I place my hands on the glass handhold and nod. “I’m ready when you are. I just funnel my energy into it, right?”

Karanos considers for a moment. “For now, yes.”

The two of us stand close enough to touch, our hands secure on the bars. Karanos counts down from three.

“Now!”

Fulminous blue energy crackles from my fingertips, leaping into the bar and entering the metal machine. Next to me, Karanos shoots red lightning. His overpowers mine, devouring all traces of blue hue.

I begin to fatigue after ten seconds. “How long am I supposed to hold on?” I wonder. The lenses are still flipping up as the scope swivels and points to a new part of the terminal, prepared to cast a new portal.

“As long as it needs,” Karanos grunts. “Did you think this was easy, just because I was old and experienced? No–it’s unpleasant. And you’d best believe what you put me through was a thousand times worse.”

Petty, as usual.

Charise Laad peers at Karanos uncertainly. “It’s perhaps not a fair comparison if he only just ascended a month ago...”

Karanos head whips around. “When it comes to Dunai, it’s best to throw assumptions out the window.”

“Uh, why?”

“Charise is starting to worry that Karanos is bullying you,” Crystal observes. “How considerate.”

The fire elementalist grins, a ruby surge illuminating the glass bar. “Let’s just see how long Dunai holds out for.”

Thirty seconds pass. “Still?” I hiss, clenching my teeth. I feel like someone is scraping the ascendant energy from my lungs and stomach.

“If you truly are too weak to continue, stop.”

I’ve suffered at the hands of peak Remorse practitioners like Prime Ezenti, Guardian Nixia, and Coronus Byrrh–their pain was second to none. Thin scars still crisscross my skin, a memento from Selejan Water elementalists on the night war erupted in Godora. My left leg and lower back sustain twisted, white sunbursts where Ari’s light seared flesh.

This energy drain is nothing.

But that line of thought brings a question to mind–I’ve experienced a number of difficulties over the past few months, but the kinds of people who ascend have experienced similar things, and potentially far worse.

So why did Karanos say to throw assumptions about me out the window?

“It’s about to fire,” Laad murmurs. “You both still good?”

“Fine,” Karanos replies simply.

“Fine,” I echo, practically snarling. Feeding the apparatus ascendant energy is exhausting, but in a different way from physical exhaustion.

I hear a whining sound coming from the scope lens, though Karanos and I are too far down to see where it’s aiming in the terminal. Crystal steps in and shows me my creation from the eyes of a regular bystander. She didn’t show me the portal’s formation, so all I see is its final form: a half-circle gateway leading to a large, concrete platform manned by two people in uniform. The platform is framed by far-off mountains; with the portal’s opening, warbling birdsong joins indistinct chatter.

Finally it’s time for Crystal’s bystander to enter. They step up to the conveyor belt and speed forward, their luggage clicking behind them. Just as they begin to cross over, Crystal’s shared sight ends, and my perspective is once more limited to the planar crane room.

“Alright, done!” Charise states.

I release my grip and step back, my body weak to the point that I need to use my decemancy to prevent myself from falling over.

“I don’t think I can do that again,” I murmur.

Laad peers up at me in concern. “Don’t burn yourself out for my sake,” she calls out. “Even I don’t fuel that thing myself–it’s extremely greedy. If individual ascendants, or even groups of them, could punch their way straight to remote sectors of reality, they would–but they can’t. The crane makes it possible, barely, but to power it alone is almost impossible. To power it with another doesn’t make it much easier.”

I give Karanos a questioning look. “Did you just come here to be complimented? Because I feel like that’s all Ascendant Laad has done since our arrival.”

Laad’s jaw drops. “I–” She pauses, narrowing her eyes. “Huh.”

Karanos rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault I’m worth complimenting. Besides, Charise, it’s not like I had Dunai supplying an equal share of energy. I’m not trying to cripple him.”

For the remainder of the hour, Karanos operates alone, no longer asking for my assistance.

So he never needed my help, then?

“It was as you said–he was being petty. I do think that this has drained him more than he was anticipating, though. He cannot ignore the side effects of forming a return beacon.”

The crane fires for the final time and Karanos steps away and stretches, flexing his fingers. “Alright, Charise. We good?”

She nods. “Thanks again for powering the crane. If you all proceed to the terminal, I’ll fire it up and send you to Cadivu.”

—

There’s a short wait until our portal opens up, so we wait around the terminal. I listen in on a few conversations and realize that the Cadivu trip was added on short-notice. There’s typically a wait-list for the most remote, energy intensive destinations, of which Cadivu is included.

Seems like they added this trip just for us. If it’s really as hard to manually power the crane as Ascendant Laad said, I feel like Karanos’ had the worse end of the deal. He must have really valued leaving as soon as possible, versus waiting a few days.

The only reason why I can imagine him prioritizing speed is because of my request and my situation. A few days is irrelevant to Karanos and his goals–but to me, a few moments now might mean a world of difference later.

I may not trust his words and intentions, but he does seem to be making an effort.

It’s almost surreal to watch the crane power on while standing with the regs. It almost looks like a giant sniper cannon as it swivels over to our location, the scope barrel sticking out ominously from its hole in the stark terminal wall.

