The boy leaned into the sandstorm, pulling the scarf around his head tight against his mask. It was a difficult task that he faced, but it was a task required of him and one that many before him had accomplished. He was to go out into the desert and find something to help the People. It was then he would pass from childhood into adulthood, earning his name. He wiped the sand off his goggles and looked around him, searching for some semblance of familiarity. All he saw was the winds blowing the sand. It was hopeless. He was lost.
But he was of the People, the desert was his home, his heritage, his strength, and he would prove himself. Or the desert would claim him. Either was the way of the People. He shook those thoughts from his head and focused on his task. He put one foot in front of the other and pushed through the storm.
After what seemed like an eternity the winds died and the sand stilled. He unwrapped his scarf and pulled his googles to his forehead. He looked around, and still did not recognize where he was. The people from other lands might think the desert the same, but the People knew the subtle differences. They knew where the oasis lies and the People dwell. The Second Kingdom might call it magic and the Third faith, but the People didn’t put words to it. It just was. The boy was afraid at that moment, for he felt lost in the desert for the first time in his life.
It was at that point in his life that destiny grabbed hold of him and legends were made real. He looked from the empty scene in front of him to the empty scene to his left, but when he returned to what was in front of him, it was no longer empty. It was there. The tower. Stretching into the sky, larger than anything the boy had ever seen before. The boy had explored the ruins of the desert before, all of the people had. Taking shelter in the structures of steel, running through the empty hallways, corridors, or verandas of the past. Scavenging the batteries or electronics that the First Kingdom took for granted. Living off of a nearly forgotten past, that was the way of the People. He had been sent to find one of those relics to help his clan, perhaps a gun, or a water purifier. These things were not completely foreign to the People, just rare.
But never before had the boy seen anything like the tower in front of him now. Few had. His mind went to the creation myths of the People, and he could not help but wonder if this was where it all started. Where the Kingdoms came into being and the People, cast aside and forgotten by the rest of the world, had come into being. The Spire, the Center of the World, the Tower that Touched the Sky, all these referred to one place, referenced to in reverent whispers and hushed worship. The boy shook his head; those thoughts were foolish. Legends didn’t intrude into the lives of the mundane, the normal. He shook his head and continued onto the tower in front of him.
Except sometimes, sometimes legends did intrude. Destiny was a fickle mistress, the bitch-queen Fate. The world is shaped and molded by key points, places, and people. The path walked is often cold and alone. As the boy was soon to discover.
It took him much longer to reach the tower than he thought it would. His concept of large was forever altered by the tower. He stood at the single door and looked up, shaking his head. Again thoughts of the Spire crossed his mind but he cast them away. He trial was happening and he had no time for silly legends. He walked up to the door, expecting to have to pry it open, but it opened automatically. That gave him pause. The power in most of the other ruins had dried out, and the sliding doors no longer opened on their own. How was this tower still had power?
He stepped inside and shuddered, it was cold. It had to be thirty degrees cooler in here than it was in the desert. He pulled on his coat, attempting to trap as much heat as he could, and looked around at his surroundings. The air was a touch stale, but not as bad as some of the other enclosed ruins. Some of those were toxic to the People. He walked forward and was amazed once again as the lights cycled on, sensing his presence. He was in a rotunda, two sliding doors in front of him, flanking a large view screen.
As he walked towards it, something appeared on the screen. He stopped and looked, squinting and trying to make it out. He recognized it was some form of writing, but was not one that he recognized anymore. It looked similar to what was used by the Southern Tribe, who liked to claim they were more like the ancestors of the People than any of the other tribes, but the boy had never learned their alphabet. He shrugged and moved to the door on his left.
The door opened and the boy stepped in. It was a small room, a box. He turned as the door closed behind him, fear coursing through his body. The fear turned to panic as it seemed as though the room was lifting into the sky. He looked around him, spotting a panel to the right of the door. A view screen with buttons lit up. He tried to push some of them but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. The top button seemed to be highlighted, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to change that.
Eventually he felt the room come to a stop and the doors opened. It was not the same room he had been in before. The exit to the tower was not here. He stepped through the door and looked around cautiously. He was at the end of a hallway that lead to a pair of large, ornate doors. He jumped as the doors opened. As fearful as he was, he pushed forward. He walked through the door and stopped. He eyes wide and his breath shallow, he was afraid for his sanity.
