A tall imposing figure protruded from the balcony of the Royal Apex. Shaped like a bronze statue, its silhouette was somber, heavy, and unmoving. There was no telling of how long it had been standing there. Alive or dead, for the inhabitants of lower levels it looked a part of the city’s skyline. Perhaps in moments like these, An was a part of the city, a linchpin at the center of the complex organism. A vertebrae? A heart? A brain? Not quite, he felt himself a cog. To him, the world was a machine.

Beneath the balcony, the One City sprawled its fractal essence majestically, like a kaleidoscope, the same view repeating endlessly in all directions yet changing ever so slightly. A thick orange fog choked the air like some rich dressing on a salad, its swirls oozed and bounced softly off tops of golden domes and caught themselves on pointy spires erupting raucously from grey stone walls. The supple fabric of the City was stitched together by the ghostly bridges jutting from the sides of towers like sprouts on bamboo. Spreading in multiple directions like neurons, the bridges formed an unfathomable tangle, as if to hide their true purpose.

Yet there was an order to this web, a subtle one, it flowed like music on a summer wind. There was a certain rhythm to it that An perceived. The chaos is a product of a cluttered mind, he knew, his mind was a model of control.

An’s pensive gaze was fixed on the horizon perpetually awash in an orange glow. There, in the distance, away from the Royal Apex, the towers seemed not to have the will to rise as high as they did here, or brandish any ornament. Their sight was dull, the orange fog concealing imperfection.

The vastness of the Homeworld was ever gracious, and yet the One City stood alone. The cradle of the Ones of all castes and ranks was like a sponge that harbored life. All but a few who manned the steering fields, and those who worked the moss patches lived here. Save for the dead (who’d gone ‘off-world’, the Seer said), all Ones were servants of the city.

The weightless robe made An feel naked. It always did, and An often wondered why donne a fabric so light and thin at all. It covered hardly anything, what purpose did it serve then? Some questions were without an answer, and An did not feel the need to know everything.

Entrusted with the keeping of the Order of Things, An’s duty was larger than his enormous body. He was the One in Command, responsible for the well-being of the Ones, both the ens and the iggs. Was there anything more important than keeping the Order? Yet An could not think of anything more burdensome, his task was an onerous one. The Order of Things required An to keep the number of ens to the exact count according to their rank and status and manage the number of iggs between ‘too many’ and ‘too few’. The latter was a torturous task, for how much is ‘too many’ and ‘too few’ depended on circumstances. Too few iggs could easily mean starvation and unrest, but when there were too many one could be certain that they would put forth a champion to challenge the ens during the next Burning of the Hides. Such challenges were rare as an igg was all but certain to lose to an en, yet numbers emboldened the iggs greatly even if foolishly. This rash valor was an unfortunate effect of having little enough to do. Too much free time was certain to lead to brooding, among other things allowing the iggs time to train for combat. Thus, it was best to hold them busy by keeping their numbers small. Still, too few of them could bring about a peril of another kind: unhappy thralls were known to revolt.

As such, erring on the ‘too many’ side was a safer bet, for igg champions were most naturally destined to lose to ens that were bigger, stronger, and better trained. Still, an igg champion could win despite the odds. Eons ago, An himself had challenged Kro three-score him senior, defeating him and watering the Father Tree in the Sacred Grove with the blue essence of his life. An hardly was concerned with a challenge aimed at himself, for there was no one who could match him in size and strength. Yet many others were not as sturdy in their places as An was in his. Perhaps he should welcome a score of challengers to sweep the ranks of ens of weak and ill-fitted and thus make the Order of Things stronger. Perhaps he should… This cycle was a barren one, and he had made the iggs toil more. Surely the extra moil left them no time for practice with the arms, the arms they were forbidden to wield regardless, if only furtively. As such most igg champions had practiced with the tools of their trade: hammers, sledges, spades; yet spades and hammers were a poor match for the firestone-tipped swords.

