A Million Bodies

by Erica Pensini

  I close my eyes, and the space ceases to spin.

  The sounds are still out there, but in the darkness of my closed eyelids I find a slit of quiet. I bend, and feeling my way around I start to explore the room.

  I used my eyes and ears, and they failed me. I have five senses though.

  With my eyes closed, I realize the room has the wet smell of a dungeon after a prolonged thunderstorm. I touch the floor, sense its texture with my fingers. It's smooth, exceptionally smooth.

  I rub my finger against the floor, and lick it. The taste is bitter, medicinal. It's the taste of a potion. The term darts through me, potion.

  I am suddenly aware that, once upon a time, I knew how to make potions. Yes, I used to prepare the potions in a dungeon.

  Crawling, I reach a corner. Eyes closed, I follow its edge, slowly, wondering if I got here for a reason.

  The room turns quiet.

  Leaning my hand on the floor, I discover the presence of a sharp object. It cuts through my flesh, and when I bring my hand to my mouth I taste the blood.

  Instead of opening my eyes to inspect the wound I grab the object, and start working on the corner. I want to cut it open.

  I start gently, working my way inside the wall with caution. When I sense the wall is starting to crack I hasten the pace of my work. I hammer the wall with the sharp object, as the blood dribbles down my wrists. I pound and pound, till my arms can no longer stand the beat.

  Exhaustion is about to knock me down when I feel two hands wrap mine around the handle of the tool I have been holding.

  They raise it for me, and knock it against the wall, once more. I feel the wall break.

  Eyes closed, I touch the crack propagating noiselessly into the silent room.

  I open my eyes, and I see Arthur's hands on mine, a scalpel raised onto a propagating crack beyond which is a world unexplored and yet oddly familiar.

  We look at each other and nod, smiling.

  "Well done, partner," I say.

  Chapter 40

  When we step inside the crack the air is cold and humid. There a soft gurgling sound emanating from a corner.

  There, standing quietly side by side, Arthur and I are intent in the preparation of a yellowish fluid, bubbling inside an ampoule. Our clothing are outdated and elegant. In which time have we landed? This must be the dungeon of the castle.

  Our alter egos don't notice us for a while. Then the other me senses my presence and turns. She bugs her eyes, staring at me for a long moment, till the tension in her gaze captures the attention of the other Arthur.

  He's about to say something, but she touches his elbow slightly, playfully, and places a finger on her mouth.

  "Shh," she hushes him.

  "But?" he starts.

  "We need to complete this task," she says.

  I take Arthur by the hand, motioning towards our alter egos. We walk towards them, without speaking a word.

  "Yes, we do. We don't have much time, and sooner or later someone will find us even if we are hiding down here," the other Arthur agrees.

  "We need to boil the potion for a while longer before adding the last ingredient," my alter ego replies.

  "And we have to verify if it has the effect we expect it to have," Arthur adds.

  Who just spoke is not Arthur's alter ego, but the Arthur beside me, holding my hand.

  "It will work, I know it," his alter ego responds to this comment.

  "What do we expect it to do?" I ask, breaching the silence, looking at the other me and the two Arthurs.

  "This potion reveals people's identity," my alter ego explains, slowly enunciating the concept.

  "What do you want to do with it?" I ask.

  "Drink it," she replies calmly.

  Chapter 41

  "Why do you want to drink the potion? Why do you want your identity revealed, and to whom?" I want to know.

  "To myself, to you," my alter ego tells me.

  I narrow my eyes, struggling to understand.

  "You need to find the door, remember?" she says.

  "Yes, but-" I start.

  "What's your plan for finding it?" she interrupts me.

  "Well, I?I don't really have a well-defined plan," I fumble.

  "If you don't have a plan, how do you expect to ever find it?" she challenges me.

  "Do you have a plan?" I defiantly ask the other me.

  "Not now, and that's why I want to drink this potion," she replies with flawless logic.

