloak was dark, not white …
Shit. What if it was the government? Had they discovered her
escape plans, somehow? What if they had realised how she’d pried
back the lines of code and security defences one by one, with an
illegally modified tablet as the tool? What if they’d found the hours
of footage—over two thousand hours of classroom footage—mined
from the Imperial Academy of Aeronautics’ archives over a period of
seven years, and followed it right to her door?
Run, was her immediate thought.
She didn’t know where it came from—running got you nowhere
inside a militarised dome, besides inside a pair of handcuffs staring
down a lethal injection. Should she intervene? Give herself up? Her
mother didn’t deserve to suffer for Asha’s recklessness.
Thracin, she was so stupid. Fear squeezed tight at her throat, and
in a painful moment of glittering clarity, she saw all the possible
consequences of her thoughtless rebellion land upon her mother,
who would do anything to protect Asha—even lie.
Near frantic now with terror, she scanned the visitor’s cloak for
any identifying signs, but it was so dark she couldn’t make out any
more details. Maybe she could—
Asha’s mother opened the door.
She could see what Asha couldn’t: the visitor’s face. As she took
in whoever it was that stood before her, Iyanda’s mouth opened, as
though she wanted to scream—as though this person, whoever they
were, scared her more than the guards and their guns that would
inevitably appear to punish her for the offence of verbalising her
fear. And there was a look in her eyes, dark with terror, that made
Asha think this cloaked alien at the door might be an omen for the
end of the world.
Then the stranger reached out a thin, alien hand, and gently
caressed her mother’s face, trailing long fingers from her brow bone
to her cheek. Iyanda closed her eyes, her whole body trembling—in
fear, or something else? The stranger’s hand dropped.
Asha’s heart felt like a stampede in her chest, her body tense and
trembling, caught like a fly in a web, torn between action and
inaction, her brain too numb with fear to choose.
Then, the automated streetlight above Asha’s head turned on,
just like it always did an hour before curfew, washing the street in a
pale white light. Now, Asha was bathed in a beam of white
brightness, her position given away.
Her mother’s gaze darted towards the alcove where Asha stood,
back pressed against the wall. Her eyes widened.
No, Asha wanted to yell, look away and I can help you! Look
away and he’ll never know—
But it was too late.
Before she could take a step forward, before she could speak, or
cry out (or even wish that she had come home half an hour earlier
so that she might have at least—at the very, very least—been
standing next to her mother whilst she experienced a moment that
would change the course of her life forever), the cloaked stranger
stilled, and turned. Following Iyanda’s eyeline straight to where Asha
stood, alone and defenceless on the other side of the street.
Inexplicably, she was reminded of a jutting rock that rose from
the red of the sand, just outside the dome’s eastern wall, that she
had observed since childhood. Once it had been strong, and broad,
wide enough for a child to have walked across without falling off. But
over the years, as the wind had whipped past it, scraping its great
dark face with sand and other rocks, with particles of air and dust
and time, the rock had grown thinner, and smoother, until it was as
she had seen it last—worn down to its dark core, a thin spindle
pointing heavenward, the horizon’s craggy tooth.
The spindle of a stranger smiled.
And several impossible things happened in quick succession.
 From the depths of his cloak’s cowl, she saw his eyes, blazing
with an unnatural light. And, though she did not know him, though
she had never seen him before, though her mind should have told
her to run, or hide, or fight, she could only stare back in stunned
disbelief, and think, you took your time. Is it starting, again? Her left
arm felt heavy. Yes, she thought. Yes, I think it might be.
Before she could understand whose voice it was, so old and so
weary, speaking inside her head, the stranger raised a hand and
whispered something, and Asha felt an alien coldness descend over
her skin, burrowing under it, sending ice through her veins.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry that it came to this.” His voice, echoing
inside her head, somehow, though his mouth hadn’t moved. She
knew his mouth hadn’t moved—
Then, the street in front of her vanished, replaced by complete
and total darkness.
Her body felt lighter than air—it barely felt like she had a body at
all.
Briefly, she wondered if this was death—if the alien at her front
door had killed her with a single glance.
And, truly, she might have died, if the dark had consumed her for
just a moment longer. But through the dimness of her vision,
brightness was swarming. Bright light, splitting into colours, then
converging again, into images. Images that felt like memories, of
people she had never seen, places she had never been, all of them
threaded through with light like liquid gold, and juddering with a
terrible noise that sounded like the thunderous, rhythmic ticking of
an enormous and ancient clock.
She saw a hand, reaching out to her. A young man, his dark skin
an ocean of stars, reflecting the blue and purple and silver of the
galaxy that hung in the darkness outside the window behind him.
She saw a planet painted in oranges and whites, suspended in the
vastness of space, tilting on its axis, imploding.
She saw another figure, outlined in white light, two horns curving
from their head towards a sky split by lightning, and she felt a rush
of something that felt wild and old, and out of her hands.
 The person disappeared, replaced by a woman with lilac skin and
three eyes opening a door, and saying something. A name. Ishoal.
Next, she saw her own hands, turning the pages of a book whose
alien script danced in the light of a flame, letters changing in the
shadows as she watched, dumbfounded, to form a word that felt like
coming home.
She saw a chair of wires, and a girl, whose thin face looked
remarkably similar to her own, whose eyes, dark in their sunken
sockets, held a world of pain.
She watched, from somewhere outside of her body, as they
embraced, as she whispered, sister, and held the girl’s hand to her
heart.
There was a flash of light, and something materialised out of thin
air, particles of gleaming crystal, luminescent and shining, coalescing
to form something heavy and violent, the weight of which rested on
her left arm, and felt like a limb that had once been taken from her,
restored.
The images faded. Darkness surrounded her. She felt suspended
in it, like an insect in amber.
A voice sounded softly in the darkness. The same voice that had
spoken in her head, the one that had recognised the stranger at her
mother’s door. It sounded like a woman.
Everything is about to change. And so must you. I am sorry it had
to happen this way. It will be hard. It will be terribly hard, and at
times you will want to abandon it all, but you mustn’t. I will be
there, to guide you. All you have to do is call.
The darkness was lightening slightly, the twilit street coming back
into focus. The woman’s voice grew fainter.
And, above all, you must remember: courage is the only thing
stronger than fear, and love is the thread that holds the atoms of
this universe together.
And then Asha was standing in the street, drawing in the same
breath she had been when the stranger had smiled at her, aware,
somehow, that something had happened to her which she did not
possess the ability to understand, all within the space of a singular
second.
 She blinked once, slowly.
The world restarted.
“What the—”
The stranger was already moving—away from her mother at the
doorway and up the street. He disappeared down the alleyway that
led to the housing compound behind theirs.
For a moment, all she could hear was her breathing. The hot
night air ghosted past her, the grit of sand that had billowed up in
her wake sticking to the sweat on the back of her neck. The mouth
of the alley transfixed her—a slim channel of darkness into which the
stranger had disappeared like a scrap of shadow. Out of the corner
of her eye, she saw her mother’s stricken face, her trembling frame.
She should run to her, help her inside, close the door, and turn out
the lights and try to sleep, until—
Until what, Asha? she wanted to scream. Until the knock of a
reptilian claw on your door, and the punishment that will surely
follow for causing such a disturbance so close to curfew? Until you
tell her you saw people that don’t exist, heard voices in your head,
and she won’t ever be able to look at you the same again?
She had to find out what she’d seen. It was like a compulsion.
Why had she seen it?
What did it mean?
An image flashed into her mind: the girl, the one who looked like
her, who called her sister.
Sister.
She turned away from the path that would lead her home.
“No,” her mother breathed, seeing the look on her face, and
knowing what it meant. “Asha, no—”
But she was already gone.

Three minerals were chosen by the planet, and into them She
breathed the last of the Life She had been hoarding. Red clay, white
quartz, darkest obsidian. As hands burst from rock, and eyes blinked
out of glinting facets, the planet drew three pieces of shining crystal
from deep within Her core. She shot them through with gold and
tempered them in herostuff, to make them weapons, and then drew
breath and made the first of Her requests from Her fledgling, made-
of-stone saviours.
“Speak,” said the planet to Her children. “And name yourself.”
“I name myself Sensit,” the man of clay replied. “For the river that
cuts.”
“I name myself Dandeyi,” the one of quartz replied. “For the
mountain that rules.”
“And I name myself Adesola,” said the woman of obsidian. “For
the shadows that protect. For the darkness that conceals.”

‘A Complete, Annotated History of Chasca, Including Relevant

Translated Mythologies. Chapter: Scroll the First’ by I. Nisomn, ex-
acolyte of the Aonian Archives.

