MEMORY FRAGMENT

Erekol, Second Age

Existence came in a flash. Aether didn’t know how or why. All he knew was that time had been split in two branches: up to the point he could move and after that. All of it seemed boring, and for some reason there didn’t seem any particular difference between the two.

“Aether,” a voice commanded. It was a soft and polite voice, though not kind.

Aether knew that it belonged to Galatea—The Purple Moon of magic. He also knew that the Moon was his creator. There were several of them in total, definitely more than one. For some reason, though, he couldn’t remember anything about the rest of them, only all that his Moon had done.

“You’re making me wait,” the Moon said.

The tone was neutral, deprived of any emotion whatsoever. It was, though, filled with magic, passing through walls and air alike. Aether could see the threads and symbols flow through it, making it vibrate in the air.

Galatea was a solitary Moon. He preferred to be on his own and not interact with anything. Long ago, in the far past, he had made a point to distance himself from all natural laws just so as not to be reminded of the other’s presence. Possibly, that was why Aether couldn’t remember any of them. It was a strange realization that he’d known all along.

Stretching his wings, Aether took a few shaky steps, then flew up and right through what appeared to be the wall of a very high building. The confusing part came later, when he went through the building walking about there.

People weren’t a new addition, although the current ones were a rather recent development. Most had been born not too long before Aether himself. There was magic in all of them, coursing through them like fine threads. In the special ones, the threads were thicker.

After a few seconds of fascination, Aether quickly lost interest in shifting form to a creature with a much larger wingspan as he continued the flight to his creator. The distance was short for everyone who followed the physical rules. Aether, on the other hand, have flown miles in and out of reality all the time following an aether path that ended on the Moon’s shoulder. Upon reaching it, the bird flapped its wings vigorously, coming for a complete stop, then slowly descended the last few inches. It wasn’t something that was supposed to be done, but Aether found it amusing.

“You weren’t supposed to have a personality,” Galatea said. He had taken the form of a tall man with long, straight hair falling to his waist. The clothes were a combination of robes and trousers that had gone out of fashion two centuries ago, but they fit him well. Everything was shades of purple, of course, in regard to clothes. The Moon’s skin and hair color, on the other hand, changed incessantly, going through all conceivable and inconceivable shades.

“Don’t you mean he should have had all of them?” someone else.

Aether had no idea who that was, but he knew it was another Moon. He also knew that he was someone capable of talking to him, even without the use of magic.

The second Moon was dressed all in green, though following no fashion whatsoever. Despite that, Aether felt the combination suited him.

“It’s a nice gift,” the Green Moon continued. “Even you have to admit.”

“Only an idiot would think that.”

There was no telling who they were talking about. Aether definitely didn’t remember his creation being a gift from someone. Everything he knew told him that the Purple Moon had created him, but at the same time, he knew that wasn’t entirely true. There was someone else involved as well.

“I want to explore the city,” Aether said.

The comment made both Moons look at the bird. The only beings who could interrupt a Moon were Moons. Aether was an exception… or rather, he was one of the exceptions. There was too much freedom within his very being that even they couldn’t control.

Reality splintered into a thousand possible outcomes, each a grain of said within the rest. In each, things were slightly different. The bird was curious how those differences would develop, but barely had they started to branch, when Galatea condensed all of them back into one.

“Don’t do that,” he said, neither angry nor disappointed. “Go, do as you wish. Just come back when I call you.”

“Sure thing.” The bird flapped its wings and flew through the building wall. He knew he had created a bad impression, and he didn’t care. There were too many things to explore. As someone who knew nearly all the past, it was the present that he found exciting.

Aether’s size grew as he moved further and further up into the sky. After half a minute, he was as large as a tenth of the city over which he observed, and it was a giant city. People could well spend weeks walking from one side of the city to the other. Building clusters the size of mountains were placed between fields and forests, connected by massive roads that drilled through hills and went over lakes. But most of all, there was magic—millions of threads going through, above, and under the city like an enormous cloud of yarn. It provided the city and its inhabitants everything they might need and so much more. Over three quarters of the entire world lived in this one place alone, and even the rest had gone through it at least a few times in their lives.

It hadn’t always been like this. The city had been created not too long ago. In fact, it had been created the very same instant Aether had, yet at the same time, it had always existed. That particular notion confused the bird slightly. Not that there were two conflicting realities—that was normal for magic—but rather that he didn’t know anything about the city itself. Aether had no clue how it had been built, by whom, which sections were the oldest… It was as if the city just came into existence.

A trio of mages approached from a distance, flying just up to the bird’s giant eyes.

