The Empress returned to her office to look for information on the Nameless. We went with Miyu to the goldenscales hall in the palace.
‘We have a small records system,’ Miyu said. ‘It is in our memory hall. Let’s go see.’ She gated to the hall and we followed her. ‘It’s mostly journals, kept in hardcopy form, free from Marque’s interference.’
‘You don’t trust Marque not to interfere?’ Haruka asked.
‘Marque was on the side of our oppressors,’ she said.
We went back down into the hall where the memorials were kept. She led us to the end to where Miko’s statue stood.
I stopped and studied it. ‘I hope she’s alive.’
‘All of us do, Captain.’
A door at the end opened to a small room containing dragon books – circular piles of fibre with a stitch in the middle that were read by lifting the pages and turning them in circles. Some of the books had covers that appeared to be made of beaten gold.
‘Is there an index?’ Haruka asked, looking around at the stacked horizontal half-cylinders containing the books.
‘Yes.’ Miyu went to a horizontal half-cylinder that held more circular pages, but they weren’t joined together. ‘Nameless. The Nameless.’
Marque went down, and we were plunged into darkness. The air circulation ceased.
‘Cat attack!’ I shouted. ‘Get down!’ I pulled them into the wall and covered them with my body.
‘The cats don’t have the resources to attack us, they’re too busy trying to hold the Republic together,’ Haruka said. ‘All their subjugates are joining the Empire as word passes around that we’re kinder and don’t abuse children.’
‘They still have their nanos,’ I said, listening carefully for a portal opening.
‘Marque doesn’t permit nanos on the homeworld,’ Miyu said.
‘Marque’s not here,’ I said.
Jian, the Empress said telepathically. I just mentioned the Nameless in my office and Marque went down.
Marque is down here too. I said. How big an area is affected?
The Palace precinct for about a hundred metres. Parliament and the rest of Sky City are unaffected. I’m concerned that my quarters will fall into the tower if Marque doesn’t come back up soon.
‘We rely on that thing far too much,’ I said. ‘The entire palace precinct is down. The Empress’ quarters may fall into the top of the tower if it stays down for too long – Marque’s the only one who can maintain the anti-grav holding it up.’
The lights came on and there was an almost imperceptible rising whine around us as the ventilation restarted.
‘That was intense,’ Marque said, sounding shocked. ‘Next time I need to add a buffer.’
We stood. ‘What happened?’ Haruka asked.
‘I just had a massive amount of information dumped on me. The location of the Nameless . . .’ It hesitated. ‘All right, that didn’t happen again when I mentioned it, I must have a time delay flag or something on it. Anyway, the location of the Nameless to a precise degree. Down to the last millimetre. It took all my local resources to process and store it.’
‘Who did that to you?’ I asked.
It sounded chagrined. ‘I did. Mention the Nameless in the palace precinct and the info is dumped into my current marque.’
‘Your current you?’ Miyu asked.
‘I mean my current version. Are you free to assist us in travelling to the Nameless, Miyu? I need both you and the Empress to get us there.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Gate us to her office, let’s go find the Nameless.’ It sounded enthusiastic. ‘There was a great deal of information in that dump that I archived in the past without knowing that it was really important.’
‘You put something important in a safe place and then forgot that you had it?’ Haruka asked.
‘Precisely. Empress’ office, please, Miyu.’
Miyu created the gate and we went through. The Empress was already behind her desk with a star map above it. Shudo and Six-Eighty-Four-Hertz in its new dragon body were guarding, with expressions of people who’d just survived a bomb attack.
‘I thought you’d resign from the Guard after you married Five-Shriek and moved into a dragon body,’ I said to Six.
‘Guard for life,’ it said, sounding like a female coloured dragon.
‘You should have a jacket or something to indicate your Imperial Guard status,’ I said.
It turned in place. ‘Blue scales, silver eyes, I’m in uniform all the time so you can stop asking now, Captain.’ It grinned. ‘It’s tough being in a physical body, but worth it to be with Five-Shriek. We’re expecting.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said, feeling out of touch and wondering if I would return to duty after finding Miko.
