Who Opened the Gate
Session: 2024-05-29
The record takes up with new arms. A shirren-eye rifle for distance. A plasma pistol called red star. Armor of lashunta weave, fitted with a circuit for speed, jets for leaping and a targeting computer. Then a cred stick, forty batteries of kishalee make, and a unit for speaking across dimensions. The journal does not say where any of it came from.
Who took up new arms, and counted forty batteries.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 47
What gathers mass must carry it.
— the Cycle, III.3
Beneath the list, one line. He could now draw his revelations from either side of his way, light or weight, and it no longer hung on which way he was attuned.
Who found the light and the weight both within reach, whichever way he leaned.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 48
Light without weight scatters.
Weight without light falls in.
Hold both.
— the Cycle, III.7
In 84 he marked twice that the balance must be kept. Here he writes, plainly and once, that either side is open to him. Why would that not earn a mark of its own?
Then three letters: ZAZ. He wrote that it was scarified, and called it a "tattoo", the quotation marks his own. Afterwards he was worn out for some minutes, and the microbots had little time left in them. The journal does not say who cut the mark, or what the letters mean.
Who bore the mark ZAZ, cut into him.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 49
What strikes a world leaves its shape in the world.
— the Cycle, III.11
He would not call it a tattoo without the marks around the word. Why take a mark he would not name plainly?
With the hologram. Then: Eltrith removed from room. After that, golemforged plating, two tactical knives, two disintegrator pistols and two sintered longswords. The journal does not say whose hologram it was, who removed Eltrith, or where to.
Who stood with the hologram when Eltrith was taken from the room.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 50
Every hidden mass is found by what bends around it.
— the Cycle, III.8
In 88 the word was Eldrith, and I could not tell whether it named a people or a place. Here it is something that can be carried out of a room.
Open the gate. Beyond it, or near it, were foes he called smoke. Force worked against them, if it was worked by the art. Blades, bullets and fire did only half their work.
Who opened the gate, and met those made of smoke.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 51
Against what is made of smoke, blade and fire do half their work.
Bring force.
(Zigu, from his journal.)
— the Forms, Form 39, later additions
Three hangar bays. Two words alone on a line: Drift rock. A hangar opened to the void took a quarter of an hour to fill with air again, and the lift took a minute and a half. The journal does not say whether the place stood on a drift rock, or only saw one.
Know how long the air takes to return.
Know how long the lift takes to rise.
Do not be caught waiting on either.
(Zigu, from his journal.)
— the Forms, Form 40, later additions
Every world is a stone that kept its heat, or lost it.
— the Cycle, I.7
The doors opened, and two stood before the crew. Som went quickened. One blow went wide. The journal does not say who the two were.
Who went quickened through the opening doors, and found two waiting.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 52
What holds does not hurry.
— the Cycle, III.4
To the west, computers, and someone at them. Then two words: On fire. The journal does not say who or what burned. Then the crew went through a dwarf's belongings: a battle harness, a thermal capacitor, something written only as ex gen.
Who went through what the dwarf left.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 53
Heat is known before it is seen.
— the Cycle, I.3
Then a list by bearer. A ysoki, in a sealed suit with a jetpack and a filtered rebreather, carrying a small disruption pistol. Four cultists, with grim trophies, knives, disintegrator pistols and sintered longswords. Two berserkers, in lashunta weave behind black force fields. The journal does not name the cult, or say how any of them fell.
Who counted the cultists' trophies, and the berserkers' black fields.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 54
Look to what the fallen carried.
A thing that steadies the dying is worth the carrying.
Know what they eat, and whether you can eat it.
(Zigu, from his journal.)
— the Forms, Form 33, later additions
Grim trophies and disintegrator pistols again, as in the kish house in 86. Were the three who stood there with their backs turned of this same cult?
A datapad, and three colours: white, blue, yellow. Some of the machines were broken into and turned. Then robots, flying towards a hole. The journal does not say who did the breaking-in, what the colours meant, or what lay beyond the hole.
Who saw the machines turned, and flying toward the hole.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 55
All mass bends toward what is near.
— the Cycle, III.1
Then the boss. Its armor turned blows that would have broken most guards, of the shell and of the ward alike. After it, a jetpack, armor of the defiance series and a white force field. The journal does not say who the boss was, or how the fight ended.
Who stood before the boss whose armor turned every blow.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 56
The densest stone is struck the longest.
— the Cycle, III.12
At the foot of the page he marked that he had grown again. He gave it one line and nothing more.
Who grew again, and wrote it in a line.
— the Long Names, Zigu, 57
In 84 he set down how he had grown, part by part. Here, a single line. Why so little, after so much?