(Archivist’s note: Due to Nisomn’s recent status as ‘vanished’, his

work is currently under review. The bastard burned most of his
notes, though, and this book is the only complete volume he left
us, so we’re working largely in the dark. The title denotes a
‘history’, but upon our initial perusal closer resembles a kind of
mythological canon compiled from Nisomn’s birth planet, Chasca—
the destruction of which remains a mystery to the galaxy, and to
Nisomn, if his claims of ignorance are to be believed. We suspect,
however, that he knows more than he’s letting on, and hope to
find some kind of confirmation within these pages.)
 Chapter Two

[planet: Earth] + [location: London] + [year: 1812]

Obi Amadi was on a mission, insofar as one could describe winning

back the heart of the only person who had ever loved him as a
mission.
The place was London, the year was 1812. The Napoleonic Wars
were spilling blood and cannon smoke over the fields of Europe,
while the king of Great Britain had already lost the American colonies
and was in the process of losing his mind. The French army had set
their sights on Russia and were marching in; a tragically finite
stream of summer uniforms spilling onto frozen ground. On a railway
in Leeds, the first steam locomotive was building speed and
chugging soot-thick steam into a slate-grey sky. Half a country away,
the last of Earl Elgin’s looted marbles were sliding across polished
floors and into storage—an ancient temple dissected and stolen from
its natural habitat to stand incomplete in a museum for hundreds of
lonely, lonely years.
In the midst of all this history, however, Obi could think of only
one thing: his pride, and how to go about laying it at someone’s
feet.
Most people would probably think of this as an apology. But Obi
was nothing if not dramatic, and after all this time spent chasing
rumours through centuries and across galaxies with nothing to show
for it, his pride was all he had. Besides, apologies can be difficult for
those owed even one by the world, and Obi was owed a million.
 He pondered the idea of sacking it all off and running away as he
stood in the relentless London drizzle, watching the passers-by, and
drawing the long, black coat he used to conceal his hoodie and jeans
around himself more tightly. His trainers were black too, but so worn
he doubted anyone would deign to look past the half-attached sole
currently letting in rainwater, or the Nike tick. Besides, they’d take
one look at his dark skin, shaved head, and strange eyes and
assume he was from another place with other, entirely foreign
customs.
They didn’t need to know that the ocean usually separating him
from them was one made of time.
Ladies in lilac-coloured lace held parasols whimsically above pearl-
studded curls as children in collared frocks laughed and ran around
statues, hiding behind bushes. A father flourished a gold coin out of
an inside pocket and bestowed it upon his chubby-fingered son. The
smiling boy was pick-pocketed mere moments later but still … the
casual, carefree nature the families exuded so effortlessly made
something stick in Obi’s throat. It was the way they seemed to have
their own centre of gravity—all of them like contained solar systems
spinning on secret axes.
Someone had once remarked that perhaps Obi’s axis had been
knocked loose.
Shaking his head, he turned away from the milling crowds,
slipping into the winding alleyway that would deliver him to
Westminster Bridge.
In the winter, London was a city on low exposure, covered in a
slate-grey sky. The brown water of the Thames ambled along
beneath them, dotted here and there with small sailing vessels, and
paddle boats. People strode over the cobbles, heeled boots clacking
against the stone, skirts brushing over puddles, and above it all, the
abbey rose in the distance, gothic and lovely against the darkening
sky. Obi thought, I have seen you in two different centuries. I bet
my father saw you in more.
A grubby boy interrupted his train of thought, running up to him
and flapping a soggy sheet of paper in his face. “Come see the ghost
in the British Museum! Tickets for a tuppence, sir, take the missus?”
 Though Obi did not plan to make a habit of chatting to urchins,
he paused, his interest undeniably piqued. He raised an eyebrow. “A
ghost?”
The boy nodded, shaking his soggy handful with renewed
aggression. “Of a girl in strange dress,” he lowered his voice, “in
men’s trousers!” Obi raised his eyebrow again. “She speaks in a
foreign tongue, too,” the boy added. Then his expression brightened
under the grime on his cheeks. “Perhaps you would understand it,
for she is as black as you are!”
Obi’s eyebrows climbed to new heights. Uninformed conclusions
aside, that detail was interesting. As soon as he had heard the boy’s
claim, he had thought it to be a hoax. But for him to be advertising
the ghost of a Black child … that was certainly abnormal. Perhaps
the abolitionists were behind it. Trying to prove we have souls like
them, Obi thought. But his father’s voice echoed in his head: or
maybe Londoners are meddling in things they don’t understand,
trying to make money, surprising no one.
For a moment, he considered delaying his mission, and going to
the museum. It was unlikely to be a ghost, as he was at least eighty
per cent certain they did not exist. But it was, however, likely to be
an Artefact.
His arm ached in the biting cold. The seam between metal and
flesh almost rheumatic in the chill.
Obi nodded to the boy, and walked on.
Supernatural occurrences in big cities like London were usually
one of three things: hoaxes carefully constructed by entrepreneurial
circus owners, or the owners of some failing establishment, hoping
to lure in more business by announcing the capture of a mermaid, or
the sighting of a spirit. On rare occasions they might be the real
thing. And even more rarely: they were the by-product or side-effect
of a piece of future technology falling backwards through the
timeline—sent here, or summoned, or, on occasion, accidentally
dropped on the way through.
This didn’t sound like a ghost.
It sounded like a hologram.
No. Obi thought. No, no, no, no, no, fuck no.
 He was here to leave that all behind—the chasing, and the
jumping, all that risk for no reward. He’d travelled to the future
trying to find so many things. His father, a cure for the disease
consuming him piece by piece, biting off another chunk of him with
every jump, and he had failed. And it had cost him so much. It was
time to accept that. Time to try and make a life, a stable life, in one
place. Even if the thought of that was antithetical to his very
existence.
But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re hoping against hope
and God, and all manner of other impossible things, that the love of
a good person will be enough. Enough to make you stay. Enough to
make the feeling, like a knife against your throat, go away. The
feeling that begs you to leave, to move, to see the universe in every
century, to collect Artefacts like wrinkles on your face, never
stopping, never slowing down, until whatever it is that comes for
time-travellers at the end visits you and this whole thing is finished.
Until you reach the end of time and step off the darkening edge.
He sighed, and strode on. There was no use thinking like that.
He was done.

A long time ago, a thirteen-year-old boy laid down to die on the

cold, vicious streets of Georgian London. Only a fortuitous
combination of the boy’s cries, a passing time-traveller, and the
inexplicable proximity of a sleeping prince allowed him to survive the
night.
The boy was impossible; he was glowing. The boy was Obi Amadi
on the brink of combustion. Obi’s left arm flickered out of being and
did not return. Half of his right eyebrow soon followed suit.
A man in a battered, blood-stained trench coat watched all this
from across the street. Nodding to himself, he appeared to come to
a decision.
Delicately, purposefully, he took off his coat, and laid it over the
boy, placing his hand on the boy’s forehead as he did so and
whispering something. Then he tucked a folded-up piece of paper
into the breast pocket.
The boy twitched, then vanished. Re-appearing almost instantly
metres away. This happened several times. The boy was seizing,
limbs smacking into the snow as he moved around, unconscious,
blinking in and of time.
The man in the trench coat grimaced. He had done what he could
to help him, but this was not going to be pretty. He would have felt
sorry for the boy, had he not stopped feeling sorry for anyone,
himself included, centuries ago on a planet that no longer existed,
under the light of its twin moons. The man adjusted his lapels, then
stepped sideways into nothingness.
The street lit up, and Obi screamed as his soul Anchored itself to
the city of London, saving his life.
Behind heavy cream curtains, in a room where a vase of white
tulips sat elegantly on a bedside table, King George IV’s only son sat
bolt upright in bed, gasping as the image of a boy with eyes the
colour of winter rain and skin like dark brown velvet seared itself into
his mind.

