City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy)

by Wight, Will

  One of the blocks drifted up on a cushion of Orange Light, sliding over to slam on top of its fellows in a neat stack. Dutifully, the workers applauded to show their gratitude. Then they got back to work.

  Diligence. He approved of that.

  The sight of the wall going up—block after block of pure white marble, cemented together by his human workforce—satisfied something in him. This wall represented order, purity, cleanliness…and, he supposed, self-sacrifice. He wasn’t sure. Why didn’t he know the exact nature of Elysia’s White Light? He was trying to put up a White District, as there was in his Territory, but how could he do that if he couldn’t even call the White?

  The thought put a wrinkle in his previously unmarred peace of mind, and he frowned.

  “Rhalia, what does the White Light represent?”

  The Gate swirled beside him, its edges shining like pure sunlight. Rhalia hung motionless in the air behind the Gate, her white dress and gold sash blowing in the light breeze that ruffled Elysia’s grass. Her golden eyes were sad as they touched on the workers, but he couldn’t figure out why.

  She heard him and started to respond, but he held up a hand. “No, that’s not the right question. It doesn’t matter what the White represents.”

  “I would say it matters very much,” Rhalia said softly.

  Alin rubbed his chin with one gauntleted hand, trying to phrase his thoughts clearly. “I mean, what matters is that I don’t know what the White Light means. Why does it elude me, even now?”

  Rhalia brushed a strand of blond hair out of her face, still watching the workers. “The White Light is selflessness. It’s pure devotion to the service of another at your own expense—even its power can only be used on behalf of someone else. That part of Elysia is beyond you.” She didn’t meet Alin’s gaze.

  Alin stepped fully in front of the Gate, forcing her to look him in the eye. “I am Elysia,” he said. “There is no door in the city barred to me.”

  A small smile tugged at the corner of Rhalia’s mouth, and she gestured behind her. The walls of the City of Light rose in the distance, bright gold in the light of Elysia’s eternal sunrise. They had been worked with silver and set with precious metals, gleaming a dozen different colors, and the tops of the nine Districts rose high above the city streets.

  “You want to open the White Door?” Rhalia asked. “Feel free.” She kept her hand held out like a native giving a tour. Which she was, now that Alin thought about it.

  Alin tapped into the Green Light. He didn’t form it into a shield, he just held the light, flooding him with patience and soothing away his irritation at Rhalia’s jokes. He couldn’t see himself, but he knew that his eyes would have turned a bright emerald green.

  He managed a sad smile. “Why don’t you approve?” he asked, turning back to the workers building their wall. “I have given them order. Nobody starves here, not anymore. No man cheats another.”

  The Violet Light whispered the answer: Because you gave up your humanity to do it. What are you now?

  He ignored it. He was finding it easier and easier to ignore the Violet, these days.

  “You think I’m sad for them?” Rhalia asked. “Alin, my heart breaks for you. I’ve failed you as badly as I failed my own people. I only pray that you don’t pay the price they did.”

  Alin couldn’t stand hearing her like this. Rhalia was usually brighter than the sun; she was supposed to be cheery even in the shadow of death. What had gotten to her?

  Find out what’s wrong, the Rose Light pleaded. You have to fix her.

  You owe it to her, said the Orange Light.

  It’s your fault, added the Silver. There’s only one way to—

  Alin quieted the Silver Light. The colors didn’t talk to him in audible voices, but they clearly reminded him what he would think if he were drawing on their Light. He was starting to avoid calling the Silver Light, even staying as far away from the Silver District inhabitants as he could.

  Wisdom, he decided, wasn’t everything.

  He thought compassion held the answer now, so he tapped into the Rose Light. Soft pink warmth bloomed in his mind, suffusing him with empathy. One of the workers, down by the half-formed wall, had slumped down with his back half-propped against the white marble. How had he not noticed that before?

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Rhalia,” he said. “You kept me safe. You gave me great advice. If I strayed, it was my fault, not yours.”

