BLISS

Speaker Coriphan Meleteo woke up with the end of the world. The noise was a known quantity by now, the thrum as part of him as his own bones. Still, today it seemed closer, the hum more intense. He’d wondered if, by the time the Wave reached Carmaetes, the Lighthouse City, he’d be able to hear it at all, or if it would have become as familiar as air.

But that was before last night. He allowed himself a little smile as it all came back to him, a stream of relief that threatened to crack his heart in a million pieces.

The First Guard had come…

Speaker Temagos and his lackeys had doubted him, openly or not so. A few Speakers had even left the city, joining the throng to Atlantis, the center of the Empire. Rats and betrayers all. Coriphan had been the only to keep the faith, the only to trust Atlantis would not abandon its subjects.

The First Guard had come to Carmaetes. Coriphan himself had welcomed them in the palace, shy as if he’d been meeting the Emperor Himself. And then… And then…

Not daring to open his eyes, Coriphan extended his hand instead, reaching across the span of his bed to the opposite side. Empty. His smile cracked, the relief he felt threatened to strangle him for a single, horrible moment, and then he felt it. The touch in his mind, soft as a melody, gentle as a lover’s breath.

“Coriphan?” asked a deep, comforting voice that had no trouble at all overcoming the rumble of the Wave.

Speaker Coriphan didn’t know how to answer. He heard the calling both in his ears and directly in his mind, superimposed.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” the thought-voice continued, coaxing.

Coriphan opened one eye, and then the other. He stirred. He sat up.

His room still bore the marks of passion. He saw through them all, awed and timid, until his eyes found the open doors to the veranda and the figure framed between them.

Agony stood like a king before his subjects, like a general watching a battle. He was tall, very tall, with a broad frame and each muscle in his back sharply defined. His hair was raven-black and the locks shone with the morning’s blue light. He was beautiful and terrible, both storm and ship.

How did I dare touch him? Coriphan asked himself. Then Agony turned, and he knew at once. The eyes, piercing blue, made his skin prickle, changed a breath in his throat so that it turned into a sigh.

“Come, love,” Agony aid with his voice only. “You’ll want to see this.”

Trembling, Coriphan crossed their lovemaking’s debris. Agony’ signature powers, the spell he kept locked in his head, concerned the mind alone. His greatest strength was not in the body, like many others in the First Guard. But the broken furniture, the gouges ripped on the walls themselves, and Coriphan’s own body, tired and sore, showed the awesome power of each and every Guardian, no matter the spell they held. The Speaker felt like he was travelling in the wake of a hurricane.

He stepped into the veranda, pulling the bed covers tighter against the strong winds. In front of them, the city of Carmaetes, white and harmonious and beautiful, which had once sprawled into the ocean as if it belonged there, now seemed cowed and unsure. In the distance, the Wave approached, he knew. But Coriphan didn’t want to look at it. He was looking at Agony.

The man – if man he was; if Coriphan, who was a man, could ever dream to compare himself with a living Guardian – was staring straight ahead. Agony didn’t fear the Wave. Didn’t fear anything. Sometimes his lips moved, like he was thinking his thoughts aloud, his private, most intimate notions. Coriphan longed to hear them, and yet couldn’t bring himself to ask.

What burdens he must carry, he pondered idly. And Agony smiled.

“You think my burdens are heavier than yours, Coriphan?” he asked. “The people of Carmaetes look to you as a leader. You stood strong. You kept the faith.”

Coriphan didn’t answer. He was too focused on the sight of the Guardian. Busy branding it into his mind, so he’d never forget.

“Use that same strength now, Coriphan. Look at the Wave.”

He might as well have tried to disobey the tides, or Time, or a secret vice craving for release. Coriphan looked.

And what he saw robbed the breath from him.

The Wave, yesterday so distant, it’s cerulean tint only a looming and threatening line over the horizon, was now much closer, enormous.

“How?” he asked, trembling all over before he checked himself. It wouldn’t do to lose faith now, but Coriphan found that he could not keep his eyes open long. The Wave distorted the world. Made him see things that weren’t – couldn’t be there.

Agony didn’t answer immediately. He faced the thing steadily, unflinching.

“What do you see, Coriphan?” he asked.

“I… Lord, I’d rather not.”

The Speaker felt the movement before the pressure rested on his shoulder, the Guardian’s fingers squeezing gently, giving him strength. The suggestion was undeniable.

Coriphan looked.

The Wave was everything that wasn’t. It was a continuous crunch, but also an expansion, it was invisible but allowed nothing to be seen beyond it, empty and full of impossibles, featureless but also cerulean blue. Its noise drowned out other sounds. The wind it pushed ahead of itself drew tears from his eyes. It was hypothetical endings reified. It was beautiful, and that was the worst of all, because Coriphan knew, in his shameful heart of heart, that it would one day swallow the city, Carmaetes, and swallow the Empire whole, all the way to Atlantis in its center. It felt wrong to feel enamored with such complete destruction. And still the Wave was beautiful.