What good is a challenger that cannot win, except for watering the Father Tree? Perhaps An will make them toil less next cycle as, Order knows, the ens need plucking. Too many have grown too obtuse, too fat, and too slow, an easy prey to an ambition upstart. Still, he doubted that any of them unlearned the swordplay so thoroughly that they could lose to a lowly igg wielding a smith’s hammer for a weapon. Although he heard rumors of certain ones preparing with real arms. There’d always been such rumors… But come the rite of the Coming of Age followed by the celebration of the Burning of the Hides, nothing unexpected would come to pass and the rumors would remain just that, the rumors, the empty talk. Who knows, maybe this time it would be different? A part of him hoped that it would be. Sooner or later the old must part with their lives and make room for the young, their blood watering the Sacred Grove and their lifeless dry bodies feeding the pyre. What is the point in growing feeble and weak? Few did, thank Order for the Tree of Life! The Sacred Grove kept the ens alive while the endless toil kept the iggs busy.

What of the tree? One might ask. There was a time when the Sacred Grove did not yet bloom and the Father Tree was not yet planted. Those were the cycles at the dawn of time when the iggs and the ens were one and therefore rightfully called themselves the Ones. Back then the words still held their original meaning, but not anymore. The Ones were not one now, but rather two, some may say seven if you count all the ranks, or eight if you include the Light Ones. Oh yes, the Light Ones! Where’d they come from? It all had started with the Father Tree, An remembered, or so the Elders taught him. Before the Father Tree was ever planted, the Ones were one, all of equal stature, equal life span, and equal strength. Then in one swift passing a cosmic storm had brought them a seed that grew into a tree. The seed was hidden in a crystal inside a rock, a meteor that did not burn but shattered on impact revealing a surprise gift within.

The Ones had gotten cosmic seeds before, so they planted it to see if it would take, and took it did, and grew into a tree magnificent and sprawling. The tree matured and brought fruit, which few partook. Those lucky Ones who had the taste of it would change forever. Come malting time, they’d malt to grow bigger, their bodies looked renewed and young once more. And those who didn’t could only envy it, yet they could do little for the Father Tree grew slowly and bore fruit only once per cycle, and those who ate the fruit were stronger now, and they usurped the tree and all its fruits just for themselves, allowing only a select few to eat of it. Ens they called themselves, the Ones who Command. And iggs they called the rest, the Ones who Toil.

Few lucky iggs they chose to join their ranks when the Fruit was plentiful had to be the best, for mediocrity was not worth preserving as it preserves itself by multiplying easily and lingering without effort. All Ones were one and mediocre in their unity until the gift of the Father Tree, but equal they were no longer. Only in death, perhaps, the Ones became one again. All dead are equal…

The Ones who Ate the Fruit tended the Tree protecting it, and set up a grove by sacrificing their renewal to the Tree and planting the fruits they had not eaten. Few died at times, unable to renew, their blood was water for the grove, and their bodies were food to fertilize the saplings, for nothing can be gained without a sacrifice, they understood it perfectly back then. Too few still understood it now. Too few…

An did, but there was no sacrifice for him to make. Not yet, not now as all of his duties were preordained: command the ens and whip the iggs, and so keep the Order of Things going. The irony of his position was not lost on An. Perhaps out of all Ones he was the one least free. This was a sacrifice so grand he could not add another. The One in Command was but a slave to the Order. The sacred Order was his to keep and all had to obey. Too bad there wasn’t a scroll with the upkeep instructions, but he had the Seer to advise him on such matters when the commands did not roll off his mind with ease. This did not happen very often, but when it did the Seer was always there to advise him on what to do, and so it was this time. The Seer had been urging An to sprout an heir. An heir in name only, not in station. The rank and status were not hereditary for the ens, although some wished they were. How many were corrupt so? An could not say. He wondered, why have an heir at all if all that one inherits is a name? Yet multiplied they did and every en and igg have had one. The worthy ones will rise up the ranks and fill their father’s shoes not by decree or privilege of birth, but by the valor of their deeds and brightness of their mind, and sometimes, of course, by chance. Oh, chance! An needed it when he had challenged Kro and saw the giant stumble, slip, and fall exposing his unprotected neck as An was dodging his savage blows. Kro was twice the size of An and thrashed his blade like a mad reaper. It would have cut An in half like a straw, but An was faster, so he ran. He ran and ran around the arena with Kro close on his tail, swinging and poking with his enormous blade, seeking to chop the foolish challenger to pieces. For An the most horrifying thing to see was that Kro was not growing tired of the chase, but An was. Kro’s blade swung closer and closer, kissing on and slicing through An’s scales. In no time Kro’s blade was blue with blood. An’s blood ran down his tail. Kro stepped on it and… slipped, and tumbled exposing his unprotected neck where scales were missing. An swung at it, Kro parted with his head. The crowd gasped, then silence fell, heavy as wax on ears. And so An lived when Kro lived no longer. One life had to be taken and Chance decided to take Kro’s.

