Sylphie Gelton's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Sylphie Gelton wanted to think. That was the whole trouble. She was a slime, born to slide and split and feed, and slimes did not think. But the whispers said one thing could change that: a fragment of alien starlight. Swallow it, and a slime woke up. Sylphie had spent three nights slipping between the market stalls, listening, and no one could tell her where the fragment had fallen. She pressed her body flat against a cool tavern wall and pooled into the shadows. Around her, glossy slimes bounced past, laughing without words, happy to be empty. Sylphie watched them and felt the ache she could not name. She wanted more than a happy, empty life. She wanted a mind. The barkeep slime knew nothing. The dock slimes knew nothing. Sylphie had learned only that questions about starlight made older slimes go quiet and roll away. So she changed her shape. She drew herself tall and thin, gave herself a pale, smooth face, two bright eyes, and long arms that trailed like ribbons of glass. In this form she looked like a curious traveler, not a hungry slime. Strangers answered travelers. She found the answer on the vessel by the water. It was a huge ship built from living slime, its surface rippling, its rounded prow dripping like melted glass. An old slime kept watch at its base, a green core with tired eyes. Sylphie shaped a coin from a bead of herself and set it before him. "I'm looking for the starlight that fell," she said. "The piece that changes things." The old slime stared. He did not roll away. "You look like a traveler," he said slowly. "But you smell like one of us. Careful, little slime. That question ate the last one who asked it." "Please," Sylphie said. "Where did it land?" He tilted toward the far ridge, where slick spires rose in uneven points, shimmering wet against the sky. Behind them stood a tower crowned with long, curving arms that swept up like frozen comets. "The star-watchers' tower," he said. "Beyond the spires. The fragment crashed through its roof years back. They locked it inside and told everyone the sky was empty. It isn't." Sylphie's whole body brightened. She finally had a place. "They guard it well," the old slime added. "And the ones who guard it don't like slimes that think. If you go, don't go looking like you." Sylphie thanked him and slid toward the ridge. The spires shimmered ahead, and past them the tower waited with its arms raised to the sky. She had wanted a destination for three long nights. Now she had one, and a warning that fit it. Somewhere inside that locked observatory sat the thing that could make her real. Somewhere inside it, someone was ready to stop her.