‘I rather like its colour scheme,’ the Empress said. She gestured towards the star chart. ‘I have the location of the Nameless.’
‘Where is that?’ I asked. ‘I don’t recognise those stars.’
She zoomed the star map out to a galaxy, then a cluster of galaxies.
‘I don’t know this space; I’ve never been there,’ Miyu said. ‘I can’t take you.’
The star map continued to zoom out until even the galactic clusters became bright dots in a river of light, then the rivers coalesced to form a network of glowing threads.
‘Is that the whole Universe?’ Haruka asked.
‘It is,’ the Empress said. A dot lit up on the map. ‘This is the location of the Nameless.’ Another dot illuminated, at the other end of the map. ‘This is the location of the Empire.’
‘It’s at the other end of the Universe?’ I asked.
‘Effectively, yes,’ she said. ‘Eighty-five billion light years away. No other dragon can travel that far, it requires too much energy to fold the distant parts of space together.’
‘Even if a coloured dragon took one minute between each incremental fold, it would still take her thousands of years to get there,’ Marque said.
‘I cannot gate there, I’ve never been,’ Miyu said.
‘So we can’t go?’ I asked. ‘Why would Miko tell us to go there if it’s impossible?’
‘Not impossible,’ the Empress said. She looked away. ‘I can take you. I’m the only one who can. Shudo, Six, leave us.’
The guards filed out, looking confused. The Empress waited until they were gone, then nodded. ‘When my mother selected me to be the next Empress, she gave me a great deal of information that is only passed down from silver to silver—’
‘So many secrets,’ Haruka said, his voice low.
‘Did you know?’ I asked Miyu.
‘That she is the latest in a line of them? Of course,’ Miyu said. ‘We were their servants and confidantes. We knew everything.’
‘One of the legacies my mother passed to me was the location of a place at the edge of the Universe that only we silvers can travel to. There are a series of waystations that contain the silver-plated scales of our predecessors, that we follow to the location.’ She turned back to the star chart. ‘Today, when I mentioned the Nameless in my office, the location where my mother took me appeared above my desk, and Marque went down under the flood of information. The first thing my mother did when she made me her heir was take me to the location of the Nameless without telling me that’s what it was.’
‘What does it look like?’ I asked. ‘Why is it imprisoned?’
‘There is a single large block of black ceramic there,’ she said. ‘It has no openings or features on it, and I don’t know what it is.’ She turned back to the star chart. ‘I could expand the Empire beyond the Seven Galaxies if I allowed more silver bodies to be inhabited by my children. My mother told me that must never happen, that we must stay within our local galactic district and our children must remain within coloured bodies to keep them close to home.’
The map zoomed in on the Empire, showing the six smaller galaxies orbiting our own. ‘We have existed for millions of years and we are still only in this small area.’
‘That’s an area hundreds of thousands of light years across, I wouldn’t call it small,’ Haruka said.
‘What about us goldenscales?’ Miyu asked. ‘Are we also imprisoned in bodies with limited travel capability?’
‘She didn’t know. I don’t know either. Perhaps the Nameless will have more information once it is released. We always thought gating was dangerous, when it was safe. Maybe the Nameless should never have been imprisoned, as well.’
‘It’s a sentient being?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ the Empress said. ‘Let’s go see. Bring rations – it will take us a couple of days to get there. Marque, clear my schedule.’
‘If it’ll take two days then we need to notify our families before we head out,’ I said.
‘Put everything together and meet me back here when you’re ready,’ she said.
It took us an hour to say our goodbyes and assure our families that we wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple of days. It then took an extra thirty minutes for Marque to fabricate space armour for my larger bodyweight while Haruka fidgeted but spared me any comments – just as well, given that he was severely underweight and his armour was obviously uncomfortably loose. We arrived back at the Empress’ office to find her and Miyu waiting for us.
