Chapter 5: The Paths of the Mountains of S7

On S7, there were places that almost nobody went near.

Not because they were exactly forbidden, but because the wind changed up there. The ancient bridges hanging between the mountains were narrow and silent, and many times they became covered by glowing mist that appeared without warning. Still, when the sky was clear, they could be seen from the cities.

Great elevated paths crossed the sky between the living mountains of the north. Some ended at ancient observatories. Others seemed to disappear among the clouds and the lights of the horizon.

The younger Sixevenians often stopped to look at them from the high platforms of the domes.

Some places on S7 seemed to be built between the sky and the clouds.

And of course, some Nimbis did too. In fact, the bravest ones could disappear for hours and return covered in small shining particles that nobody could explain. They never seemed afraid. On the contrary. It was as if those places felt familiar to them.

That is why many adults advised others not to follow them too far.

They said that the high paths could change when the winds of the seven moons blew. Some routes no longer led to the same place. Others seemed to appear only for a few hours.

Maybe some of those stories were simply legends, but what we knew for certain was that some Nimbis knew paths that nobody else had ever seen.

One day, the small Nimbi who so often watched the sky from the high platforms disappeared again among the gardens at the northern edge of S7. That afternoon, it slowly crossed an ancient suspended bridge that almost nobody used anymore. It did not seem afraid, and this time someone had decided to follow it...

Not all Sixevenians were afraid of the high paths.

It was a young Sixevenian, smaller than the others, wearing a robe with warm colors that changed slightly under the light of the suns. He usually walked slowly, observing everything, as if trying to discover hidden secrets among the stones and the wind.

Normally, almost nobody paid much attention to him, but that afternoon he was the only one brave enough to cross the bridge behind the Nimbi, and that did not go unnoticed.

The others remained still, watching from a distance.

From up there, the cities looked tiny. The wind made the old structures of the bridge echo softly, and the glowing mist began to move between the mountains.

Then something strange happened.

The small Nimbi stopped in the middle of the path, and the brave Sixevenian slowly approached it, quietly, though without hiding… The Nimbi was looking toward a place where there seemed to be nothing.

For a few seconds, the wind disappeared completely while both figures looked together at the horizon.

And far away, between the mountains covered in mist, a blue light appeared that nobody had ever seen before...

That light did not appear on any of the ancient maps.