The Wyrms of &alon

By the end of the third round of my practice session with Nina, I was all kinds of tired, none of which could be dispelled by a limb or two of this or that. Also, as Nzk'k'k pointed out, it was getting dark.

"Can't you get something else for us to eat?" I asked zyr. "I'm really hungry."

Nzk'k'k crossed zyr arms. "No. The cold comes with the dark." Ze glanced at the sunset. "We need to return to the mountain."

The dying sunlight that filtered through the dust storms up in the atmosphere, setting the particulate streams ablaze with musical colors in an awe-inspiring display. By comparison, earthly sunsets were little better than splattered paint.

We watched the sunset fade through the tunnels' slit windows on our return trip back up the Hollow Mountain. I was dog tired by the time we reached the top. Thankfully, Nzk'k'k was kind enough to show us to the main dining hall. It was nearly as big as the grand hall and, like it, had massive structural pillars carved from the stone, which gave it the air of a temple. Space heaters beneath the pillars sent warmth up through the columns' hollow interiors. The Vvz'zsh used food pits identical to the ones we'd seen at the Brrk'zk's mansion in T'kznd, right down to the trapdoors in the middle, except for one difference: the evening's meals were dropped through trapdoors in the ceiling, rather than being pulled up from a basement storehouse. Several D'zd gathered around the pits to sing when the food fell, and just when the Charge-rich corpses should have impacted the food pit and splattered to bits, a mysterious force summoned by their Chant intervened, slowing the objects to a gentle stop, as if the air beneath them had turned into jelly.

Cheers shone through the crowds of hungry Vvz'zsh as they scattered forward and dug in.

After I'd had my fill, I crawled up onto a chair along the outer wall and let myself relax, at least to the extent that I could relax, given how I felt.

Learning how to use magic was a great way to keep depression at bay, but it wasn't a cure for it, not by a long shot.

"Genneth?"

Glancing over the edge of the chair, I saw a D'zd standing on the floor directly beneath me. Ze was a couple inches taller than anyone else around, and had streaks of body paint on both zyr stinger tail and the outer sides of zyr flower petals. The conversation-light bouncing around in the room gleamed playfully on the paint's surface. A couple of kerchiefs stuck out from underneath the edge of zyr cloak, whose pulled-back hood dangled behind zyr neck.

"Do I know you?" I asked.

Ze pointed an arm at zyr chest. "It's me, Dzrtk."

"Oh…" I said.

For a moment, I didn't move, mostly out of the hope that Dzrtk would clamber up alongside me. Sadly, ze did not, which meant I had to be the one to climb down to the floor, despite the pleasant heaviness in my tired, slender limbs.

I had a feeling Dzrtk wanted to talk to me. Unfortunately, I wasn't really in the mood for it. Thankfully, I was something of an expert when it came to putting on a smile. I had nearly everything I needed: depression, guilt, regret, and ennui.

Really, all I was missing was my lucky bowtie:

I settled down onto my abdomen. "So… how goes the new body?" I asked. I hoped it would be an appropriate topic for small-talk.

Dzrtk bobbed zyr abdomen and flexed zyr limbs. "It's quite comfy. It feels more like my original body than the one I was wearing when you saved me from the cold."

I opened my flower in shock. "Wait, that wasn't your original body?"

"Yes." Ze gestured at zymself. "This happens to be my fifth."

That was… a lot to take in.

"And you're just fine with that?" I asked.

Dzrtk tilted zyr flower to the side. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Oh brother…

"Dzrtk, where I'm from, living things have one body and one body only."

"That seems terribly inconvenient," Dzrtk said.

"It's just the way things are. We're stuck with our bodies for life, and unlike the T'dzd'ch's refusal to use Passage, it isn't just a matter of our beliefs."

"Strange," the D'zd said.

From where I was, I had a wonderful view of the ceiling overhead. While dining, I'd noticed murals carved on the ceiling, but hadn't been able to give them much thought. Here, though, I saw them in full.

"Oh… wow," I said.

Dzrtk cocked zyr flower at an angle. "What is it?"

I pointed up at the murals. "The murals on the ceiling. They're beautiful."

