Look up, the thing says. Behind you.
Startled, he turns around, and there, descending from above the glade, is a great sphere of red fire. Unexpectedly it flares with a brilliance so glaring he has to raise an arm to shield his eyes. As the light washes over his face, he thinks he glimpses a thousand sunsets all at once, a panorama of fiery red suns sinking over myriad horizons.
Something whispers into his ear that this burning globe is the fire at the heart of the moon, the source of all Red magic, and that it is actually a star—no, thousands of stars scattered across the deep black.
But how can this be? What does it mean?
So much has been lost. So much forgotten. You must remember.
Salo turns sharply around to face the thing that spoke. He could swear the voice came from just behind him, that he felt the breath on his nape. There is nothing there now. His bones tingle with awe and wonder and sheer terror. “What do you mean?” he demands of the trees. “What is this place? What’s happening?”
Look again.
He turns around once more and comes face-to-face with a great cube of pure crystal rotating in the air on multiple axes. The sphere of fire hangs above it like a crown jewel, infusing its crystal interior with an ethereal red light.
Years ago, when he could finally understand the writings in his dead mother’s journal, he realized that what he was looking at was the framework for an Axiom so extraordinary it warranted its own name: the Elusive Cube. The writings described radical arcane theories and ingenious methods of cipher manipulation and prose construction—all the tools an inventive reader might need to carve their way to this Axiom.
And now it is spinning in front of him. The Elusive Cube, supposedly the ultimate Axiom, the impossible Axiom, capable of accessing all six disciplines of Red magic, unparalleled in efficiency. This is the culmination of years of work, the thing his mother died for, the thing for which she betrayed him.
He can feel each of its six sides vibrating strongly with a different arcane energy. One side burns with red flames: Fire craft. Another side churns with winds, frost, and lightning: Storm craft. Yet another glitters with illusions and light bending: Mirror craft. A fourth side is the color of flesh: Blood craft. A fifth side has thick roots spreading across its surface: Earth craft.
As for the sixth side . . . a vortex of malleable force. Space and time warping around it, threatening to suck him in and crush him with its many secrets. Void craft.
For a long time Salo watches the Axiom, appreciating how terrifying and undeniably powerful it is. Some people would kill to wield such a thing, but he starts to wonder if this is all there is to his mother’s obsession.
Is this enough to turn a loving mother against her own son?
He thought he’d found the answer to the mystery of her betrayal, but now, looking at the Cube, he realizes that his search never ended. Surely there has to be more to the story.
“Why am I here?” he says.
You must remember. Wisps of blue smoke drift within the trees, following the voice. Gaze upon the source and know the fires that warmed your ancestors. Sink your feet into the earth and know the soils that hold their bones. Remember.
“What are you?” he asks the moving smoke, and then more reverently, “Are you a malaika? A servant of the heavens?”
The trees rumble in displeasure. I have been called many things—I have been many things to many peoples—but never a servant.
Salo turns around, following the voice. “Then what are you? What am I doing here?”
You are here to begin.
“To begin what?”
To remember. Pledge yourself to this source, and your eyes shall be opened.
“But how do I—”
The answer slips into his head, and in an instant he knows. He feels himself going down on his knees in the glade and turning his face up to the burning sphere above the Cube, the source that will grant him its power, and his lips seem to speak on their own. “I pledge myself to these fires, which warmed the faces of my forgotten ancestors.” He grabs a fistful of the red earth underfoot. “I pledge myself to these soils, which hold their bones. I pledge myself to . . .”
The words that he knew not a moment ago slip away from him like water sluicing off the blade of an oar, leaving nothing but the trace of an incipient migraine. He winces, grasping for the words with his mind, but they vanish into oblivion.
That will have to do, the apparition says. For now. The pledge cannot be spoken in full. Not yet. Not here. Not until you remember.
Salo doesn’t know what any of that means, but something is different. Somehow, he now feels connected to everything in this forest—the soil, the trees, the source, the Cube. Strangely, though, he senses that the connection isn’t nearly as deep as it could be. A substantial blockage is in the way, like a film covering his eyes so that he views the world only in blurry detail. Pain lances through him when he tries to focus on the blockage, so he lets it be.
Then his arms change. He watches as they acquire elaborate networks of metallic lines that meander from his elbows to the tips of his fingers, throbbing red with power from the source—his cosmic shards. Halfway along either forearm is a single ring, conspicuous in that it encircles the arm and is thicker than all the other lines. He will have to acquire more of those rings to become more powerful, through meditation, spellwork, and lunar rituals. But he feels that his shards are exquisite all the same, that having them is like seeing more colors than he knew existed, like tasting things no ordinary tongue can taste.
To his side, the apparition finally steps out of the trees, once again wearing a loincloth of hide and wielding an embellished spear of blue metal—a bright cobalt blue similar to the hue of his skin. For all Salo knows, this strangely beautiful specter might have once been a warrior chief. His angular face is a living sculpture hewed from the finest lapis lazuli. His eyes catch the light like sapphires one moment, then clear diamonds the next, changing as if on a whim. They bear an aspect of timelessness, and when they lock on Salo, he feels he is staring into the face of a god.
He has never seen those eyes quite so clearly, but he has definitely seen them before.
“You,” he breathes, staying where he’s kneeling on the ground. “You were in the Carving.”
Something hidden gleams in the apparition’s gemlike eyes. Somehow he speaks without moving his mouth, and Salo nearly shudders at the sound of his voice, so clear and yet so distant and cold. A part of me was. Just a small part, but enough.
A troubling thought occurs to Salo. “Did you . . . did you possess me?”
I needed you to bring me here.
“But why?”
I cannot tell you that here. You must find me elsewhere. You must remember, and then you must find me.
Movement in the trees catches Salo’s eye. When he looks, he sees a pall of black smoke drifting into the clearing, growing thicker by the second. Gripped by urgency, he looks back up at the apparition, this entity whose presence feels as old as the stars. “What am I to do, great one? What do you want from me?”
Our time here is at an end, the apparition says. Find me elsewhere. Remember.
“But where should I find you?”
The smoke has engulfed much of the glade, though the apparition’s arresting eyes still shine at him with unnatural brilliance. Somewhere along a scarlet road, past a gateway beneath a red star. It shines far beyond your horizons. Your path there has been set; now you must walk it.