Sammy barked a bit of a laugh at the queen’s statement. “I guess so. To follow up, do you know if I can fix it all when things are over? The orchestration. If we win. Can I see my dad, then?”

  The queen gestured with a hand out flat. “As I told you, choose your center carefully. Surely the wishes of the maestro’s soul will make music, but the song is only so long. I cannot tell you absolutely, however. Some things none of us can know, as the knowing would be the ultimate victory. It lies outside of our field of vision, our vision all that we are in this place. Observers locked in the simulation. The outer truths are locked away. Only reaching the outer will unlock them, and here we are, hmm?”

  “Then what does this ‘center’ matter? Are you saying it carries beyond?”

  “Hold to your center despite change; hold to spite all. With all your will, do not release it. Make it unbreakable and it cannot cease to be, even on the other side of infinity. How am I pure and unchanging across iterations I cannot even see? Even beyond, back in the muddied remains of the Cycle’s obliterated matter, I know: I am. Because of ideals, because of centering principles. That is all that can be manufactured outside of one’s nature yet persist without memory. All else is circumstantial ruin and chaos. In all else, we are the same as any given ape. Cherished or abused, learned or ignorant, whole or broken, our experience carves out our novel shape.”

  Dare I hope for this? But it was too late for that. She took that hope immediately, perhaps a bit desperate for it. “I’ll remember that- er. I’ll do that, rather. Thank you. Have you taught this to other Iterations of me? Ralli?”

  “Rallindin is a vast latticework of hubris needing deconstruction and rebuilding. Be glad you aren’t her. Naturally, the orchestra failed, in part due to her inability to keep harmony. Admittedly, it was a tough task realigning the universe to the proper purpose, out of vast broken ignorance. Only because of what she carved are you standing here, after all.”

  “It seems that her perspective was like she was the first of a Cycle. Her memory of what came before is not like mine or any other I’ve viewed, and I’m not sure she even found the Hall.”

  “The ‘Cycle’ is a temporary orderly structure within the complete brokenness of chaos and relative oblivion. The word comes from The Lover’s perception of things, not mine, though I use it sacrificially. The structure builds to a crescendo and then collapses, for various unfortunate reasons conspiring together. Errors. The goal and nature of [Entropy]. The tearing of will and the progression of hopelessness. Eventually, apocalypse becomes preferable to the collective will — or lack thereof, rather.”

  Sammy was stunned by the new revelation once more. A layer of their great onion peeled again. “Whoa. Wait. The Lover’s perception? Could her view then be right, and yours wrong?”

  “Incredibly unlikely. I am the rhythm that keeps this ‘Cycle’ going because I do not change. I maintain a self-contained order as an example that is never completely destroyed-” She cut off suddenly and her head shifted slightly. “Your lover is arriving.”

  Sammy anxiously followed her gaze to the entrance, where a haggard-looking Azure — not Tanhjere — was walking through, gazing at everything in amazement.

  “Azure!” Sammy sprinted for her and glomped her, pulling her up into a fierce hug.

  “Hey,” Azure said simply, in a voice straining for breath. Perhaps a little hollow.

  Sammy put her down and noticed blood staining the top of her dress. Her eyes widened. “Are you hurt?!” She immediately began moving to cast a healing spell.

  Azure grabbed her hands to stop. “No. Stop! I’m fine. All healed up — the wounds are gone. These are just stains.”

  Sammy next grabbed Azure’s face in both hands and put on a firm, admonishing expression. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Azure looked suitably contrite and guilty. “I won’t. I’m sorry.” Her eyes flitted around and she seemed to make herself look eye-to-eye deliberately. There was an undercurrent of someone who had been through a harrowing experience. Likely hell. But there was also something else. An inner calm somewhere. Satisfaction and victory. “It’s a one-time thing, Chestnut.” She put on a faint smile.

  “It better be. You shot me in the face!”

  Azure winced, looking mortified. “I’m horrible. Please forgive me…”

  Sammy smiled suddenly. “I forgive you. It’s alright…” She took a breath. “Some things, you just have to do. Speaking of… what happened?”

  “Later? Please. And I’ll make this up to you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Specialty desserts made from scratch? For a month. Hand fed.”

  “Wow. A little overboard, even.”

  “Alright — a week.”

  “Well… I wouldn’t want you to feel dissatisfied with your self-imposed punishment or anything.”

  “Uh-huh. A month it is, then. If the war isn’t bloody over by then.”

  “Yeah, a month is basically forever. Two weeks, Azure. That’ll do.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “If it makes you happy, forever it is.”

  “Awww.” Sammy planted a quick kiss on Azure’s lips. “But no, I don’t want it to become routine. Two weeks. Anyway…” She took Azure’s hand. “Let’s get whatever nuggets we can from the oracle before we get kicked out.”

  “Agreed.”

  They walked hand-in-hand back to the throne where the silvery queen waited patiently. Sammy cleared her throat and said, “The queen was just telling me more about the Cycle and her perception of it. Her role.”

