14-39. The Very Definition of Awe

It was a city of spires.

Elijah stood at the edge of a massive bridge of lace-carved stone, incapable of tearing his eyes from the sight.

Tall, thin towers jutted through the impenetrable clouds below, connected by thick, sturdy spans of densely ornamental masonry. Silvery waterfalls spilled from the bridges – not as runoff, but as deliberate ornamentation.

It was like nothing Elijah had ever seen before.

The city was part gothic, with slender, sharply tapered towers, impossibly detailed ornamentation, and a plethora of flying buttresses. Part art deco, with regal symmetry and imperial monumentality. And part something older and warmer – arches that rose in elegant double-curves, and honeycomb screens that turned stone into lace.

But more than anything, it just looked magical.

“Impressive, is it not?” asked Tura. “The jewel of Esik.”

Elijah could only nod. The name fit perfectly.

Thick curtains of ivy traced their way down the towers, disappearing into the clouds, while majestic trees dotted every bridge. Most of the buildings carried the green of oxidized bronze, darkened with age, while gold trim caught the light in sharp, imperial lines.

Even more impressive than the architecture or the obviously magical nature of the city was the presence of so many dragons. Most kept to the wide bridges, but plenty had taken to the sky. They skimmed across the surface of the clouds, wove between, over, and under the bridges and towers.

Elijah had seen dragons before, both in his core visions and in the Broken Crown. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw in Ashakar. So many colors. So much variation in size and shape. Many appeared much like Elijah’s dragon form – meaning, four legs, wings, and a long, comparatively thin neck. But there were plenty of others who took on the forms of wyverns or flying serpents. Still others flew around in the shapes of winged humanoids.

The variety was astounding.

Finally, the air was so dense with ethera that it almost became suffocating. It twisted through him, inducing a feeling not unlike nausea. But with a magical component that hit him right in the core.

For the first time ever, Elijah knew what it was like to feel ethera sickness. It wasn’t debilitating, but if he’d come to the Empire of Scale before reaching demi-god status, he would have been incapacitated.

Which begged the question of why Kirlissa had invited him so long ago. That led to other questions, like whether or not it was safe for still-mortal children.

Elijah didn’t have any answers.

But Tura probably did.

So, when Elijah’s shock finally faded – somewhat – and they moved on, he asked his questions. The first answer should have been predictable.

“Children hatched in ethera-dense environments will have already acclimated to it,” she said. “That is one of the reasons most of our hatcheries are located on the surface. The benefits to the hatchlings far outweigh the cost of keeping them safe.”

“It’s denser down there?” Elijah asked.

“Of course,” she answered.

“Why did…uh…why was I invited here as an ascendent? This environment would have killed me then.”

“We have integration protocols meant to help visitors acclimate,” she answered. “Think of it like quarantine. You would have been perfectly capable of enduring the atmosphere after a month or two. Perhaps sooner, given your cultivation.”

“I see.”

As they continued to walk down the bridge, he had another question. “I don’t see any transportation,” he remarked. “Do dragons prefer to walk?”

“I cannot speak to what dragons prefer,” she answered. Behind them, Birk grunted. “But there are transportation options below the clouds.”

Then, she went on to describe the layout of Ashakar. Their current location was known as The Crown, and was comparatively less expansive. But it was also home to the city’s elites. In addition, it played host to all the support personnel that came with that distinction. By contrast, The Reach was where the bulk of the city’s population lived, and it was located below the clouds.

The two were connected by a series of lifts.

Along the way, Tura also reiterated the various castes within draconic society.

“Most people within the Empire of Scale are serpentors,” she explained. “Think of them as naturalized citizens. They are not dragons. They have no draconic heritage. But they are still part of the imperial structure, with all the rights that implies.

“I am a drake,” she went on. “Half-dragon. I lack the core, but I have the heritage.”

Birk grunted again.

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“The same is true of my bodyguard.”

“How does that work?” Elijah asked, still enjoying the view of the city.

“Dragons have many children,” Tura answered. “Most do not survive the Culling. Of those, very few earn a natural dragon core. And even fewer still are granted one, as you were.”

“I don’t think I fully understand,” Elijah admitted. Despite having an elder core himself, he didn’t have the benefit of a lifetime of living with draconic culture. As such, while he could easily follow everything Tura had described, he lacked context to give it meaning.

“You will,” she said.

Everyone went silent for the next few minutes, giving Elijah plenty of opportunity to enjoy the setting. And the first thing he realized was that Ashakar was much, much larger than he’d previously anticipated. For example, the bridge upon which they currently traveled stretched on for more than a dozen miles. The only reason it had initially seemed shorter was because of the scale of the city.

That prompted another question. “How many people live here?”

“In the Crown?” Tura asked. “Perhaps a million or so. The Reach is much more populated. You will see.”

Elijah nodded, though he was a little frustrated by Tura’s vague answer. He distracted himself by people-watching.

However, soon enough, Tura had led him to a curious-looking structure. Like everything else, the stonework was highly detailed and trimmed in gold. Though instead of a solid tower, it was built more like a gazebo with a domed roof.

“Come along,” she prompted, stepping into the building. Elijah followed, joining Tura and dozens of others as they crowded inside.