Of all the D'zd art that I'd seen so far, other than their architecture, the murals on the feasting hall's ceiling most strongly resembled the kind of art that humans made, despite transcending them in ways that a human point of view could hardly fathom. They were symphonic paintings, if such a thing could exist, rendered in glowing pigments whose glistening lights sang in a wordless hymnody. It was highly stylized, almost pixelated, but at a fine resolution. The pixels themselves varied in shape, from hexagons to diamonds.

At first, it seemed chaotic; a sea of forms spiraling out from the depiction of the sun at the ceiling's apex, blossoming with radiation. But the more I looked, the more I saw. I saw brzhts and vrr't'ks, tchn't'ts, and a dozen other tongue twisters. Silvery forests and dust storm clouds swept across the mural in glittering rivers.

"What is it supposed to be?" I asked.

"The World," Dzrtk explained. "The World and the Archetypes."

"Archetypes?"

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"Yes," Dzrtk explained. Ze pointed at one, a grand brzht with sweeping, erumpent antenna-horn. "There, for instance, that is the Brzhtlord. Ze represents power, the bonds of phyle, and fortitude and perseverance, especially in the face of hardship."

"What do you mean, represents?" I asked.

"Just what I said," ze replied. "All things are one. Lifelight is the current of the Worldword. Everything we know and love grows out from it. The Archetypes embody this." Ze pointed at a vrr't't'k shown mid-leap, with its wings outspread. "That is the Fenrunner, the embodiment of the vrr't'ks' collective soul, and through them, the spirits of battle and the hunt. Ze is the apex of martial prowess. The clouds there, by the big tchn't't, do you see it?"

"Yes."

"That is the Stormsong. It is the manifestation lifelight takes when it flows through storms. It embodies stories and good fortune, and times of change and the turns of fate. My phyle has long revered the Stormsong. The lifelight that flows through us is said to be close to its."

"Are they real, these Archetypes of yours?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Can you go out and capture one, or touch it?"

"They live within all things, Zhn'nt. You can't capture them, no more than you can capture the Worldword." Ze looked up at the mural's rendition of the Sun. "I wonder," Dzrtk mused, "does your world have a Worldword, Zhn'nt?"

"A Sun, you mean?" I asked. I pointed at the ceiling. "The big, very loud thing in the sky?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "We do, but it doesn't make any noise—at least not any that we can hear. Why do you ask?"

"Your kind must feel very lonely," ze said.

Somehow, the D'zd managed to get drunk, as evidenced by the small cadre of Vvz'zsh stumbling past us.

"What?" I asked.

"Do you not feel a need to be part of something greater than yourself?" ze asked.

"We very much do," I said, "me, especially."

"Which is why I said your kind must feel very lonely," Dzrtk explained. Ze glanced back at the revelers. "None of us here have any doubt about our place in the world. Even the T'dzd'ch can grasp it, even if they don't know it in the same fullness as we do."

"How so?" I asked.

"Zhn'nt, I've flown through dust storms with a tchn't't's wings. I've lived the quiet contemplation of a hungry lightleaf shrub, and felt the drum of the earth beneath a vr't'k's paws. I've drunk lifelight from brzht calves my progenitors once sired. There's no mistaking the taste of a cousin's lifelight, or your own. The forests are littered with traces of my spirit. I can feel it there, and the land remembers it, and me, and so it will stay, even long after I am gone. Everything is connected. We are all part of the Worldword's song. Every day of our lives bears witness to that fact. Even if the T'dzd'ch cut themselves off from the Great Connection, the Worldword is there, reminding them of their true origin. But your people, Zhn'nt," here, Dzrtk held zyr arms close, "your people are trapped in your bodies. You can't even hear your World's word. I can't imagine how lonely that must be."

"My people revere our, uh, Worldword," I said. "Well, at least some of us do, and I happen to be one of them. The D'zd aren't the only ones who do so."

"You revere it even though you can't hear it?"

"That's what faith is about, isn't it?" I said. "Believing in what you can't see?"

The D'zd held zyr gaze at me for what felt like a long time. "No wonder you're so bleak," ze said.

I crossed my upper arms. "Are you judging me?"

Dzrtk made an X with zyr upper pair of arms. I take it that meant "no". "It's just… belief is difficult enough, even when you put it in what you can see. Why would you abandon the world you can see for one you cannot?"

I really didn't like where this conversation had gone.

"Dzrtk," I said, crossing my lower arms, too, "I don't mean to be rude, but… why do you care?" I flicked my stinger. "Or are you just as nosy as I am?"