  Before he had finished the sentence, he stepped off of the fifty-foot wall, and the street rushed up to greet him. A flare of Orange Light caught him before he slammed into the cobblestones and he landed lightly, knees bent. Rhalia’s Gate fell with him, exactly parallel to his right shoulder, as though it was tied to him.

  “When I was a girl,” Rhalia said, “potential Elysian Travelers were given months of ethics and morality training before they would be allowed to take the compatibility tests. I was only offered the option after I saved a man’s life. But you…I taught you nothing. I only set you loose.”

  “I’m sure you had a good reason,” Alin said, as he strode past the citizens of Enosh. They all bowed to him as he passed, each at exactly the correct angle. The boots of his golden armor rang out against the cobblestones, echoing in the silence.

  Rhalia sat, cross-legged, in midair. Alin sensed her calling on the Orange Light, but he couldn’t see it, which he suspected was more impressive than he realized. How many little tricks did she know that she hadn’t shared?

  “I trusted your blood more than I trusted the old teachings,” she said bitterly. “You were prophesied to be the first natural Elysian Traveler in three hundred years, so I was sure you could handle yourself. And we can both use Violet, so let’s be honest: I didn’t trust myself. I was sure that anything I taught you would be poisoned by my past, that everything I said would lead you down my path.”

  Alin said nothing, he simply kept walking and let her speak. Perhaps this would be good for her, talking about her problems.

  She knows far more than you do, the Violet Light said. Maybe if you’d listened to her, you wouldn’t be a tyrant and a monster.

  Alin crushed that voice. Maybe Violet and Silver were in this together.

  “It looks like my path was wider than I’d thought,” Rhalia whispered, almost to herself.

  It occurred to Alin that he had never asked Rhalia about her past. That had been foolish of him. Who knew what wisdom she might have to share?

  Are you brave enough to face it? the Gold Light asked.

  That was odd. Usually the Gold Light was on his side.

  Alin reached the injured man, who still lay slumped against the half-built wall of the White District. His clothes were ragged and dirty, his beard spilled across his chest.

  Another worker, a younger man, hovered nearby, seemingly torn between helping Alin and going back to work. He was little more than a child.

  The child was probably Alin’s age, now that he thought of it, but the comparison was hardly fair.

  Children these days, standing around like that, the Red Light muttered. Pure laziness!

  Alin raised one gold-gauntleted hand and crooked a finger. All the color ran out of the young man’s face, and he hurried over, giving a precise bow as he arrived. “How may I serve you, Eliadel?” he whispered.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Alin said, full of Rose Light. “What happened to this man?” He knew his eyes would be bright pink, which couldn’t be comforting, but if he released the Rose Light, his eyes would go back to their natural state. He didn’t think this young man would appreciate staring into two circles of a thousand swirling colors, so he kept holding the Rose.

  “I…I don’t know,” the boy choked out. “He fell over, and we tried to get him up, but he told us that he needed a rest. That’s two hours ago, sir.”

  Alin placed one hand against the bearded man’s neck. He could feel very little through his gauntlets, certainly not enough to check a pulse. He only needed to call a qu
ick flash of Silver Light, and he’d know everything that was wrong with this man in an instant. Every cut, scrape, tumor, and lesion in the body would practically shine, and he could direct the Rose Light as needed. In a severe case that stretched beyond his abilities, he could even summon a more experienced or powerful healer from the Rose District.

  But he hesitated. Calling the Silver Light would mean hearing what the Silver Light had to say, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that at the moment. Perhaps later.

  You’re afraid to look into the Silver, the Violet Light said, because it will show you as you truly are.

  Coward, spat the Gold Light.

  “Can you help him, Eliadel?” the boy asked.

  Alin cupped an empty hand, and it filled with a perfect flower blossom sculpted of bright pink light. He cast it out over the man’s body, and glowing rose petals drifted down, sinking into the bearded man’s flesh like pebbles into a pond.

