Our conversation is interrupted by Kuin’s arrival, the man passing through double doors intended for the service staff, drawing my attention. Half of the staff appear human, while the other half are red pandas with little black bow ties adorned with silver bells around their necks. Carrying empty serving platters on their backs, the animals lay on the floor, curling around the feet of the human servers.

They hadn’t been there when we arrived. I blink once, then let my surprise go. Red pandas aren’t the weirdest thing tonight, by far.

Kuin points to his seating chart in obvious dismay, glaring over at Karanos. He uses ascendant energy to empower his legs and appears over at our table in an instant.

“Karanos–!” he begins, before freezing with his mouth open. “Thank you for escorting Ancient Ash to the banquet hall.”

Karanos smiles, the expression oddly sinister. “No need to thank me–Ancient Ash is familiar with the citadel and found his own way. We actually followed him.”

Now that Kuin and Ash are in the same place together, the resemblance is rather uncanny. They have the same general coloration–pale and blond–with needle-like fangs. If I saw them on the street, I’d assume that Ash was Kuin’s father. Perhaps they ascended from the same home world.

“Ascendant Kuin,” Ketu Bryant suddenly interjects, his expression stoic. “We were wondering if the menu for tonight was ready.”

Kuin glances at me, then to Karanos, before clearing his throat. “It will be ready imminently.”

Ketu nods. “Thank you.”

Kuin bows his head to Ash, then hustles off to the service doors.

Karanos meets my eyes. To my astonishment, he gives me a covert thumbs up from under the table, visible only to my vital vision.

I’m missing something again here, aren’t I? I ask, intending my thoughts to reach Crystal.

“Remember the refrigerator you raided during the first pageant stage?” Crystal says.

...Yes?

“That was the catering for tonight. Unfortunately, Kuin and Jeseria cannot acquire more ingredients because the closest regular city is hours away. I believe that they are relying on ingredients from their personal void storages to fill any gaps in the recipes.”

I just stare at her. No way. They just left that refrigerator laying out–what did they expect to happen?

“Regardless, your actions have put Karanos in a rather good mood.”

While Karanos and Sephir resume their previous conversation, Ketu is silent in the wake of Kuin’s departure. He seems surprisingly unused to social gatherings–you’d think someone hundreds of years old would know how to engage in small talk.

Maybe he’s just quiet because Ash is here.

The awkward silence weighs on me. Mother’s conditioning rears its head: On reflex, I slip into her mannerisms and rekindle the conversation. “How long have you been an ascendant?”

Ketu absently rubs a finger against the edge of his fork. “Two hundred and fifty years or so. They blend together and I don’t keep a careful count.”

Two hundred and fifty? That sounds awfully young for someone transitioning from blue to red energy.

“How did you get your energy so dense? It feels like it’s on the cusp of transitioning to red. Karanos has mentioned things like trying to obtain the favor of Eternity by doing impactful things, but that advice isn’t the most actionable.”

Before Ketu can respond, Ash interjects, “Let me see your energy.”

Ketu summons fulminous blue, the electric flames licking across his palm.

Ash nods, but doesn’t say anything. Ketu’s brow furrows and he shoots me a questioning look that Ash undoubtedly notices but chooses to ignore.

“While Ancient Ash undoubtedly knows better than me, I’ll answer your question,” Ketu says, switching gears. “Improving the quality of your ascendant energy follows a process much like that of developing your affinity. The key difference is that you aren’t making your body a more suitable conduit for a certain type of energy. Instead, you’re building up a rapport, of sorts, with Eternity itself.”

“And what if I left Eternity for my home world, never to return? How would my ascendant energy improve then?” Eternity and ascendant energy are connected, but they aren’t the same. Besides, naturally exhibiting your own ascendant energy is a precursor for ascending.

“It would improve,” Ash interjects. “Slowly. You’d die before long, anyway.”

What does he mean by that? I ask Crystal. I know people leave Eternity to die; is he insinuating that I’d kill myself after long enough as a returned ascendant?

“Do not forget, Eternity sustains your body and provides the immortality that you enjoy. When you leave it, the preservation gradually wears off, and if violence doesn’t end your life, time will.

“I see questions stirring within you, Ian,” Ash continues. “Let me distract you and Ketu with another: Do you think Eternity is a good place?”

Ketu snorts and covers his mouth. I can sense his mouth curving into a wide, sardonic smile. He appears to wait for me to reply first, but my silence eggs him on.