  "You need to know who you really are to find the door", I say, my question phrased as a statement.

  "In a sense. We don't know what behind the door, but we know that whatever it is, it will save the kingdom," my alter ego explains.

  "How do you know?" I inquire.

  "There is an ancient book, which father inherited from our ancestors. Grandfather forbade him from reading it till an exceptional circumstance arose," my alter ego says.

  "Which exceptional circumstance?" I want to know.

  "Father would recognize the exceptional circumstance when it happened, grandfather said. The book was stored in a safe, and nobody but father knew the code to open it. One night father sought refuge in the library to clear his mind. He noticed the book on the library's table, right in front of the chair where he usually sat, and he knew the time had come," she recollects.

  Now her head is bowed as she speaks, as if she was recounting these memories to herself.

  "And what did the book say about the door?" I ask.

  "Right, what did it say? That is a question I cannot fully answer. It said that behind the door lies the way to the eternal life of our father's kingdom. The rest is undefined," she replies enigmatically.

  "Undefined? How so?" I insist.

  "Depending on the reader, the words of the book change," she tells me.

  Chapter 42

  "The words change depending on the reader" I echo.

  "They do," my alter ego confirms.

  "But then I don't understand?why are you drinking the potion to understand who you are? What you read in the book might be deceiving," I argue.

  "I am not the only one who will drink the potion. I want my whole crew to do the same," she tells me.

  "Your whole crew?" I ask in confusion.

  "The crew I will lead in the expedition to find the door," my alter ego replies.

  "Don't be so cryptic, Iris," I frown.

  "Don't be so un-intuitive, Iris," she retorts.

  "You can view all the readers as lenses looking at the same object from different angles, each distorting it in some way. If you know in which ways each lens distorts your image, and which side of the image it captures, you might be able to build a somewhat objective and complete representation of the image," she tells me.

  I start to fathom her plan, and I nod.

  "I see, you want to capture the real meaning of the book through the million different interpretations of your readers. In practice though-" I start, but before I can complete my sentence she lifts the ampoule to her lips.

  "Get ready, Iris," she warns me, a split second before the liquid pours down her throat.

  As she intakes the potion, I feel it seep through me, expanding slowly within my veins.

  "Wait," I shriek, panicking, but I can no longer stop my alter ego.

  The potion sends waves of heat through me. I feel my body swell to a humongous size, while my head stays small. My body tilts, slowly, as if gravity had no effect on it and I find myself floating along the ceiling in a horizontal position.

  I am weightless, and the space seems oddly similar and yet not fully recognizable.

  Then I stiffen, and it seems like I can no longer move myself without shattering the whole space with my huge, dense, heavy self.

  I drop to the floor, dragged by my own weight.

  For a short moment following the fall I seem to be back to my regular size.

  "Iris," I hear.

  For reasons I cannot ascertain I start laughing.

>   "Iris," I hear again, my name resounding in anguished notes.

  I cannot see who is speaking to me, and I cannot see the place. The outside world has blacked out, and I am dizzy.

  And yet a second later my mind clears.

  I am walking alone, but I don't feel lonely.

  The space outside me is dark, but I feel like I know where to step.

  I am in a forest, I sense the leaves brush against me, and the branches rip my clothing and graze my face.

  None of this matters though.

  The road is rough, but I know that at its end I will find what I am looking for.

  And soon enough, a faint glow starts pulsing before me.

  Chapter 43

  I move towards the pulsing light, attempting to ascertain its origin. From a close distance the light ceases to appear intermittent, and I find myself enveloped by its suffused halo, soft and immobile in the night.

  The space around me remains dark, but at the center of the sphere of light in which I stand there is an old map, marked by time and crippled along the edges, and yet clearly legible.

  "You are here," reads a label, pointing at a flame.

  From it a dashed line snakes along a large dark patch, labelled "The woods."

  As my eyes follow the line I am lead to a cryptic image, which could represent a cave.

  "Your army is here," it reads.

