As they drifted, Deelia noticed that strange structures grew out of the floating puffs at random angles. These buildings were not unlike the ancient historical sites from her home world, but they were also unmistakably alien. It was just enough to say that there was a common interest in mankind to build, but not particularly what. And here, Deelia wasn't sure what these things were or where they came from. When were they built? Had they been built at all?
As the Paragon drifted casually in its perfectly straight trek, the structures grew and began to take on a more diverse array of forms. Some sprouted cloth like curtains and tarps, and some supported great platforms and bridges. It was beginning to look more and more like some sort of city, but it wasn't anything perfect.
The strangest part of it all was the lack of any sort of inhabiting people. This place was lonely. Did Hau live here? How did he know about this place? Did the other factions of Ookon know?
No, they didn't. Hau had told her to never speak of this place to anyone. This was a secret beyond the officials of her home world, beyond the pirates that scavenged what was left, beyond the wars of the two major factions of Ookon that had destroyed everything she had ever known. What was beyond this place? Before knowing the answer to that, however, it would have been a good idea to get a better understanding of what this place was.
The Paragon took them slowly onwards, and the clouds began to converge at an increasing rate. The architecture slowly combined and formed great castles of strange white stone and multicolor cloth. Some of the spaces began to look different and specialized as if they were modified for a specific purpose. There wasn't any obvious machinery, but whatever those curious designs suggested was not a display of ancient history.
There were arches and drapes of waving cloth, clouds circling all around in tighter and tighter patterns, passing just by the outside of the Paragon. They were getting close to the center.
Once it came into view, Deelia saw some sort of inner chamber. The lighting was all natural, but the views of the sunset sky outside were almost completely blocked by a domed ceiling of ancient paintings depicting what appeared to be something religious. Below that massive ceiling was some sort of complex contraption, old yet still in perfect working condition, hosting a glowing, ominous orb of cracked crystal. On the ground, there was a great empty space of shallow water and all sorts of flowers decorating each unoccupied spot. At the very center, a dais rose and hosted five colorful characters, all with an air of impatience.
Behind them all were their own complimentary Warbacks, suspended in the air just above the water, and they were nothing like anything Deelia had ever seen. The first one that caught her attention was the one most resembling the Warbacks she had seen before this: a hulking figure of armor and decorated plate mail. It was like some sort of massive knight, but anything in that visage would have been too weak to carry it. Its shoulder pads spiked out with golden gilding, completing the motifs of gold scrollwork on a grey body.
There was also a complex entanglement of what seemed to be spikes and strands of waving, bending, silver strands. There was a feminine statue of plating, distinguishable by its conical head and many wrappings of silky, dully colored cloth. There was a monster, a combination of living flesh and machinery, symmetrical and beautiful and terrifying, and there was a great behemoth of brass spheres melded together to shape something vaguely humanoid.
The pilots all stood in a semicircle, presumably incomplete from a missing member or two. As Hau and Deelia approached in the Paragon, the pilot's faces followed them with a stern gaze. Once the Paragon had taken its place, it was clear that there was still room for one more Warback. Despite that, the pilots seemed to think that Hau's arrival was the last. This last person was not planned to show up.
YOU ARE READING
The Paragon of Eden
Science FictionThe galaxy of Ookon has known war for all its ages. As the collective race of man began to reach for the stars, empires expanded and warfare flourished. Advancement in technology was never without an arms race. Though the politics and trouble that c...
Part 3
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