Carlton House loomed in front of Obi, its Corinthian porticos and

Ionic colonnade a grander sight than even the alabaster pilasters
and red brick of Buckingham House—his only other point of
reference for inner London mansions. That building was as engraved
into his memory as the inscription above the door. Gold, capital
letters that announced ‘sic siti laetantur lares’, and Obi laughed every
time he read them, though his translation was terrible; the
household gods might delight in the situation, but he was
considerably less enthusiastic. He was almost regretful that wasn’t
his destination anymore.
It had been so long.
Three years, to be exact, and the interim hadn’t exactly been a
holiday.
 How do you say to someone: I’m sorry that I walked out on you.
But you reminded me in no uncertain terms that I was alone in this
world. So, I left to find the only person I had any reasonable claim
to: my father. I thought if I found him, I would understand how to
make sense of the world, and my place in it. I even wondered if he
would know how to cure me. I searched everywhere, across time. I
jumped and jumped through thousands of years, and I lost so much
of myself along the way. I didn’t care if I lived or died, if that journey
or the next would be my last. Because I was so mad at you for what
you’d said. But I was furious at myself because it was true.
I didn’t find him.
Will you recognise me? My arm is metal now. So is my left eye,
but you won’t be able to tell. Three fingers too. Lost a molar, but I
didn’t bother replacing that. And don’t get me started on my bones.
I’ve got more technology in me than exists on this planet, right now.
Isn’t that incredible?
Will you touch me, again? Will you even talk to me, after all this
time?
The fingers of his metal arm clenched into a fist.
He might not have found his father, but all signs pointed to the
man being dead anyway. Obi felt the grief pushing upwards through
his chest, and shoved it down. He’d suspected it for years. Now it
was as good as confirmed, and he was never time-travelling again.
I’m choosing this, he thought fiercely, silencing the voices in his
head. This is a choice, not a failure. And anyway, I’d rather spend
time with someone who loved me once, because they chose to, than
with a father who was supposed to love me, but couldn’t bear to.
Emerging from behind a beautifully sculpted hedge, he grimaced
at the fountain in the courtyard. It was gauche and ridiculous, but at
least it wasn’t the palace. He recalled his first visit there. The
memory was constructed more from what he had been told by
others—one person in particular—than any real recollection. The
only part of it he knew for sure was his, was the pain. You do not
easily forget the way a soul feels when it begins to tear inside your
chest, and that had been precisely what Obi had been experiencing;
the tearing of his soul as his body prepared to enter the first stages
of the Anchoring.
He had also been a complete stranger then, he reminded himself.
Now, at least, he was here for a reason. Or two reasons. Two
reasons that had become so entangled over the years he had been
away that he found them nearly impossible to separate.
Find somewhere to call home; find the man he left behind.
Obi forced himself to remember the first time he had stood—lain,
collapsed—on steps that looked just like these. Nausea rose in his
throat. He choked it down. Let not the spectres of our past dictate
our actions in the present, nor our decisions in the future, whispered
his father’s voice in the back of his mind. It was cruel advice in
hindsight, but Obi’s father had abandoned him when he was only
eight years old, and so Obi supposed that he must have been quite a
cruel man in general. Cruel or desperate. A familiar melancholy rose
up in him. He choked that down, too.
Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a crumpled, faded slip of
paper. The page was torn from a book he had never had the
privilege of reading. It had been left to him, one solitary page, by his
father, he thought, though he didn’t know for certain, and would
likely never find out. He’d searched every library he’d ever come
across for a copy, but it didn’t seem to exist. The first paragraph was
circled in what could only be blood. There was a message written on
the back in blood, too. Seven words that made no sense. Obi didn’t
like to read them, or think about them, or acknowledge them, really.
So, he didn’t. The front was easy, though. The facts of his life laid
out in print, cold and non-fictional, and entirely unsympathetic:
PAGE 77 – GUIDING AND ITS PERILS

contracting The Sickness. The Sickness is rare, only affecting those

who have not properly been taught their craft by a more
experienced Guide, usually a relative or mentor. It is commonly
contracted during an Anchoring, as this is when a Guide’s physical
form is least connected to any realm, and therefore more susceptible
to parasitic energies. The Sickness is characterised by the gradual
unmaking of the Guide’s physical form; limbs may be lost, fingers,
even a single eyelash. The stages of the unmaking, i.e. loss of limb,
only occur after a Guide has made a jump. It is unclear why. The
Sickness is not contagious. There is no known cure.

ANCHORING
When a Guide turns of age, he must Anchor himself to a time and
place so that he will always be able to return somewhere without an
Artefact* to guide him. He must leave a part of his soul in the
Anchoring Place, or risk never being able to return. Of course, this
means that multiple versions of himself may exist in the same time
in the same general area. If he sees himself, the Guide is strongly
advised to look the other way.
(*Artefact: an object that was once, or will be, of massive
sentimental value to persons known or unknown by the Guide. An
Artefact can be commanded to return to its owner by a Guide, and a
Guide only. The sentimental energy of an Artefact can be harnessed
and used to make a jump across space and time to the location of
its owner. Warning: Some Artefacts can be volatile, and cases have
been reported of Artefacts arriving too early in the timeline of their
owners. See page 107: ‘Paradoxical Ignition’)

At the bottom of the page, printed in tiny letters was:

THE ORDER OF LEGENDS

The slip of paper had been tucked inside his inner coat pocket
when he had woken, nine years ago, feverish and delirious with
pain, on the icy steps of Buckingham House. He had somehow
wound up inside the curling iron gates, inches from the ornate
double doors.
His pain-muddled brain hadn’t noticed the absence of guards.
Or the boy craning his head over the balcony to stare down at
him.
“Who the hell are you?” the boy had half-whispered, half-shouted,
his voice rasping on the breeze.
 Hardly the beginning of an epic love story, Obi would think later.
But nothing about them was conventional, so it seemed to fit.
Nine years, one biomechatronic arm and several misadventures
later, Obi had returned to the city, if not to the same house. Just rip
off the bloody plaster. Come on.
He strode up the final steps towards the doors and executed the
appropriate knock with an inappropriate lack of flourish—he was
cold, okay—and stepped to the side, out of the sightline of whoever
would open it.
The wind whistled through the trees. He felt watched. He put up
his hood.
The door opened. A servant looked around in confusion, before
leaning against the doorframe and fanning her red face with the cool
air. She closed her eyes, enjoying the small break.
That was when Obi raised his left hand and shot her.
There was no bullet—only a small tranquiliser dart, unloaded from
a tiny compartment located in his forefinger. Two left now. He liked
to make his hand into the shape of a gun for vibes, though he
realised this was probably inappropriate.
Rushing forward, he caught her as she fell, one hand on the back
of her neck to support her head, before placing her gently down
behind a cabinet, for a restorative two-hour nap.
A sheaf of papers on the top of the cabinet caught his attention.
The daily news, prepared in an official royal document for the person
who owned this building, unread. Top story was of course the war.
Obi’s eyes immediately glazed over in boredom. He turned a few
pages. A sketch caught his eye. A low pedestal in a dark room, and
a small child, dressed in plain, sterile looking clothes, like something
from a modern hospital. The incongruity of it stalled him. He
squinted, trying to read the hastily written report in the dim
candlelight. He made out the words, “some sort of apparition”,
“hand passes through it”, “light, emanating from a small black box”.
Why was a member of the royal family being briefed on—
A noise.
Obi dropped the papers, and darted to the other side of the
hallway, tucking his body behind scarlet drapery.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 La comtesse, cette femme si compatissante aux vraies amours,
promit de servir celles du pauvre médecin. Elle poursuivit si
chaudement cette affaire, que, lors de son second accouchement,
elle obtint, pour la grâce qu’à cette époque les femmes étaient
autorisées à demander à leurs maris en accouchant, une dot pour
Gertrude, la belle bâtarde, qui, vers ce temps, au lieu d’être
religieuse, épousa Beauvouloir. Cette dot et les économies du
rebouteur le mirent à même d’acheter Forcalier, un joli domaine
voisin du château d’Hérouville, et que vendaient alors des héritiers.
Rassurée ainsi par le bon rebouteur, la comtesse sentit sa vie à
jamais remplie par des joies inconnues aux autres mères. Certes,
toutes les femmes sont belles quand elles suspendent leurs enfants
à leur sein en veillant à ce qu’ils y apaisent leurs cris et leurs
commencements de douleur; mais il était difficile de voir, même dans
les tableaux italiens, une scène plus attendrissante que celle offerte
par la comtesse, lorsqu’elle sentait Étienne se gorgeant de son lait,
et son sang devenir ainsi la vie de ce pauvre être menacé. Son
visage étincelait d’amour, elle contemplait ce cher petit être, en
craignant toujours de lui voir un trait de Chaverny à qui elle avait trop
songé. Ces pensées, mêlées sur son front à l’expression de son
plaisir, le regard par lequel elle couvait son fils, son désir de lui
communiquer la force qu’elle se sentait au cœur, ses brillantes
espérances, la gentillesse de ses gestes, tout formait un tableau qui
subjugua les femmes qui l’entouraient: la comtesse vainquit
l’espionnage.
Bientôt ces deux êtres faibles s’unirent par une même pensée, et
se comprirent avant que le langage ne pût leur servir à s’entendre.
Au moment où Étienne exerça ses yeux avec la stupide avidité
naturelle aux enfants, ses regards rencontrèrent les sombres lambris
de la chambre d’honneur. Lorsque sa jeune oreille s’efforça de
percevoir les sons et de reconnaître leurs différences, il entendit le
bruissement monotone des eaux de la mer qui venait se briser sur
les rochers par un mouvement aussi régulier que celui d’un balancier
d’horloge. Ainsi les lieux, les sons, les choses, tout ce qui frappe les
sens, prépare l’entendement et forme le caractère, le rendit enclin à
la mélancolie. Sa mère ne devait-elle pas vivre et mourir au milieu
des nuages de la mélancolie? Dès sa naissance, il put croire que la
comtesse était la seule créature qui existât sur la terre, voir le monde
comme un désert, et s’habituer à ce sentiment de retour sur nous-
mêmes qui nous porte à vivre seuls, à chercher en nous-mêmes le
bonheur, en développant les immenses ressources de la pensée. La
comtesse n’était-elle pas condamnée à demeurer seule dans la vie,
et à trouver tout dans son fils, persécuté comme le fut son amour à
elle. Semblable à tous les enfants en proie à la souffrance, Étienne
gardait presque toujours l’attitude passive qui, douce ressemblance,
était celle de sa mère. La délicatesse de ses organes fut si grande,
qu’un bruit trop soudain ou que la compagnie d’une personne
tumultueuse lui donnait une sorte de fièvre. Vous eussiez dit d’un de
ces petits insectes pour lesquels Dieu semble modérer la violence
du vent et la chaleur du soleil; comme eux incapable de lutter contre
le moindre obstacle, il cédait comme eux, sans résistance ni plainte,
à tout ce qui paraissait agressif. Cette patience angélique inspirait à
la comtesse un sentiment profond qui ôtait toute fatigue aux soins
minutieux réclamés par une santé si chancelante.
Elle remercia Dieu, qui plaçait Étienne, comme une foule de
créatures, au sein de la sphère de paix et de silence, la seule où il
pût s’élever heureusement. Souvent les mains maternelles, pour lui
si douces et si fortes à la fois, le transportaient dans la haute région
des fenêtres ogives. De là, ses yeux, bleus comme ceux de sa mère,
semblaient étudier les magnificences de l’Océan. Tous deux
restaient alors des heures entières à contempler l’infini de cette
vaste nappe, tour à tour sombre et brillante, muette et sonore. Ces
longues méditations étaient pour Étienne un secret apprentissage de
la douleur. Presque toujours alors les yeux de sa mère se mouillaient
de larmes, et pendant ces pénibles songes de l’âme, les jeunes
traits d’Étienne ressemblaient à un léger réseau tiré par un poids
trop lourd. Bientôt sa précoce intelligence du malheur lui révéla le
pouvoir que ses jeux exerçaient sur la comtesse; il essaya de la
divertir par les mêmes caresses dont elle se servait pour endormir
ses souffrances. Jamais ses petites mains lutines, ses petits mots
bégayés, ses rires intelligents, ne manquaient de dissiper les
rêveries de sa mère. Était-il fatigué, sa délicatesse instinctive
l’empêchait de se plaindre.
 —Pauvre chère sensitive, s’écria la comtesse en le voyant
endormi de lassitude après une folâtrerie qui venait de faire enfuir un
de ses plus douloureux souvenirs, où pourras-tu vivre? Qui te
comprendra jamais, toi dont l’âme tendre sera blessée par un regard
trop sévère? toi qui, semblable à ta triste mère, estimeras un doux
sourire chose plus précieuse que tous les biens de la terre? Ange
aimé de ta mère, qui t’aimera dans le monde? Qui devinera les
trésors cachés sous ta frêle enveloppe? Personne. Comme moi, tu
seras seul sur terre. Dieu te garde de concevoir, comme moi, un
amour favorisé par Dieu, traversé par les hommes!
Elle soupira, elle pleura. La gracieuse pose de son fils qui
dormait sur ses genoux la fit sourire avec mélancolie: elle le regarda
longtemps en savourant un de ces plaisirs qui sont un secret entre
les mères et Dieu. Après avoir reconnu combien sa voix, unie aux
accents de la mandoline, plaisait à son fils, elle lui chantait les
romances si gracieuses de cette époque, et elle croyait voir sur ses
petites lèvres barbouillées de son lait le sourire par lequel Georges
de Chaverny la remerciait jadis quand elle quittait son rebec. Elle se
reprochait ces retours sur le passé, mais elle y revenait toujours.
L’enfant, complice de ces rêves, souriait précisément aux airs
qu’aimait Chaverny.
A dix-huit mois, la faiblesse d’Étienne n’avait pas encore permis
à la comtesse de le promener au dehors; mais les légères couleurs
qui nuançaient le blanc mat de sa peau, comme si le plus pâle des
pétales d’un églantier y eût été apporté par le vent, attestaient déjà
la vie et la santé. Au moment où elle commençait à croire aux
prédictions du rebouteur, et s’applaudissait d’avoir pu, en l’absence
du comte, entourer son fils des précautions les plus sévères, afin de
le préserver de tout danger, les lettres écrites par le secrétaire de
