Young Flame

The sandstorm had veered far enough west by morning that we can continue onward without deviating from our line. It might sound strange that we’d miss a city by making a slight detour, but when dealing with such immense distances as is apparent in the wasteland, even a degree off target could be enough to miss a landmark, regardless of how fast we move.

Every hour in flight brings us ever closer to the Agglomerate. I’m glad I have Grímr to fly for me. If I was the one flying, I’d probably drop out of the sky in nervousness.

My eyes stay glued ahead as we travel further north than I’ve ever been while in the wasteland. The horizon is gone. The distinct end of the sands ahead only rise into the altitude of the Titan Alps. They tower over us like never-ending walls. We are about as close to the peaks now as my team’s cabin was over in the pact nations.

As we get closer to the wedge in the Alps that supposedly holds the Agglomerate, a bright white light shines from ahead. It is too bright to make out anything clear, blinding us to anything near it.

There is no doubt in my mind that is the Agglomerate.

It’s impossible to see from here, but the shine is a fair way up the slope of the Alps still. Not so far up to be beyond the steppes, but still a long flight to go.

Both my partners have noticed it as well. Leal even covers her eyes from the intensity of it. The markings around the side of her head glow and she lowers her arm, but by the way she’s squinting, I don’t think she can make out the city yet either.

After another half an hour of flight, the light disappears behind a dune of sand. The higher altitudes along the base of the Titan Alps don’t have any ice or snow as it did both on the other side and on the pact nations side, so I have to imagine the desert spreads high enough up the side of the Alps to prevent that sort of build up. I wonder what the crevasse would look like without that massive ice wall in the way.

We continue onward, the altitude of the sands below rising with each passing minute as the ground slopes upward. Another hour of flight passes and the sun lowers to the west, soon to be obscured by the rising peaks. Before the early sunset, we finally pass over the massive dune and the Agglomerate comes into sight.

It is difficult to comprehend what I’m seeing at first. The bright shine glistens off an entire mountaintop, but while intense, it isn’t enough to blind me from the immense city that lies before us.

I’d been afraid the Agglomerate would leave me disappointed, but this… this is greater than anything the other races have created. As I should have expected.

A mountain stands alone in an otherwise flat plateau. The peak glows with light reflected from the eternal inferno, casting rays of various colours across the sands. It is a disservice to call the Agglomerate a city; it is far too large to be something so simple.

The mountain, which just by looking is clearly the Agglomerate, is entirely made of glass. Sharp transparent pillars stand innumerable along the sides of the mountain from the base to the tip. The vast assortment of glass towers create a jagged dome, guiding the last light of day into intense beams that leave the core of the Agglomerate glowing with heat.

I find myself grinning at the sight. Mum was right, it really is beautiful. It’s stunning that it even exists. How did they make such a place? The amount of heat and skill needed to create clean glass, not to mention the sheer energy required to melt so much sand, makes it seem impossible, and yet it rises before me.

This wouldn’t have been possible with all the flames I’d had during the fight with Kalma.

Because of its sheer size, the Agglomerate is visible even as far out as we are. Another thirty minutes we have to travel until we’ll reach it.

As the sun slowly creeps below the peaks of the Titan Alps, the reflections across the Agglomerate dim. This close to the massive mountain range, the typical reds and oranges of sunset don’t appear. As the sun shrouds the glass city in shadow, the portion of the sky closest to the Alps grows dark, shifting from bright blue to the dark of night. As large as the Titan Alps are, they cast shadows on the sky itself.

But the Agglomerate remains bright. The glowing white core in the centre of the mountain channels light across the crystalline glass, illuminating each shard-like pillar.

Now that the Agglomerate is not reflecting the intense rays of the sun, the trio of burning eagles flying toward us is obvious. A group to welcome us, maybe? It’s more likely they are here to scout us. I doubt any normal tribes come flying in together. Those with high binding are rare enough as is.

Two of the birds burn with an orange flame while the other with yellow. None of their heat is all that impressive. It could still be possible they hide their stronger flames, but considering how long it would have taken these three to achieve binding high enough to become birds in the first place, maybe they simply haven’t devoted themselves to growing the intensity of their flames.

It is only when they are within a thousand metres that I notice there’s a fourth bird amongst them. This one doesn’t visibly glow. Instead, its feathers appear solid. They must have the greatest binding of the lot.

One of the orange flame eagles suddenly breaks off from the group and flies back the way they came. Each of the remaining áed spread wide around us, clearly intent on watching us rather than coming close to talk.

Those that focus on their binding rarely do so for any fighting capability it provides, so if I’m assuming right, they are watching us while an áed closer to the Agglomerate waits. I’d been hoping not to make any mistakes on my way into the city, but I guess I already have. They probably assume some unknown creature flying straight toward the Agglomerate intends to be hostile.

Well, I don’t know that for sure, but the bird shaped áed keep their distance rather than approaching, so in the likely chance that they assume we are hostile, I need to calm things before it reaches that point.

“Slow down for a bit, will you Grímr?” I ask before jumping off his back. As I fall through the air, my body changes rapidly to my favourite falcon form.

My words are rather pointless, as Grímr is already in the motion of easing back, but I’m hoping my words carry to the trio now circling us. If they know the two are sapient, and working with me, then our talk is more likely to go along smoothly.

I dart forward, coming to a glide a dozen metres from the bird with the most control over its form. My flames slowly solidify along my feathers, suppressing the illumination identically to the áed before me.

“You! Who are you!” the áed sounds shocked. “Since when was there an elder with greater binding than me?”