“If you keep that up, you’ll blow out the sun,” one of them said. He wasn’t anything special, but he was magic, and that made Aether at least listen.

“Get lost.” The bird flapped its wings, transforming into a cloud of mist.

For several moments, he watched with glee as one of the mages flew about, startled and confused. The mind of the unfortunate human was still struggling to comprehend what was going on. Fear had taken over, causing him to see what was not there—a nasty trick Aether had played. Unfortunately, the remaining two ruined his fun, quickly drawing a spell pattern that returned the human to a stable state.

That’s no fun, Aether thought.

“If you want to explore the city, we’ll gladly assist,” the first mage said.

“Did Galatea tell you to keep an eye on me?” Aether grumbled. He hadn’t experienced the question to disturb him so much. It felt as if someone was trying to condense him into a drop of water, then lock him away in a flask.

“No. The architect thought you might be curious.”

The architect. The name sounded familiar, although Aether had no idea what that was. Curiosity and a deep sense of calm made him return to the size of a swallow. Following one of the magic lines, the bird flew up to the mage. He was human, perfectly ordinary, bordering dull. Of course, most humans were like that. The Purple Moon didn’t like them, since they were both insignificant and resourceful.

“How do you know?” Aether asked. “Where is he?”

“No one knows where he went.” A sad smile formed on the mage’s face. He had the appearance of a twenty-year-old, but the aether within him showed that he was supposed to be a hundred years older. “He vanished once he created the city. I’d like to think that he went home, but I think that he’d just had enough of it all. Erekol was his crowning achievement. As were you?”

“Me?” Aether flapped his wings. “Why me?”

“You were his gift to the Purple Moon—an eternal companion by his side. He told you that you’d be born with all the knowledge of the past and not an inkling of the present.”

Aether was about to say that he didn’t remember anything of the sort, but found that would only prove his point. Life after his creation was confusing. The one that had been before was a lot more structured, with few questions and even less unexplained events. Ten in the present and he had already encountered so many things he didn’t know about.

“And you’ll tell me about him?”

“Yes, as much as I can.”

“Why?” Aether almost snapped, as if catching the mage in a lie.

“Because that’s what he asked me to do.”

From this point on, the conversation quickly shifted. Aether stopped inquiring about the reasons and just went along with the flow. And the mage, on his part, gave him answers to many things that remained hidden.

The city of Erekol had been built by a man called Chacle Sering. The mage claimed that he had been human, although Aether had his doubts. Surely it had to be a Moon. No one else had the power to vanish memories, not from the creature that represented the embodiment of magic, at least. As for Chacle, he had created the overall composition of the city as well as every structure within it. There were a total of eight major city sections, divided in two groups of four. Each section was built in honor of a Moon. The central mountain buildings were dedicated to the Purple Moon, and by extension Aether himself. The mage explained that the architect had considered placing a nest on top just to mark the perfect spot for the bird. He had changed his mind, however, preferring just to make the building cluster appealing and leave Aether to choose whether to perch on it or within it.

The other sections were a lot more boring. The physical appearance differed, but beneath the near complete lack of magic threads was obvious no matter how they looked. Only here and there Aether would spot pockets of condensed magic—areas occupied by mages, of course.

That was another thing that annoyed the bird; the inhabitants of each section were a completely different race. Humans were the only exception, with two sections filled with them, although even the mage failed to explain why. The excuse given was that since the architect himself was human; he had granted a larger section of the city to his favorite race.

That didn’t make much sense. Space wasn’t the issue. There were vast uninhabited areas in Erekol. Clearing a forest section to add another building cluster would have been enough to solve overpopulation for the next few hundred years, and yet two sectors had been given to the humans—two rather smaller sectors.

“Mage,” Aether began, perched within the wall of the mage’s bedroom. “Why do you look so young? You should be a lot older than you are.”

“That’s because I am,” the mage laughed. “One last gift the architect gave me before disappearing. Or a joke. He did have a strange sense of humor.”

“Why didn’t he give it to everyone?”

“He gave it to many, but even he has his limits. At least that’s what I prefer to believe. Granting youth to some while ignoring others doesn’t sound like the man he was.”

“Does that make him the greatest person in the world?”

“There are those who won’t agree with you. The majority will, though, so that’s why the eighth sector honors him, even if that wasn’t his intention.”

“It’s not like he could complain,” Aether said, then stretched his wings. “

“You never know with the architect. He might just as well appear from nowhere, say he changed his mind, and take the city away.”

“Won’t people be upset with him if he did so?”

“Precisely.” The mage smiled widely