son mari lui en annoncèrent le prochain retour. Un matin, la
comtesse, livrée à la folle joie qui s’empare de toutes les mères
quand elles voient pour la première fois marcher leur premier enfant,
jouait avec Étienne à ces jeux aussi indescriptibles que peut l’être le
charme des souvenirs; tout à coup elle entendit craquer les
planchers sous un pas pesant. A peine s’était-elle levée, par un
mouvement de surprise involontaire, qu’elle se trouva devant le
comte. Elle jeta un cri, mais elle essaya de réparer ce tort
involontaire en s’avançant vers le comte et lui tendant son front avec
soumission pour y recevoir un baiser.
—Pourquoi ne pas me prévenir de votre arrivée? dit-elle.
—La réception, répondit le comte en l’interrompant, eût été plus
cordiale, mais moins franche.
Il avisa l’enfant, l’état de santé dans lequel il le revoyait lui
arracha d’abord un geste de surprise empreint de fureur; mais il
réprima soudain sa colère, et se mit à sourire.
—Je vous apporte de bonnes nouvelles, reprit-il. J’ai le
gouvernement de Champagne, et la promesse du roi d’être fait duc
et pair. Puis, nous avons hérité d’un parent; ce maudit huguenot de
Chaverny est mort.
La comtesse pâlit et tomba sur un fauteuil. Elle devinait le secret
de la sinistre joie répandue sur la figure de son mari, et que la vue
d’Étienne semblait accroître.
—Monsieur, dit-elle d’une voix émue, vous n’ignorez pas que j’ai
longtemps aimé mon cousin de Chaverny. Vous répondrez à Dieu de
la douleur que vous me causez.
A ces mots, le regard du comte étincela; ses lèvres tremblèrent
sans qu’il pût proférer une parole, tant il était ému par la rage; il jeta
sa dague sur une table avec une telle violence que le fer résonna
comme un coup de tonnerre.
—Écoutez-moi, cria-t-il de sa grande voix, et souvenez-vous de
mes paroles: je veux ne jamais entendre ni voir le petit monstre que
vous tenez dans vos bras, car il est votre enfant et non le mien; a-t-il
un seul de mes traits? tête-Dieu pleine de reliques! cachez-le bien,
ou sinon...
—Juste ciel! cria la comtesse, protégez-nous.
—Silence! répondit le colosse. Si vous ne voulez pas que je le
heurte, faites en sorte que je ne le trouve jamais sur mon passage.
 —Mais alors, reprit la comtesse, qui se sentit le courage de lutter
contre son tyran, jurez-moi de ne point attenter à ses jours, si vous
ne le rencontrez plus. Puis-je compter sur votre parole de
gentilhomme?
—Que veut dire ceci? reprit le comte.
—Eh! bien, tuez-nous donc aujourd’hui tous deux! s’écria-t-elle
en se jetant à genoux et serrant son enfant dans ses bras.
—Levez-vous, madame! Je vous engage ma foi de gentilhomme
de ne rien entreprendre sur la vie de ce maudit embryon, pourvu
qu’il demeure sur les rochers qui bordent la mer au-dessous du
château; je lui donne la maison du pêcheur pour habitation et la
grève pour domaine; mais malheur à lui, si je le retrouve jamais au
delà de ces limites!
La comtesse se mit à pleurer amèrement.
—Voyez-le donc, dit-elle. C’est votre fils.
—Madame!
A ce mot, la mère épouvantée emporta son enfant dont le cœur
palpitait comme celui d’une fauvette surprise dans son nid par un
pâtre. Soit que l’innocence ait un charme auquel les hommes les
plus endurcis ne sauraient se soustraire, soit que le comte se
reprochât sa violence et craignît de plonger dans un trop grand
désespoir une créature nécessaire à ses plaisirs autant qu’à ses
desseins, sa voix s’était faite aussi douce qu’elle pouvait l’être,
quand sa femme revint.
—Jeanne, ma mignonne, lui dit-il, ne soyez pas rancunière, et
donnez-moi la main. On ne sait comment se comporter avec vous
autres femmes. Je vous apporte de nouveaux honneurs, de
nouvelles richesses, tête-dieu! vous me recevez comme un
maheustre qui tombe en un parti de manants! Mon gouvernement va
m’obliger à de longues absences, jusqu’à ce que je l’aie échangé
contre celui de Normandie; au moins, ma mignonne, faites-moi bon
visage pendant mon séjour ici.
 La comtesse comprit le sens de ces paroles dont la feinte
douceur ne pouvait plus la tromper.
—Je connais mes devoirs, répondit-elle avec un accent de
mélancolie que son mari prit pour de la tendresse.
Cette timide créature avait trop de pureté, trop de grandeur pour
essayer, comme certaines femmes adroites, de gouverner le comte
en mettant du calcul dans sa conduite, espèce de prostitution par
laquelle les belles âmes se trouvent salies. Elle s’éloigna silencieuse
pour aller consoler son désespoir en promenant Étienne.
—Tête-dieu pleine de reliques! je ne serai donc jamais aimé,
s’écria le comte en surprenant une larme dans les yeux de sa
femme au moment où elle sortit.
Incessamment menacée, la maternité devint chez la comtesse
une passion qui prit la violence que les femmes portent dans leurs
sentiments coupables. Par une espèce de sortilége dont le secret gît
dans le cœur de toutes les mères, et qui eut encore plus de force
entre la comtesse et son fils, elle réussit à lui faire comprendre le
péril qui le menaçait sans cesse, et lui apprit à redouter l’approche
de son père. La scène terrible de laquelle Étienne avait été témoin
se grava dans sa mémoire, de manière à produire en lui comme une
maladie. Il finit par pressentir la présence du comte avec tant de
certitude, que, si l’un de ces sourires dont les signes imperceptibles
éclatent aux yeux d’une mère, animait sa figure au moment où ses
organes imparfaits, déjà façonnés par la crainte, lui annonçaient la
marche lointaine de son père, ses traits se contractaient, et l’oreille
de la mère n’était pas plus alerte que l’instinct du fils. Avec l’âge,
cette faculté créée par la terreur grandit si bien, que, semblable aux
Sauvages de l’Amérique, Étienne distinguait le pas de son père,
savait écouter sa voix à des distances éloignées, et prédisait sa
venue. Voir le sentiment de terreur que son mari lui inspirait, partagé
si tôt par son enfant, le rendit encore plus précieux à la comtesse; et
leur union se fortifia si bien, que, comme deux fleurs attachées au
même rameau, ils se courbaient sous le même vent, se relevaient
par la même espérance. Ce fut une même vie.
 Au départ du comte, Jeanne commençait une seconde
grossesse. Elle accoucha cette fois au terme voulu par les préjugés,
et mit au monde, non sans des douleurs inouïes, un gros garçon,
qui, quelques mois après, offrit une si parfaite ressemblance avec
son père que la haine du comte pour l’aîné s’en accrut encore. Afin
de sauver son enfant chéri, la comtesse consentit à tous les projets
que son mari forma pour le bonheur et la fortune de son second fils.
Étienne, promis au cardinalat, dut devenir prêtre pour laisser à
Maximilien les biens et les titres de la maison d’Hérouville. A ce prix,
la pauvre mère assura le repos de l’enfant maudit.
 Jamais deux frères ne furent plus dissemblables qu’Étienne et
Maximilien. Le cadet eut en naissant le goût du bruit, des exercices
violents et de la guerre; aussi le comte conçut-il pour lui autant
d’amour que sa femme en avait pour Étienne. Par une sorte de
pacte naturel et tacite, chacun des époux se chargea de son enfant
de prédilection. Le duc, car vers ce temps Henri IV récompensa les
éminents services du seigneur d’Hérouville, le duc ne voulut pas, dit-
il, fatiguer sa femme, et donna pour nourrice à Maximilien une bonne
grosse Bayeusaine choisie par Beauvouloir. A la grande joie de
Jeanne de Saint-Savin, il se défia de l’esprit autant que du lait de la
mère, et prit la résolution de façonner son enfant à son goût. Il éleva
Maximilien dans une sainte horreur des livres et des lettres; il lui
inculqua les connaissances mécaniques de l’art militaire, il le fit de
bonne heure monter à cheval, tirer l’arquebuse et jouer de la dague.
Quand son fils devint grand, il le mena chasser pour qu’il contractât
cette sauvagerie de langage, cette rudesse de manières, cette force
de corps, cette virilité dans le regard et dans la voix qui rendaient à
ses yeux un homme accompli. Le petit gentilhomme fut à douze ans
un lionceau fort mal léché, redoutable à tous au moins autant que le
père, ayant la permission de tout tyranniser dans les environs et
tyrannisant tout.
Étienne habita la maison située au bord de l’Océan que lui avait
donnée son père, et que la duchesse fit disposer de manière à ce
qu’il y trouvât quelques-unes des jouissances auxquelles il avait
droit. La duchesse y allait passer la plus grande partie de la journée.
La mère et l’enfant parcouraient ensemble les rochers et les grèves;
elle indiquait à Étienne les limites de son petit domaine de sable, de
coquilles, de mousse et de cailloux; la terreur profonde qui la
saisissait en lui voyant quitter l’enceinte concédée, lui fit comprendre
que la mort l’attendait au delà. Étienne trembla pour sa mère avant
de trembler pour lui-même; puis bientôt chez lui, le nom même du
duc d’Hérouville excita un trouble qui le dépouillait de son énergie, et
le soumettait à l’atonie qui fait tomber une jeune fille à genoux
devant un tigre. S’il apercevait de loin ce géant sinistre, ou s’il en
entendait la voix, l’impression douloureuse qu’il avait ressentie jadis
au moment où il fut maudit lui glaçait le cœur. Aussi, comme un
Lapon qui meurt au delà de ses neiges, se fit-il une délicieuse patrie
de sa cabane et de ses rochers; s’il en dépassait la frontière, il
éprouvait un malaise indéfinissable. En prévoyant que son pauvre
