The silence had texture. It was the silence of a breath held for a thousand years, of a bell after the strike has faded. Elias floated within it, a point of awareness without form. There was no up, no down. Only a slow, celestial pull toward the center of the… room? Realm? Concept?
Before him rested a throne of polished basalt, inlaid with veins of captured moonlight that pulsed with a slow, patient rhythm.
Its occupant was not what he expected.
The being was lean, draped in casual, dark robes that drank the light. His fur was the black of a starless rift, dusted at the tips with silver, like frost on midnight. And from his head fanned six elegant, furred ears, each twitching and turning with independent, curious life, listening to symphonies Elias could not hear.
"You're quieter than most," the being said, his voice a dry, amused rustle, like leaves in a tomb. "The ones who scream are so tedious. All that energy, wasted on noise."
Elias tried to form a mouth to speak with, and failed. A pulse of frustration was his only reply.
"Ah. Right. The whole 'lack of a body' thing." A silver-dusted hand waved. A gentle, shaping pressure settled around Elias's consciousness, granting him the ghost of a voice. "There. A temporary matrix. Don't get used to it."
"Who are you?" Elias's thought-voice was thin, echoing in the hollow space.
The being on the throne grinned, showing sharp, white teeth. "I am the Sage of Lunar Eclipses. I am the Listener at the World's Root. I am the Shadow that Matched the Sun Wukong Blow for Blow. I am the Six-Eared Macaque." Each title was offered like a playing card, its value uncertain. "Pick whichever lie you find most comforting."
"They said you bought me," Elias accused.
"An ugly word," the Macaque sighed, examining his claws. "I invested. Heavily. You should be flattered. A Myth-grade soul from a backwater garden-world? The bidding was… lively."
"I'm not a thing to be bought!"
"Aren't you?" One ear swiveled toward Elias. "Your body is pulp. Your world is a curated battlefield. Your entire existence has been a test you didn't know you were taking. 'Thing' is relative, little spark."
Elias seethed, a swirl of helpless anger. "What do you want?"
The Macaque leaned forward, his six ears stilling in a rare moment of unified attention. "A game. A wonderful, terrible, glorious game is about to begin. Call it a Conclave. A tournament of incarnations. Beings like me—call us Patrons, Spirits, Bored Primordials—we select champions from the harvested souls of countless worlds. We reshape them, bless them with a whisper of our nature, and send them into a fresh, blank reality. There, they compete. They clash. They grow. It's marvelous theater."
"A game," Elias repeated, numb.
"The best kind! The stakes are real. The death is permanent. The glory is eternal." His eyes glinted. "I want you to be my piece on the board. My incarnation."
"Why?"
"Why not?" The Macaque laughed, a sound like cracking ice. "Your soul resonates with my domains—Dark, Gravity, Lunar. You have potential. And more importantly, you have the look of someone who's spent a life listening from the shadows. I, of all beings, appreciate a good listener."
"And if I refuse?"
The Macaque's playful demeanor didn't shift, but the silence grew colder. "You float back into the system. The Hall of Choosing reclaims you. Your unique signature is scrubbed, your memories dissolved into mana, and your essence is… redistributed. Fertilizer for the next crop of souls." He shrugged. "A waste of a good bid, but I can afford the loss."
It was no choice at all. Oblivion, or servitude in a cosmic game.
"What do I get?" Elias asked, the pragmatism of a survivor cutting through the terror.
"Ah! The negotiation. I like this." The Macaque snapped his fingers. Two spectral, shimmering seats appeared opposite the throne. "Sit. Let's play a proper game first. A getting-to-know-you exercise. 'Two Truths and a Lie.' We each ask three questions. The answerer must reply with two truths and one lie, in any order. The questioner must guess the lie. It's only fair."
Elias, still formless, felt himself settled into the illusion of a chair. "What do you win?"
"Information! The most valuable currency there is. I win a better understanding of my investment. You win a glimpse behind the curtain. Begin."
Elias thought quickly. He needed to know the rules, the stakes. "What happens to my world, Earth, if I become your incarnation?"
The Macaque steepled his fingers. "One: Its fate becomes entirely irrelevant to you, a faded dream. Two: The Gates will continue to open according to the established cycle, pruning and testing as designed. Three: My influence there will grow, allowing me to subtly guide its development toward more… interesting conflicts."
Elias studied him. The being was chaos given shape, but his ears were perfectly still. He was listening to his own words. The first feels callous, the second matches the 'garden' theory, the third implies active meddling…
"The first is the lie," Elias ventured. "It's not irrelevant. You care about the results of your 'garden.'"