  “What are you doing, Alin?” Rhalia asked, her voice alarmed. The boy was making a point to look away from the Gate, as though he thought he wasn’t allowed to look upon Elysia directly.

  Alin didn’t answer. The flower in his hand split into a flurry of pink petals, each sinking into an area of the body that needed healing.

  “You didn’t search him first,” Rhalia said. “You have to use the Silver Light, Alin! Call the Silver!” She was straining to lean out of the Gate now, trying to get a closer look at his work, and it looked as though she was pushing on an invisible screen. She pressed with both hands, but the Gate’s invisible barrier wouldn’t let her pass.

  She wasn’t panicking, but she looked close to it.

  The bearded man coughed once, and then his eyes opened wide. He took one huge, rattling breath so deep that he sounded like a corpse trying to breathe after a week in the ground.

  Finally, he collapsed back down, panting, his eyes very much alert.

  Alin smiled at Rhalia and stood, brushing off his armor. “Don't worry so much, Rhalia. You have to learn to accept these things as they come.”

  Rhalia looked like she was about to respond, but the bearded man coughed one more time, stealing both of their gazes back. He pulled a palm away from his mouth and held it out to Alin. His hand was spattered with blood.

  “What is...” he began, but he stopped as he coughed again, falling to his knees. He kept coughing as he almost spasmed inward, curling up on the street.

  “Search him!” Rhalia commanded. “Call the Silver!”

  Red, Gold, Violet, and Rose all agreed, adding their voices to Rhalia's, and even Alin couldn't think of any other reason to hesitate.

  Reaching out to Elysia, he tapped into the Silver Light. Instantly, he put together details that he hadn't thought were significant. The way the boy shuffled his feet, how he kept back far enough but never too far away to help, the concerned glances he kept shooting the bearded man...he was a relative, maybe even the older man's son. But he hadn't reacted much when it looked like the man was going to cough himself to death, so not a son. A nephew, maybe?

  Once, Alin had enjoyed calling the Silver Light. It made him feel astute and intelligent, as he noticed trivial details and spun them together into the truth. The problem was, he couldn't turn it off.

  If you had searched him first, you could have saved him, the Silver Light said. Rhalia told you to, but in your fear, you didn't listen. Are you afraid you'll see what you're doing to these people? Can't you look yourself in the eye?

  According to Elysian legend and tradition, the Silver Light was the power of wisdom, given only to those who possessed extraordinary insight. He had never found that to be true; to him, it only ever sounded like the voice of accusation and guilt.

  Alin spun a cloud of tiny lights into the man's body. To him, the Silver looked like a handful of glittering metal dust, shining as it flowed in a solid river into the man's veins, along his muscles, tracing the outline of bone and nerve. No one else could see what he saw, but in his vision, the human body became translucent under the effects of Silver Light. He could see straight through the skin, into the marrow.

  The Silver flashed a warning, and it didn't take Alin long to see why: there was a dark mass around the worker's heart, twisting down until it even lay one tendril into a lung. Alin had never learned much anatomy, but he had heard of tumors, and he had spent his share of time around animals suffering from parasites. Whichever this was, it was killing him.

  You killed him, the Silver Light said. A growth like this feeds on the healing you gave this man. If you had simply looked before injecting the Rose, he might have made it home tonight. As it is...

  Rhalia let out a soft sigh. “He has maybe three, four hours left. It's best to get him some water and make him comfortable.”

  Alin kept kneeling. The man coughed once more, splattering blood on his gold breastplate, but Alin ignored it.

  The Rose Light in him ached along with the bearded man, sympathizing with his pain, agonizing in sympathy over his terrible fate. If only we had searched him first, the Rose cried.

  The Red and the Gold told him to get over this man's death. It was tragic, sure. But Alin hadn't meant any harm. In fact, he had tried to help. It was only natural that he should fail every once in a while, so long as he didn't let that slow him down.

  The Green and Orange Lights were slower to judge. He was a stranger to you, the Orange pointed out.