The Empress handed us heavy black gloves. ‘Wear these over the armour, my scales will grow intensely hot during the process.’
‘You aren’t taking a ship?’ I asked.
‘It’s too much to carry. I’m concerned that carrying three of you that far will kill me. If it does, Miyu can gate you back.’
‘Can a goldenscales gate such a long distance, though?’ Haruka asked.
‘The length of the gate is immaterial,’ Miyu said. ‘Provided I have a destination that I have seen, I can bring you home.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ I said.
‘We’ll be fine,’ Marque said. ‘We all have entangled comms scales. Miyu can gate us back any time.’
‘That’s not what you say every time we reach the halfway point,’ the Empress said.
‘What do I say?’ Marque said. ‘I’ve been there before?’
‘You’ll see,’ the Empress said. ‘Do you have food and water? This will take a while.’
Haruka and I nodded.
‘All right. Miyu, please create a gate to the edge of the Empire.’
Miyu created the gate and we stepped through Marque’s energy barrier to the lower gravity of a lifeless, black planetoid with the horizon only a couple of kilometres away.
‘Don’t let go, I’m doing a series of long-distance folds,’ the Empress said. ‘This will be uncomfortable. Hands.’
We gathered around her and put her hands on her. Haruka and I shared a look – his four glowing eyes on his faceplate showed no emotion, but I could tell that he was as excited and hopeful as I was.
Space around us flashed and my stomach lurched. I was pulled in all directions at once, and brilliant stars strobed across my vision, moving so fast that they flickered. After twenty minutes I had to close my eyes, the flashing was giving me a headache. The Empress’ body beneath my hand grew warmer, and then uncomfortably hot. Even within the armour it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
This went on for so long that I ended up clutching the Empress and wishing I could hold Haruka’s hand. Nothing around me made sense and everything was nauseating movement. I lowered my head and breathed, aware that the Empress’ side was so hot that it was becoming painful. I opened my eyes to check the time stamp on my helmet and closed my eyes immediately, regretting looking at the outside. I wanted to ask Marque to blank out my helmet but I felt as though I would vomit if I opened my mouth. I closed my eyes, held the Empress and survived.
The folding stopped and I wrenched my hand from the burning, then fell to my knees and gasped.
‘Is there an atmosphere?’ Haruka asked. ‘I can’t see.’
‘You can take your helmet off,’ the Empress said.
I took my helmet off and peered around through the flashing afterimages. We were on a cold, oxygen-water planet with ice all around us and a crystalline blue sky without a single cloud. Haruka was down on all fours and panting with his helmet on the ground next to him, his hair out from its tie and falling in soaked strands. He made a loud sound of distress and took a huge swig of water from his suit then spat it out onto the ice.
The Empress was glowing white-hot and some of the silver had melted from her scales, running down her sides. She rolled on the ice, leaving droplets of silver behind, and a wall of steam rose around her.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked Haruka.
‘I threw up about halfway in,’ he said, full of distress. ‘The suit did its best to remove it but – ugh.’ He took some water from the suit and splashed his head and soaked hair.
‘I’m sorry, I should have given you more warning,’ the Empress said. ‘That’s the first time a non-dragon has made this trip and I wasn’t expecting your reaction to be that severe. I’ll take it more slowly.’
‘No!’ Haruka gasped. ‘Go fast. Find the Nameless!’
‘There’s no life on this planet, the ice is sterile,’ Marque said. ‘I can melt some for you to clean up.’
‘Please.’ Haruka stripped off his armour and the padded under-armour, leaving him naked and shivering. Marque melted a pool the size of a spa in the ice, then heated it so it steamed. Haruka stepped into the hot water, ducked his head under, and scrubbed it. He had a hollow, pale chest and his ribs were showing.
‘I’d give anything for some soap right now,’ he said. ‘Can you fabricate it?’
‘Sorry, no,’ Marque said. ‘My resources are limited this far from the rest of me.’
Haruka grabbed his helmet and pulled it towards the water.
