Aurix the Bold

It began as a single point of light—just a glimmer in an otherwise cold and endless void. There was no sense of time or space or movement but for the subtle expansion of that tiny haven from the darkness. Whether he was moving toward it, or it to him, or if it was simply growing to fill his awareness, he could not tell. But it was getting larger. Or closer. Or something.

As he watched, the light fragmented into tinier specks of brilliance. That single point had been but an illusion. It was really millions of lights—at least as many as every leaf on every tree.

More.

And every blade of grass.

More still.

And every grain of sand on every shore of every sea.

All.

Yes. It was all light. Spreading across the darkness until they were like all the stars in the night.

Suns.

The light wobbled ever so slightly. It pulsed like an impossibly slow heartbeat, but it gained in tempo as the light intensified. He could hear it as well—a low, throbbing bass that sent a shudder all through the black. But even that seemed to rise slightly in pitch, and the vibrations in speed as the darkness was devoured.

Then he was among the suns. The space was so vast between them, most were still merely radiance and imagined warmth. The space around him was no longer an empty void. There was dust here—tiny particles barely illuminated by their suns.

Not dust. Worlds.

They were innumerable. Countless.

He neared two points of light. One a small red fireball. The other a much larger and brighter white sun. He hurtled past them toward a distant mote of dust that was also a world.

Soon his entire perception was bathed in brightness. Here the pulse had quickened to become the rhythm of his own heart beating. The vibrations had calmed to a frequency that he could no longer feel or sense. The cold of the universe was gone. He might have liked to stop there, but he had not yet arrived at his destination.

He was propelled further into the light. It grew in intensity. The beating quickened. Now he was warm, and the vibrations faster. The sound of the pulse was higher in frequency and pitch. For the briefest of instants, he thought he could see something racing toward him, something solid and with form—a stone perhaps—but before he could brace himself, he was beyond it.

Not beyond. Within.

There were particles racing past him, things smaller than the stone—things that whirled and spun and held on to each other with bonds he could not see. There were more particles within the particles—things he did not understand and that had never before been seen. And particles still in those particles. And more still in those. And yet, it was all still mostly nothing. A vast emptiness, much like that of the darkness he’d traveled.

Not empty. Look further.

Faint in the impossible brightness, he could just make out threads, as thin and gossamer as orbweaver’s silk.

The pulse grew faster still—so fast he could almost not tell one from the next anymore. The vibrations were a frantic thrum. The pitch was high and thin, and sounded fragile, like it might shatter if it rose much more. He had a sense that the temperature was unbearably hot around him, but it was a sensation he understood more than felt.

Threads ran both horizontally and vertically, crossing over one another in a loose latticework. Inside the squares they formed was more empty space, and every so often another particle—so far removed from the last that it seemed impossible that they could still be linked. But somehow he knew that they were.

The grid of strings tightened. The squares grew tiny and then disappeared altogether until only the threads themselves remained, woven so tightly together that they had become solid again, like a piece of knitted cloth.

His sense of motion stopped and he realized that he’d arrived at the very fabric of reality. The pulse, the hum, the vibrations and the heat had all become a solitary, unified energy made from pure, incomprehensible velocity. From this vantage point, he could see the threads quivering like a plucked bowstring.

Not threads. THE thread—a single infinite thread.

That quiver—that tiniest of vibrations on a scale so small it was less than nothing and yet greater than everything—was what propelled everything else into motion: all of the particles that formed larger particles that formed still others until they became Everything and then continued on until the energy was finally exhausted and became Nothing once more.

This was the Nexus of All.

From here, All could be undone. From here, Xu’ul could unravel all of existence merely by stilling that single thread.

But it was not Xu’ul that stood at the Nexus.

It was Aurix.

He made but one tiny adjustment.