Did An pray for chance when he challenged Kro? Surely not, for only fools would pray for chance and An was a fool not. Yet somehow he knew he had to challenge Kro three-scores him senior. To anyone else (or anyone sane) this idea was nothing short of a suicide, but not to An. Somehow he knew that he had to do it, he felt compelled and powerless to resist the urge. So many things cannot be contemplated or comprehended rationally, and this was one of them. Sometimes An felt that thinking with his head was not for him, and challenged Kro to prove the point. If his head was so useless then he was not risking much by losing it to Kro…

An did not think back then at the arena when he was dancing away from Kro’s deadly blows. His body did the moving, he only watched his hands swing over Kro’s bare neck when the opportunity presented itself. Then his ears heard a sonorous roar followed by a hollow silence, and then he heard the Seer proclaim him the One In Command, the youngest in this station in the history of the Ones, a feat thought impossible until then. Everything is impossible until it is done.

Much to An’s surprise nobody challenged him when the time came for the first Burning of the Hides of his command. There was no shortage of lower ens that were bigger and stronger than An, yet nobody stepped forth to challenge him. Was it because they were so enamored by his feat of slaying the dreadful Kro? Or was this a show of genuine respect for their new One in Command? It was impossible to tell, and An’s command remained unchallenged for all the following cycles. Now when An was ripe and corpulent, he wondered if there would be anyone so foolish as to challenge him this cycle. Maybe An ought to show his neck to make way for the challenger, come a worthy one? The order needs a bit of chaos to truly thrive. The order needs chaos to exist at all like light needs shadow to contrast itself against. Without chaos, there could be no order, and the last many cycles were woefully uneventful as far as life on the Homeworld was concerned. An had himself to thank for that for his command was steady and his decrees were clear and effective. Yet he was growing bored, and his wife not giving him an heir was not helping his mood either. Without an heir to look forward to – even if potential – what was the purpose of stumbling from one cycle to the next? Soon he would outgrow his already lofty quarters and would be forced to live in the courtyard of the Royal Apex, or worse yet, in the Sacred Grove next to the Father Tree. Now that would be a sight to behold! The One in Command, a living statue, too large to live indoors. Too huge and too frightening to be challenged, yet somehow undying. An could feel his age despite all the renewals. He was old, even if his body was still strong. Sometimes An wondered if it was a thought of having an heir that kept him alive. An heir in name if not in status or title. A little tiny being that he would not even see for the first twenty cycles of its life, and he would see only occasionally thereafter unless, of course, Ninna would make room for him among the stewards. Of course, she would, Ninna would find a way. An would bet that she would scheme to have someone killed to enact an elaborate chain of succession that would resolve itself by making room among An’s stewards for her flesh and blood. That one could scheme, oh yes. An needed not to be worried about not seeing his son – and he was certain that it would be a son – Ninna would make it happen.