  I wonder how far that point is from where I am now. There's only one trail marked on the map so - no matter the distance - if I keep walking there is no doubt that I will reach "my army".

  I have a vague recollection of an army, but I can no longer tell if it was a dream, a memory, or something I read and made mine.

  The line doesn't stop at the cave and the army. It moves further, beyond what seems to be a mountainous land, all the way to a cross.

  "The cemetery," the map says, and beside the label there's an arrow pointing at a region located at some depth below the surface. "The inevitable depths," the arrow indicates.

  I feel a shiver as I read the ornate writing. The line does not interrupt itself there though. There is a way out of these depths.

  "The book trail," reads a label along the line exiting them.

  The line zig-zags through what seems an empty space, and points to a circle called, "The Galaxian archeological site," adjacent to a circle denominated "The Future Galaxies."

  From it the line continues.

  "The Book trail," it repeats.

  I follow it further, and it says, "Mine 503."

  I think I remember all this, have I not seen it already?

  My frenzy finger traces the profile of the line, and beyond Mine 503 there is a convoluted labyrinth.

  But is it a labyrinth?

  I bring my face closer to the map, and I realize that what I am seeing is not a labyrinth, but a game of mirrors bouncing a million reflections of my own face, or rather its appearance, distorted and twisted. I resemble uncle Ludwig at one moment, my brother Tristan the next instant, and a second later the person I think I am.

  I pull back, terrified.

  "You must learn to know yourself, my child," I hear my mother say.

  "Mother!" I call out.

  Silence.

  "Mother?" I call out again, but to no avail.

  I start to wonder if I am hallucinating.

  My eyes move along the line, blurred by the tears pooling in my eyes.

  My courage is fading away, my assurance vacillates.

  "The potion of the Truth," reads a flag.

  I remember the potion too. I feel like I've lived all this before, as if I stepped in each and every destination of the map in a long gone time.

  "Yes you have," a voice thunders, in reply to my unspoken thoughts.

  I look around, startled.

  "Who are you?" I ask.

  "This is your map, Iris," it resounds again.

  "But if I am here-" I start, and my voice breaks.

  "Phrase your question adequately, if you want an answer," the voice tells me.

  "If I am here," I say, gathering my courage as I point at a spot on the map, "Where am I to go to find the door?"

  "What is the door, Iris?" the voice asks.

  "Freedom!" I shout, surprising myself.

  I start to run as I've never run before, against the night, away from the voice which echoes behind me, "Are you sure? Are you, Iris? Sure? Are you sure? I am asking, are you really sure?"

  The night is behind me, beyond me, and the present is dark.

  But the voice won't have me.

  I run and run, determined to continue till the moment I will collapse. There's nothing to lose, since there's no place for me to go and there will never be.

  And yet before I collapse I hit something huge, solid as steel, cold as the blackness around it. I collide against it at full speed, and fall down, suddenly awakened by the impact.

  I just found the door.

  Chapter 44

  There's a lock on the door, it's massive, solid, and as intimidating as the door it seals. I can't really see it, but I sense it, feeling the door with my hands.

  I pound against it, and a hollow echo reverberates against me, propagates within me, and plows its way out of me in the form of a scream.

  I barely recognize my voice. I barely recognize myself.

  And all of a sudden I outside myself and I see a person called Iris pound on a door and scream.

  "What advice would you give to someone who is plunged in darkness and pounds against a door that refuses to crack open?" I ask her.

  I see her pause, gaining conscience.

  "I would tell the person to try and find some light and some tools," she replies.

  "How?" I prod her.

  "One could sleep and wait for it to dawn," she replies.

  "So you assume that it will dawn. What if it won't? How can you decide how long you must wait before assessing that it will never dawn?" I insist.

  I sense Iris's discomfort.

  "I can't understand what's out here, blindly," she defends herself.

  "You can get an impression of the surroundings by feeling the terrain with your hands, even if the night is blinding you," I propose encouragingly.