Elijah didn’t like being so close to so many people. It felt suffocating, especially considering that so many of those people exceeded his power level. Many were only ascendents, but there were quite a few demi-gods there as well. And there were a few deities like Tura and Birk.

Idly, Elijah wondered how many of them he could beat in a fight. His competitive side wanted to say that he would somehow come out on top, regardless of the enemy. But his rational side told him that that was ridiculous.

Suddenly, the bottom fell out from under him, and Elijah was falling.

He almost shifted into the Shape of the World Serpent, but stopped himself when he realized that no one seemed panicked by the sudden freefall. And Tura was chuckling to herself.

Elijah ground his teeth.

“Control your anger, child,” she admonished over the sound of rushing wind. “It was a harmless joke.”

“It’s like that, huh?” he asked.

She just grinned as only an amused old woman could – if said old woman was covered in scales, with a slightly reptilian cast to her face. Before Elijah could say anything else, they fell into the clouds.

He’d flown through plenty of clouds in his life, and he’d always disliked the moisture and lack of visibility. However, in this case, the atmosphere was refreshing in a way he couldn’t really describe. It didn’t take him long to zero in on an undercurrent of dense vitality as the cause.

The cloud cover was also a lot thicker than he had imagined, and it was an entire thirty seconds before they burst through the bottom layer.

An expansive city of lights spread out below him.

The clouds blocked the sun, so the city was mired in shadow. Even so, Elijah could see everything very clearly.

When Tura had told him that the Reach was home to the lower class, he’d expected slums. The reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. Certainly, there was less gold in the trim, but the lower-class portion of Ashakar would put even the most luxurious Earth cities to shame.

It was like comparing mud huts to the Taj Mahal.

Nearby, water cascaded through the clouds, falling a dozen miles to the city below. There, it collected into lake-like basins, around which forests grew. The city had been built around those lakes, with towers descending well below the city proper.

However, while the Crown sprawled, with lots of negative space, the Reach was much more densely packed, with buildings and a lattice of cross-bridges suspended between the towers.

“Um…should I…”

Elijah didn’t get the chance to finish his question before they decelerated. A few moments later, they touched down on a nonagonal platform. The crowd treated it like an everyday occurrence, stepping onto a connecting bridge and joining the flow of traffic.

Tura tugged him along.

“Where are we going?” he asked at last. “To see Kirlissa?”

A sharp crack on the back of his head reminded him that Birk considered using that name to be rude.

“Ow.”

“Remember your place,” the draconic man growled.

“Leave him be, Birk,” Tura commanded. He grunted again, which seemed to be his favorite form of communication. Then, to Elijah, the old, draconic woman said, “We are going to my garden. Tomorrow, you will be presented to Prosperity.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“There is a banquet meant to celebrate your arrival.”

“Really? How did you know when I would arrive?” Elijah asked.

“She asked the Envoy.”

“She talked to that nice lady by the Branch?”

“No. The Envoy. Not an Envoy,” Tura explained as they walked. “Siko is the Envoy for the entire planet.”

“Oh. I guess that’s a big deal.”

“He is a peak deity.”

“But not a transcendent?”

Tura stopped so suddenly that Elijah took two steps before he realized he was leaving her behind. When he turned, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side.

“What?”

“How common do you believe transcendents are?” she asked.

Elijah shrugged. “No idea, really. I’m relatively new to all of this. But it’s just levels, right?”

“Just levels,” she muttered to herself. “Boy, there are incredible requirements to progress to each stage. Getting a few levels is not difficult. Time-consuming at times. Tedious, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly. But there are many who are more than qualified to kill monsters in droves.

“Legacy is the true barrier. Perhaps one-in-twenty-five have the Legacy required to progress from ascendent to demi-god. One-in-ten-thousand make it from demi-god to deity. One-in-trillions will have sufficient Legacy to go from a deity to transcendent,” she explained. “Most worlds will never see a transcendent.”

“Oh,” Elijah acknowledged. “So? How many transcendents are in the Empire of Scale?”

“Less than a thousand,” she answered.

Elijah frowned. On paper, that sounded like a lot, but he knew that impression was slightly misleading. After all, the Empire of Scale spanned multiple universes. Its total population was uncountable. Quintillions, at the very least. And that was just the living population. With transcendent lives being as long as they were, thousands of generations lived and died during their life span, which made it exponentially rarer.

The realization struck him like a physical blow, though he kept his reaction hidden behind a casual demeanor.

“So, pretty uncommon, then,” he acknowledged. In truth, it wasn’t really that unexpected. Or it shouldn’t have been, at least. Even on Earth, there were a lot of people languishing at level two-fifty, completely incapable of advancing to demi-god because they lacked the Legacy.

That had never been a problem for Elijah, though. And given his personality, he didn’t think it ever would be an issue.

“Pretty uncommon, he says,” Tura remarked, rolling her eyes. “Come on. I’m tired of the city.”

Then, without further ado, she leaped over the edge of the bridge. Without hesitation, Birk followed. For a second, Elijah just stood there, frowning at the insanity of it all. Then, at last, he decided to just trust her.

So, he leaped over the edge as well, casting Shape of the World Serpent as he fell.