The Architect watched as the Forbidden One left his workshop, seemingly in agreement. He shared Irkith’s hatred of the vile creature, though Irkith had for some unknown reason released the criminal, having willingly given up his life stone to make it possible.
Unsurprisingly, the killer had worked the kingdom to death. So, the Kingdom of Ulkun was no more and soon, Irkith was likely to be slain, all for the sake of vengeance.
The Architect turned away, though he watched every action of the criminal through the abundant eyes of the city, for every piece of Kurg was alive and could sense its surroundings. As the city’s primary builder, he was trusted and allowed to use the city’s eyes and ears at will, through a mental bond based on their similar construction.
In his heart, the Architect fervently believed the Life Giver would return someday. Since their work had been destroyed by the criminal, he suspected they would return to re-populate the city. After all, the City of Kurg was part of the Great Purpose, so it couldn’t be allowed to fail, could it?
As the Forbidden One left the city, he turned and touched the edge of the plate he’d just stepped off of, brushing both an antenna and the life stone of Irkith against the golden metal. As orders flowed through the city and into his mind, calling for an immediate folding operation, the Architect knew he’d been betrayed! He desperately tried to countermand the order, but to no avail, for Irkith was considered by the city to be of higher rank than the Architect, simply because he’d lived longer!
Suddenly and without warning, the exterior doors of the workshop vanished; with the hasty way the Forbidden One had closed up the city, he’d broken it into smaller fragments. Without anywhere else to connect to, the workshop had been closed within its own small universe!
The Architect pronounced many ineffectual curses on the Forbidden One, before slumping back, in frustration.
He was alone, with no means of escape, because the city could only be opened on the authority of Irkith. All he could do was watch, in frustration, as Ogomid gathered the remaining pieces of the city and placed them in the stone vessel.
Knowing the answer already, the Architect went through the motions of performing an inventory of the resources he had on hand, coming to a hopeless conclusion: there was nothing he could do. If he’d had more of the transmuted metals or the raw ingredients to make them on hand, especially one of the more unstable transmutations, the one that produced an extreme excess of life energy at all times, he might have been able to produce a reaction energetic enough to force open the small piece of Kurg he was trapped in, but the materials he had on hand were scant and the Materials Storehouse had been on the opposite side of the street from his workshop. It had always been so close that he never saw the need to stockpile supplies in the workshop itself, but now it may as well have been on the opposite side of the planet.
He was alone and the realization dawned on him that he was at the mercy of the Forbidden One, helpless to do anything more than watch and wait, continually plotting escape and perhaps, vengeance.
As he watched, the criminal arrived at his destination and then left the vessel, returning at regular intervals to retrieve the lifeless stones of the Ulkun, probably to put on display in his new home, as trophies of his conquest. When the last of them was retrieved, the Architect hoped the Forbidden One would return, to release him and put the city back together. The Architect swore that if his captor did so, he would assist him in some fashion; after all, it was possible the criminal wasn’t actually lying.
However, after many, many solar revolutions worth of time, he gave up on that hope.
He was alone and trapped, as the eons passed!
The Architect giggled to himself as he worked. He’d used the scant resources on hand to fashion a small, metal statue in the likeness of the Life Giver. He’d also constructed a small statue that resembled Irkith’s husk. With the addition of the barest spark of life, the work of his mandibles animated and began moving around inside the little box he’d made for them to live in. Though he’d originally considered this action impossible, he’d found a way after studying the resources available to him. With a great deal of time spent motionless, to store up every bit of life energy he could spare, combined with a painful personal sacrifice, he’d carved a fraction of his life essence away and poured it into the tiny figures. They were alive, just as he was, though with how little energy he’d been able to spare for the initial pattern of consciousness, they were only minimally intelligent; they would never be able to speak in words, but as he looked on them, exploring their new home, he giggled.
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With his husk quaking and trembling with relief, he reveled in the companionship of his new pets.
Over time, his life energy would replenish, but in the meantime he would be slow moving and sluggish, with a random tendency for his husk to seize up, for he’d used energies that were normally dedicated to overcoming its natural rigidity, for the sake of animation, causing his movements to become little more than controlled trembling, his limbs jerking suddenly from one state to another.