‘Don’t,’ Marque said. ‘I’ll do my best to clean it but don’t put it in the water, you’ll short out the circuitry.’
‘Dammit,’ Haruka said under his breath. He leaned back in the water. ‘You can come in too if you need it.’
‘I’d rather just eat and drink and then move on,’ I said. ‘How far have we come? That felt like hours, I couldn’t see my time stamp.’
‘Four hours. We’re at the first waypoint. There are seven more,’ the Empress said.
I moaned with pain. Twenty-eight more hours of this?
‘Blank the interior of our helmets and fill us full of anti-nausea drugs,’ Haruka said.
‘Would you prefer I put some entertainment up on the inside of your faceplates to distract you?’ Marque asked.
‘No,’ Haruka and I said in unison.
‘I couldn’t concentrate on entertainment while I’m being dragged around like that, the changes in gravity are torture,’ I said.
‘Do you want to be sedated?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to be fully conscious when we get there.’
‘Me too.’ Haruka pulled himself out of the hot water. ‘Dry me off and let’s go.’
‘Are you sure you’re ready?’ the Empress asked.
‘Yes,’ Haruka and I said in unison.
Haruka pulled on the underwear, Marque fitted the suit to him, and Haruka grimaced as the faceplate went down. ‘It stinks in here.’
Each waypoint was a freezing, lifeless world with an oxygen atmosphere and water ice. Haruka and I had to take our helmets off to recover, and the Empress rolled in the ice to cool her scales.
We stopped on a world with a dark sky full of stars. The metal was wearing off the Empress’s scales, and the ones on her back had lost their silver and been reduced to grey crystal similar to the coloured’s scales.
‘We’re halfway,’ the Empress said. ‘I need to rest.’
‘I can’t contact the rest of me,’ Marque said. ‘This is disturbing. I have a powerful urge to race back to the Empire. Not being connected . . .’ Its voice filled with pain. ‘I feel like I’m dead! If this sphere is destroyed, my memories won’t be shared. This is awful – why did I agree to this?’
‘Welcome to being alive,’ I said. ‘This is what it feels like to be mortal.’
‘I hate it.’
‘You say this every single time we reach the halfway point,’ the Empress said. ‘You’re still connected by your comms scale . . .’
‘It’s not the same! I can’t fully synchronise; the transfer rate is too slow!’
‘Deal with it,’ she said. ‘Burn through the ice under the location of the waypoint scale; there’s a field kit under here somewhere.’
Marque made the low rumbling of a sonic probe. ‘Found it.’ It produced a laser beam and melted the ice, and we all moved away from the heat. Marque made a hole a metre across and burned down into the ice, then lifted a box out of the hole.
‘Move back,’ the Empress said, and we did. The box unfolded and became a cube big enough to house all four of us, with a door at the front.
‘It’s basic but we’ll only stay four or five hours,’ the Empress said. ‘I need to eat and nap. I’m sure you do as well. There’s no bathing facilities, but there are soft mats to sleep on.’
Haruka staggered to the cube. ‘Sounds good to me.’
I woke with Haruka wrapped around me and had a moment of disorientation, wondering where Miko was. The Empress’ silver claw tapped Haruka on the back. ‘We’re moving.’
‘I’m ready,’ he said, pulling himself up to sit. He wiped his face. ‘Are we bruised all over? It feels like it.’
‘There’s some basic rations and water here for you,’ Miyu said.
‘Thanks, Miyu,’ I said and turned to sit on the mat and try to force down some of the food. Haruka didn’t touch it.
‘What’s Haruka’s blood sugar level, Marque?’ I asked.
‘So low that he’s in danger of passing out,’ Marque said.
Haruka grimaced, picked up one of the bars and a cup of water, and joined me in eating.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I have fat reserves. I could probably live a couple of weeks without food. You . . . you have nothing.’
‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said. ‘If we do find Miko, she’ll kill both of us for letting ourselves go.’
‘I hope she has the chance,’ I said, and ate another bite.