  "Yes," she says, and yet she is reluctant to move.

  "Come on, you must do it," I urge her.

  Slowly, she starts to crawl, feeling her way through the unknown.

  "Tell me, what are you touching, Iris?" I ask.

  "Something cold," she replies.

  "Is it rough or smooth?"

  "I don't know," she says.

  I know she's holding back the tears.

  "Ok Iris, why don't you tell me a story?" I say.

  "A story?" she echoes, confused.

  "Let me begin. She started touching the ground around her. It was black, cold, and undefinable. She felt defeated, she couldn't believe she'd find anything. She wasn't sure she'd survive, let alone survive and open the door. It wasn't fear she felt, or at least not only fear. What caused tears to pool in her eyes was rather the disappointment of failing miserably after having been a promising heir. What she hadn't done though, was dig into that black, cold, surface," I start.

  Iris stops, the shift in her mood is slight and yet perceptible. There is a moment of silence.

  "The thought occurred to her in a flashing second, it gave her hope," I continue, and I hear a gentle shuffle, the sound thin hands make when they dig through loose soil.

  "You wouldn't logically expect to find a source of light under the earth. But if you are perfectly logical all the time you can't make any discoveries, can you? If you are perfectly logical all the time it means you are not creative," I persist, not really knowing where this will lead.

  That's no matter though. The point is not to find an immediate solution, but to keep alive the will to try, beyond all reasonable hope.

  "Right," I insist, and Iris digs.

  "If one spot doesn't work, there's always a chance that the adjacent one will," I p
rod her.

  When I myself start to wonder if I have gone fully insane, Iris shrieks "Oh God!"

  She felt a foot as she dug, and a leg, and a whole body.

  "Keep going!" I urge her, my skin covered in goose bumps, because it's cold and my pretense cannot efface my fears.

  Iris digs.

  "What is this!" she screams, as another foot, leg, a full body emerges from the cold earth.

  "Dig Iris, dig. Do not stop. All you have to do is dig," I state, and she keeps digging.

  As she scoops of handful of soil after the next, an army of bodies finds its way out of the blackness.

  I'm exhausted, Iris is exhausted. Our throat is dry, our bodies limp, our minds vacillate in the indetermination of the endless night.

  We are about to let go, I sense it, but we haven't yet.

  "Where do you think we are, Iris?" I ask, making a super-human effort.

  "In the cemetery" she tells me.

  "Are these men dead?" I want to know.

  "No, we aren't", a choir of voices echoes, and we start.

  "We aren't, Iris. The past is never over. We are you loyal army, don't you remember us?" they ask her, me, us.

  And Iris and I become one again.

  Chapter 45

  "Yes, I do remember you?" I whisper.

  The voices turn into mist, and the mist rises slowly, shedding an eerie glow in the night. I observe it, mesmerized.

  "Uhuhuhuh" the earth resonates, almost inaudibly at first and then louder and louder.

  "What is happening?" I ask nobody in particular, a moment before the mist breaks into a flash of light and the humming sound spoken by the earth goes quiet.

  And the army appears.

  Each man mounts a horse and each carries a torch, breaching the darkness with a cone of light.

  "We are here, at your service," the army voice in unison, and goes silent.

  "And this is your horse," says Arthur against the sudden wall of silence, standing in the front row, sided by Matt and Wilhelm.

  I step forward and jump on the horse, nodding my gratefulness.

  "Thank you, soldiers," I begin, my voice propagating in the night, suddenly powerful and crisp.

  "God bless our future queen," they echo.

  "Soldiers, friends, together we will open the door to the eternal life of the kingdom. Let me lead you there," I announce.

  Was I the one who just spoke? Was I ever meant to be a leader of men? I thought I'd never cared to be one.

  I have just convinced myself that I can play the role, when Arthur approaches me.

  "Iris, have a look around you, what do you see?" he asks me, shaking me out of the glorious moment.