An annihilation of flowers//Kulani
{S’ruthan Liar 4449, the Red Palace, slightly less than three years before the onset of the civil war}
At the blast doors at the rear of the mountain, Kulani stopped to finally pull on her boots. They zipped up tight over the bottom cuffs of her flight suit. Her white hair braided loosely down her back. She reached up and hit the door release on the wall and the metal juddered as the morning light creaked into the dark foyer.
The smells of fuel, oil and sun-baked concrete flooded over her and were received gratefully. Beyond the doors was what Kerai and several others in the household affectionately called The Stables, the large hangar and airstrip where the Red House kept its own compliment of air and spacecraft. The real Imperial fleet was housed in several large bases across the continent, the planes here had never been deployed defensively in Kerai’s time as Empress.
But the Red House kept pilots on hand, like Private Alim; who turned at the sound of the blast doors, shielding his eyes where he stood on the airstrip. He was standing next to a Circinae 3.0, a small jet and the most manoeuvrable aircraft known for several worlds.
“Peace to the great Seer!” He called, still absorbed in his final checks.
“How’re the horses Private?” Kulani responded fondly, strolling onto the runway.
“Temperamental your Grace.” He uttered, pulling the fuel nozzle free and locking the cap. “But that’s the way, and I wouldn’t have it otherwise.” Alim was a young man with a russet complexion and a gold rim on his grey eyes. He was easily the best pilot in the royal household, bar one person.
He dragged the hose back in and Kulani laid her hand against the body of the plane, the metal almost too hot to touch. Her reach extending into it for no purpose other than a sort of greeting; a ritual she always conducted before any flight, a show of mutual respect.
“Do you plan to go far your Grace?” Alim wiped his hands clean with a rag. Kulani shook her head. “No not especially, not out of sight of the mountain. I’ll be back before three this afternoon.” She considered this.
“Perhaps tell Evun four…Just to prevent him getting worried and sending me messages via comms.”
Alim smiled and nodded. “Probably a good thing Warrat is away on leave too, or you’d have a passenger. What with things being as they are, the uprising, I should probably be trying to convince you to allow me to accompany you.”
Alim couldn’t know it, but his words stung like the snap of a whip. The Empress didn’t let on, she adopted a stern look.
“Warrat needs to spend some time with his family, it’s long overdue. And I’m sure I will be quite safe, thank you Alim.”
The pilot nodded. “Very well your Grace, fly safe.”
As he walked past, Alim patted the tail of the plane and Kulani could just sense the edge of his reach as if it were being conducted through the metal – that touch was more like a blessing, a god speed laid on the machinery.
The glass canopy locked down with a distinct clunk and Kulani truly felt alone with the machine, all outside sound muffled to near silence. The earpiece hooked into place and her fingers flew over the switches without need of her eyes, running through a checklist she knew as instinctually as breathing. She snapped the flight harness across her body single handed.
Pausing to check the runway was clear, she finally initiated the ignition. Even from within the cockpit the roar of the jets channelling air straight down onto the concrete enclosed her.
The optics on the dashboard displayed the shimmering green radar, the attitude indicator was a flat line on the horizon. No runway was required for this take-off; the plane rose into the air vertically for about eighty feet, then pulled away sharply as the pilot threw the centre stick forward, tearing away from the Red House and out over the heathland.
The Empress started to feel true calm, reach branching out from her fingertips as she accounted for yaw, making minute adjustments. Kulani Kerai’s mother, the Great Seer Caelan Kerai, had been reticent at first but Kulani had loved planes from the day she saw one. Allowing her to train as a pilot was not so much allowed as understood to be unpreventable. Kulani flew her first solo flight before she was thirteen years old. She pulled up, gaining altitude, rolling the plane right over in its helical axis as she plunged across mile after mile of terrain just for the sake of it. There was no wind to indicate the speed to her senses, but the sheer gravitational force pushed her back in the seat.
She pulled the plane around in a lazy lag roll, letting up on the acceleration. Mount Ai now visible through the canopy as she cruised in a wide circle.
It was only then that she began to think. She’d put Warrat on leave the day after the delegation from Dagilach. He had protested of course, but he couldn’t argue with her. Most of the time his wife and daughter lived in the palace quarters but the whole family had gone away to their house in Luca; the smaller city by the shore, east of The Drey City. She wanted him to be with his family. But she also knew that she was being a coward, she couldn’t bear to be around him, knowing what she knew.
