The Light Departs

It was a day like any other day, except it wasn’t at all.

I sat in the morning sun, sipping my morning light from a shapeglass that bopped around merrily on the table whenever I wasn’t holding it. It would tip itself into increasingly absurd contortions, with the morning light sloshing with increasing velocity. And the moment it was about to tip over entirely, it would grow a top cover and roll into a somersault or full flip.

I appreciated that it was trying to cheer me up, but I was finding it difficult to muster amusement this morning. Today was the day of my Choice. Of everyone’s Choice. And tomorrow, the Day of Reckoning. The day after… well that’s the day the Atlantean’s sensors get close enough to our solar system to discover the space installations throughout the system, as well as all of the cities and wonders of Lumenian civilization here on Earth. Or at least, they would sense them if any of us or our civilization were going to be here in two days. It won’t. We won’t.

Wow, thinking about that never ceased to make my head want to split open, but it doesn’t make a difference. Today, I have to think about it. Today, I have to Choose. 

But not yet.

I summoned my luminator from my obelston. The obelston gave a happy chirp, and the luminator materialized in front of me. I flipped it open and started scrolling through my story library, my fingers flicking casually through the air. I found one that I had enjoyed but never finished, and so I began reading where I had left off, hoping it might give me a few minutes reprieve from the headache rapidly brewing.

“Hello Blazing-Glory. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I looked away from the story scrolling by in the air before me, snapping my luminator shut while scanning for the voice. I was sitting at a small café at the edge of the market square. The Night Market was winding down: vendors calling their goodbyes, wares and entire stalls vanishing into chirping obelstons, the last few stragglers making for the Luminal station. It would be a few minutes before the Day Market vendors arrived from the very same station. The final Ellustrian Night Market. And now the final Day Market. Oh, I have to stop being so morose.

Then I spotted him—a large, ponderous man weaving through the thinning crowd, smiling broadly. I grinned despite myself.

“Hello Bright-Song! Quite the surprise. What brings you to Ellustria? It’s been, what, a decade?

“Ha! It’s been less than half that! You’ve been busy these past few years. I heard you were one of the engineers who created the Luminal Line and have been overseeing the construction of Prime Station. I would be surprised if you didn’t pack twenty years of work into the past five! As for why I’m here, it’s to say goodbye to my family. They’re Effusing tomorrow.”

I nodded, understanding the sentiment. I had said goodbye to many people who had already Chosen, since I didn’t know who I was going to be going with. And eventually, I simply said goodbye to everyone I cared about saying goodbye to, whether or not they had Chosen already, and that was enough. What else could I do? What else could any of us do?

I cocked my head at Bright-Song, trying to recall. “Were you on the Venus expedition with us? That one was such chaos I barely remember who staffed it.”

He laughed. “Ha! No, I wasn’t on that one. I left the Brigade after the asteroid-belt survey—right after our dreaming Unit Leader decided to set up his own dream-base on Perspective and dream-slaved half the Unit. I got out while I still could.

My eyes widened. “Really? No one said anything about a dream-nest in the news feeds.”

Bright-Song laughed, although with an edge to it. “Why would they? Talking about dream-nests builds fear of them, which makes everyone more prone to being dream-slaved. The Brigade has always kept it quiet unless the dream-nest showed up somewhere too public, which doesn’t happen that often.”

“Really?” I was surprised. Genuinely surprised. I hadn’t heard about this.

“Yes, really. I would have figured someone in the Brigade would have told you at some point, but we kept the information very limited—really only to the Units responsible for handling them. Like I said, it would have only spread fear. Now…today? It doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore.” 

I shivered. Lumenian society had always been terrified of a dream-nest getting out of hand. We all still heard the stories from the oldest generations. The horrors they told us about Lilith’s depredations made a part of me wail in terror every time I heard one of their stories. And yet every time they told a story, they took pains to explain how the story simply didn’t capture the truth of the lived experience.

The survivors of that horror had split into 3 camps. One group was comprised of those too traumatized to care about kindness—only strength. They had fragmented off and settled into small warring tribes when Lilith ascended and Gaia stabilized the dream into its current form. In their fighting, they quickly forgot how to use Faery Dust and lived an existence that made me shudder to contemplate. The remaining two groups had witnessed the horrors that Lilith had wrought and vowed never again. There was still enough Faery Dust in the air during the centuries after Lemuria fell for Light and Sound to be woven by the mind, and those who wished to collaborate and heal found succor in each other and in the rebuilding of a damaged world.

All of Lumenian society was formed on the principle of moving with the Light. We eschewed violence, although we weren’t insane like the Lumanians. They were so terrified of anyone in their society gaining Lilith’s powers that they altered their bodies and minds so that they literally couldn’t do violence. They were weavers of Sound, using it to shape and move the rather unyielding matter of this fallen world. Yet in being unable to do any violence, even in self-defense, they had been forced to move their entire society underground, where they were in the final stages of cloaking their civilization from Atlantean eyes and ears.

We Lumenians had chosen to focus on Light, largely transcending the need to shape matter at all thanks to our technology. However, because we hadn’t entirely blocked ourselves from doing violence, every once in a long while (or maybe not so long, it seems), someone would get a little sliver of Lucid Awareness—the power that let Lilith do what she did… just enough of what’s been lost behind the veil for them to start shaping other people’s realities. And for almost everyone that happens to, they invariably start to form a cult. Given enough time, the cult can grow into a big enough force that its dream-gravity starts pulling in people who want nothing to do with it. And eventually, the entire world.

