The Obelisk Gate

INTERLUDE

In the turning depths, I resonate with my enemy—or attempt to. “A truce,” I say. Plead. There has been so much loss already, on all sides. A moon. A future. Hope.

Down here, it’s nearly impossible to hear a reply in words. What comes to me is furious reverberation, savage fluctuations of pressure and gravitation. I’m forced to flee after a time, lest I be crushed—and though this would be only a temporary setback, I cannot afford to be incapacitated right now. Things are changing amid your kind, quickly as your kind so often do things when you finally make real decisions. I have to be ready.

The rage was my only answer, in any case.