“The flame that waits burns longest”

  - Feebee having a cigarette after her graduation.

  From the safety of the arcology, Feebee looked out at the rock ledge and the copter.

  Within Choc-3’s overlay, the QI slowly built a topological map of the gap. It showed the downed copter and nine dead Drexari, highlighted in red.

  A single hazy shape was adjacent to the copter but off to the side; coloured orange, not moving, not dead. Somehow alive!

  The QI’s voice rang in her ear, ‘They move little, observe much because to them motion is weakness, silence is strength.’

  Feebee hadn’t understood how that was even possible, thought it rubbish, just propaganda. It made no sense.

  But now she understood the strength in silence, in waiting. There’s no need to rush over there.

  So, she picked up Hissy and began to play. Not because she needed the practice but because it felt right, an emotional release that she needed.

  It was impro; started tuneless, discordant, even to her ears but as she played the notes, exhaustion lifted. Pitch and cadence suddenly fell into place.

  Hissy seemed to tune herself with the sounds deepening, harmonics rippling across her surface. Sigils lit up and glowed along her body, energising bioluminescence in the low clouds near the arcology that pulsed with the tune’s cadence.

  Motes, faint, at the edge of seeing, blinked into existence. Her green mote rose and coalesced with others that hovered near Hissy. Under Feebee’s guidance, she sang a deep throaty dirge.

  The motes brightened, aligned and pushed light into the dark corners of the room. They began to spiral, pulsing in time with the music.

  Feebee followed the direction of her meditation into newly awakened areas of her thinking. Deeper layers of consciousness that drew Hissy’s voice to richer strata.

  It was if a closed circuit had been opened, unblocked and now new relationships between Awareness and Stillness saturated her mind.

  As her fingers flew across the belly of the instrument, Feebee felt new connections to Hissy; the bond flooded her with the edge of visions. Partial, not whole. A moment in time when God-like beings shattered into infinity and broke apart to become specks of glowing consciousness, motes.

  That moment of mindful observation fragmented across the stillness of the moment, pulling her back to the here and now.

  As she opened her eyes, the last of the motes glitched away into a different realm, leaving behind ripples in reality like raindrops on water.

  Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

  OBSERVATION: She has seen the shattering.

  OUTCOME: The Flame remains whole. Balance holds.

  STATUS: WATCHFUL

  And now…

  Feebee finished the piece, or rather it finished itself. She put down Hissy and looked out across to the rock ledge where the copter was.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  ‘Status.’

  ‘The vitals of the Drexari seem to be waning. It hasn’t moved. Nothing else.’

  ‘A trap?’

  ‘Unlikely - 15%, so possible.’

  ‘We’ve been here before.’

  ‘Yes. Same but feels different. It is hurt.’

  Feebee walked towards the rock ledge. Her new skin kept her cool, reflecting the heat from the lava pools.

  ‘I hope I don’t regret this.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Feebee laughed.

  As she walked around the lava lake her lips found Hissy’s mouthpiece and without thinking she started to play. The clouds started to glow and again, pulsed in time with the serpent’s song. Motes, previously released to other realms returned, riding waves of radiant energy emitted by the molten lava.

  ‘STOP!’ the QI shouted in her mind.

  Training kicked in; Feebee froze on the spot but kept playing. The jolt from the QI adding an injection of emotion in her playing, that combined with the tones and forced the motes to align around the serpent. Something she would come to call a resonant trigger.

  Her vision flickered, her senses flooded.

  She was by a fire, ochre-painted dancers leapt. A single person at the centre was using music to hold back a raging force. The dancer resisted, holding the moment in stillness. The rhythm of the dance, Old Music, pushed raging energies back into the Void; not with brute force but balanced harmonies. The deep throated resonance of Hissy matched the vision.

  ‘FEEBEE!’ It was the QI again, then it gently added, ‘Stop playing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The moment demands quiet. Be still.’

  She stopped playing but kept walking, up and onto the rock ledge.

  The Drexari warrior was across from her, pinned to the ground under a large rock.