Be as it may, An had no heir to scheme for as Ninna failed to give him one, still. Every cycle she would lay an egg, yet every time the egg would not hatch and kiss the flames of the pyre during the Burning of the Hides. For An it was more like the ‘burning of the shells’: each time he burned his emptiness and only got more void in return. The egg would crack revealing the hollow within, the same lacuna that An felt inside, the void that bit and pulled on each cell of his body forcing him to collapse inwards into one primordial singularity. There was no escape from this feeling. An could tell the eggs were empty without even handling them, by the way they sat a little crooked to one side and by how they swayed too easily on cushions in the nest when Ninna rearranged them. Fertile eggs do not lean and do not sway. Yet every time he said nothing. He did not say a word to Ninna and allowed her to be busy pretending. This was what she did best – pretend. She pretended all her life to be his queen, a royal consort to the One in Command. Although this is what she was, in truth, she did not know what it meant, so she chose to pretend to be what she did not understand. And she pretended to be a mother for her empty eggs every cycle she laid them. And every cycle he would see them in the pyre, cracking, shattering, revealing nothing but the hollow of her soul. How did he even marry this One? He thought. It had been so long… Has it been fifty cycles? Sixty? Seventy? After a while numbers lose their sense and meaning and become indistinguishable abstract curves on a recording plate. He married her after they both emerged from the nursery during their Coming of Age. He was young and foolish, and she was slender and graceful. He was but a junior en with a growing aspiration to become an En Most High, one of the twelve most trusted advisors to the One in Command. Back then An did not dream of challenging Kro, yet his aspirations and ambitions were written all over him, and this was what attracted Ninna to him. And she was beautiful, and irresistibly so.

He remembered how her face changed when he announced his challenge to Kro, and how her face transformed again when he defeated Kro and took his place as the One in Command. She was no longer the same, they both were no longer the same, although perhaps for very different reasons. She wanted the status and the position; he did not know what he wanted. True, An wanted to defeat Kro and take his place, but he did not know why. It was the need that he felt, yet the reason failed to make itself known to him. Perhaps there was no reason, only a need. An needed to serve, and he felt that by becoming the ruler of the Homeworld he would be able to serve the Ones the most. He would do his best by issuing the most rational and wise decrees and seeing the Ones prosper, yet few things changed after he poured Kro’s blood at the roots of the Father Tree. An had his new stewards spread Kro’s ashes through the Sacred Grove, yet beyond the occasional meade talk, the Homeworld did not notice. The Homeworld didn’t care. Ens were busy commanding, and iggs were hard at toiling. Nobody cared that An took Kro’s place. Nobody but Ninna. She took it upon herself to play her part to the fullest and pretend to be the consort that she was, but could not be without pretending. How is that, that feigning to be something is more meaningful than being? The game is the same, yet the outcomes are different… There is one thing that we cannot change, and it is our nature. We are what we are and we do what we do regardless of positions and titles we hold. Even after becoming the One in Command, An was still a junior en at heart, obsessed with service, and Ninna played the games she always played since her cycles at the Nursery. So nothing’s changed, only the number of horns on his ceremonial helm did. Everything else remained the same with the only difference being that he took orders from the Seer now, and not the other ens.

Oh yes, enter the Seer! How many times An could not think of how to act and he resorted to summoning this old sly one with a beard – a shiny river of silvery tangles – long as the history of the Homeworld itself? The Seer never disappointed him and always had his answers, and with time An grew accustomed to listening to the gaunt old Elder in threadbare ancient robes as old as he, which in their general disorder matched his spectacular long beard perfectly. Perhaps An preferred it this way: still taking orders while serving, but serving who or what exactly? He was not sure. An thought he served the Ones by commanding them, yet those were the Seer’s instructions that he carried out. Did it mean that he served the Seer? The Elder was a Light One, and his reasons were not to be questioned or challenged by anyone, not even An. An wished that he had more wits about him, more passion, and more reasons, yet he felt hollow, the Seer’s soothing words granting him relief, like opium. Half the time An did not know what to think or do and thanked Order for the Seer who did his thinking for him. What was required of An was to ask the right questions, and the questions were plenty. No shortage of questions, for life on the Homeworld boomed, Ens running the affairs of the world and igg population growing.

By now An half regretted challenging Kro in the arena. Perhaps he wanted to die back then and could not find a better way of parting with his life than by challenging the awesome Kro. Perhaps he wanted to kill himself, for he recognized Ninna for what she was, an actress, all of the Homeworld her theater, and An was her producer… Yet fate decided to have it differently and against all odds made An the victor. Salute the chance! His chance, a total transformation of such a dull beginning into something potentially more sinister and dreadful. When one fears the future the prospects are always frightening.