  Have peace, said the Green Light. Everything will work out in the end.

  The Silver and Violet were more accusing. This is your fault, they said. You could have fixed this.

  Alin didn't know what to think. His thoughts, his emotions, his very nature were all pulling him in very different directions, threatening to tear him apart.

  Then the Blue Light shone, soft and cool, in his mind.

  Mercy, it suggested.

  That sounded like a good idea.

  “Step back,” Alin said to the boy. The young man took two or three steps backwards. “On second thought...take the day off. Go home. You don't need to witness this.”

  With tears in his eyes, the boy shook his head.

  The Orange Light of loyalty couldn't help but approve.

  Without another word, Alin called the Blue. Translucent tendrils of blue light, like tendrils made of sapphire, reached up out of the ground all around the bearded man. He continued hacking and coughing, but his eyes were glazed over again. They had none of the life in them that Alin had seen from him a moment before.

  The ropes of blue light lay limp on the man's flesh. And then they began to draw his life away. Bright sparks of light, little chunks of the man's heat and life force, traveled down the tentacles, draining into Elysia. If Alin chose, he could take that power and use it to fuel his own summoning...but he hardly needed that, now. He let the energy go directly to his Territory instead.

  As the Blue Light slowly killed this boy's relative—father, uncle, adoptive guardian, it didn’t matter at this point—Alin decided it would be better for him to say a few words to honor this man he hardly knew. He opened his mouth to speak.

  Only to find that, for perhaps the first time in his life, he had absolutely no idea what to say.

  “May he find his way into the Maker's arms,” Rhalia said softly. “May his life be remembered, his deeds honored, his family comforted. He will not be forgotten.”

  The boy was crying now, and the spectacle had attracted a smaller crowd that Alin had not noticed. Some of their overseers—a handful of squat gnomes with bright red caps—scratched at their beards, obviously wondering why their employees hadn't come back to work. Alin had summoned these from the Red District in Elysia, and constant diligence was all they knew. They would stay on a job until it was finished or they died of exhaustion, and they simply couldn't understand why humans weren't the same way.

  Rhalia said something else that Alin didn't catch, and the crowd murmured in response. The boy was weeping openly now, but he nodded to Rhalia. She bowed back, her blond hair fallin
g around her eyes so that Alin couldn't see what expression she was making.

  The Blue Light retreated, leaving one lifeless corpse on the streets of Enosh.

  At last, Alin figured out something he could say that might make a difference to a grieving family member. “He is gone, but I will take his body with me. He will lie in a grave in the City of Light, and Elysia will remember him forever.” He would have to ask someone the dead man's name, at some point, but he was proud of the gesture.

  The young man glanced at another worker, who patted him reassuringly on the back. The boy turned back and met Alin squarely in the eyes. “I'm honored, sir. More than I can say. But we'd rather have him back, if…you know, if it’s okay with you. All our family is buried in the same plot, you see, and...”

  He shrugged helplessly, unable to finish the sentence.

  Alin felt a flash of irritation. He had offered to bury the boy's uncle in a rare and beautiful Territory, there to be remembered forever. How many people got a chance like that? But the Rose Light told him what he should say: “Of course, I completely understand. Take him with my blessing.”

  The boy and several of the other workers gathered up the man's body and carried him away. Alin had to command the gnomes twice to let them through; they would rather shave their beards than let workers go before the task was complete.

  After that, the other workers simply milled around, shooting him and Rhalia nervous looks. He no longer felt like levitating marble blocks, so he simply told them to go home to their families. They all bowed to him and retreated, leaving only a few horrified-looking gnomes standing in an empty corner of the street next to a pile of shoulder-high marble blocks.

  You did everything you could, the Rose Light said.

  That was a tough job well done, said the Red.

  You spared him worse pain, said the Blue.

  He stood there for long minutes, long after the red gnomes had departed, letting the encouragement soothe him. Naturally, he had done the right thing. He was Elysia. He never did anything except the right thing.