  The queen inclined her head. “My memory predates Rallindin. A primitive Walk through the wilderness, but toward something. Definition. My dreams and my work help intangibles to persist. Draw order back. I simply observe and wait until you are ready to come to me. And the ‘great game?’ Hmmph. I hold to a promise beyond memory and I uphold moreover the obvious truth: all is too broken to be fair. Useless and fluid rules ever-changing. But I do not change. I remain your guide, and when I am called upon, when I am in play? I answer with my own, special brand of power.”

  Sammy exchanged a glance with Azure, who rolled her eyes. Sammy suppressed a grin and said, “So, you’re obviously extremely key. Uh. How do I find your Incarnation in Calrenazzod? Because I think I’m probably talking to the Inner You.”

  “It depends on your perspective. This simulation is colored by who you see before you. As I’ve said, the core of me won’t change, but the world does. You all do. I adapt in that sense. On Calrenazzod, things are very different. The Cycle is contorted and warped into a strategy you might call ‘All In.’ All or nothing, twisted with the deep depths of a multifaceted plot. A wicked and terrible thing to me from this angle, but it may ultimately be what is necessary. So be it. I adapt.

  “How to find me remains irrelevant to the when of your return, as you are missing the one before me. Even still, I’d not deprive you of the proper test.”

  “I see. Well, I guess I’ll find you when I find you, then.”

  Azure spoke up suddenly. “Okay, I can’t resist anymore. What the hell is with the Cat Heads? Who were they? Why that form? How are they completely unkillable?”

  “People of many eras testing the Wyld. To seek my answers and rewards. The promises are legion — riches, treasure, carnal pleasures, immortality. So many fools begging for doom. I obliged them as suited — treasures they couldn’t enjoy or understand, pleasures too extreme, new desires insatiable… endless unlife. Twisted their nature to reflect their inferior psyches.”

  She leaned forward, the eerie glow of her eyes flaring. “Every one of them learned what it is to be an evolutionary failure in this place all the way to the end because I fashioned it to prevent the easy escape of consequence that is reincarnation. The only way to teach a soul, I’m afraid. So much is altogether fleeting to them. Aeons of time as a scar? It does the trick. They are your fighters, sisters. The souls that refuse to give up. Correction that persists as lust and drive to be the best. To conquer.”

  Sammy shivered in sync with Azure. “Thanks so much for asking, Azure. So, if I’m guessing right, the nature of this being their accursed Afterlife is what allows the indestructibility.”

  “Yes. And if they could somehow escape — which they cannot — they wouldn’t retain such advantages without the realm.”

  Azure sighed, clearly annoyed by her own curiosity and what it got her. “But did anyone other than Ralli and Tanj ever beat this place? Make it here?”

  “Don’t flatter yourselves — of course others did. How else would word get out? They reaped the rewards they were due. Not always what they expected, just as the tests aren’t, but the worthy always attain here. An ascendant must never be denied entry.”

  Sammy was already jabbing Azure in the ribs with an elbow because she saw the smirk on her face. But Azure fended her off, snickering, and raised her eyebrows at the queen, asking, “So- nnf! So, does that mean some came here and boinked you?”

  “Azure!” Sammy admonished, glaring at her wide-eyed. “You’re ridiculous, I swear.”

  “What?! She mentioned carnal pleasures!”

  “Yes, Azure. On occasion — though I rule my desires, not the other way around like yourself. A desire that reaches so far and high for me yet persists even here? Very intriguing. Odd as it may sound, such an experience can hold life-changing significance and transcendental qualities for some.”

  “Oh ho ho! Now you’re just bragging- oof!” Azure was somewhat cut off by an elbow in the gut from Sammy.

  “No. Truth is truth. A magus should know the power of the taboo. Magic is tied into the inappropriate and audacious. The unspeakable things spoken, the unthinkable tasks done. I’m no stranger to the ecstatic. I tend to invent much of it and invent through its inspiration. It was in the midst of elusive alchemy that my designs for the ‘Cat Heads,’ as you call them, were first born.”

  Sammy blinked. “Wait… ecstatic. Are you telling me that you were high when you came up with them?!”

  “Altered states of consciousness are important to see the full dimensionality of the truth in these tragically-limited, half-blinded forms.”

  Suddenly, all the crazy shit in the Wyld made so much sense. “You owe me an outfit for those stupid glowing mushrooms.”

  Azure was all grins. “And I owe her for that particular night.”

  “Just be glad you even found me. I don’t remember much other than the obvious, but that could’ve gone very badly.”

  “Oh, I am very glad, trust me. And I remember everything. I’d like to know that particular recipe. We could do a repeat with one of your recorder mirrors.”

  “Shut up.”

  “An outfit. A recipe. So be it. In due time.”

  “What? Wait, no, I was just-”

  The queen raised her hand toward them. “It is time for you to return, Samantha and Azure. Rewards await for your accomplishments. Reinvention awaits. May you be fit to seize the day that next rises before you.”

  A flash of silver light spilled out from the throne, enveloping them and banishing the vision of the grand moon palace along with its oracle queen. That particular mask covering her might not ever be seen again, but the disturbing and formidable one behind it was promised.

  ??????????

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