At times he thought that maybe he’d joined Ninna in her troupe and now they were two mummers performing for the Homeworld, each playing a different role: An’s was well-scripted and Ninna’s improvised. An could not improvise, and that made him a sour sight to watch as he stumbled from one act to the next predictably and without a twist of plot. Ninna’s part, however, came naturally to her, giving An even more reasons to brood.

An watched his city drowning in the twilight, dark thoughts weighing on him heavily. Ninna was overdue. Her belly bulged uncomfortably from the two large eggs she was caring for the last nine cycles. Nine cycles! No less… It was beginning to look to An that she would never lay them, for nine cycles of burden seemed like an eternity even to An, whose cycles were beyond count. Would these two eggs turn out empty shells as well? Why was it that Ninna could not produce him an heir? Or any offspring for that matter, whether a light one or a dark one, or a nin.

An could not find an answer, yet his mind ached for resolution. She must lay soon, he thought, his gaze transfixed on the horizon. There hasn’t been a time in history when a royal consort did not unburden herself for that long. Nor has there ever been a heirless royal family, not since the time of the Moss Eater’s rebellion, which was spoken of only fables. Did it truly happen? The Elders told stories of great chaos that ensued when the One in Command had died without sprouting an heir. The iggs led by the reviled Moss Eater rose up against the ens who were powerless and placid without their ruler, and weak with corruption. What else a childless death could be if not a sign of a festering disease? Moss Eater seized upon the idea and drove the point home with an efficiency of a spear going through a putrid corpse.

An would not allow the Order of Things to come to naught on his watch. He will have an heir. He’ll live forever if he must. He’ll outlive Ninna and marry again if that’s what it would take. Yet the possibility of his barren consort outlasting him was troubling. There was a chance…

An frowned and left the balcony, returning to his throne. The worries undermine my faith in the Order, he thought, settling down and trying to lull himself into a sense of reassurance even if a false one, The Order of Things will make it certain that I have an heir. What happened to the Order of Things during the Moss Eaters uprising, he did not want to think of. That fable must be a lie, a narcoleptic fantasy of some delusional Elder recorded in his shaggy beard in lieu of a memory. Yet lies were not spoken on the Homeworld, the fable must be true, and he is perilously close to dying childless.

Suddenly, the doors leading to his great throne room swung open and an elderly priestess approached him ghastly. She hurriedly collected herself, kneeled, and proudly announced: “Ninna has laid the eggs, sire!”

The eggs? The eggs! What a relief. An rose gracefully from his throne and approached the priestess. “Rise, Emma”, he commanded. She stood up straight, but she was only waist-high compared to An’s huge, tall figure. “I see that finally she laid!”, An continued speaking to the priestess. She brought him this news so many times before, but each time the eggs didn’t hatch. Why would it be different now? He knew the priestess long enough to be afraid not of her judgment and spoke his mind freely to her. She was an igg. What do iggs understand about the dealings of Ens? But this one did, no doubt, she did, and very well so.

“What do you think, priestess?”, An pressed on, “Will they hatch?”

“Of course, they will, sire!”, she replied politely. She told him the same thing every time, “The Order commands it so”.

An did not believe the words the priestess uttered. He could not expect anything different from her but the same words of reassurance. Annoyed, An sent her away. Now when he was alone in the great hall, An could allow his emotions to overtake him. He strode back and forth, restless, like a lion in a cage. He went to the balcony only to return to the great hall. Something was different this time. He could feel it. Perhaps the eggs will not turn up empty this time? Perhaps they will hatch? Oh, what a joy that would be! Perhaps he should seek the council of the Seer. But where would he find him? Summoning the Seer was not an easy task.

The Light Ones did not obey the Order of Things to the same extent the Ends did, the Dark Ones. For ens venturing above the level of their rank was forbidden, and venturing below was frowned upon or even laughed at. The Light Ones cared not about such things but generally confined themselves to their level, which soared higher even than the An’s tower. But the Seer could be anywhere, perhaps even among the iggs for the Seer did as he pleased. The Seer found strange joy in learning from the iggs, whatever was there to learn An did not know. But learning was a matter for the Light Ones. An, like all the ens, concerned himself chiefly with the matters of command.

Perplexed and conflicted, An sent for the Seer.