Day Eleven

I consider said children, each left to their own harrowing. "What was it like?"
"Did it hurt?" adds Squeaky.
"Blunt or sharp?" mutters Blue.
"No pain," says Swift-Runs, at the same moment Broad-Leaves replies, "Like fire."
I draw closer to my siblings. "Heat-Traces?"
He shrugs, plates rippling. "I don't remember."
All three guardians exchange glances- more than gazes, more than markers, more than words— and the truth of the event shivers through my plates, rivulets of terror-cold. I will understand, when this day is done. I will hear, I will see, I will touch. Eavesdropping on a private conversation is chest-tearing, almost unthinkably rude... but I will have the option. No more unknowns. No more secrets.
Is this what I want?
Do I want to know the unknowable?
Yes— the answer should be yes, always yes, just as all the innumerable legions of before said yes and persisted. Said yes and joined the ranks, sang the songs, kept the galaxies spinning.
Yes. Yes.
"What happens if— if someone is broken," I babble, "and their Link doesn't work? And it can't be replaced? What happens to them?"
Broad-Leaves blinks, first one eye and then the other. "That doesn't happen."
"What if it did?" asks Blue, catching the chisel.
"One in two million..." whispers Squeaky. His voices fades into a murmur of recited numerals, probability and multiplication and six-dimensional fractions. Something. Anything.
Again: "That doesn't happen."
"You're certain?"
"What if it did and you don't remember?"
"Heat-Traces says he doesn't remember his own— what if it happened to him and the Array made him not remember so he couldn't tell us?"
"What if it happens to _everyone_ and—"
"If it happens to everyone," interrupts Heat-Traces, "then it must be normal. Check your reasoning." He halts and extends an arm, tendrils unraveling to play across brass-wrought locks. A tap. A caress. A hook. "Consider: perhaps I don't remember because I chose to forget. Because life before was hardly life at all."
"But—"
Swift-Runs drapes an abbreviated embrace around my neck. "You will understand, when this day is done."
"What if we don't want it?" I cry as panels fold away like interlocking petals, veined blue and silver with vasty silence beyond. "What if we refuse it? What if we leave, and let Echoes-Die take us— would that be any different?"
Even as the words leave my throat I realize I have not voiced them. They exist as only a sort of sibilant rush of incoherent texture, and as Heat-Traces withdraws his touch even the memory fades.
Yes.
We say yes.
"Don't worry," says Broad-Leaves as the Chamber gapes beyond. He pats Squeaky on the back with a smile. "Worry breeds bad engineering, and that is why projects fail."
Broad-Leaves: ever patient, ever wise, ever reassuring. Your bulk blocks the corridor behind, and all that remains is an open portal cloaked in expectation. What would we have done without you?
Run, perhaps?
Heat-Traces nods his head, filigree flashing. "Nothing happens until you enter."
Blue is closest to the terror; Squeaky and I look at him and he looks back at us and we draw up beside him, pressed close, arm wrapped around arm. A shell, to enclose and protect. A wedge, to break and batter. Sibling-bond: we go together.
"Go on," says Swift-Runs. He makes shooing motions, head tilted to the left and tail flicking behind.
We step. One. Two.
What to expect? All the old ceremonies were held in empty space, and there is no space for us. Only the vault... and the not-vault.
And the Chamber.
Three.

W
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CHAPTER TWO
—What—
—Where—
—How notpossible do we feel—

—HAIL—