When we were ready to continue, Marque folded up the hut and returned it to the ice, and we put the gloves on and touched the Empress.
‘All your lovely silver will be gone before we’re done,’ Miyu said wistfully.
‘We don’t want that,’ the Empress said. ‘The silver is what gives me the ability to do these long-distance folds.’
Haruka and I shared a look. All we needed was for her to run out of silver and leave us stranded without attuned soulstones in the middle of nowhere. Even though we’d put the stones back, they’d been out of our forehead for more than forty-eight hours, and it would take five years for them to reattune to the frequency of our souls.
We folded for another excruciating eternity, and both Haruka and I were physically and mentally battered when the Empress finally stopped. We floated in space, and I tried to take my helmet off but it wouldn’t go.
‘We’re in a vacuum, don’t remove your helmet,’ Marque said. ‘This is it.’
I tried to gather my thoughts, unblanked the helmet view, and gasped. A wall of black, shiny ceramic floated at arm’s length from us. The cube was as big as a small building and rotated gently in the starlight. We were a long distance from anything and all the stars were tiny points of light.
‘We can’t stay here for long,’ the Empress said. ‘Space-time here is damaged. You can’t see it, but time is slow in some areas, and fast in others. Dimensions are leaking into each other; some parts of space near here are two-dimensional, not four. The cube is the centre of the damage and it spreads for thousands of light years in all directions. It’s growing.’
‘Show me,’ Marque said, and touched her back.
‘I had to carefully avoid it for the final fold,’ the Empress said. ‘If we’d travelled through the damage, I don’t know what would have happened to us.’
‘Some parts of you would age faster than others, or be returned to infancy,’ Marque said. ‘If you went into the dimensional leakage you would be torn to bits or crushed flat. I don’t even want to experiment with this, it’s nasty.’
‘It doesn’t look different,’ Haruka said.
‘You can’t see it from the inside. Let me show you; put your hands on me,’ the Empress said, and when I touched her the view in my faceplate changed. The stars blinked in and out around me, and a star nearby exploded backwards, then forwards again. It reached full nova then blinked out, reappearing as a normal red dwarf a few moments later, rotating – obviously now two-dimensional – until it was side-on to us and disappeared.
‘And we can’t see it without the Empress’ help?’ I asked.
‘You need a higher dimensional vision to see it,’ Marque said. ‘She’s sharing it with us.’
‘How long before it reaches the Empire?’ Haruka asked.
‘It will never reach the Empire,’ Marque said. ‘The Universe will end before that happens.’
‘That’s probably why the Nameless is on the other side of the Universe from the Empire,’ the Empress said. ‘Let’s do this quickly and get out of here.’
Haruka put his hand on the cube’s surface. ‘How do we open it?’
‘I’ve never tried,’ the Empress said. ‘My mother brought me here, showed it to me, and then Kana returned us home.’
‘Dead Kana?’ I asked. ‘Kana who was executed for gating?’
‘She would be my first choice for returning here,’ the Empress said. ‘She could bring us to the edge of the space-time damage, and there’s a silver scale inside the cube that we silvers can feel if we’re close enough.’
‘What other secrets do you keep?’ Haruka asked.
‘Tell me the full extent of your knowledge of us and I can fill in the gaps,’ the Empress said. ‘Or, we can try to open this thing, free the Nameless, and find your dragonspouse.’
At her mention of the Nameless, square blocks each ten centimetres across shot out from the cube’s surface, then returned to make its sides featureless again.
‘That worked,’ Marque said.
‘Release the Nameless,’ the Empress said.
A larger block emerged from the centre of the cube, and its sides went transparent.
‘That’s an energy barrier that you should be able to go through,’ Marque said. ‘Let me see.’ Its sphere floated to the block and entered. ‘Come on in. Wow! I love this. Did I make this? Oh. Hello.’
The Empress followed it. ‘Here we are. This is it. Come in.’
Haruka and I followed, with Miyu behind us.