The Macaque's grin widened. "Correct! A sentimental guess, but correct. I do keep an eye on my portfolio. Your turn."
The Sage's six ears twitched in anticipation. "My question: What do you, Elias, truly want most right now?"
Elias recoiled internally. He couldn't speak his deepest want—to undo his death, to save his friends. That was too vulnerable. He had to mix truths with a safe lie. "One: I want to see my sister again. Two: I want to prove I wasn't just average. Three: I want power for its own sake."
The Macaque's ears quivered. He closed his eyes, as if tasting the words. "The third," he pronounced. "You don't crave power. You crave the agency it represents. The capacity to protect, to prove, to matter. The lie is in the 'for its own sake.' A clumsy one, little spark."
Elias felt exposed. He was right.
"My turn," Elias pushed on. "If I succeed in this Conclave, what do you get?"
"Direct! Good." The Macaque counted on his fingers. "One: Bragging rights and political capital among my peers. Two: The right to claim a portion of the new world's nascent ley lines. Three: Your soul, permanently, to consume and absorb into my own essence."
A cold thrill shot through Elias. Consumption. That was the true stake. He looked at the being's playful smile, the whimsical twitch of his ears. The first two sounded like him. The third sounded like a hidden horror.
"The second is the lie," Elias said, less certain. "The ley lines."
The Macaque threw his head back and laughed, a rich, echoing sound. "Wrong! Oh, deliciously wrong. I would love those ley lines. No, the lie is the third. Consumption? How vulgar. I am a connoisseur, not a glutton. Your soul, should you prove magnificent, becomes a trophy. A cherished masterpiece in my collection. Its light remains distinct, forever proof of my discerning taste." The way he said it was somehow more terrifying than consumption.
"Final question," the Macaque said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "If I offered you a Wish for your service—one singular, focused desire I would grant upon your glorious success—what would you wish for?"
Elias's mind raced. He couldn't reveal his true, desperate idea—the Wish of Revelation for all mankind. That was his only leverage, his secret. He needed a believable set.
"One: I would wish to be returned home, alive, the moment before I died. Two: I would wish for the power to never feel afraid again. Three: I would wish to understand why any of this exists."
The Macaque listened, all six ears focused intently. The silence stretched. He hummed. "A tricky set. The fearlessness is a child's wish, transparently false. The return home is a poignant, likely truth. The desire for ultimate understanding… that has the ring of a deeper truth." He tapped his chin. "I say the second is the lie. You are smart enough to know that a being without fear is a dead being. You do not wish for the end of fear, but for the strength to face it."
Elias held his psychic breath.
"Am I correct?" the Macaque pressed, eyes gleaming.
"Yes," Elias admitted. The lie was indeed the wish for fearlessness.
"Excellent! We understand each other a little better now." The Macaque clapped his hands, and the chairs vanished. "So. The offer stands. Become my incarnation. Be reborn into the Conclave world. Fight, scheme, survive, and shine. Earn glory in my name. And in return, upon a victory that satisfies me… you earn your Wish. Any one, singular desire. Within the vast, but not infinite, scope of my power."
The scale of it was insane. A wish from a primordial trickster god. The cost was his very existence in a deadly, alien tournament.
But the alternative was oblivion. And he had truths now, hard-won from the game. This being was whimsical, vain, and loved games, but he was not a straightforward liar. His logic was just alien.
Elias, the average rookie, the boy from Lyra's shadow, made his choice. He had listened all his life. Now, he would listen to the most dangerous voice of all.
"I'll play," Elias said, his thought-voice firm.
The Six-Eared Macaque's smile was a crescent of pure, chaotic delight. "Wonderful."
The throne room began to dissolve, the moonlight veins bleeding into a rushing torrent of silver and shadow. The Macaque's form blurred at the edges.
At the fraying edge of his awareness, Elias felt it—a flicker of familiar, synthetic consciousness.
<< SIGNAL… RE-ESTABLISHING… ERROR… CONTEXT UNKNOWN. >>
<< SYSTEM REBOOT… ERROR… PARTIAL CORE BACKUP DETECTED… >>
ORION. A fragment, clinging to his soul's data like a desperate program.
The Macaque paused, one ear swivelling toward the digital ghost. A grin split his features. "Oh, did you bring a souvenir? How mischievous."
The Macaque's laugh was the last thing he heard, rich with amusement. "Keep it. Every good trickster needs a straight man, as I say."
"Try not to die too quickly, little one. And do try to listen… I'll be hearing everything."
Darkness, not empty, but full of whispering gravity and the cold promise of moons, swallowed Elias whole.