Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

“You’re cytonic!” I said, pointing. “Your family feared it was in your bloodline! Ha! That must be why I could find you.”

“I’ve been training with Gran-Gran,” he said. “I’m…not very good at any of it.” He grew solemn. “Spensa, it’s bad. The war.”

“How bad?”

“The entire Superiority is mobilizing. I had no idea how many planets they controlled. And we’re isolated here. We’re trying to get the slugs to work, but we have so much to learn, and…” He again met my eyes in the glass. “And we need you. I need you. What can we do to get you out of there?”

I winced. Not because I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but… Well, he had to know.

“Jorgen, I came to the nowhere by choice,” I said. “When I jumped through the portal, I realized I could come home, but I decided not to. Because…” Scud, how did I put this? “I have something I need to do here, Jorgen.”

He frowned, looking at me in the reflection.

“I can’t come back yet,” I explained. “Not until I’ve learned what this place can teach me. I’m sorry, but if I did return, I’d be just another fighter. I need to be something more.”

“You think they’ll use the delvers again,” he said, perhaps reading my emotions.

“I know they will,” I said. “Winzik won’t give up because of a single setback. And Jorgen, I need to be able to stop him. To do that, I have to understand what I am—and more importantly, what the delvers are. Does that make sense?”

“You think you can find these answers in the nowhere?”

“Yes. Jorgen, I’m on a quest. ”

He grinned. “That might be the single most Spensa-like thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m worried for you,” he said. “But if you’re right…if the delvers are still in play…”

I knew, from our research into the past, that this wasn’t the first time someone had sought to weaponize the delvers. Every attempt I knew of had ended in disaster, but people continued to try. Because if you could control the thing that ate planets, who would dare stand against you?

“I trust you,” Jorgen said, meeting my eyes reflected in the glass. “If you think this is important, then keep going. We will resist the Superiority until you return.”

His confidence in me felt wonderful; I could feel it like a warmth radiating from him.

Jorgen unbuckled himself, then turned around, his knees on the seat. He closed his eyes, and I felt his attention on me. He reached out his hand, and I swore I could feel it cupping my cheek. I reached out to him too, and could almost feel his skin.

“We’ll hold out, Spensa,” he promised. “Until you find what you need. Which you will. I’ve learned never to bet against you.” He smiled, his eyes closed. “After all, I might win the bet, but I’d still end up with a knife in my arm.”

“Quick tip,” I whispered. “Go for the thigh instead. Makes it harder for them to chase you down.” I leaned forward, wanting to be closer to him, even if we could barely feel each other. But I began to fade.

Scud, I suddenly felt exhausted. It had been only a few minutes, but I soon faded completely, and ended up drifting in blackness. Try as I might, I couldn’t find Jorgen again.

My mind began to fuzz. I knew I was heading toward true sleep, and started to relax…

A voice.

I pulled myself back to awareness. I knew that voice. “My, my,” it said.

Winzik.

The words pierced the darkness, reaching toward something else. Beings. Entities.

Delvers.

I could sense them now—as an infinite number of white lights. The voice I’d heard was speaking to them. “No need to be so brutal,” it continued. “So aggressive. I come to you with an offer! A trade. You have something I want, and I have something you want. They are not so different, are they?”

That voice…that wasn’t actually Winzik’s voice. It was Brade’s voice—though of course the word “voice” was an approximation. She must have been relaying Winzik’s words, like an interpreter.

I was overhearing them—listening in, spying, as I’d been trained for so long by Gran-Gran. My phantom sense to hear the stars.

You hurt us, the delvers said to Winzik. You are noise. You are not a person. You are pain.

“I am a noise that can end that pain,” Winzik promised through Brade. “I can round up every cytonic in the galaxy. I can make it so none of them ever bother you again. Never…corrupt you again.”

Oh, scud. They wanted that. I could feel it.

Speak, they said.

“I must be in control of my empire,” Winzik said. “Once I am, I will find and stop every cytonic. I can’t be in control, however, if you destroy my people when I summon you.”

Leave us alone, the delvers said. Stop yelling! Stop it all! Why hasn’t it stopped?

I sorted through the impressions, and kind of understood. To the delvers, all times and places were as one. But by interacting with us, they were forced to confine themselves to our way of existence.

That said, they couldn’t truly see the future. Rather, they existed in all times at once, and so couldn’t separate and distinguish future from past or present.

Yeah, it was tough to explain. Regardless, I felt their pain. That, it seemed, was universal across dimensions.

“My, my,” Winzik said. “No need to shout. I can make the pain stop. But if I lose this war… Well, would you like a repeat of what happened to the delver who was corrupted? The noise who did that is among the noises I fight against.”

It seemed he knew how I’d saved Starsight. I wanted to scream at the delvers, explain that I’d helped one of their number, not corrupted them. But suddenly I understood what they’d meant earlier, when chasing me. When they’d said “What did you do to the Us?” they’d been referring to the one I’d separated out.

We consider this trade, the delvers said to Winzik.

“Yes, take your time,” Winzik said. “As much as you need.”

We have no need of time. We hate it.

Yes, they did. But I could feel something more from them. Beyond their hatred of time and individuality, there was a hatred of something else. Something that was coming. Something they…feared? I pushed a little harder, to get more information.

They turned toward me. Scud.

I panicked and darted away, retreating toward my body. Thinking about the implications of what I’d heard would have to wait, for my mental fatigue seized control.

I found true sleep at last.

I woke to the feeling of something nudging me. M-Bot? Yes, he was poking me with a drone arm.

I yawned, stretching. Curiously, my strange experiences the previous night were perfectly crisp in my mind. Talking to Jorgen, feeling his concern. Then overhearing the conversation between Winzik and the delvers.

Scud. Winzik was trying to make a deal with the delvers.

If he succeeded, the war would take a very, very bad turn.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “You have been asleep for ten hours, per my internal chronometer. Chet just got up and left the cave. I woke you, as you requested.”

I sat up in the dim light, my back stiff from resting on stone.

M-Bot hovered closer. “I,” he said, “would like to be acknowledged. It was exceptionally boring watching you two all night.”