- MYA OF THRESHOLD -

When the sky fell, the people of Threshold ran where the gulls flew, deep into the blue mountains where they would be safe from the hungry crimson stars. Into those great caverns they fled, into darkness with their poles and baskets and children and the machines from Sol.

It was a seige from the voids beyond. The people of Threshold brought their food and supplies—they could live here, for a while. The sky fell: it was teeth and eyes in the cosmic woods. The people of Threshold brought a barricade, sealing the caverns from the universe outside. The communes along the coast were no longer safe. The people brought each other, to keep company as the rest of their empire among the stars was eaten alive.

The people brought Mya.

She was only a child, then. They all were. In the darkness, the jagged, crystalline darkness, they taught her to remember. If nothing else, Threshold would remember the deep past, long centuries stretching back across the galaxy like obsidian beads. Mya was the chain onto which they were strung.

She was not the only chain. With the other children, she would play, and here they had a new world: their own world. They splashed in the ponds where blind fish swam, counted the glowing worms crowding the cavern ceiling, ran barefoot in grass fields which grew on unseen light. With the other children, Mya remembered.

Still, the sky fell.

Threshold was a distant world, few of people, peaceful. But the crimson stars were hungry.

Some of the people heard voices. The ones they loved, the ones left behind, they waited just outside the caverns. Of this they were sure. Mya watched them slip past the barricade into the crimson light, and none of them returned.

The children who remained played less, then, remembered more.

Soon afterwards, the people began to see ghosts. Never Mya, but the elders, then the parents, then the youth and other children saw the dead wander into their safehold beneath the blue mountains. One by one they joined the ghosts.

Before long, Mya was alone.

Yes, Mya was alone. So she would remember. She alone would wear the beads of her people’s interstellar history. Alone, she recounted every single one: Taurus, in the beginning. Orion, when the first jump-ships left wharf to bridge the stars. Carina, as the human republics crested the height of their power. Scorpius, when an empire rose in their stead. Mya would remember.

At first she waited for rescue. The early warm season on this planet brought long storms—perhaps the falling sky would not be so different. Only, time dragged on. Mya spent long days, weeks, months waiting. More months. She grew. Her world shrank. Mya was... alone. As it often did, being alone hurt. To hear no voice but her own opened a pit in her heart. To see no face but her own pushed a knife into what remained. To feel no touch but her own twisted it.

Mya ran from the hurt. She clung to memory. Memory was her people; with memory, she would never be alone. Only memory was real, for everything else must be a cruel trick of the falling sky.

All the people of Threshold learned the machines from Sol at eighteen years of standard age. When the time came for Mya, she had no ceremony, but she still allowed herself to explore the ancient constructs. Shortly, she learned their use. They had helped bring her people across space. Now, as she laid for herself a simple bed, they would bring her across time.

A long time passed.

A hand which did not belong to Mya found the machines. She woke to find a new face staring back at her—a strange face, indeed, pale white like the moons, framed by bundles of hair more like the gills of the cavern fish than the curls atop her own head. The face belonged to a stout woman wrapped in strange clothes of bright pink and bold blue, so bright it made Mya feel like a shadow in her dull greens and browns.

“You alright in here?”

Mya’s heart raced. A new voice, a new face after so many years. Her skin crawled under the woman’s gaze. She squirmed back in fear, making a mess of her makeshift bed.

“Ah! Ghost!” Mya cried, shielding herself with a trembling hand. Her voice came raw and hoarse. “Ghost, stay back! I won’t fall for your tricks!”

The gill-haired woman stepped back in wide-eyed surprise, raising her own pale hands in a gesture of surrender.

“No, no. My name’s Gulliver! I, uh...” She shifted her satchel to her front, gesturing at a sewn seal Mya did not recognize. “I work for interstellar post. Gate Express. From the big city, you know?”

Gulliver grinned, an awkward, half-convincing grin.

The ghosts who had taken the others... They could be clever. The had to have been clever to lure them out. Mya stood to her feet, stood her ground. She would not let herself be taken, let the memories of Threshold be lost to the crimson stars.