Before I have the time to react, she’s flown right in my face and spreads her flames over me, forcefully requesting to flow through mine, as Tanwyn did not long ago. The elder’s words remain in my mind, so I reject her probing heat and flap away from her.

“Huh. I don’t recognise you at all.” She relents on her flames, easily accepting that I don’t want her touch. “Where have you been hiding? Don’t tell me I’ve somehow missed you every time you’ve come here in the past few centuries?”

“I’ve never been to the Agglomerate before.”

“Really? I didn’t think it was possible to begin the path of binding without spending time here.” Despite having already rejected her flames, she spins around me, inspecting my form. “So, I have two theories. First, you wouldn’t happen to be an old Grand Elder that’s been in seclusion for millennia?”

“No?” do we even have elders besides the Eldest that have lived that long?

“Ah! Then it’s the second. You found a better way to raise your binding outside the wasteland.”

How did she figure it out so quick? Tanwyn said to keep it from the grand elders, but even the first áed I met discovered it. Is it even possible to hide it now?

Forgetting that we’re soaring a thousand metres in the air, she wraps her wings around me and presses her head into mine. Her eyes stare into me with ferocity. “If you tell me how you did it, I’ll hide your taboo from the other grand elders.”

We plummet in moments. Grímr and Leal’s thermal presence dive after us, followed close behind by the two remaining áed.

“I can tell you how, but I am certain you won’t want to replicate it.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Just knowing that there are other ways to achieve greater binding has already got me excited.” Her wings squeeze me tighter as she squeals in joy. Really wish I’d become more comfortable in a larger bird form right now; she’s double my size and because her flames are as non-physical as mine, she can stop me slipping out of her grasp. “You and I are going to be wonderful friends in the coming centuries. I can just see it.”

She’s forgotten we’re still falling, hasn’t she?

Both of us crash into the sand. Her grip on me finally releases as our bodies spread over the sand before reforming. Now on the ground, I stand in my natural bipedal form as this áed with binding near mine slowly shifts in imitation. While mine was only a few seconds, her shift only takes a minute, far faster than Elder Enya’s thirty.

“Sorry. Sorry. I forgot myself again.”

As she finishes forming her body, flames swirl around her before solidifying into a shirt, pants, strapped boots and a couple of short leather sheathes. Did she just materialise clothing with her flames? Is that even possible? Well, I know it’s possible to make it look like clothing, but they are far too solid to be physical flames, and it is proven as she digs a pair of small knives out of the sand and sheathes them in the scabbards.

Those are real, not simply physical flames.

Before I can ask how she does that, Grímr slams into the ground behind me, sending sand everywhere. He steps forward with grinding feathers to stand above me protectively. While I can understand how it might have looked, I honestly don’t think she meant any harm. Falls like that are clearly just as ineffective to her as they are to me.

“Grand Elder,” the two other áed shout in unison as they fly down to her side. Thin wafts of physical flame hold them steady at eye level. They don’t bother changing forms, likely to take much longer for them than both myself and this apparent Grand Elder before me.

So she is a Grand Elder. Of course the first one to discover my taboo has to be one of the leading figures amongst our kind.

“You can’t keep doing this,” the bird with burning yellow feathers says. “Grand Elder Odqan is going to take his anger out on us eagles again.”

“Forget him, he can whine and complain all he likes,” the Grand Elder before me says dismissively. “What’s important is she has a higher binding than I do.”

As she points at me, both flaming eagles snap their heads my way. Immediately the yellow flame one forgets his complaints and flies in a circle around me. His flames wash over me, but like the Grand Elder, I simply refuse access.

“Impossible. She can’t be older than half a century.”

“Actually, I believe her visual appearance is accurate.” Despite having already blocked her probing flames, I feel more of the grand elder’s trying to inspect me along with this bird still circling.

“I do not believe it,” he says before addressing me for the first time. “Hey, please let us have a look? Just for a second?” He pleads.

A sigh escapes the other eagle. “Elder Yalun, Nuri, this is why most tribes avoid us when they return. Learn some restraint.”

Nuri backs off, somehow able to look embarrassed despite retaining his bird form. Grand Elder Yalun, on the other hand, steps away with a smirk on her face. She isn’t at all fazed at being reprimanded by an áed clearly younger and weaker than her.

Yalun’s eyes inspect both Grímr and Leal, but quickly return to me. “So, it’s your first time to our Agglomerate? Then please, let me be your guide. It’s late afternoon now, and the city is out of sunlight, so the peripheral sections should be cool enough for those friends of yours.”

I’m surprised she hasn’t questioned them accompanying me. It isn’t like non-áed come this far into the wasteland with any frequency, if at all, but I am glad she doesn’t oppose them joining.

Yalun pulls both her daggers from their scabbards and both are clearly relic weapons. I never knew they made relic knifes. As she shifts back to her bird form, she places both knives inside her chest. It works much better when the weapons are light than trying to do so with a spear.

Her clothing and scabbards return to flame, and as much as I’d like to pass my own through hers to see what is actually going on, I fear she would take that as an invitation to do the same.

“So?” she asks. “Shall we return to the skies? You can walk if you want, but I know you don’t.”

Her smirk shows just how confident she is that anyone with flight would never choose to walk, but she’s right, and within a few seconds, I’m back in the air by her side. Grímr and Leal follow close behind and the two other eagles flank us.

One taboo is revealed to an elder, and she hardly seems to care. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about after all. I look forward to the mountain of glass still glistening from the bright core held deep within.

I’m finally here. I’m finally at the Agglomerate. And it is phenomenal.