enfant ne pourrait trouver de bonheur que dans une humble sphère
silencieuse, la duchesse regretta moins d’abord la destinée qu’on lui
avait imposée; elle s’autorisa de cette vocation forcée pour lui
préparer une belle vie en remplissant sa solitude par les nobles
occupations de la science, et fit venir au château Pierre de Sebonde
pour servir de précepteur au futur cardinal d’Hérouville. Malgré la
tonsure destinée à son fils, Jeanne de Saint-Savin ne voulut pas que
cette éducation sentît la prêtrise, et la sécularisa par son
intervention. Beauvouloir fut chargé d’initier Étienne aux mystères
des sciences naturelles. La duchesse, qui surveillait elle-même les
études afin de les mesurer à la force de son enfant, le récréait en lui
apprenant l’italien et lui dévoilait insensiblement les richesses
poétiques de cette langue. Pendant que le duc conduisait Maximilien
devant les sangliers au risque de le voir se blesser, Jeanne
s’engageait avec Étienne dans la voie lactée des sonnets de
Pétrarque ou dans le gigantesque labyrinthe de la Divine Comédie.
Pour dédommager Étienne de ses infirmités, la nature l’avait doué
d’une voix si mélodieuse, qu’il était difficile de résister au plaisir de
l’entendre; sa mère lui enseigna la musique. Des chants tendres et
mélancoliques, soutenus par les accents d’une mandoline, étaient
une récréation favorite que promettait la mère en récompense de
quelque travail demandé par l’abbé de Sebonde. Étienne écoutait sa
mère avec une admiration passionnée qu’elle n’avait jamais vue que
dans les yeux de Chaverny. La première fois que la pauvre femme
retrouva ses souvenirs de jeune fille dans le long regard de son
enfant, elle le couvrit de baisers insensés. Elle rougit quand Étienne
lui demanda pourquoi elle paraissait l’aimer mieux en ce moment;
puis elle lui répondit qu’à chaque heure elle l’aimait davantage.
Bientôt elle retrouva, dans les soins que voulaient l’éducation de
l’âme et la culture de l’esprit, les mêmes plaisirs qu’elle avait goûtés
en nourrissant, en élevant le corps de son enfant. Quoique les
mères ne grandissent pas toujours avec leurs fils, la duchesse était
une de celles qui portent dans la maternité les humbles adorations
de l’amour; elle pouvait caresser et juger; elle mettait son amour-
propre à rendre Étienne supérieur à elle en toute chose et non à le
régenter; peut-être se savait-elle si grande par son inépuisable
affection, qu’elle ne redoutait aucun amoindrissement. C’est les
cœurs sans tendresse qui aiment la domination, mais les sentiments
vrais chérissent l’abnégation, cette vertu de la Force. Lorsqu’Étienne
ne comprenait pas tout d’abord quelque démonstration, un texte ou
un théorème, la pauvre mère, qui assistait aux leçons, semblait
vouloir lui infuser la connaissance des choses, comme naguère, au
moindre cri, elle lui versait des flots de lait. Mais aussi de quel éclat
la joie n’empourprait-elle pas le regard de la duchesse, alors
qu’Étienne saisissait le sens des choses et se l’appropriait! Elle
montrait, comme disait Pierre de Sebonde, que la mère est un être
double dont les sensations embrassent toujours deux existences.
La duchesse augmentait ainsi le sentiment naturel qui lie un fils à
sa mère, par les tendresses d’un amour ressuscité. La délicatesse
d’Étienne lui fit continuer pendant plusieurs années les soins donnés
à l’enfance, elle venait l’habiller, elle le couchait; elle seule peignait,
lissait, bouclait et parfumait la chevelure de son fils. Cette toilette
était une caresse continuelle; elle donnait à cette tête chérie autant
de baisers qu’elle y passait de fois le peigne d’une main légère. De
même que les femmes aiment à se faire presque mères pour leurs
amants en leur rendant quelques soins domestiques, de même la
mère se faisait de son fils un simulacre d’amant; elle lui trouvait une
vague ressemblance avec le cousin aimé par delà le tombeau.
Étienne était comme le fantôme de Georges, entrevu dans le lointain
d’un miroir magique; elle se disait qu’il était plus gentilhomme
qu’ecclésiastique.
—Si quelque femme aussi aimante que moi voulait lui infuser la
vie de l’amour, il pourrait être bien heureux! pensait-elle souvent.
Mais les terribles intérêts qui exigeaient la tonsure sur la tête
d’Étienne lui revenaient en mémoire, et elle baisait les cheveux que
les ciseaux de l’Église devaient retrancher, en y laissant des larmes.
Malgré l’injuste convention faite avec le duc, elle ne voyait Étienne ni
prêtre ni cardinal dans ces trouées que son œil de mère faisait à
travers les épaisses ténèbres de l’avenir. Le profond oubli du père lui
permit de ne pas engager son pauvre enfant dans les Ordres.
 —Il sera toujours bien temps! se disait-elle.
Puis, sans s’avouer une pensée enfouie dans son cœur, elle
formait Étienne aux belles manières des courtisans, elle le voulait
doux et gentil comme était Georges de Chaverny. Réduite à quelque
mince épargne par l’ambition du duc, qui gouvernait lui-même les
biens de sa maison en employant tous les revenus à son
agrandissement ou à son train, elle avait adopté pour elle la mise la
plus simple, et ne dépensait rien afin de pouvoir donner à son fils
des manteaux de velours, des bottes en entonnoir garnies de
dentelles, des pourpoints en fines étoffes tailladées. Ses privations
personnelles lui faisaient éprouver les mêmes joies que causent les
dévouements qu’on se plaît tant à cacher aux personnes aimées.
Elle se faisait des fêtes secrètes en pensant, quand elle brodait un
collet, au jour où le cou de son fils en serait orné. Elle seule avait
soin des vêtements, du linge, des parfums, de la toilette d’Étienne,
elle ne se parait que pour lui, car elle aimait à être trouvée belle par
lui. Tant de sollicitudes accompagnées d’un sentiment qui pénétrait
la chair de son fils et la vivifiait, eurent leur récompense. Un jour
Beauvouloir, cet homme divin qui par ses leçons s’était rendu cher à
l’enfant maudit et dont les services n’étaient pas d’ailleurs ignorés
d’Étienne; ce médecin de qui le regard inquiet faisait trembler la
duchesse toutes les fois qu’il examinait cette frêle idole, déclara
qu’Étienne pouvait vivre de longs jours si aucun sentiment violent ne
venait agiter brusquement ce corps si délicat. Étienne avait alors
seize ans.
A cet âge, la taille d’Étienne avait atteint cinq pieds, mesure qu’il
ne devait plus dépasser; mais Georges de Chaverny était de taille
moyenne. Sa peau, transparente et satinée comme celle d’une petite
fille, laissait voir le plus léger rameau de ses veines bleues. Sa
blancheur était celle de la porcelaine. Ses yeux, d’un bleu clair
empreints d’une douceur ineffable, imploraient la protection des
hommes et des femmes; les entraînantes suavités de la prière
s’échappaient de son regard et séduisaient avant que les mélodies
de sa voix n’achevassent le charme. La modestie la plus vraie se
révélait dans tous ses traits. De longs cheveux châtains, lisses et
fins, se partageaient en deux bandeaux sur son front et se
bouclaient à leurs extrémités. Ses joues pâles et creuses, son front
pur, marqué de quelques rides, exprimaient une souffrance native
qui faisait mal à voir. Sa bouche, gracieuse et ornée de dents très-
blanches, conservait cette espèce de sourire qui se fixe sur les
lèvres des mourants. Ses mains blanches comme celles d’une
femme, étaient remarquablement belles de forme. Semblable à une
plante étiolée, ses longues méditations l’avaient habitué à pencher la
tête, et cette attitude seyait à sa personne: c’était comme la dernière
grâce qu’un grand artiste met à un portrait pour en faire ressortir
toute la pensée. Vous eussiez cru voir une tête de jeune fille malade
placée sur un corps d’homme débile et contrefait.
La studieuse poésie dont les riches méditations nous font
parcourir en botaniste les vastes champs de la pensée, la féconde
comparaison des idées humaines, l’exaltation que nous donne la
parfaite intelligence des œuvres du génie, étaient devenues les
inépuisables et tranquilles félicités de sa vie rêveuse et solitaire. Les
fleurs, créations ravissantes dont la destinée avait tant de
ressemblance avec la sienne, eurent tout son amour. Heureuse de
voir à son fils des passions innocentes qui le garantissaient du rude
contact de la vie sociale auquel il n’aurait pas plus résisté que la plus
jolie dorade de l’Océan n’eût soutenu sur la grève un regard du
soleil, la comtesse avait encouragé les goûts d’Étienne, en lui
apportant des romanceros espagnols, des motets italiens, des livres,
des sonnets, des poésies. La bibliothèque du cardinal d’Hérouville
était l’héritage d’Étienne, la lecture devait remplir sa vie. Chaque
matin, l’enfant trouvait sa solitude peuplée de jolies plantes aux
riches couleurs, aux suaves parfums. Ainsi, ses lectures, auxquelles
sa frêle santé ne lui permettait pas de se livrer longtemps, et ses
exercices au milieu des rochers, étaient interrompus par de naïves
méditations qui le faisaient rester des heures entières assis devant
ses riantes fleurs, ses douces compagnes, ou tapi dans le creux de
quelque roche en présence d’une algue, d’une mousse, d’une herbe
marine en en étudiant les mystères. Il cherchait une rime au sein des
corolles odorantes, comme l’abeille y eût butiné son miel. Il admirait
souvent sans but, et sans vouloir s’expliquer son plaisir, les filets