The mini-Giver was clumsy and quickly took to walking on all four limbs, crawling around and generally mimicking the way mini-Irkith moved. Seeing them move and play with each other in their plain box, the Architect started work crafting small toys and furniture for them. The work was intricate and delicate, taking far more time than his usual crafting projects, but under the circumstances, that was an advantage. After all, the Architect was doing his very best to stave off madness and when he worked, he began to forget his situation.
The Architect was overcome with mind-numbing boredom and loneliness. His pets had ceased to amuse him long ago and he’d placed their box on a shelf with a tight lid on it, because they’d started to bicker and fight with each other, struggling over their toys, instead of sharing them, which he didn’t care to watch. He didn’t realize it, but they’d started acting out based on the contagiously gloomy mood that had been emanating from him.
At first, his pets had been his salvation, but now they merely filled him with self-loathing, thinking he’d created such hateful little creatures.
“I hate them. How could I have been so foolish as to think mere animals could be sufficient company?” The Architect asked, mostly to himself.
Irkith stared across the room at him, “It was the best you could do, but don’t worry anymore. I’m here to help.”
He was startled by the sudden appearance of Irkith, taking him to be an apparition, but the Architect knew better. The hallucination was a sign of his deteriorating mental health.
To ignore the vision of his other half, the Architect turned away and desperately pretended he hadn’t seen Irkith, hoping he would go away.
Much time had passed and the Architect had grown to accept comfort from Irkith’s presence. At first, he’d thought the apparition to be a hallucination, causing him to question his own sanity, but after a certain point, he realized it didn’t matter. Was it better to accept the comfort of a hallucination or was it better to resist and go mad with loneliness, when a clear solution had presented itself? It had been a lengthy debate, but in the end, Irkith resolved the argument by pointing out that it hardly mattered, either way.
The Architect giggled at Irkith’s words and how obvious the answer should have been, in retrospect: either path available to him led to madness, so what did it matter? It was simply a matter of accepting the comfort of the company Irkith offered and then he didn’t feel lonely anymore. Which was greater madness: going mad and feeling alone or going mad by accepting the company of a friend and brother?
The Architect fully let go of what he’d previously thought was important and accepted Irkith’s presence. They began a lengthy conversation about the theory and application of life energy to physical objects, to impart simple patterns of behavior, and the Architect felt intellectually stimulated for the first time in eons.
Eventually, during a lull in the intellectual debate, Irkith asked, “What will you do to the Forbidden One when you escape?”
The Architect laughed for a time and admitted, “Remove his life stone from his husk and set it on a shelf, until the end of time.”
“But what if he really is acting according to prophesy?”
“I don’t care. All that matters is serving the Life Giver and working to achieve the Great Purpose.”
“But you don’t know what the Great Purpose is, do you?”
The Architect shrugged, “No, I don’t, but I trust in the Life Giver more than the words of a potentially broken Ulkun prophet whose every word rang with insanity, especially when his words convinced the Forbidden One to become a murdering cannibal.”
“I suppose you have a point. What will you do once you’ve dealt with the Forbidden One?”
The Architect paused for a few days worth of deep thought, while Irkith waited patiently, “I will seek the Life Giver, to give a full report of events and ask for guidance.”
Seeming determined to play the devil’s advocate, Irkith asked, “And what if they tell you the Seventh Sage’s prophesies are true and the Forbidden One was in the right?”
“Then they were never worth serving in the first place, since there’s no excuse for killing the entire kingdom; the Forbidden One is just as crazy as the Seventh Sage. If that comes true, then I would build up the kingdom for my own purposes and reasons. I’ve worked on the city for so long, all I really want is to see it flourish. I could always build Ulkun of my own.”
The unsavory conversation ended with a solid conclusion and they returned to their discussion on the topic of life energy, interspersed with long periods of sleep-like inactivity, during which the Architect began storing energy for future construction, hoping to give Irkith a new life stone.
