The Arrival
As I sat on my front deck, I remembered my great grandfather was told by his great grandfather of a time when the Cities weren’t carried on the backs of the Great Rocs on winds. Cities had been beneath the clouds on some other world. The cities had stayed in one place and people actually moved from one city to another.
I don’t really believe it. Too much solar power is needed to keep us going. The Great Rocs never stop flying on the Great Winds. The Guardian Towers at the edges of the wings of the Great Roc Aethon are always moving, never sleeping. The Cities move between one another as the Great Rocs fly around and between one another. It is beautiful to watch nightfall as another of the Great Roc’s shadow covers our City of Aethon.
“The night is never truly dark here, is it?” a man said casually. The voice jolted me out of my chair.
“Who in the Belly of Aethon are you?” I growled at the stranger. Aethon was 10 km from wingtip to wingtip and 5 km at its widest. Everyone knew everyone knew everyone. While we may not have deep love for each other, there were no strangers.
“How many are there?” he asked. This voice was coming from a blonde stranger standing in my lawn staring at the sky toward the belly of the Great City Shatah flying above us.
“What? How many what?” I asked crudely. “Mister, I don’t know who — ” he cut me off.
“Great Rocs,” he continued patiently, “How many Great Rocs are there?” He looked at me with curiosity shaded intensity.
“Seven. There are seven Cities of the Great Rocs. Now, Stranger,” I mustered what height and strength I could to make myself larger, “you need to tell me who you are,” I growled.
“That’s not actually too important,” he evaded smoothly as he lifted up. “Did you know Aethon is the youngest of the seven? That’s why he flies at the bottom as they chase the sun.” He started walking around my yard but eventually sat in the shade of a nut tree. “Come sit with me,” he said calmly and patted the ground.
This man answered no questions at all! I lived high enough in the City to have grass and trees, and he was just leaning back on his hands like he owned the place. He even started pulling up the grass! That was it.
“No!” I touched the embedded call button on the back of my hand and raised it to my mouth. “Security to 48.21 Alkana — ” I began fiercely.
“That call won’t work. None of your communication devices have worked lately have they?” He looked at me like he knew why.
No digital device had worked since the Quiver two weeks ago, when the Great Roc suddenly shivered for the first time in recorded memory. Every building shook and power across the City fell dark. No one could use any quantum electronic device or digital technology; we could only use analog communication and electricity. It restricted many services across the City and between Cities on the other Great Rocs.
“What do you know about the Quiver or the Great Rocs?” I asked, “I have never seen you here before and no one can travel between the Cities.” I needed answers.
“The Agreement is over. Your people will arrive to their True Home now,” he stated matter of factly, as if stating the time or the temperature. After all, why would he suddenly start making any sense?
“The Agreement is a religious story to guide people to take care of our resources. People have no real faith in it,” I said with frustration. I explained it like I would to stubborn child. According to the scriptures, the Great Rocs carry humanity until the True Home is ready for us. We live on them, farm on them, and our solar and quantum power is grounded into them in exchange.
“Faith is a seed. You may not have nurtured it, but someone has,” he spoke with that patient and infuriating condescending tone of the elderly. “Aethon will pass below the clouds soon and you will see the lands and waters of the Earth for the first time in seven generations. It’s fairly exciting really.”
“Why are you telling me this? I’m not the Consul or even on the City council,” I asked.
“You are the seventh son in a line of seventh sons in the City on the seventh son of the Lord of the Eternal Sky,” he said expansively as he looked at me and opened his arms wide.
“Are you saying I am in some sort of mystical bloodline?” I was smirking at the thought. This man was getting stranger all the time.
“No,” he stated flatly. He did not look amused. “It will just give you some sort of seemingly mystical credibility when your people must leave Aethon.” Then he looked toward the sky again.
People didn’t leave the City. We didn’t have the ability to fly and we hadn’t been able to develop the technology of flight. Despite dwelling on a flying organism and seeing birds, every attempt to build an aerial device failed. Our connection to other Cities was through radio communication and eventually more efficient and effective boson-paired signaling. But since the Quiver, those were lost to us.
“No one will listen to me, I have nothing to say. I…don’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know what to do,” I stammered out. I couldn’t help myself now, I was being sucked into what this strange man was saying.
“They never do,” he snorted, “That’s where my kind come in. You should try telling energy waves and bosons they have to grow up. My oldest brother hated it,” he chuckled. “But, I will show you why you need to say anything at all.”
He touched two fingers to my forehead and my mind exploded. I saw land and waters as they were meant to be: green fields of food, stoic guardian mountains, rich and protective forests, vast and sparkling oceans. But mankind had grown to such numbers that they had drained and destroyed everything that the land and waters were. Those spirits that imbued the earth begged and pleaded with the Ancient Ones to take humanity. Thus, the Sky, Earth, Water, Fire, and Spirit made an agreement with the Ancient Ones to separate humanity from the earth. The Great Rocs came and took less than 200,000 men, women, and children for the seven Cities. What remained was…removed, repaired, and reborn. When the world was ready, an Ancient One would return so that mankind could arrive.
“See? It’s not so bad,” the blonde man said when he removed his fingers. “I would probably make it sound more theatrical. People like that when new things happen.”
“But when will this all star–” I was cut off by a huge shake that brought me to the ground. But the stranger was checking his nails as if nothing was happening.
“I asked Aethon to start about two weeks ago. He should touch down soon,” he said with a surprisingly happy smile. All he said to me after that was “Best of luck!” as he cantered down the street despite my calls.
People scrambled and screamed as building and trees shook. As the Great Roc passed into the clouds, terror washed through the City like rumors of plague and murder. I ran from shelter to shelter trying to help as many as possible. While my three oldest brothers were on the Council, people from all over the City kept coming to me.
“Are you the Seventh Son?”, “You’re the One that Knows!”, “You are Sept, the Seventh upon the Seventh!”, “Save us!”, “Plead with Aethon”, “You know how we will be saved!”
Apparently, there were whispers across the City, but no one knew exactly who they heard them from. I didn’t know what else to do, so I told them what I knew, what he had shown me.
We have lived on immobile ground and in the same place, which we call Manz’l, for two years. Aethon stayed with us for six months as we transitioned our population and city with us, and then lifted into the sky as though it were a feather. Of course, people wanted change. New farming methods or new energy methods or new governments, but we found within a short time that what we had in Aethon worked perfectly in Manz’l. We even established contact with the other cities, though they were not within sight. All the Great Rocs had landed and sown the seeds of humanity.
I was terrified the first time night fell and the sky became truly black. But the stars shone brightly and it was good. Eventually, all my people settled into Manz’l.
Then the blonde man showed up in my new lawn, sitting under the tree we had found out was called ‘oak’.
“It does get dark here, doesn’t it?” he said looking at the stars. It’s like he didn’t even notice the burden he is to other people.
“Why are you here?” I said exasperated.
“Oh,” he said cheerily, “I was just checking in with you. We don’t like to intervene with a world unless it is causing problems or someone is not doing their job. But this was kind of a pet project for me and I wanted to see it through.” He patted the grass beside him, “come on and sit down.”
“I might as well,” I said defeated, “you won’t leave me alone until I do.”
He smiled and wiggled his fingers at me as if doing magic. “That’s the wisdom of the Seventh Son of line of Seventh Sons on the City on the Seventh Son of the Lord of the Eternal Sky talking. Or whatever,” he chuckled.
