That name rang a bell.

  He’d definitely heard it before, but he wasn’t quite sure where…

  Eh. He figured it’d come to him.

  In the meantime—“I’m Zane.”

  “Well, Zane, let me welcome you to my home for the foreseeable future.”

  It was a well-made place. All the shelves and workbenches looked hand-carved, thoughtfully arranged. There wasn’t anything that might suggest it was a home—no rugs, no leathers, no lamps or paintings—really it was just stone, do-it-yourself stuff. But somehow Aiw? had managed to carve a cozy feeling into the harsh cave.

  Lining a wall were a set of rail tracks running into the gloom.On it lay a minecart with a little chest laden with silver and a strange light-blue metal.

  The hearth gave most of the light, casting the whole place in warmth, crackling gently.

  “It might not look like much, but you should’ve seen how it was when I got here,” said Aiw?, taking in the place fondly. “It’s come a long way. I’ve got high hopes.”

  It all looked pretty simple at a glance—but the closer Zane looked, the more he found.

  Nearly all of Aiw?’s stuff showed up Heaven-grade on inspection. His tools were no more complex than chisel and hammer—but the material would’ve put the master smiths of Steelheart to shame. The forge could’ve been taken out of a medieval castle. The hammer didn’t even have that sigil on the end all those Steelheart hammers had—the ones that focused the heat.

  …Come to think of it, none of this fellow’s stuff had any runes at all.

  He took a closer look at the minecart.

  …Some of that quarried steel flared so bright it had to be Primordial-grade. And that light-blue stuff seemed half-air, half-steel—in the Astral Plane it gave no shine at all.

  But he was pretty sure it wasn’t because it had no essence. Instead, he couldn’t see it at Ascendant, the way human eyes couldn’t see light that passed out of the color spectrum.

  While Zane was busy being weirded out by all of Aiw?’s stuff, Aiw? seemed pretty fascinated by his new guest too—really by Zane’s hands.

  Zane blinked, suddenly struck. “I can’t hear the waterfalls anymore.”

  “I’m afraid that’s just how it is here,” said Aiw?, distracted. “It’s not really here nor there, you see. Say—that ring there, on your left hand…”

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve never seen a signature quite like it.”

  Aiw? looked at the Interspatial Ring the way Evan might look at a very fluffy dog. “Would you let me take a closer look?”

  “Sure thing.”

  He handed it to the fellow, who held it up to the light, marveling at it from every which angle.

  “Remarkable…” Aiw? said. He laughed in delight. “It holds more space than it takes up!”

  Zane blinked. “You’ve never seen an Interspatial Ring?”

  “A what?”

  He tapped the ring and pulled out the nearest item—a steamed bun.

  Aiw? nearly fell out of his wheelchair.

  Now, Zane was quite a fan of Old Weng’s buns. But it was safe to say they weren’t that astounding.

  He wasn’t sure how this fellow made it to True God without seeing an Interspatial Ring. Although none of the other stuff here seemed much more advanced than stuff you’d find on pre-Integration Earth, come to think of it. This fellow’s clothes were simple linens with a rope belt.

  …He had a vague hunch.

  “This ring,” said Aiw?. “Were those buns compressed into the space of the steel and decompressed when you removed them?”

  Aiw? gasped. “Or is there some hidden dimension to it? It is ring-shaped… a portal, perhaps? A tiny portal!”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Zane blinked. “I’m not sure.”

  This fellow would get along with Reina, he thought.

  A pause. “I can put a hand in there and rummage around in it, if that helps,” Zane offered.

  Aiw? almost fell off his chair again. “Show me?”

  He had Zane rummage a bunch.

  “So it is a hidden dimension…” Aiw? tried rummaging too and looked faint.

  He started asking about the physics of the space inside the ring. How much stuff it could store. Could food stay fresh in there? This ring business went on for about ten more minutes, to Zane’s surprise.

  This Aiw? fellow was turning out to be the oddest thing about the place.

  “Zane,” Aiw? said at last, a tad hesitant. “You’re… not from here, are you?”

  Zane shook his head.

  “Are you lost, friend?”

  He considered this, then Aiw?.

  The more he saw, the more he felt there was something here. He wasn’t quite sure what. But…“I think I’m right where I’m meant to be,” he said slowly.

  Aiw? considered this thoughtfully.

  “If I may—how did you come upon this place?”

  Zane told him about the call and the pinging sound.

  “Ah!” Aiw? lit up. “I know just what that was! Here, this way.”

  He guided Zane over to the anvil. And there, flat against the steel, was a sheet of that translucent blue steel, so thin there was nearly no edge to it, still hot from the forge.

  It felt quite familiar. So familiar, Zane did a double-take.