“Leave this place, cruel ghost.” Her hands found a carrying pole nearby, which she raised towards the thing who called herself Gulliver. “Leave! I will not be tempted!”

“O—okay.”

Gulliver slowly left, trailing a long tail like a salamander’s, pierced with brass rings and studs which Mya could not help but stare at. She looked back only once with those lively dark eyes full of concern, before disappearing behind the barricade.

To make sure, Mya risked a peek outside the barricade. There she found a sky clear as ever, the air fresh with ocean salt, waves lapping at the foot of the blue mountains. The crimson stars had left, as had Gulliver. Still, it could have been a trick.

Mya returned to sleep, but the ghost haunted still. Her duty was memory. Her life was her duty. So why did that grin flash in her mind over and over again, slipping in between those obsidian beads?

When Mya woke again, after a sleep which to her felt not longer than a long night, Gulliver again greeted her. She gasped, reached for her carrying pole, used it to keep a distance between herself and the travelling stranger. To this, Gulliver slowly took hold of the pole’s end, guided it away from her face—she was real! She had a real body, could move things! Mya almost let herself be happy, but remembered ghosts could move things too. And why was she happy about this?

“Before you ask,” said Gulliver, “It’s been two months. I thought I would, you know, visit.”

Mya raised her carrying pole at Gulliver again. “My name is Mya. I am the last of the people of Threshold, whose lands you tresspass on. I am the only living keeper of our memories.” She poked the traveller’s chest. “What are you?”

“Let’s see...” Gulliver thought for a moment, tapping her chin with a sharp finger. Almost how a real person would. “I am a citizen of the city-nation of Exclave. I work as a courier for Gate Express, delivering parcels and mail across the galaxy. Ring any bells?”

“I need no mail. Why are you here?” Mya demanded, then, recalling nothing like the traveller in her memories, “Why do you look the way you do?”

“I’m on my way to the Taurus sector. There’s a weavegate just past the valley, you see. I look like this because, well...” Gulliver paused in a moment of thought, before pushing Mya’s pole aside and reaching toward her. “Hey. Come on. Let’s get you out of here, and then I can explain—”

Mya swung the pole around, striking Gulliver in the flank. As she fell into a cavern pond by their feet, pink light flashed across her body, rippling from where she had been hit. So she was a ghost!

“I know an agent of the crimson stars when I see it. Leave me be!”

Gulliver stared at Mya from across the cavern. Though she did not seem hurt, her gaze was heavy with betrayal. This made Mya at last drop her pole.

“Leave me be,” she repeated, quietly, avoiding Gulliver’s eyes. “I don’t want to see you.”

“I suppose I should leave for now. But tell me, what are the crimson stars?”

“Do you truly not know? Your storm swallowed the galaxy and toppled my emperor’s domain. You lured my people outside the cavern and left me alone. And you don’t even know?”

Gulliver finally looked away, muttering under her breath:

“First Convergence. By the Guide...”

Mya once again watched Gulliver until she passed beyond the barricade. Afterwards Mya paced the caverns for many hours, watching the pond fish, counting the glow-worms, making footprints in the grass. How small her world was. How little it changed. The pit in her heart grew, gnawing at her ribcage. Would it be so bad to be taken by the ghost? To join the crimson stars? But she was the last of Threshold’s people, and their memory would surely die alongside her.

She drifted to sleep with thoughts of Gulliver’s hands, and how it would feel if she had taken them.

Two months later, Gulliver returned.

The strange courier sat by Mya as she lifted herself from shifting dreams into groggy wakefulness. Before she could say anything, Gulliver offered her a pastry—a braided, glistening thing that filled the caverns with a sweet perfume. The courier took another one for herself from her satchel, and the two ate in silence. Could ghosts bake? No, but they could visit bakeries. Why would a ghost visit a bakery? Mya froze as she took the first bite. After all these years of preserved food her tongue had forgotten sweetness, as had her nose forgotten richness.

“Apple babka. Exclave specialty.”

Mya nodded, ripping large bites from her pastry, chewing as much as her mouth and stomach could fit, then afterwards licking her sticky fingers until the flavour melted away.