  One leg trapped.

  It watched and listened.

  Zhe was searching for strength, for stillness and silence in the situation. The lava was close and their natural cryothermy was struggling.

  Zhe slowly cooked. Strength sapped.

  Doctrine remained, ‘Our Holy mission is to remove the hot-bloodied infestation.’

  The Drexari focused its optical senses on six meters of brass tubing that was hovering half a meter above the ground with a growing swarm of motes buzzing around it. With a blink their view changed. The mass of pipes and tubes was being carried by a biped; a human that burnt. Actually, burnt bright. The energy from the lava lake splashing off its ‘skin’ was dull in comparison.

  As Zhe watched, the human stood with an almost Drexarian stillness, emitting a haunting elegy that rose and fell with casual calm. Its lament comprised tonal couplets, the cadence of Old Music zher people called True Rhythms.

  Their brood mother and egg-carrier, the one who’d named zher Vol’Shaar, had talked of proto-myths. Stories from an age before time when Old Music was made by Drexari mystics. Music handed down over millennia and used to conduct silent war with the blessing of a God.

  Zhe felt zhe was hearing this now, a voice of Reckoning. Not of war, of balance.

  But it was coming from a human through an abhorrent device.

  Impossible.

  And the motes. They reacted to the human. No, they did more than react; they embraced it. Swarmed around it.

  Impossible.

  How could a heat-lover, devoid of bone memories play such things? Know such things?

  Zhe tried to ping their surroundings. The effort an attempt at encouraging stillness.

  Pain, damaged leg. Heat, barely bearable.

  The ping failed.

  Nothing. No response.

  They opened a channel to the Orbital.

  Nothing.

  Zher squad had just… ceased to be.

  Was zhe experiencing the silent beginning to war with the human?

  No. Impossible.

  Zhe concentrated on maintaining stillness and began reciting the Litany to Veltrin. Ancient words of cultural reverence for those about to die.

  Zhe’d had a good life, lived long by Drexari standards. Was recognised as an elite warrior and a good brood mother. Zhe’d carried three broods to full term, had a good union with the same male and female. Zhe’d chosen well.

  Pain. Her strength ebbed, the tide was receding.

  The end felt close. The Veltrin couplets, intoned with precision brought quiet. They talked of one who stood alone, in perfect stillness and walked through flames without being consumed.

  Zhe tried to focus but pain and the presence of the human with its Instrument was a distraction.

  It continued to approach and issue blasphemous callings that reached out to the ancients. Its deep sonorous voice was… such a rich voice.

  As the human closed in on her, she neared the end of the Litany. And with the final couplet, zhe gave up zher name, “Vol’Shaar”.

  All that remained was the final key that would lock the truth of zher death in her clade’s memories. How zhe wanted to be remembered. The clicking speech of the Drexari carried across the rock shelf. “I am Shaar, an elite warrior with unbreakable loyalty to the Vol. My bond is my blood which I willingly give to the Vol…” zhe paused. Zhe knew a decent death should be demanded and zher death had to be one of value. One that supported her transition.

  How do I phrase this?

  Vol’Shaar looked up and froze.

  Not from cold, or a need for stillness but from a memory jolt. The heat-lover seemed to embody the ‘Silent Flame’. It moved with quiet calm, action without noise; and it burnt bright without being consumed.

  Could it be?

  All her training, zher time spent learning screamed out. “NO! This is an IMPOSTER!”

  But…

  The Still Flame was the voice of reckoning that called out to all peoples, to all things; not for war but for resonance, demanding balance and purpose in a chaotic world.

  Was it possible, could this human be them? Was this how death felt, full of confusion?

  Zhe shook zher head. No. Impossible. Imposter.

  Zhe was weakening.

  The human lay down the instrument that spoke the music of Reckoning. Then sat, within reach, silent, glowing brightly.

  There may yet be the chance of an honourable death to a worthy life.

  But then the human unsheathing a long-bladed knife.

  Zhe was ready to join Veltrin.