"I don't know what nosy means," Dzrtk said, "but… Zhn'nt, I would be dead, were it not for you and your friends. I owe you a great debt for that." Ze lowered his head slightly. "I don't know how your people do things, but… we Vvz'zsh look out for one another."

Turning around, the D'zd backed up against the wall and settled into place beside me. "What you said during our flight disturbed me," ze said. "I hope you don't mind if—"

"—I used to believe in a God I couldn't see. After that… things went wrong, and now everything is in pieces, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to put them back together again."

Dzrtk tilted zyr tail to the side. "You mentioned that before, God. What is God?"

"Some would say God is Love," I said.

"If God is Love," Dzrtk asked, "then why wouldn't you believe in it?"

"Because God is a lot more than just Love," I said. "God is the Creator, the maker of all things."

I didn't feel like pointing out to Dzrtk that, insofar as the Godhead had created my world, the D'zd and their world had not been part of it. I felt that would have only confused zym even more.

"That doesn't seem very rational," Dzrtk replied.

"Speak for yourself," I said. "Look at how much your people fight one another in the name of your beliefs."

"We feel as we feel because of what others have done," Dzrtk said, "not because of who or what they are. At least, that's the ideal." Ze tilted zyr head and rustled zyr flower's petals. "What has your 'God' done to earn your people's belief?"

"We believe God created us, and reigns supreme."

"Yes, and?" Dzrtk asked.

"What do you mean? We owe God everything for creating us and giving us free will. That's why we believe. We have to."

"Why did your God create you?" ze asked.

"I've asked that question of others many times. Of all the answers I ever got, I think the best was that it was an act of love; a gift, freely given, without expectation of anything in return."

"But you just said your God doesn't expect anything in return. Why would you have to believe?"

"Because evil happens," I said, "and because we will be punished—forever—if we let ourselves fall to its temptations."

"I don't understand," Dzrtk said. "If your use of the gifts merits punishment, then the gift was not freely given."

"God is goodness itself," I said, citing the explanations I'd been given, "and goodness can't allow evil to exist unchallenged. That's why so many of my people live their lives for God: God is the only one who can save them from the evil we create."

That took Dzrtk aback. Ze bobbed zyr floor.

"Your people must be corrupt to the core to make so much evil," ze said.

I nodded. "There's a good many of us who feel that way."

As much as it pained me to admit, the human race's record wasn't all sunshine and roses. Quite the contrary.

"I see why you struggle to worship this being," Dzrtk said. "This God of yours must incompetent to create such flawed things. Even when freely given, poor craftsmanship causes nothing but trouble. And if ze could have done better, but chose not to? That's simply awful!"

I laughed bitterly. "But if we did that, Dzrtk, God would torture us for all eternity. That's why we have to live by God's law. It's the only way to avoid the torment."

And then, Dzrtk asked a truly wonderful question.

"But then… what do you live for?"

"What?" I asked.

"If your race is so damned that it can't live without poisoning the world with, how can your lives be worth living."

"Our lives are meant to strengthen us," I said.

"How?"

"By testing us against evil, and giving us a chance to give glory to God."

"But that isn't life," Dzrtk said, "and certainly not a freely given one! If you can't live for anyone if you don't know how to live for yourself. Your life wouldn't have been yours to share."

"But when I am for myself," I asked, "then what am I?" I shook my head. "Really, that's what frightens me the most: the thought that all of this just happened." I gestured at our lively surroundings with my many arms. "No purpose. No justice. Just… is."

I worried my pun wasn't as deep as I thought it was.

"There is great beauty in what is, Zhn'nt," Dzrtk said. "If you want to fall back on your imagination to find a feeling of connection to something greater than yourself, that's your choice to do so."

Dzrtk didn't seem to be very keen on that idea.

"Is there something wrong with that?" I asked.

"It just seems so… futile," ze replied.

"How so?"

"Like mine, your people want to feel connected to something greater. But how can you—or any of your kind—hope to be satisfied by imaginary connections when you can't even find meaning in what already exists all around you?"

"I… I've never thought of it that way," I said.

"Well, now you have."

"Then what should I do?" I asked.

"Connect, and share," Dzrtk replied. "You never know what you might find."

Little did I know how profound of an impact Dzrtk's words were fated to have on me.