“Tell me, ghost,” she asked. “How long have I slept?”

“At least two thousand years.”

Mya turned to Gulliver, wondering if her ears had deceived her.

“How long?”

“Two thousand years, by my guess. Maybe two thousand five hundred. Listen, those crimson stars you speak of? That is ancient history to my people. We call it the First Convergence, the cataclysm that destroyed your empire and consumed nearly everyone in its domain.” Gulliver took a bite of her babka, swishing her pierced tail. “We are distant descendents of the survivors.”

So it was all true, then. All these years, a spark of hope had held Mya afloat, that perhaps the empire would survive the crimson stars and find her. Feeling it slip away was like drowning, being at last engulfed by a heavy darkness long at her neck. Still, she wanted to test Gulliver one more time. Ghosts could lie.

“What’s the galaxy like?”

Gulliver inched herself closer to Mya, her eyes lighting in excitement. She must enjoy her travels, remarked Mya, feeling a sudden odd warmth at seeing the courier happy in this way.

“It’s a vibrant, beautiful place. Oh, maybe we have nothing of the power you Ancients had, but your survivors have grown into countless cultures in countless domains across the Silver River. There is Taurus, where people have stolen the power of gods to travel the stars. There is Orion, where the people have become one with machine and construct their own bodies. Poliara, where the land itself breathes with arcane power. Orolith, where a magical storm bridges a dozen planets and thirty living moons—where I was born.” Gulliver gestured to the air in a dramatic flourish: “And Exclave. The city at the centre of it all. The city eternally awake. Our people live by the Galactic Weave, whose gateways let us travel across the Silver River on foot.”

Mya allowed herself to imagine, turning her mind for once away from the past and toward the present.

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Isn’t it? So few people appreciate the time and space we live in. I’m glad I get to talk to someone for whom this is all new.”

The two sat in laden silence for a time afterward. The ocean winds outside battered against the cavern barricade loudly, seemingly louder than ever. The gulls screeched distantly just as they had two thousand years before, but for the first time, Mya thought she could see them.

Nonetheless, she had a duty to her people. If the galaxy was so different now, would it not be all the more important for someone to remember how it had been?

“You should leave,” said Mya, to break the silence. “I won’t keep you from your work.”

Gulliver raised an eyebrow at her.

“You’re not coming?”

“I am meant to remember my people and their history. I grew up in these caverns. I belong here.”

“Don’t you want to see the galaxy? I can bring you to Exclave. You can live, and I mean really live!” Gulliver insisted. “My downstairs neighbours are looking for a new roommate. And the deli two blocks down, Rex’s Bodega, they’re hiring. My roommate Wess can take care of all your paperwork.”

“But I’m the last of my people! If I abandon my duty, they’ll be gone forever!” Mya took Gulliver’s hands. They were soft, and real, and warm, just as she hoped they would be. Despite herself, a lump formed and lodged itself in her throat. “Please, you should go.”

Gulliver rubbed Mya’s fingers. “I hate seeing you in here every time. I don’t want to push you, but you’re alone, don’t you see? I’ve been alone like you. I could never go back.”

“If you hate it, then leave. Live your life, and let me live mine.”

Resigned, Gulliver stood and started toward the barricade, leaving Mya with only a memory of being touched for the first time in so many years.

“It’s not a life,” Gulliver called, pausing to look back. “I’ll be here in two months.”

Just like so, she disappeared once again.

Later, Mya cried for the first time since she left the communes. She hugged her knees atop her makeshift bed, sobbing and choking on the memory of new taste and new touch and new knowledge. Her eyes stung, stained her plain sleeves. Her nose ran without a hint of care for propriety. She laid down on her side, curled like a fetus, cried until curtains of darkness began to fall once more. Just before sleep came, she imagined Gulliver laying by her side to comfort her, then cried anew at the wave of shame which followed the thought.

Pathetic, her memories seemed to chide. Everything had fallen apart, been laid bare. Mya hoped to never wake up.

