The impishness on her face was wiped away at once. The man was taken aback at the speed at which she changed. Something in the information had upset her. Something she didn't like at all.
“Wings? Are you sure?”
No answer this time. Of course he was sure. He'd made it a mission of his life to speak to the voices better than any other out of remorse for their plight, which he blamed on himself.
“There is one more thing they said…”
Her red eyes, now serious and terrifying, took the tall man in. He knew that this would be information she didn’t want to hear.
“The voices feel the Power. They know one kind from another. They know better than any alive ever could. They feel it, and they are afraid.”
He looked at her, and then to the distance, scared for the vision he would see if he held her gaze. Her anger could be great, and her fear was breathtaking in its ferocity.
“The boy carries the Shi Kaze, and Nixon is bringing him here.”
“Ridiculous!” she shouted at once, unable to contain her emotions. “Nixon of the Great Fire and Ash is sworn by an oath to God to destroy any sword-bearer he catches. He certainly does not prance around our countryside with them. If he sees them, he kills them! It was the God’s will.”
Any time she lost control of her emotions was a time to be afraid. Power such as hers was not easily contained, and to be so close to it in such unpredictable moments prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.
“I know what his purpose is, traditionally, anyway. I know it sounds impossible, but I swear it's the truth. The phoenix travels with a winged boy who carries the sword. I doubt I could come up with more ridiculous statement. I'm not that imaginative.”
“Are we certain they are coming here?”
The man shook his head. “I can't say for sure, but it'd seem that we're the most likely target.”
“You mean me. Nixon doesn't even know you're alive.” That was true. A fact he had forgotten. “Still, I don't see how I could help him, or them, as the case seems to be.”
Her first reaction bothered him. “Is there something wrong with this whole thing?” She didn't catch his meaning. “Before, when I told you he had wings, you seemed disturbed. We’ve encountered the winged people before, though never outside their home.”
She nodded in recognition. “Yes. The Omnis has told me of a huge army of ancient creation that has risen and is terrorizing lands south of here, where the people are primitive and can't stand against them. It is said that the one who controls them is a man with wings. I'm curious if this boy is somehow connected to him, or others of his kind.”
The man stood, looking at her once more in confusion. “The Echoes told you this? I haven't heard anything like it.”
“We all have our secrets. You have those voices, I have the Echoes.”
Echoes, as the man understood them, were the background noise someone with her powers could hear when she stepped from the Haven into standard reality; a journey she rarely made at all these days. They were idle chatter that rode on the back of a collective consciousness known as the Omnis: an accumulation of shared existence that everything emitted. Even thoughts people didn't know existed, like that of animals and plants. A massive, universal intelligence without body or form. Something more than life itself. An amalgamation of anything and everything.
The concept was staggering in its immenseness. The man didn't have the power to hear such things. Frankly, it seemed a waste to even try. If she, in all her power, couldn't do any more than faintly touch the edges of the things that went on within it, he would have no chance at all. He had great power, but nothing like her.
Also, there was a downside to the Echoes and the things it said. If you can hear the Echoes, you must also touch the Est Vacuus: the antithesis and anathema to life. Not evil. Not negative. Just utter and complete void. An absolute state of barren space beyond the beyond. You could not have one without the other. It was the truth of balance. Good or evil had a million shades of grey. This was something more than both combined. Something more than death, as even death originated from life, lest it wouldn't exist.
She once attempted to describe the all-encompassing nothingness that was the Est Vacuus. “Imagine water,” she had told him. “Imagine it in a clear cup. No background, no color. No light, no dark.” He did as she asked.
“Now, imagine if it filled the infinite universe.”
He admitted at once he didn't understand. “It would be as space is, dark and empty, no up or down.”
She shook her head right away. “No, even beyond that. Space still has a background, a background of black nothing. Space is full of sub-atomic particles and dark matter. Eliminate the black. Black, although it is the signature of an empty void, is still something. Imagine space with no black. Just an endless sea of clear, free of absolutely everything.”
He couldn't do it. He doubted anyone could without her power and abilities. He did know that such a thing or place as the Est Vacuus was more than he ever needed to see.
Even with her great power, he was certain the times she had tapped this frightening resource had affected her in ways she may not be aware of, and every visit he had with her was also an opportunity to see if they had manifested themselves into a form he could see. As of yet, there was nothing.
This place, this Haven, was beyond