The plane cut through the air, making a beeline for the Drey City, the huge expanse of it sprawling on the horizon. How malevolent it looked to her now, a dark malignancy on the rocky orange horizon. Somewhere within it the Dagal King was waiting, and her trip to the catacombs had only given rise to more questions on that count.
She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but something snagged at the corner of the Empresses perception. She was over scrubland, no buildings or people. She’d gone a little farther out than she intended. But there was a distinct pull. Her brow fell slightly, and she pulled back on the throttle. The plane curved around, churning dust as the landing gears touched down and rolled on the dust. A monitor lizard skittered away when the canopy popped up and the white-haired woman stepped out, boots hitting the sand.
Mount Ai was a dot behind her, the Drey City an expanse ahead. The warm wind moved her hair around her face. With her eyes shut she reached. Something, not far off. Her boots crunched on the ground. “Kerai, what are you doing?” She muttered to herself.
She froze. One foot still in front of the other.
Like a bolt through her leg, it was a distinct feeling. The ground gave away nothing, but it was exactly like finding yourself suddenly standing on the edge of a deep pit. Kerai frowned at the earth, fingers clenching into fists at her sides.
“Alright, lets see why you brought me out here.”
She stepped forward. It wasn’t as sudden as she expected. First she saw a street, cars, buildings, people. A river, bridges. Like no city she had ever seen before. It was not the Drey, nor Luca. The sky was grey and full of clouds, the air tasted like rain.
Kerai put another foot forward.
Her breath shoved out of her chest. Planes against the white clay of the sky. And then…growth. Exponential, dizzying, annihilating. Grass and vines, flowers, trees. A brutal and unbelievably rapid unravelling of genesis, snaring and destroying every building. The inorganic fell, and the people fell with it, ravelled up in the uncontrolled expulsion.
Kulani blinked and one knee hit the ground. Her head spun but she could see Drey again. Her skin was sticky with sweat beneath her flight suit. Looking down the little sprig of heather defending itself against the heat looked less than innocuous now. Her fingers brushed its delicate stem. She closed her eyes a moment, breathing deep.
“I will know what this means, whatever it takes.” She vowed, to herself, to the earth. When she got to her feet she stood quietly for a long while, soaking in the quiet of the desert. She climbed back into the Circinae.
-
When she got back to her chambers that afternoon Evun was already there, sat at the table in the solar waiting for her. She gave a deep sigh and her shoulders dropped.
“I suppose you’re here to warn me about flying too close to Drey what with the unrest?” She uttered, bathing her face from the stream that ran down the wall.
“No.” Evun said with such simplicity and solemnity that she looked up from the water cupped in her hands.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
She read it on Evun’s face before he said it. “Kay Warrat died this afternoon, at his family’s house. His wife found him. It was heart failure.”
The water spilled between her fingers and Kulani braced herself on the wall.
“I’m so, so sorry, Kerai.” He said gently. She listened to the trickling of the stream, the rock felt blessedly stable beneath her palm.
“It’s alright. I’m just glad he was at home.” She replied as stolidly as she could.
“A message came through for you. It was from Warrat himself.” Evun went on, fingers flicking over the console in the tabletop. “Given how and when it was sent it must have been scheduled to be sent upon his death. And openable only by your print.”
The unopened message glowed on the screen. Evun stood.
Evun was a good man, his concern sometimes a little overbearing. But he always held himself at a careful remove, even though he was her first advisor he spoke to her with more formality than the cooks in the kitchen or the household guard. His presence had always been cool, but it made him good at his job. She sensed he wanted to place a hand on her shoulder, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to it.
He laced his hands together. “Call on me, should you need anything your Grace.” The water filled the moment of sad silence before Evun left her chambers.
Kulani sat where Evun had been a moment before and pressed her finger to the screen. The message opened.
Dear Kerai
You must think I’m a damned fool, but that’s alright. You’re not entirely wrong.
I know you saw something, I know that’s why you sent me away. You’ve gotten good at hiding things and my reach might only be well suited to combat and troop movements but I can still read grief on a face.
I know things are happening Kerai, this business with the Drey City and this Dagal interloper. I want to be there for you, for my family. But I think Sruth has other plans for me. I’ve been so blessed, who am I to argue?
But you’re going to need help. All these years carrying the world on your shoulders. As strange as it might sound, I need you to find trust now – now more than ever.
Me and Joy are taking Mhairi down to the coast this afternoon, she’s very excited about it.
I know you’ll look after them for me.
The wind is at your back Kerai, the road will rise to meet your feet, and time is not a straight line. Somewhere, I’ll see all of you again.
Warrat