THE STELLAR COLLECTOR

> DISCERN STELLAR COLLECTOR
> Of all the Fabrication substances invented, Iridius crystal is perhaps the most versatile. It takes well to many shapes and purposes, including the collection and storage of starlight energy. The Stellar Collector apparatus is a highly useful application of this crystal, but it requires some sort of psychic transducer to sieve essence from light.

Ballo paced back and forth across the paved stone of his mansion's patio. His Daughter sat off to the side. She wasn't yet old enough to pick up on his worry, and so, without a care, continued to push her toy wooden caravan backwards and forwards across the stones. "Mommy says it goes both ways, Daddy," he heard her say. Poor girl didn't even realize . . . and why should she? Ballo hadn't told her yet that her Mother had been missing for three days. "Yes honey," he responded distractedly. "Mommy's caravan goes both ways." She giggled as if he'd said something silly.

Things had been difficult lately. Not financially – his Wife was a Trader, after all, and he did alright for a Moon Mage. But they had lost a child a month ago - a newborn Son. A few days after that he woke up in the middle of the night and she wasn't there. He found her, out in the cold, kneeling on this same patio under the stars. She was holding a small piece of crystal in her hands, and as he watched she molded it into a figurine of a small baby, no bigger than a teacup. He was reminded in that moment just how gifted a Lunar magician she had become since the Contract. A true artist.

"Come back to bed, honey," he urged her gently. "And you need to be careful . . . that sort of magic isn't allowed in the Deal, is it?" Her head snapped at him, and Ballo took a reflexive step back, never having seen that look in her eyes before. "Then I'll make my own deal," she said fiercely. She threw the crystal figurine and stormed back into the house, leaving him standing alone in the starlight to hear it shatter in the distance.

But it was that same sort of magic that told Ballo his Wife was still alive: over on the edge of the patio, her Stellar Collector still sat. Every night she would work her magic to create it, set it on the edge of the patio where it could see the sky, then come join him for sleep. It was Trader magic - as a Moon Mage, he understood some but not all of it. But he knew it charged its energies through the night, pulling down a river of starlight energy that she could draw from later. Energy that kept her looking beautiful, they liked to joke . . . well, back when they used to joke. If she were gone, it would have dissipated by now.

"Mommy says it comes AND goes, Daddy," his Daughter said with more emphasis. She wanted attention he couldn't give right now. "Yes, sweetheart, the trade goods come and go." He heard her sigh in frustration over his shoulder.

They never spoke of the crystal figurine again. But she only grew more distant from there. A week later he went through her things while she was out. In her desk he found a skillful drawing, done in blank ink: A woman gazing up from the bottom of a deep, deep cave. The interior of the cave was contoured with jagged edges, and she appeared compacted into it, having no room on either side to even move. The woman was looking upward, toward a tiny circle of sky high above her, through which a multitude of stars could be seen. The woman looked like his Wife. And the back of the parchment was covered in math he had never seen before.

He confronted her, demanding to know what it all was; what was happening. "Another step in the sequence." she explained calmly. "Another step toward what?" he asked angrily. "I know we've lost things, but we have each other still. We have Daughter. That's enough." She tilted her head to the side in confusion, regarding him silently, as though he'd spoken in a language she didn't know.

"Enough?" she asked with icy indifference. "I'm a Trader. I'm not familiar with that word." And she made it clear the conversation was over.

And then finally, three days ago, she was gone. "Where could you be," he mused out loud . . . "Daddy, you're not listening!" his Daughter complained, interrupting his thought. "It can come AND go! Down and UP!" Ballo whirled around to face her, suddenly furious. "STOP IT!" he screamed. I know what it does! The caravan comes and . . ." His voice trailed off as he looked at his Daughter. She hadn't been pointing at the toy caravan at all. She had been pointing at his Wife's Stellar Collector. Down and up . . .

Just when he thought he started to understand, Ballo reminded himself that it wasn't possible. "Sweetheart," he started shakily, "what else did Mommy say?" His Daughter's voice grew very quiet, barely louder than a whisper: "That it would take her,” she started. “But that the price of the toll was high . . . and . . ." She trailed off. "Go ahead, pumpkin," he encouraged her. She crooked her little finger at him slowly, urging him closer to hear her secret. He bent toward her until their faces were almost touching. She whispered into his ear: "And she said you'd be the one to pay it."

He drew back in shock, gripping the smooth stone beneath him. And only then noticed the shadow stirring behind his Daughter, which, as it stepped forward, he recognized to be his Wife. "My love," he started shakily. "Where have you been?"

"I already told you. I went to make a new deal." Her melancholy was gone - her voice and face radiated with pride. "And I have," she explained. And as the shadows continued to peel back from her, he saw the bundle in her arms. It was a baby. A baby made entirely out of crystal. Not the tiny figurine she had molded that evening a month ago, but a full-sized infant. It even moved in her arms, each tiny motion accompanied by the sound of scratching glass. "An equal trade. One child . . .” She looked up. “For another."

Ballo panicked and his eyes darted to his Daughter between them. "No! You can't trade her away to save what was lost! Please, not our Daughter!" he begged, though he dare not rush at her . . . though he was a skilled Moon Mage, he knew he didn’t even need to be to see the waves of starlight energy continuously forming and rolling off of his Wife's shoulders, like mist rising from a lake at sunrise. He could sense her starlight aura, and it was as deep as the sea.

But his Daughter calmly stood and went to stand by her Mother, taking her free hand tenderly. "Oh, my love . . . No, never our Daughter," his Wife said delicately, gazing down lovingly at the little family she had assembled opposite him. "She’s not the Child . . . You are, Child of Grazhir."

Ballo froze, trembling upon the stone, but very slowly tried one last plea: "You have to realize . . . this is what It does . . . this is what the Arbiter wants. You've heard the stories - whatever deal you've made, it will go badly for you."

"Perhaps," she allowed. Everything was growing darker around him, at the edges of his vision, as though someone were dimming the very lights of the World. "But it will go worse for you."

"Bye Daddy," his Daughter said a bit sadly, waving her little hand, as everything finally went dark. And in that inky blackness, Ballo heard a shapeless voice, cold and echoing: THIS CONTRACT IS COMPLETED.

THE END

Author’s Postscript: Now, this story is complete nonsense, of course . . . I have been assured by all the Guild's greatest scholars that there is simply no way for the Stellar Collector to transmit energy in the opposite direction . . . even if its Iridius crystal is the most versatile of our Fabrication magic, and if even if the core we use to power it is capable of not only receiving but sending thoughts . . .

And yet, in the interest of completeness, I feel obliged to note that those same scholars are at a complete loss to explain to me why, after a dark, cloudless night, when I awake in the morning to drain my Collector, I hear the most awful scratching noises from it: A distant clicking. Accompanied by the strangest tugging sensation . . .