The Forge in the Void
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Faye’s wings were no longer beating, and Trevor wondered what was going to happen next. Minutes passed, and nothing was happening. His eyes strained as he willed for something, anything to appear.
Then Trevor began to perceive a glow emerging from above an arch of complete blackness. Fuzzy smudges preceded the appearance of a faint yellow blob of diffuse light with a single complete blurry smudge arching off from it like a curled tail. The light was a solace after the complete blackness that greeted them, but Trevor still wondered what it meant.
“What is that light?” he asked.
“The Milky Way,” was Michael’s reply. “The bits stretching to the center are the Orion and Carina Arms. They blend together at this angle.”
The arm talk meant nothing to him, though he supposed it did look a little like an arm. The talk of the Milky Way did give Trevor pause. It didn’t connect with what he remembered, the the pale streak of light across the sky that he associated with the name.
So then they were looking at the sky. It definitely didn’t look like what they called the Milky Way in the village. Why were there no stars on the Outside? Were they just going to keep sitting there?
His impatience won out in question prioritization. “Are we going to go anywhere, or are we waiting for something?” he said.
“We are going somewhere. In a few hours we will arrive at the forge. Be patient, and watch. Enjoy the view. It is one that very few get to see.”
Soon the fuzzy light areas began sinking behind another arc of blackness. “Is that a planet? Are we in space? How are we breathing?” he shot out in rapid succession.
“Yes, we are in space. Faye isn’t going to let us suffocate any more now than she did flying in the hill,” was Michael’s terse reply. Trevor got the impression that he was preoccupied with the view, or something else, and further questioning wouldn’t be welcomed.
After what seemed like ages, the smudge of lights emerged again. This time they seemed to stay for much longer. He watched patiently, though he was not particularly impressed by this view compared with the sky above the village with its uncountable stars. Tasha sat a little ways in front of him. He remembered sitting with her on the beach looking at the stars. The memory chafed him as he tried to sort what might have been real from what were her enchantments.
Eventually he noticed a small black patch making its way across the larger blob. He tracked it as it slowly grew larger. It slowed, then stopped, but continued to grow, swallowing an increasingly large patch of the light.
He looked back at Michael, and in the dim light could guess that he was watching it too. “I told you we were going somewhere. That, Trevor, is the forge.”
They drifted slowly nearer, until the structure dominated their view. There were straight, clean lines of a constructed object. It was hard to make out what the actual appearance would be from the black silhouette. It didn’t seem symmetrical, and the blockiness and many projections didn’t seem fitting for something flying in space.
Then he could sense they were in the midst of the structure. Spires and half-guessed shapes floated past, swallowing them in a complete darkness. He hoped Faye could see better than he could.
Faye shifted, and Trevor suddenly felt his limbs and head heavy and awkward again. His hands and feet seemed to swell as the blood pooled in them. In the near total blackness, he felt some sort of covering extend itself over them. They waited some minutes before suddenly noticing a faint glow from tall walls floating past them in their descent.
Trevor could now see that they were nearing a huge platform, dark gray with a bronze starburst inlay extending beneath them from the center. Around the margin, tall angular pillars soared up to a ceiling that was lost in the gloom. His eyes were drawn to a pair of tall doors flanked by two tall statues, a man and a woman, with hard, angular features. They held huge swords in front of them, hilt up. There was a starburst above them, surrounded by unfamiliar characters spelling out words that Trevor couldn’t guess.
The doors swung open, and the figure of a man approached them. To Trevor’s eyes, he seemed to be akin to the statues guarding the doors.
“Jacob!” shouted Michael. “It is good to see you.”
“It is good to see you, Michael, and Faye,” the man smiled at the dragon’s eye.
“Jacob, the other two are Trevor and Tasha. Trevor, Tasha, come down. I want you to meet Jacob the armorer.”