délicats imprimés sur les pétales en couleurs foncées, la délicatesse
des riches tuniques d’or ou d’azur, vertes ou violâtres, les
découpures si profusément belles des calices ou des feuilles, leurs
tissus mats ou veloutés qui se déchiraient, comme devait se déchirer
son âme au moindre effort. Plus tard, penseur autant que poëte, il
devait surprendre la raison de ces innombrables différences d’une
même nature, en y découvrant l’indice de facultés précieuses; car,
de jour en jour, il fit des progrès dans l’interprétation du Verbe divin
écrit sur toute chose de ce monde. Ces recherches obstinées et
secrètes, faites dans le monde occulte, donnaient à sa vie
l’apparente somnolence des génies méditatifs. Étienne demeurait
pendant de longues journées couché sur le sable, heureux, poëte à
son insu. L’irruption soudaine d’un insecte doré, les reflets du soleil
dans l’Océan, les tremblements du vaste et limpide miroir des eaux,
un coquillage, une araignée de mer, tout devenait événement et
plaisir pour cette âme ingénue. Voir venir sa mère, entendre de loin
le frôlement de sa robe, l’attendre, la baiser, lui parler, l’écouter, lui
causaient des sensations si vives, que souvent un retard ou la plus
légère crainte lui causaient une fièvre dévorante. Il n’y avait qu’une
âme en lui, et pour que le corps faible et toujours débile ne fût pas
détruit par les vives émotions de cette âme, il fallait à Étienne le
silence, des caresses, la paix dans le paysage, et l’amour d’une
femme. Pour le moment, sa mère lui prodiguait l’amour et les
caresses; les rochers étaient silencieux; les fleurs, les livres
charmaient sa solitude; enfin, son petit royaume de sable et de
coquilles, d’algues et de verdure, lui semblait un monde toujours
frais et nouveau.
Étienne eut tous les bénéfices de cette vie physique si
profondément innocente, et de cette vie morale si poétiquement
étendue. Enfant par la forme, homme par l’esprit, il était également
angélique sous les deux aspects. Par la volonté de sa mère, ses
études avaient transporté ses émotions dans la région des idées.
L’action de sa vie s’accomplit alors dans le monde moral, loin du
monde social qui pouvait le tuer ou le faire souffrir. Il vécut par l’âme
et par l’intelligence. Après avoir saisi les pensées humaines par la
lecture, il s’éleva jusqu’aux pensées qui meuvent la matière, il sentit
des pensées dans les airs, il en lut d’écrites au ciel. Enfin, il gravit de
bonne heure la cime éthérée où se trouvait la nourriture délicate
propre à son âme, nourriture enivrante, mais qui le prédestinait au
malheur le jour où ces trésors accumulés se joindraient aux
richesses qu’une passion met soudain au cœur. Si parfois Jeanne
de Saint-Savin redoutait cet orage, elle se consolait bientôt par une
pensée que lui inspirait la triste destinée de son fils; car cette pauvre
mère ne trouvait d’autre remède à un malheur qu’un malheur
moindre; aussi chacune de ses jouissances était-elle pleine
d’amertume!
—Il sera cardinal, se disait-elle, il vivra par le sentiment des arts
dont il se fera le protecteur. Il aimera l’art au lieu d’aimer une femme,
et l’art ne le trahira jamais.
Les plaisirs de cette amoureuse maternité furent donc sans
cesse altérés par de sombres pensées qui naissaient de la
singulière situation où se trouvait Étienne au sein de sa famille. Les
deux frères avaient déjà dépassé l’un et l’autre l’âge de
l’adolescence sans se connaître, sans s’être vus, sans soupçonner
leur existence rivale. La duchesse avait longtemps espéré pouvoir,
pendant une absence de son mari, lier les deux frères par quelque
scène solennelle où elle comptait les envelopper de son âme. Elle
se flattait d’intéresser Maximilien à Étienne, en disant au cadet
combien il devait de protection et d’amour à son aîné souffrant en
retour des renoncements auxquels il avait été soumis, et auxquels il
serait fidèle, quoique contraint. Cet espoir longtemps caressé s’était
évanoui. Loin de vouloir amener une reconnaissance entre les deux
frères, elle redoutait plus une rencontre entre Étienne et Maximilien
qu’entre Étienne et son père. Maximilien, qui ne croyait qu’au mal,
eût craint qu’un jour Étienne ne redemandât ses droits méconnus, et
l’aurait jeté dans la mer en lui mettant une pierre au cou. Jamais fils
n’eut moins de respect que lui pour sa mère. Aussitôt qu’il avait pu
raisonner, il s’était aperçu du peu d’estime que le duc avait pour sa
femme. Si le vieux gouverneur conservait quelques formes dans ses
manières avec la duchesse, Maximilien, peu contenu par son père,
causait mille chagrins à sa mère. Aussi Bertrand veillait-il
incessamment à ce que jamais Maximilien ne vît Étienne, de qui la
naissance d’ailleurs était soigneusement cachée. Tous les gens du
château haïssaient cordialement le marquis de Saint-Sever, nom
que portait Maximilien, et ceux qui savaient l’existence de l’aîné le
regardaient comme un vengeur que Dieu tenait en réserve. L’avenir
d’Étienne était donc douteux; peut-être serait-il persécuté par son
frère! La pauvre duchesse n’avait point de parents auxquels elle pût
confier la vie et les intérêts de son enfant chéri; Étienne n’accuserait-
il pas sa mère, quand, sous la pourpre romaine, il voudrait être père
comme elle avait été mère? Ces pensées, sa vie mélancolique et
pleine de douleurs secrètes, étaient comme une longue maladie
tempérée par un doux régime. Son cœur exigeait les ménagements
les plus habiles, et ceux qui l’entouraient étaient cruellement
inexperts en douceurs. Quel cœur de mère n’eût pas été meurtri
sans cesse en voyant le fils aîné, l’homme de tête et de cœur en qui
se révélait un beau génie, dépouillé de ses droits; tandis que le
cadet, homme de sac et de corde, sans aucun talent, même
militaire, était chargé de porter la couronne ducale et de perpétuer la
famille. La maison d’Hérouville reniait sa gloire. Incapable de
maudire, la douce Jeanne de Saint-Savin ne savait que bénir et
pleurer; mais elle levait souvent les yeux au ciel, pour lui demander
compte de cet arrêt bizarre. Ses yeux s’emplissaient de larmes
quand elle pensait qu’à sa mort son fils serait tout à fait orphelin et
resterait en butte aux brutalités d’un frère sans foi ni loi. Tant de
sensations réprimées, un premier amour inoublié, tant de douleurs
incomprises, car elle taisait ses plus vives souffrances à son enfant
chéri, ses joies toujours troublées, ses chagrins incessants, avaient
affaibli les principes de la vie et développé chez elle une maladie de
langueur qui, loin d’être atténuée, prit chaque jour une force
nouvelle. Enfin, un dernier coup activa la consomption de la
duchesse, elle essaya d’éclairer le duc sur l’éducation de Maximilien
et fut rebutée; elle ne put porter aucun remède aux détestables
semences qui germaient dans l’âme de cet enfant. Elle entra dans
une période de dépérissement si visible, que cette maladie nécessita
la promotion de Beauvouloir au poste de médecin de la maison
d’Hérouville et du gouvernement de Normandie. L’ancien rebouteur
vint demeurer au château. Dans ce temps, ces places appartenaient
à des savants qui y trouvaient les loisirs nécessaires à
l’accomplissement de leurs travaux et les honoraires indispensables
à leur vie studieuse. Beauvouloir souhaitait depuis quelque temps
cette position, car son savoir et sa fortune lui avaient valu de
nombreux et d’acharnés ennemis. Malgré la protection d’une grande
famille à laquelle il avait rendu service dans une affaire dont il était
question, il avait été récemment impliqué dans un procès criminel, et
l’intervention du gouverneur de Normandie, sollicitée par la
duchesse, arrêta seule les poursuites. Le duc n’eut pas à se repentir
de l’éclatante protection qu’il accordait à l’ancien rebouteur:
Beauvouloir sauva le marquis de Saint-Sever d’une maladie si
dangereuse, que tout autre médecin eût échoué dans cette cure.
Mais la blessure de la duchesse datait de trop loin pour qu’on pût la
guérir, surtout quand elle était incessamment ravivée au logis.
Lorsque les souffrances firent entrevoir une fin prochaine à cet ange
que tant de douleurs préparaient à de meilleures destinées, la mort
eut un véhicule dans les sombres prévisions de l’avenir.
—Que deviendra mon pauvre enfant sans moi! était une pensée
que chaque heure ramenait comme un flot amer.
Enfin, lorsqu’elle dut demeurer au lit, la duchesse inclina
promptement vers la tombe; car alors elle fut privée de son fils, à qui
son chevet était interdit par le pacte à l’observation duquel il devait la
vie. La douleur de l’enfant fut égale à celle de la mère. Inspiré par le
génie particulier aux sentiments comprimés, Étienne se créa le plus
mystique des langages pour pouvoir s’entretenir avec sa mère. Il
étudia les ressources de sa voix comme eût fait la plus habile des
cantatrices, et venait chanter d’une voix mélancolique sous les
fenêtres de sa mère, quand, par un signe, Beauvouloir lui disait
qu’elle était seule. Jadis, au maillot, il avait consolé sa mère par
d’intelligents sourires; devenu poëte, il la caressait par les plus
suaves mélodies.
—Ces chants me font vivre! disait la duchesse à Beauvouloir en
aspirant l’air animé par la voix d’Étienne.
Enfin arriva le moment où devait commencer un long deuil pour
l’enfant maudit. Déjà plusieurs fois il avait trouvé de mystérieuses