  “It’s my latest tinker. Once I’m done with it, it’ll be able to send and deliver messages en masse, at near-zero essence cost,” said Aiw?. He seemed very proud of it. “I plan on calling it the ‘Announcement Delivery Missive.’”

  “Well—” Aiw? saw the look on Zane’s face and smiled weakly. “The name’s open to revision.”

  “Try notification box.”

  “Notification box…” Aiw? nodded slowly. “I like it.”

  …Just what was going on here?

  “It’s meant to link up there.”

  Aiw? gestured to a few more chunks of light-blue steel—pipes and tubes. A hulking blue box, almost like a control panel, filled with lights and switches like an old-timey computer, sitting dormant.

  “I see this world, sometimes, when I’m just about to fall asleep—when I’m on the verge of a dream,” said Aiw? absently, tracing the dials. “This world where mankind no longer has to live behind spiked walls. Where the seas and the skies mean freedom, not fear, and children never need to see their parents dragged away by the Hungry Dark…”

  Things were all starting to add up. Only they seemed to add up to a figure that didn’t quite make sense to Zane.

  This couldn’t be the guy.

  …Right?

  He shot Aiw? another side-eye, but the guy didn’t notice. His eyes were very bright, somewhere else.

  “I know it’s not much now,” said Aiw?. “I’m still working on the prototype. But if I just keep working… one day, it’ll change the world.”

  It was almost as much a prophecy as it was a belief—that was the strength of Aiw?’s vision.

  Zane supposed it could be he only thought that because he knew what was coming, but he was pretty sure it was the vision thing.

  It faded as quick as it’d come. There was the wan smile again. “You can say it,” said Aiw?. “It sounds outlandish.”

  “No,” said Zane. “You’ve got something here.”

  “You know,” said Aiw? slowly. “You’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s said that.”

  “This could definitely work,” Zane informed him. “You’re onto something for sure.”

  “Oh!” Aiw? didn’t seem to know what to say. “Usually folks think I’m a few wheels short of a cart. Why—thank you!”

  Aiw? took a deep breath and grinned. “I think I’ll call it the ‘Mechanized Protector of the Interests of Man and Animal.’”

  He blinked at Zane’s expression.

  “…No?”

  “You’ve really got to work on your names.”

  ***

  Zane left Astra with Noughtfire’s key and was back at the World Tree, talking the whole thing over with Reina a few hours later at dinner, at a beachside fish place. He thought she looked lovely in a silk tube-top dress.

  She’d gotten a former Michelin chef, who’d since gone off to a niche faction called the Killian Institute, famed for training galaxy-class cooks. That night, the fellow served salmon that melted so fast in his mouth it was like savory air.

  Reina pursed her lips. “He said his name was Aiw??”

  Zane nodded, still chewing.

  She mulled it over; her features scrunched a little in concentration. She was on the case.

  “I think there’s three main possibilities,” she said after a few seconds. She put up a finger. “Maybe it’s just a vision. Astra’s a dream world, isn’t it? Maybe you’re in an echo of the past.”

  She put up another finger. “Or it could all be a coincidence.”

  She put up a third finger—he could tell she liked the idea of this one most. She had that look in her eyes. “Or maybe… You said you couldn’t hear the waterfalls, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could you feel the outside world in the Astral Plane at all?”

  He thought about it. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “I was mostly paying attention to his stuff. I can check again next time.”

  She nodded, as though she’d expected it. “Aiw? said ‘it is neither here nor there’ in response to your not hearing the waterfalls. Now, that could be just an expression. But maybe in the context of the conversation, ‘it’ doesn’t refer to your not being able to hear the waterfalls. Maybe ‘it’ refers to the cavern itself, and he said that as an explanation.”

  She paused and saw the look on his face. “Are you making fun of me, Zane Walker?”

  He froze.

  He had been thinking that she was such a nerd. He weighed his odds of explaining he was thinking it in a good way, considered the risk-to-reward ratio, and settled on, “…No.”

  She studied him for a moment longer.

  “Good,” she said primly. She was so into her case she just plowed right on, to his relief. “If it’s neither ‘here’ nor ‘there,’ then where is it?”

  She had this playful grin. “Maybe it means his cavern’s in-between. It’s nowhere. It’s a place out of space. If it’s a place out of space, it’s a space out of time. And that’s how the past and present can meet.”

  “…So that was the real guy?” he said.

  “Well,” she said, hesitating. “It’s only a possibility. Although… that’d mean all kinds of time paradoxes. I’m not even sure a place like that can even exist.”

  She just liked the thought of it.

  In the end, they decided it was likely the echo thing.

  Still—that was an echo of the creator of the System. Reina felt it was invaluable.

  She was sure Zane found it for a reason.