Three women stood before him; one at the far wall, one at the left wall, one at the right wall. Behind them were alcoves with open glass doors. They all looked similar, standing taller than any woman that the boy had ever seen. Each woman easily six foot ten, seven feet tall. Metal machinery was embedded in their flesh, wires running from ports to various apparatuses in the room. Their eyes glowed a slight green, not the technological green of the First Kingdom but the magical glow of the Second.
The one at the far wall cocked her head at him, intently studying him. The one at the left wall spoke, but the boy didn’t understand anything she was saying. He looked at her in confusion and the second looked at the third. The third walked up to him, trailing wires behind her, and touched a finger to his forehead.
“Does he understand now?” the second asked.
The boy nodded, unsure of what to say. This was far and beyond stranger than anything he had ever encountered before.
“He is from the control group,” the first woman said.
The third nodded and returned to her original position, just in front of the alcove.
“They are the closest,” the third said.
“It has been a while,” the second said.
The discussion was odd; the women spoke but did not look at each other. All seemed to be mostly focused on the boy, though the boy understood that the words were not meant for him.
“It has been millennia,” the first said.
“They have all but forgotten,” the second said.
“The outlier is still here,” the third said.
“The outlier is always here,” the second responded.
“The anomaly must be corrected,” the first stated.
“Analyzing,” the second said, closing her eyes.
The boy heard the whir of machinery.
“I have only heard of things like this from the First Kingdom,” the boy said, “What are these machines?”
The third laughed, amused at what the boy said. The boy suddenly felt very small.
“The First Kingdom?” the first said, derision in her voice, oddly enough the boy did not feel it was directed at him, “The First Kingdom is nothing but infants, forgetting the rules of science. They treat their technology with reverence and awe. They do not push forward, they do not discover, they do not invent.”
The second opened her eyes, a slight look of fear in them. She waved her hand and an image appeared. It was an elderly man, strong looking despite his age, walking towards a house. The women all watched and then looked at each other.
“We are too late,” the third said, sorrow in her voice.
“We knew we would be,” the second responded.
The first shook her head.
“We still had to try, the anomaly must be corrected,” she told the other women.
“How? Waiting didn’t work, we missed the initiating event,” the second said.
All three women looked at the boy.
“You will lead a hard life,” the first told him.
The second approached him, handing him a strange looking rifle.
“For you trial,” she told him, “It is a laser rifle. It will be very useful to your tribe.”
With that she returned to her place against the wall.
The third waved her hand again, an image of the most beautiful woman the boy had ever seen before appeared.
“She will be your love, your trial, and your failure,” the third informed him, “You will lose everything because of her, but in loss become stronger.”
All three looked at him and shook their head.
“The lives of the destined are never easy,” the first said.
“Fate demands all from those she touches,” the second said.
“Still, you will accomplish much,” the third said.
Once again all three looked at each other, dismissing the boy.
“Will it be enough?” the first asked.
“We shall see,” the second answered.
“There will be a reckoning,” the third stated.
“But will it be his or ours?” the first asked.
“It may well be both,” the third answered.
“Is our path correct?” the second asked.
“Could we have walked any other?” the third asked.
All three shook their heads. With one last look at the boy the three turned and walked into the alcoves. The doors shut behind them and sealed with a hiss. The boy watched as the women turned and faced outward, the alcoves filling up with a mist. Their eyes closed and the drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep. The boy himself was feeling sleepy. He fought it for a second but then found himself laying on the floor and drifting off.
He woke to someone shaking him. He felt the sand beneath him and the sun above him and was confused. He woke with a start, jumping up. He was in his tribe’s camp, in front of his tent. His father had been the one shaking him awake. He was confused. What had happened to the tower? How had he gotten here? Was it all just some sort of heat dream from the desert?
Then he realized that he was holding the rifle. It had not been a dream. The tower had been real. The women had been real. He did not understand most of what they spoke of. The outlier? The anomaly? And if they were masters of the Spire, did that mean? No, he would not go there. He could not go there. Thinking too much about it would splinter his world. Instead he just shook his head and faced his father.
“I have returned, with a tool for the tribe,” the boy told him, handing the laser rifle to his father, “It is a laser rifle, it will do much good for the tribe.”
“Indeed it will,” his father said, “We shall present it to the council tonight. You shall have your name before the sun rises.”
As he followed his father into their tent, he could not help about the other thing the women talked about. The beautiful woman they had shown him, the one that was to lead to his failure. He shook his head, it would not happen, he would not fail.