Dream-nests that big had only shown up a few times in our history, but each of those times, it had felt like we were about to tip back into the dark days of the Fall. No sane person wanted that to happen again. Taking out a dream-nest was the only time that our society permitted violence.

I leaned back in my chair, catching my shapeglass in mid-jump and sipping the last of my morning light. “I guess that makes sense. There wasn’t any benefit to us knowing. I’m happy you got away from your Unit Leader.” 

Bright-song barked another laugh. “His little ‘nirvana’ only lasted a year or two before the Light Brigade showed up. I heard they used a Lumal Effusion to take them down.”

That was another surprise. “I heard an asteroid was destroyed back then, but no one mentioned an Effusion. I didn’t think the Brigade had ever used one outside of tests.”

Bright-Song nodded. “One of my buddies on the mission got drunk with me on ambrosia one night and told me what happened. They chose the Effusion over kinetics.”

He lowered himself onto the seat opposite me. The chair sighed under his weight, as though debating whether it wished to continue existing as such. He took a slow breath, eyes following the faint motes of light drifting between us.

“He said it wasn’t a weapon,” Bright-Song murmured. “At least not in the way we used to think. No heat, no shrapnel, no thunder. Just... the light remembering itself.”

I tilted my head. “Remembering?”

He nodded. “You’ve seen what happens when a luminator overloads—the air hums, patterns collapse, rebuild. Imagine that, but on the scale of an asteroid. They tuned the field until every photon caught its twin’s reflection. For one perfect moment, all the light in that region fell into phase.”

A shiver rippled through me. “Coherence.”

“Perfect coherence,” he said. “And when that happens, matter stops being sure of itself. The atoms lose their arguments with the vacuum. Everything begins to breathe outward, becoming the light it always contained. The Brigade called it an Effusion—a letting-go.”

“So the base didn’t explode?”

He shook his head. “It bloomed. Every alloy, every dream-chain, every sleeping soul—everything turned transparent. My friend said it was like watching sunrise pour through crystal, except the crystal was the asteroid itself. Then it was gone. Nothing left but a resonance in the dark.”

I stared into my empty cup, tracing the swirl of lumal dust at the bottom. The market had fallen silent; even the obelstons had ceased their gentle pulsing as the final stalls folded away.

Bright-Song leaned forward, voice low. “They say the resonance can still be seen if you know how to look. The air hums with the pattern of what once was.”

I met his eyes, feeling the faint ache of recognition behind the words. “So the Light Brigade didn’t end them,” I said softly. “They translated them.”

Bright-Song smiled, weary but kind. “Perhaps that’s the mercy of the Effusion. The Brigade couldn’t let a dream-nest like that stand. So they figured—if the choice was kill them or give them a chance at transcendence—better to offer the latter. Either way, they’re no longer our problem.”

“So it worked? They transcended?” The question came out more plaintive than I meant.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows? You know there’s no way to tell from this side. And when the Atlanteans arrive, I won’t be here to find out what happens when the stay-behinds light off the Effusion for everyone who remains.”

“So you’ve made up your mind? You’re Leaving?”

“For dream’s sake, Blazing-Glory, how could I not? If we can’t know whether the Effusion works from here, how is it any different from the nirvana the dream-cults promise? Have you ever heard of a cultist who, once they’ve been slaved, wants to come back? All they talk about is spreading their perfect dream. How do we know what it’s really like for them? Crazy dreaming dreams. At least with the cultists we get some echo of the other side. For anyone who rides the Effusion, it’s a one-way path to something. Whether that something is death or transcendence... well, I’d rather explore the stars than make that leap into the dark. And if I ever tire of wandering, I can always Effuse myself. You know each ship in the fleet will carry a few Lightweavers when it departs.”

I nodded. What he said made sense. So why did it feel like running away? Then again, so did the Effusion.

“Do you know if anyone has chosen to stay—without Effusing—and face the Atlanteans?”

“A few, I’ve heard. Although I don’t give them long odds. You’ve seen all the Lightweaver reports about the Atlanteans. They won’t be able to handle a civilization that is as powerful as we are. They’ll try to fight us. To dominate us. And if we start to fight back? Well, then we lose the Light, and we’re no better than those squabbling humans. They have some half-baked junior Lightweaver with them, but I don’t expect her to be able to stand up to Atlantean magic-science for long. All of the rest of the Lightweavers are either Effusing or Leaving.”

I shook my head, sadly. “Well, I wish you well on your journeys. Where are you headed after you Leave?”

“Prime Station for now like everyone, and then after, I think I might hop over to that new world they began settling a few years back about 83 light years in the direction of Pisces. Illumia. I figure I might as well go in the opposite direction of Orion, given that’s where those crazy Atlantean dreamfuckers came from. And it’s an untouched world, ready for the Lightweavers to have their fun. Speaking of which, I should be leaving soon. I decided to head over to Prime Station today so I can hopefully get some decent quarters during the Sorting. I’m planning to catch the next Luminal Burst to Prime Station when it goes off in a few minutes.”

“Goodbye, my friend. It was good to see you again.”

We embraced tightly, memories of wild evenings and difficult shared missions surfacing for a few moments in a chaotic maelstrom. 

As I sat watching him head toward the Luminal station, I considered whether to open my luminator again and return to my story. What was the point? I knew my Choice.

“Hey Bright-Song, wait up a moment. I think I’d like to see Illumia too.”