Yet two months later she woke again, Gulliver at her side. At once Mya reached for her; indeed the courier was real, as their fingers linked. Then Gulliver brought out more Exclavan pastries for them to eat: a thick ring sprinkled with tiny seeds, and a strange heart-shaped knot of bread, both rich and filling like nothing Mya had ever known. When they finished, Gulliver asked:

“Made your choice yet?”

Mya did not answer. How could she?

“My people would not want me to abandon their memories.”

Gulliver crossed her arms, stern in a way Mya had not seen before.

“If your people were anything like mine, they wouldn’t want you to be miserable like this.”

“How can I know? They’re gone!”

“No they’re not!” With little warning, Gulliver pulled Mya standing and brought her to a pond, where the courier pointed out her reflection. “Look. There’s your people. You’re still around.”

The revelation took a moment to set in, and it did so with a sense of dread.

“...I live for them.”

“Exactly! Who cares what they want? You’re them. So what do you want?”

“I want...” Mya began, slowly realizing she had never given that thought before. Doing so was not so different from prodding an open wound: she began to sniffle again. “I want... Ah, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...”

Gulliver rubbed her shoulder, which only made the crying worse, more raw, more real. Mya tried to confide in her memories, then, but found in them no voice but her own now.

“I want... more babka. More... bagels. More p— pretzels. I want to learn more about... the galaxy. I... want to hold your hand.”

Gulliver reached for Mya’s hand, held on tight. “There. That’s one out of three. What else do you want, now?”

Mya wiped her tears. “The sky. Wind. Ocean. C— commune. City.” She looked at Gulliver through blurry vision. “Is it safe?”

The courier shrugged. “Is it ever? I can’t promise safety. That’s something only these caverns will guarantee. But you know what they can’t give you, and what I can promise?”

“Mhm?” Mya nodded.

“A real life. Moving on. It won’t be easy, but it will be you. You, who gets to feel the joy, the pain, everything in between. You, who can find a new people, a new family.” Gulliver pulled at a bead necklace slung down her sternum. “This is the charm that protected me when you struck me with that pole. I have more like it, that will protect you if you follow me. Most of your problems, though? Crossing that barricade won’t solve them for you. But it will, I promise, let you begin solving them.”

Mya found herself leaning her forehead on Gulliver’s shoulder, brushing against her lush gill-hair. A shifting motion: she let the courier pull her into a hug, her first hug since the crimson stars took her family away.

“I can’t. I can’t...”

“Yes you can.” Gulliver pat her back. “It’s okay to not live for anyone else. It’s okay to move on.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” The courier cupped Mya’s cheek. “What do you choose, then?”

The eyes, the judging eyes of Threshold’s long-gone people that had so long stared at the back of Mya’s mind began to melt away, until only one pair remained: the one staring into Mya’s eyes, the one of the strange, wonderful woman from another time and world. Indeed, Threshold’s memories were precious, but what worth were memories no one made use of? What worth were memories whose bearer would die miserable and alone? The caverns closed in, until it seemed as though the stone pressed from all sides against Mya and Gulliver, and the only remaining light and air lay beyond the barricade.

The winds blew. The waves crashed. The gulls screeched.

“I choose to live.”

Gulliver smiled at that, warm, relieved.

“So let’s live.”

Hand in hand, the two began their final walk up toward the entrance to the caverns, toward the barricade. For the first time in so, so long, Mya found a spring in her step, a lightness to her heart. She would see a galaxy even the empire could not imagine. She would spend time with Gulliver when she liked. She would eat as many city pastries as she could get her hands on. She would live!

“Wait.” Mya paused, bringing Gulliver to a halt with her. “What about the machines?”

Gulliver waved the thought aside. “Leave them for the researchers.”

“What about food? Water? Shelter?”

“That’s the wonderful thing,” said Gulliver, leading Mya onward again. “All these worries? We can figure them all out on our own. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Slowly, Gulliver’s smile spread beyond her face and onto Mya’s.

“I suppose it is.”

So it was, that two thousand years or so after the sky fell, the last of the people of Threshold pulled down the barricade to the blue mountain caverns. Two thousand years or so after the hungry crimson stars consumed humanity, she stepped outside, breathed in the fresh ocean air, and with a new friend by her side, walked into the light of a new galaxy.