But below their feet, between the world and the sun and the stars far beyond, was a series of linked structures floating in concentric circles in the ocean of space.
“Are those…giant stars?” Derrick muttered. “They look like Christmas ornament stars with too many points, but they’re the size of cities! The spiky tops of the city-sections look like they’re a thousand stories tall, but each point is the same size.”
“What’s Christmas?”
“A holiday dedicated to the worship of a dead god named Thirnas. Prevalent on a few hundred layers of the multiverse,” a heavy voice said at their back.
Arridon and Derrick spun to face the previously unseen speaker.
“Welcome to Eo, travelers,” a short man with vaguely pink skin said in a booming, tall voice. He smiled at them, and adjusted goggles that wrapped around his head and stuck out with six inches of lenses. He had sparse brown hair, littered with gray, and wore a leather duster that was dotted with brass and gold fixtures. Each was adorned with knobs, dials, buttons, or electric, illuminated readouts and screens. He looked like an anachronistic traveler, stuck between the styles and technologies of three, or maybe four Earth centuries.
“Thanks,” Arridon said, puffing up to appear less lost and confused. “I’m Arridon, of House Frost, and this is Derrick, of…the moon.”
“There are many moons, but only one House Frost. I have heard of your crest, though your people have been absent from Eo, of late. It is my pleasure to introduce myself as Lord High Spatial Adjudicator Timtar Wrothson.” He smiled, revealing two tiny fangs, and bowed graciously.
“That sounds important,” Derrick observed.
“The position is considered vital to our ongoing survival, but it’s a lonely job.”
“Lord High Spatial Adjudicator Timtar Wrothson, could we bother you for some…advice?” Arridon asked.
“Just call me Tim,” he said as he lifted his goggles. They unseated from his face with a click, and after raising them to his forehead, the boys saw that one eye was mechanical, and the other eye a bright ruby-red. “I’d be delighted to lend some assistance.” He came a few steps closer and clasped his hands together at his waist.
“Where are we?” Arridon asked.
“Eo, the City with No Foundation.”
“The gods’ last bastion of safety from the Bleed, right?” Derrick asked.
“Gods? Oh dear. You’re from a bit of a backwater, aren’t you?” Tim said, almost consoling them. “You call the…beings from here gods?”
“Where I’m from, the gods ruled for a long time, then disappeared to battle the Bleed. My mother is a god, my father is a human,” Arridon explained. He stole a glance at the astounding view outside the glass walls of the room.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me. As far as I know, both my mom and dad are human, but I helped operate the clockwork room to get here, which I’m led to believe makes me half-god as well.”
“That’s right, Derrick. Then your non-god half is human?”
“What else would my other half be?”
Tim laughed. “As you might’ve been able to discern, due to my lack of hair, pointy teeth, and red-hued skin, I’m half demon.”
The boys jumped back.
“No, no, no, not a dangerous sort of demon. Not like the Bleed entities you sound like you’re familiar with,” Tim said, adding another smile that somehow managed to disarm the tension of the moment, despite the fangs.
“There are other kinds of demons?” Arridon asked.
“As many flavors of demons as there are flavors of ice cream,” he chuckled.
“I’d kill for some ice cream right now,” Derrick said.
“We’ll get you some,” Tim assured him. “Now, what can I help you with? I must be moving along somewhat soon, but I can point you in the right direction as I depart. Might I ask what brought you to the home of our shared ancestry?”
Derrick drew a deep breath. “We’re from different levels of the multiverse, got shoved together on a planet called Earth—that’s the planet whose moon I came from, only in the past of my own dimension, and we’re both dealing with our worlds being destroyed by the Bleed. Oh, and both of us have been separated from our sisters.”
“And you came here for help on which part of that?”
“Both?” Arridon said. “Why do we have to pick?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Tim said. “And if you want to find your sisters, there isn’t much time to spare. You’ll probably want to contact a retention officer. Someone of Commodore level or above. Make your case to have your sisters located in the multiverse.”
“Who’s in the what now?” Derrick said.
“Retention officers lead teams of highly skilled observers and travelers. They can use the highest levels of our magic and science to search for, then potentially retrieve, your lost sisters. Of course, that’s if they are willing to be retrieved. And within reason,” Tim said. “Some don’t want to be found, and some can’t be retrieved.”
“Give me a scenario where that happens,” Derrick asked.
Tim shrugged. “If, for example, they are trying to stay away from you. Or if the Bleed is present in that level of the multiverse. Once a level is contaminated by that pestilence, it’s written off. Quarantined forevermore.”
“Can you bring us to this, these, retrieval people? Do they have an office?” Derrick asked.
“Of course. We’re currently in a middle-tier arrival center, and the retention officers are based out of that tiny little node right there,” Tim said, pointing out the massive glass windows to a many-pointed star in the outer ring of linked structures that all looked like pointy stars. They glimmered with a million pips of light through microscopic-looking windows. The scale of this placed called “Eo” defied logic.
“How do we get there?” Arridon asked. “That seems awful far away to walk.”
“Well first let’s get an ice cream. The transit hub isn’t far from a place that serves grass-fed Apollonian cow’s milk ice cream, fresh daily. Thrice blessed by a choir of child-priests of Morgor and