correspondances entre ses émotions et les mouvements de l’Océan.
La divination des pensées de la matière dont l’avait doué sa science
occulte, rendait ce phénomène plus éloquent pour lui que pour tout
autre. Pendant la fatale soirée où il allait voir sa mère pour la
dernière fois, l’Océan fut agité par des mouvements qui lui parurent
extraordinaires. C’était un remuement d’eaux qui montrait la mer
travaillée intestinement; elle s’enflait par de grosses vagues qui
venaient expirer avec des bruits lugubres et semblables aux
hurlements des chiens en détresse. Étienne se surprit à se dire à lui-
même:—Que me veut-elle? elle tressaille et se plaint comme une
créature vivante! Ma mère m’a souvent raconté que l’Océan était en
proie à d’horribles convulsions pendant la nuit où je suis né. Que va-
t-il m’arriver?
Cette pensée le fit rester debout à la fenêtre de sa chaumière, les
yeux tantôt sur la croisée de la chambre de sa mère où tremblotait
une lumière, tantôt sur l’Océan qui continuait à gémir. Tout à coup
Beauvouloir frappa doucement, ouvrit, et montra sur sa figure
assombrie le reflet d’un malheur.
—Monseigneur, dit-il, madame la duchesse est dans un si triste
état qu’elle veut vous voir. Toutes les précautions sont prises pour
qu’il ne vous advienne aucun mal au château; mais il nous faut
beaucoup de prudence, nous serons obligés de passer par la
chambre de Monseigneur, là où vous êtes né.
Ces paroles firent venir des larmes aux yeux d’Étienne, qui
s’écria:—L’Océan m’a parlé!
Il se laissa machinalement conduire vers la porte de la tour par
où Bertrand était monté pendant la nuit où la duchesse avait
accouché de l’enfant maudit. L’écuyer s’y trouvait une lanterne à la
main. Étienne parvint à la grande bibliothèque du cardinal
d’Hérouville où il fut obligé de rester avec Beauvouloir pendant que
Bertrand allait ouvrir les portes et reconnaître si l’enfant maudit
pouvait passer sans danger. Le duc ne s’éveilla pas. En s’avançant
à pas légers, Étienne et Beauvouloir n’entendaient dans cet
immense château que la faible plainte de la mourante. Ainsi, les
circonstances qui accompagnèrent la naissance d’Étienne se
retrouvaient à la mort de sa mère. Même tempête, mêmes
angoisses, même peur d’éveiller le géant sans pitié, qui cette fois
dormait bien. Pour éviter tout malheur, l’écuyer prit Étienne dans ses
bras et traversa la chambre de son redoutable maître, décidé à lui
donner quelque prétexte tiré de l’état où se trouvait la duchesse, s’il
était surpris. Étienne eut le cœur horriblement serré par la crainte qui
animait ces deux fidèles serviteurs; mais cette émotion le prépara
pour ainsi dire au spectacle qui s’offrit à ses regards dans cette
chambre seigneuriale où il revenait pour la première fois depuis le
jour où la malédiction paternelle l’en avait banni. Sur ce grand lit que
le bonheur n’approcha jamais, il chercha sa bien-aimée et ne la
trouva pas sans peine, tant elle était maigrie. Blanche comme ses
dentelles, n’ayant plus qu’un dernier souffle à exhaler, elle
rassembla ses forces pour prendre les mains d’Étienne, et voulut lui
donner toute son âme dans un long regard, comme autrefois
Chaverny lui avait légué à elle toute sa vie dans un adieu.
Beauvouloir et Bertrand, l’enfant et la mère, le duc endormi, se
trouvaient encore réunis. Même lieu, même scène, mêmes acteurs;
mais c’était la douleur funèbre au lieu des joies de la maternité, la
nuit de la mort au lieu du jour de la vie. En ce moment, l’ouragan
annoncé depuis le coucher du soleil par les lugubres hurlements de
la mer, se déclara soudain.
—Chère fleur de ma vie, dit Jeanne de Saint-Savin en baisant
son fils au front, tu fus détaché de mon sein au milieu d’une tempête,
et c’est par une tempête que je me détache de toi. Entre ces deux
orages tout me fut orage, hormis les heures où je t’ai vu. Voici ma
dernière joie, elle se mêle à ma dernière douleur. Adieu mon unique
amour, adieu belle image de deux âmes bientôt réunies, adieu ma
seule joie, joie pure, adieu tout mon bien-aimé!
—Laisse-moi te suivre, dit Étienne qui s’était couché sur le lit de
sa mère.
—Ce serait un meilleur destin! dit-elle en laissant couler deux
larmes sur ses joues livides, car, comme autrefois, son regard parut
lire dans l’avenir.—Personne ne l’a vu? demanda-t-elle à ses deux
serviteurs. En ce moment le duc se remua dans son lit, tous
tressaillirent.—Il y a du mélange jusque dans ma dernière joie! dit la
duchesse. Emmenez-le! emmenez-le!
—Ma mère, j’aime mieux te voir un moment de plus et mourir! dit
le pauvre enfant en s’évanouissant sur le lit.
 A un signe de la duchesse, Bertrand prit Étienne dans ses bras,
et le laissant voir une dernière fois à la mère qui le baisait par un
dernier regard, il se mit en devoir de l’emporter, en attendant un
nouvel ordre de la mourante.
—Aimez-le bien, dit-elle à l’écuyer et au rebouteur, car je ne lui
vois pas d’autres protecteurs que vous et le ciel.
Avertie par un instinct qui ne trompe jamais les mères, elle s’était
aperçue de la pitié profonde qu’inspirait à l’écuyer l’aîné de la
maison puissante à laquelle il portait un sentiment de vénération
comparable à celui des Juifs pour la Cité Sainte. Quant à
Beauvouloir, le pacte entre la duchesse et lui s’était signé depuis
longtemps. Ces deux serviteurs, émus de voir leur maîtresse forcée
de leur léguer ce noble enfant, promirent par un geste sacré d’être la
providence de leur jeune maître, et la mère eut foi en ce geste.
La duchesse mourut au matin, quelques heures après; elle fut
pleurée des derniers serviteurs qui, pour tout discours, dirent sur sa
tombe qu’elle était une gente femme tombée du paradis.
Étienne fut en proie à la plus intense, à la plus durable des
douleurs, douleur muette d’ailleurs. Il ne courut plus à travers les
rochers, il ne se sentit plus la force de lire ni de chanter. Il demeura
des journées entières accroupi dans le creux d’un roc, indifférent aux
intempéries de l’air, immobile, attaché sur le granit, semblable à
l’une des mousses qui y croissaient, pleurant bien rarement; mais
perdu dans une seule pensée, immense, infinie comme l’Océan; et
comme l’Océan, cette pensée prenait mille formes, devenait terrible,
orageuse, calme. Ce fut plus qu’une douleur, ce fut une vie nouvelle,
une irrévocable destinée faite à cette belle créature qui ne devait
plus sourire. Il est des peines qui, semblables à du sang jeté dans
une eau courante, teignent momentanément les flots; l’onde, en se
renouvelant, restaure la pureté de sa nappe; mais, chez Étienne, la
source même fut adultérée; et chaque flot du temps lui apporta
même dose de fiel.
Dans ses vieux jours, Bertrand avait conservé l’intendance des
écuries, pour ne pas perdre l’habitude d’être une autorité dans la
maison. Son logis se trouvait près de la maison où se retirait
Étienne, en sorte qu’il était à portée de veiller sur lui avec la
persistance d’affection et la simplicité rusée qui caractérisent les
vieux soldats. Il dépouillait toute sa rudesse pour parler au pauvre
enfant; il allait doucement le prendre par les temps de pluie, et
l’arrachait à sa rêverie pour le ramener au logis. Il mit de l’amour-
propre à remplacer la duchesse de manière à ce que le fils trouvât,
sinon le même amour, du moins les mêmes attentions. Cette pitié
ressemblait à de la tendresse. Étienne supporta sans plainte ni
résistance les soins du serviteur; mais trop de liens étaient brisés
entre l’enfant maudit et les autres créatures, pour qu’une vive
affection pût renaître dans son cœur. Il se laissa machinalement
protéger, car il devint une sorte de créature intermédiaire entre
l’homme et la plante, ou peut-être entre l’homme et Dieu. A quoi
comparer un être à qui les lois sociales, les faux sentiments du
monde étaient inconnus, et qui conservait une ravissante innocence,
en n’obéissant qu’à l’instinct de son cœur. Néanmoins, malgré sa
sombre mélancolie, il sentit bientôt le besoin d’aimer, d’avoir une
autre mère, une autre âme à lui; mais séparé de la civilisation par
une barrière d’airain, il était difficile qu’il rencontrât un être qui se fût
fait fleur comme lui. A force de chercher un autre lui-même auquel il
pût confier ses pensées et dont la vie pût devenir la sienne, il finit
par sympathiser avec l’Océan. La mer devint pour lui un être animé,
pensant. Toujours en présence de cette immense création dont les
merveilles cachées contrastent si grandement avec celles de la
terre, il y découvrit la raison de plusieurs mystères. Familiarisé dès
le berceau avec l’infini de ces campagnes humides, la mer et le ciel
lui racontèrent d’admirables poésies. Pour lui, tout était varié dans
ce large tableau si monotone en apparence. Comme tous les
hommes de qui l’âme domine le corps, il avait une vue perçante, et
pouvait saisir à des distances énormes, avec une admirable facilité,
sans fatigue, les nuances les plus fugitives de la lumière, les
tremblements les plus éphémères de l’eau. Par un calme parfait, il
trouvait encore des teintes multipliées à la mer qui, semblable à un
visage de femme, avait alors une physionomie, des sourires, des
idées, des caprices: là verte et sombre, ici riant dans son azur, tantôt
unissant ses lignes brillantes avec les lueurs indécises de l’horizon,
tantôt se balançant d’un air doux sous des nuages orangés. Il se