“I can be a violent man,” Ketu begins. In his dark blue robes with pale, geometric accents, his finger rubbing the length of the fork, it’s easy to mistake Ketu as the unassuming twin of the man who brutally won the pageant rounds. “I like to think my easy progression in Eternity is because of that propensity for barbarism. And my acceptance here–“ he gestures to the room– “because I am not one of those fools who ascend from an ocean of blood, driven mad by their conquest. I confess, Ascendant Dunai, I thought you might be one such fool. But the company you keep suggests otherwise–I am happy to be proven wrong.”

His eyes focus on Ash. “I digress. Eternity is a place that knows no good nor evil. To even attempt to call it a good place implies a fundamental misunderstanding of its nature.”

Ash nods. “You look like you have more to say–what kind of a place is Eternity?”

Ketu frowns. “Eternity is a place where the powerful preserve themselves until all the energy wanes and the last light flickers out. You all talk about creating new worlds and perpetuating the cycle of samsara, but such is a race we cannot win. I consider Eternity pointless–a stay of execution before the inevitable end of all.”

“And yet, here you are,” Ash says, his smile revealing his fangs. “Darkness is the swiftest pilot in the universe, and ever the enemy of Eternity. Outrunning her is a difficult task, and we won’t know whether our efforts are futile until the end.” His eyes light up as a red panda walks by with a bottle of pale wine perched precariously on its back. He reaches down and snatches the bottle. His hand covers its neck and comes away with the cork.

I suspected that the casual motions Ash made before–like roughly pulling off his slippers–were all intentional. The spellbinding grace to his movements now confirms my hunch, enhancing his air of alien-ness. Ketu seems similarly transfixed, and the two of us watch silently as Ash scents the wine and takes a sip, swirling the liquid with a pivot of the glass in his fingers.

Noticing the wine, Ascendant Sephir–Ketu’s sponsor–uses her water elementalism to send the liquid into everyone’s glass. As I hold mine up to my lips, Ash continues his monologue–though this time he holds the attention of both Karanos and Sephir.

“But Darkness is also the most beautiful pilot in the universe. Like the finest gazelle, she runs and runs, ever outward. For though Darkness is the fastest, she is the prey, and Eternity the hunter.”

Maria begins to speak, her voice confident though I sense uncertainty over our bond. “In the abyss of abysses, that infinite tunnel–” She pauses for a moment. “Darkness penetrates Darkness, faster and faster.”

As she quotes the poem on the obelisk outside the citadel, she speaks the word darkness with emphasis, like it’s a proper noun, matching Ash’s cadence. I’m not surprised she remembers the poem well enough to quote it–Maria may not be a Beginning practitioner, but she has an impressive memory for details.

Ash grins and recites the next verse. “A balance of genesis and completion–without deliberate purpose and without effort.”

With the context of Ketu’s words, something about the poem begins to click, though I can’t articulate what. I feel like revelation is on the tip of my tongue.

Sephir offers the next part of the poem: “From nothing, everything, and everything a dream.”

And Karanos provides the conclusion, crossing his arms across his chest: “Opposites in reciprocity spawn each other.”

“I didn’t think any of you would make that connection,” Ash says, his eyes roving over Ketu, Maria, and me. “It’s not for nothing that The Samsara Crucible is the poem of the faction.”

But something still doesn’t seem right. Is that really the end of the poem? I can’t remember.

“This is the entire poem,” Crystal says, sending the text into my mind. I realize that Maria started on the second stanza, leading to the omission of the first:

And with change, comprehension:

Heaven's configurations and Earth's patterns–

trace them to their origins and

back to their ends

to grasp the axiom of life and death.

Where before I didn’t give much thought to the abstruse poem, I mull them over anew. And with change, comprehension...origins and ends...life and death…

The image of a god with the power to see the dimension of time materializes. I imagine the cycle of samsara laid out bare for their inspection, permitting them to witness the beginning and the end all at once. Darkness penetrating darkness, faster and faster...she and her counterpart caught in an eternal dance, until one side falters and is extinguished. The end.

But is Eternity really the counterpart of Darkness, as Ash seems to suggest?

“I would be inclined to assume that Ash is right,” Crystal says. “If you do not understand, ask, and welcome enlightenment.”

Fine. But I’m not sure what to say–I’m not the type to raise my hand in class to ask questions. I prefer studying on my own, and at least when it came to glossy programmatics, that was always sufficient.

