She wasn't going faster than the speed of sound, because, in the early morning, Cass heard her whistling, and even deduced her parabolic trajectory; her mind, which functioned with excellence, even calculated that she was describing a perfectly parabolic arc thanks to the "magic" of the video game: in reality, air resistance would have bent her path.
Cass bent her knees, and with a leap that left a mark in the ground, sprang higher than the mast. She intercepted Ariane mid-air, and pushed her back again with the flat of her hand, sending her flying once more into her own camp. The seven-league boots.
She got back up as the spectators were waking. She drew from her toga an old parchment which she unrolled - immediately, she duplicated: there were not one but eight Arianes. The Mages' Duplication Scroll, someone exclaimed in the distance.
The eight Arianes charged head-on and Cass increased her pace to intercept and repel them all: once, twice, three times - that was the original Ariane. The copies vanished, and Ariane stood again. She drew from her griffon a sapphire-blue trident, and when she struck it to the ground, a tsunami rose before her to sweep over the village, blotting out the morning sun; Cass clung to the mast, impossible to dislodge because it was coded that way, while the inhabitants and the houses were carried off into the taiga. Ariane, finally, smashed a glass vial, black, and darkness became absolute: Cass couldn't even see her own hands. But she could hear. Ariane moved almost silently, but a trained Wau could have sensed even the faintest air displacement from several meters away. Cass pushed her back one last time, and again, her purse vibrated, indicating the issuance of a new fine for assault.
Ariane did not rise again. She was curled up on the ground, at Methodios's feet. She was crying. Great sobs, a wail that finished destroying her voice. She cried until midmorning, dismaying all the other players who, for the most part, had long envied and hated her. Methodios lifted her and carried her into a tent where her sobs could still be heard well into the night.
The sun of the third day rose. Before noon, in a state of shock, Ariane, her face undone, without even her crown, approached.
Very simply, with an obscene sort of ordinariness given the extraordinary circumstances, in a sentence spoken with a colorless voice, she granted a high connection to the Empire of the Black Star.
A roll of thunder echoed across all of Trust, and the players who weren't stunned began to scream with joy. A divine voice, one that most people here hadn't heard in ten years or more, began to thunder from the sky as a black layer of clouds covered it.
TWO EMPIRES HAVE MERGED
THE THRONE OF THE GODS FINALLY OPENS
HAIL STELLA NORIEMPRESS OF THE BLACK STAR,
ULTIMATE SOVEREIGN OF THE WORLD OF TRUST!
Yes, there were boos, yes, someone shouted the word "cheater," but many applauded. Others looked around so as not to miss a moment of what they had waited for so long. Ariane, meanwhile, was tending to her hamlet, impervious to what was happening outside - likely suffering deeply inside.
A column of light fell from the sky onto Stella, and the ground shook. A stone platform raised the earth of the village and carried Stella into the air. It was not a simple platform: an immense cone of stone... a Tower of Babel, without stairs. The world below became smaller and flatter, and she passed through the cloud layer, for a long time, as if the clouds were as thick as the virtual world was vast. Finally, the tower descended, and Cass's feet landed gently on a floor of bluish marble.
Before her, a blue path in the gray clouds. Behind her, a noise. She turned around. The glowing of embers. Her eyes adjusted, and the embers glowed more brightly, and she saw a huge, horned demon, horrifying, along with emaciated, tortured humans, walking or crawling toward her. What is that...?
Trust is a game whose rules are discovered little by little... maybe there was a final trial? She walked briskly, and the undead were behind her. She picked up the pace, and they were still at the same distance.
She was about to run, and, seized by doubt, she slowed and turned back. The monstrous creatures were there, but had stopped advancing. They balked, as if Cassandre frightened them.
A final staging... to elevate it all. A mere mirage, like everything else.
So she chose a slow pace, to finish conserving her strength on the blue path. The clouds disappeared and gave way to a divine sun, white and gentle, directly overhead, driving off the monsters with screams. The path had become a bridge above the world of Trust, and she saw the mountains and marshes, deserts and oceans, populated by cities founded by countless players. They themselves must have seen this bridge and the immense celestial city, for the walkway led to a vast vertical palace, blending the ancient with the modern.
Large statues of white marble, sometimes sublime, sometimes vile and obscene, flanked the entrance. Though the city stretched vertically and extended infinitely upward, the entrance itself was merely a series of columns open to all winds. Great white staircases edged with gold rose endlessly into the structure. Cass was a strong spirit, suited to any situation, but the creatures - deformed humans - the statues, were disturbing, frightening, mesmerizing.
She began to glimpse the top of the stairs: a platform dominated by a titanic throne of gold and ivory, wide enough to seat a twenty-meter giant. The Throne of the Gods. Before it, a woman with olive skin, straight brown hair, crowned with a golden helmet of Inca style, leaning on a great staff of gold and gems.
- "Welcome, aspirant to the Throne of the Gods," said Julia. "You have well earned your place."
Cass climbed the last step and didn't grant a glance to the throne.
- "Julia Prahi?"
- "In person."
- "You must honor your promise to answer my questions."
- "Don't you want, Stella, to ascend the Throne of the Gods? Hundreds of thousands of players gave decades of their lives for this privilege… a privilege which, in the end, you have taken from them."
- "Not really. I'll let you sort that out with them. I will sit, however."
Cass sat on the last step of the esplanade, her shoulders low. It was time for the game to end. Julia sat beside her. Before them, the high-altitude clouds drifted peacefully, sometimes catching on a few statues. Julia let fall the ceremonial mask and became human again, the game designer, no longer the actress of this stagecraft:
- "Go ahead, ask me your questions."