The lenses flip up and flip down, overlaying on one another to point to our destination. The regs around us stir; a few small children bounce up and down in excitement, while some people recoil and look on in mute terror, like the planar crane is going to beam them out of existence.

Karanos heads over to the still conveyor belt before anyone else, his stride confident. We join him at the front of the line with a front-row seat to the portal’s formation. I can see more clearly how the planar crane projects its array onto the platform, see the way that energy begins to condense and warp the world. When the crane shoots its payload forward and ignites the air, dissolving it and forming the gateway to Cadivu, several regs flinch. I can sense that most of them have elevated heart rates, their vessels constricting.

“Finally,” Karanos mutters. Before even the conveyor belt starts to move, Karanos leads our group forward into the portal.

Why is the other side just...white? I wonder.

“We will find out.”

I sense trepidation over Maria’s bond and give her a reassuring look. She nods back and the two of us enter the portal in step, followed by Crystal and Sah. The dragon glares at the portal, but grudgingly passes through, saving me the trouble of knocking him out.

When we reach the other side, my foot sinks down into a springy, white material. Looking around, there’s only white as far as I can see. Above the ground is a clear, blue sky; off in the distance is a golden orb of light emulating a sun. “What are we standing on?”

Karanos snorts and reaches down, pinching a piece of the squishy floor beneath his fingers. “This is what regulars think that clouds should feel like. To anyone who’s flown before–that is to say, most practitioners of sufficient martial strength–we’re obviously not standing on clouds.”

I look around for personnel, finding none. “What’s going to happen to the regs?” Looking back at the portal, I see a line of regulars riding the conveyor belt.

“They’ll be fetched soon enough, once the planar intrusion is detected. We don’t need to wait around.”

Maria jumps in place. “Why clouds?”

“It will make more sense once we gain a better perspective.” Karanos pushes off the ground and soars into the air.

Crystal leaps over to Sah and Maria and I take flight. I offer to lift her using my practice, but she declines, electing to use her elementalism.

I’m trying to use ascendant energy along with my practice to speed myself up, she explains. If I start to fall behind, you can give me a boost.

Karanos isn’t going too fast for Sah–which is uncharacteristically considerate–but Maria ends up needing boosts every 10 seconds or so to keep pace. It’s not surprising since her elementalism is still recovering.

Soon we’re far enough away that I can no longer see the congregated regulars, their forms blending into the monotonous white. At first I’m not sure what Karanos was going on about when he said we needed a better perspective: Even from the air, the surroundings consist of clouds.

But from the relatively flat terrain emerges a mountain, so large that we can see it even from a far distance.

Is that where we’re going? I ask, trusting Crystal to transmit the message to the others.

“Yes–that’s the Perennial Palace.”

It isn’t until we’re close enough to make out the citadel’s spires that we see terrain other than clouds. Instead of heading straight for the palace, Karanos overshoots, leading us to the edge of the cloud layer. He stops moving and hovers gently in place, waiting for us to alight next to him.

I’m the first after Karanos to reach the edge. A vast, pastoral landscape stretches out before us with rolling hills and low settlements that leave the sky uncluttered.

“The Perennial Palace overlooks the flat planet of Cadivu,” Karanos explains. “And I call it a planet because Cayeun Suncloud has done everything in her power to make it so. The sun shines. All manner of plant and animal have been brought in to fill terraformed biomes. The people that live here are transplants from all over Eternity, selected to ensure a diverse population of mortals. There is conflict, war, but also peace and progress.”

“Ascendant Suncloud is the ruler of this plane?” Maria asks.

Karanos chuckles. “No–Suncloud is this plane’s god.”

—

After looking out over the edge of the cloud walk, we head to the Perennial Palace. The closer we get, the more I can hear the sounds of people bustling about.

“How do people get here?” I wonder. We flew, but most people on this plane will be coming from the ground.

“There’s a platform the size of a stadium that goes up and down around the clock. It takes an hour for it to ascend and ten minutes for a descent. It’s on the opposite side of the palace.”

When we finally reach the main gates, the enormity of the Perennial Palace asserts itself. The palace appears to be made out of a pale, white stone, with gold marbling throughout. The gates are golden arches spanned by slim, vertical bars. Beyond them is a garden filled with statues of winged men and women. Through the garden is a set of cloud stairs that must extend for at least three stories, but the steps are small, and the slope gradual enough that the vertical distance is optically minimized. The palace doors are open and all kinds of people and what I assume to be sapient animals stream through them. Two masked, fully-armored guards keep vigil. Large, white wings lay folded behind their backs.

Wings? They aren’t an illusion–they’re physical flesh and blood. I guess Karanos wasn’t joking when he said that Suncloud collected different kinds of people from all over Eternity.

Karanos chews his lip as the golden gates swing inward, permitting us passage to the courtyard. “It’s busier than it should be.”

“Today is the Celebration of Mirrors,” Crystal announces. “Does that explain anything?”

Karanos’ eyes widen. “That’s today?” His eyes pan to the top-most spire of the palace.

I walk ahead into the garden, inspecting the nearest statue of a muscular, winged man in the nude. “Is that a problem?”

Karanos sighs. “It means that the person we need to see is going to be quite busy. Well, there’s nothing to be done about it–nowhere else to go but in.”