“It’s…” he began, tremulously, but Agony’s fingers squeezed his shoulder once again.

It’s written plainly inside you, love, the Guardian thought in his mind. I see it all. Now watch.

On cue, a light passed overhead, a travelling sphere streaming golden flakes like little stars. Another Guardian, Coriphan knew. One he’d been introduced to the night before, though, oddly, he couldn’t remember the man’s name. He searched his memory and found it jumbled.

Solar Sphere, Agony supplied. That’s his name.

Coriphan found that he didn’t like that, having sharp-clear thoughts that didn’t originate inside him. He found them too easy to confuse with his own. And then he wondered if the Guardian was reading these thoughts also, and he blushed, and he didn’t dare to look up and find out. They both stood still, facing the wind, watching the flying golden circle approach the Wave. It didn’t have to go too far.

“Does this mean you won’t be facing the Wave yourself, Lord?”

That was good, Coriphan thought, forgetting what he knew for certain: that the destruction was inevitable. If Solar Sphere could handle the threat, he told himself, if Agony of the First Guard’s inner circle had come only as a supervisor, that meant the Wave wasn’t that great a worry, that the rumors that it surrounded the Empire really were fables meant to scare the foolish.

Solar Sphere reached the edge of the city. A small, bright sun shining against the enormous blue expanse of the encroaching Wave, stretching from horizon to horizon.

“How did it get here so quickly?” Coriphan blurted out aloud. Seeing the Guardian approach the devastation alone bolstered his own courage. “Just yesterday it was a line. Now it’s—”

“It’s taller than your home,” Agony finished. “The highest point in Carmaetes. But that wasn’t yesterday, Speaker Coriphan. I’ve been your guest for a while longer than that.”

What?

“Now hush. Quiet your mouth and your thoughts. This is the final experiment, and you have the seat of honor.”

Before Coriphan could protest, Solar Sphere’s light increased. A golden wave cascaded over Carmaetes, banishing the blue. It illuminated the Wave, showing fantastic shadows in its midst and nothing beyond it, and kept growing.

Coriphan covered his eyes before he went blind. Even through his hand, the light was intense. The wind redoubled as the veranda was buffeted by the offshoots of the Guardian’s immense power. The Speaker curled behind the railing and waited.

And then, just like that, the light was gone. Coriphan blinked as he looked up and found the Guardian Solar Sphere gone as well as his golden blaze. The Wave continued, unperturbed. If anything, it seemed to accelerate.

“He… he failed,” Coriphan muttered. That hit him harder than anything else. In a moment of despair his hand searched for Agony’s, and found it missing. He looked up. The Guardian was floating above the veranda, staring into the Wave. He looked vexed. Displeased.

“You’ll protect us, Lord?” Coriphan asked as he stood. He did not know why he was asking. Of course he will. Of course.

I’m sorry, Coriphan, an alien thought echoed in his mind. Carmaetes is lost. There is nothing that I or anyone else can do to save it.

A shiver coursed over Coriphan. It was wrong. Everything about it was wrong, and suddenly he was Speaker Coriphan again. He was surprised at how quickly he found his guts when outside powers failed him. He was leader of the Lighthouse City, and he took his charge seriously.

“Then we must evacuate the city,” he said. “The portals must remain open. Civilians first, and—”

“The portals stopped working a week ago, Coriphan,” Agony said. He still wouldn’t look down. His eyes never strayed from the approaching Wave. “Everyone who could make it out has made it out. And everyone who couldn’t… Well. It’s just as well that they remain. Their wagging tongues would only bring unrest.”

Finally, Agony turned his blue eyes down and faced Coriphan. He didn’t look sad, or apologetic, or anything at all.

He looks annoyed, the Speaker decided. He turned away from the Guardian.

“You’re abandoning us, then?” Coriphan asked quietly. Now it was he who watched the Wave. All fear had left him except for a final, enduring pearl deep in his core. It is beautiful, he decided.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Agony said. “I have a parting gift for you. Something to sweeten my departure. It was a pleasure, Speaker Coriphan.”

“I don’t want your—”

But the Guardian was gone, flown the way Solar Sphere had come from. He must not have heard.

Coriphan stayed and watched the Wave as it touched the docks and annihilated them. He wanted to know what it was like. He wouldn’t turn away.

He became aware of the change as a quickening in his heart. At first he thought he was losing his nerve, but then the first wave of pleasure coursed over his body.

No.

The bliss obliterated other considerations. It ignored his attempts at pushing it away, at focusing on the destruction of his city. Agony’s gift. His body and his mind were wracked with ecstasy. It built up at the base of his spine and kept going, nearly taking him off his feet. It was grotesque, unholy, to feel such things as his city was turned to nothing. The roar increased until he could hear nothing but the Wave, see nothing but the blue, and feel nothing but the most exquisite pleasure. His Lord’s name was well chosen. Such sweet, sweet agony.

Speaker Coriphan feared he would crack in two from the strain. Thankfully, the Wave arrived before he could.