“Do you have a question, Dunai?” Ash says, calling me out.

Y’jeni, how do people stand being in the presence of powerful Beginning practitioners? Karanos may have an amazing memory and spatial awareness, encroaching on the domain of Beginning affinity, but his social awareness can’t hold a candle to Aunt Julia, not to mention Ash.

“I don’t understand how Eternity is the counterpart of Darkness,” I admit. “Eternity, this place, it’s–” I struggle for words. “Not real. It’s a fabrication, a dream. Somebody–or something–made Eternity.”

Ash shakes his head slowly. “Like Darkness, Eternity has always been, but its form is not static. Eternity changes us, and we change Eternity. It is not alive, but it has purpose.”

“I thought the poem said that there was genesis and completion–a cycle of beginnings and ends without purpose,” I say.

“That’s Darkness,” Maria interjects. “Not Eternity.”

Ash smiles. “I’m beginning to like you, Maria the Lich. Darkness expands without purpose, growing wider, yet deeper until it reaches singularity, where time collapses on itself. Eternity, its counterpart, is the progenitor of purpose.”

I lean back in my seat and let that digest. Eternity, the progenitor of purpose–in other words, the seed that forms all worlds. Holiday said as much when we first met: “Almost everywhere in the cosmos shares the same seed of existence.”

Nothing–Darkness–begets everything–Eternity, Maria transmits. And everything is a dream. This world of planes is a dream–but a dream that is real. Remember Floria?

Of course I remember her. I still plan to return and give her the release she deserves.

Well, Floria spoke of an end–the only kind afforded to those who cannot leave Eternity and end their own lives. I suspect that the ascendant who donated the rings used for Quiggam is looking for the same release as Floria.

Seeking samsara, I remark. A pleasant euphemism.

Seeking rebirth by dreaming a new world, a new beginning. And so it is that Eternity is a crucible of samsara, genesis and extinction, weighted against the deep abyss of Darkness.

“Now it is your turn to answer the question,” Ash says, inclining his head toward me. “What kind of a place is Eternity?”

Eternity is hell to some, like Floria. But it doesn’t need to be. Suncloud seemed rather intrigued by the prospect of paradise within Eternity–it was one of the first things she asked Karanos when they first met. I lock eyes with Karanos now and his posture stiffens slightly.

Do you believe in Paradise, Karanos? Suncloud had asked. And Karanos, a young, jaded ascendant from a world that comitted genocide against regulars, a world that united against him...he had said yes.

“You said that Eternity changes us, and we change Eternity,” I say.

Ash’s eyes glint in the light of the overhead chandeliers, their crystals painting dots of refracted light on his nightmarish scorpion armor. “Correct.”

I smile. “Eternity is a land of possibility, a place where ruin walks in step with rebirth. It’s what we make of it.” My smile turns bitter. “Unfortunately, ascendants on the whole seem more inclined toward ruin, and the lathe of time grinds down whatever goodness we have until we grow insane or desperate, a rather poisonous combination.”

“Do I seem insane or desperate?” Ash asks, his expression unreadable.

I chuckle mirthlessly. “I think everyone here with red energy is at least a bit crazy. Some hide it better than others.”

“You hide yours well,” Ash remarks, sipping his wine, the yellow liquid coating his fangs.

Kuin’s announcement saves me from mustering a response: “Hello everyone, the new menu is being distributed now, and should cater to the varied dietary preferences of all. Thank you for your patience!”

Next to the seating chart display, Jeseria wields her wind elementalism to send menu booklets–thick, paper booklets filled with images and hashscript numbers–in front of everyone. Over the course of our conversation, people have steadily filed in, filling the chamber.

I grab my menu and page through, unable to focus on the pictures. Suddenly my conflict with Achemiss seems small. To ascendants like Ash, who have lived for who knows how long and seek the mysteries of this unfathomable place, the fate of any one world or ascendant is inconsequential. The conflict is consuming my entire life and purpose, but for Karanos, it’s no more than a pressing obsession born from a grudge, to be eventually forgotten.

Y’jeni, I feel so...dispirited.

Crystal is currently sitting next to me on the floor, her head barely coming up to the top of the table so that only the top half of her head is visible. “Ian,” she says. She lifts her left paw and places it on my leg, pushing. “You are anything but small. You just need to think bigger.”