“Not a bad place to end it,” Zaja admitted, looking at the night sky and smiling, “… but we can’t stay.”
“Why such a sentiment?”
“I can’t feel good in places as serene as this,” Zaja confided. “However comfortable I am, however nice my home and my life are, someone else is toiling and even suffering to realize it.”
Chari thought back to how much she had taken in Cordom—the church paid for things, of course, but the Saryu gave to the church that supported her. How little better might their lives have been if they hadn’t? She had no conclusion to share with Zaja.
They came upon the library she had spied before. It rose nearly as high as the Saryu Cathedral back home and when they entered, a familiar musk was in the air: books. Shelves climbed to the ceiling and descended into the rooted earth. The library was deep as it was tall, and Chari beamed. This was Heaven.
Behind her, the bickering had at last diminished to browbeating and dirty looks. Flynn and Mack had intervened more than once, keeping the fight from escalating to its natural peak.
The paths and walks of the library all convened at an elderly librarian, comfortably reading on a splintered wooden bench. With the opulence all around them, she wondered if he’d had a bench like it in his life before, to settle on something so shabby.
“What do you hope to find here?” Poe asked.
In truth, not a thing. Chari clutched at a book in her satchel, An Infinite Promise, stolen from Airia’s library. Sappier than she had hoped, it told the tale of man trapped in reincarnation, waiting for a lover who had leapt the cycle long ago. Still, he held onto his faith in the Goddess Hapané, and it made Chariska ill. She wanted something else to read.
“Maybe there’s something here about the Guardians,” Chari ventured. “Some key or circumstance that would allow Poe to vacate his assignment.”
“That is the Archangel’s domain,” Poe replied. “Just as she was appointed to care take Heaven itself, so she chose my lineage for the gates.”
“Appointed?” Flynn’s interest was piqued. “By whom?”
“The Mystik of Love.”
“Wait, there’s a Mystik here?” Jean replied. “And yer tellin’ me Cybel ain’t it?”
“Clearly, Cybel bars the way,” Chari pointed out. “It’s a foregone conclusion that she will not let us by.”
“So we can’t go over her head,” Zaja reasoned. Jean cracked her knuckles, and getting the hint, she added, “without violence.”
“Which I would oppose,” Poe stated tacitly. “None among us is to harm the Archangel, however disagreeably she behaves.”
Consensus was reached that the library was their best bet. While most of the others drifted, Zaja, curious and less invested in the goings-on, followed Chari as she scuttled down to the old librarian behind the circular desk.
“If your discussion is settled,” the elderly gentleman asked, “I would ask that you please be as quiet as you can muster.”
Chari looked around. Aside from their group and the librarian himself, there was nobody else. She asked what the point was of considering silence in the circumstances.
“Ritual,” he told her passionately. “We maintain connections to our souls through ritual.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Zaja told him.
Reflexively, he shushed her. He leaned close to the girls, resting on cupped hands. “You’ve come from outside. You don’t know what it is to be here as long as some Celestials have—an age of protracted pleasure, such that you lose your way, forget where you came from. The things that made you what you are.”
Chari walked to a nearby railing, looking down at the books meticulously organized below, listening to the old man’s words.
“You could regard this simply as a chamber of books, and it would only be as such to you,” he explained. “But in doing so, its significance as a library fades, and why it was significant to you. It loses its luster as the soul loses part of itself.”
“What harm is there in that?” Chari asked.
“However strong the soul is, it remains encaged,” he went on, “as the cage weakens, deforms, breaks—it affects the contents within. The mind, the will … all these things will persist when a body dies, but what shapes they take are greatly altered.”
“I see,” Chari replied, though in truth she had only barely begun. “My apologies, but which way to the TseTsuan texts? Does this library have any?”
The elderly librarian graciously directed her to a stack in the upper level and out of old habit, Chari rested her hands together and bowed to the man before hurrying along. After thanking him, Zaja kept pace.
*
Chariska thumbed carefully through the texts. It had been a stroke of luck twice now that she had been able to find a book in her own language so far away from home, and she knew she couldn’t count on such fortune again and again. She occasionally thumbed An Infinite Promise in her satchel, ready to swap it out. Whatever she took now might be her last for a long time.
She missed the old pleasures of home. Reading in bed. Beds in general. Drawing a bath when one wished, and the sense of lasting cleanliness that followed. Privacy. Sensual pleasures. She was tempted to sneak away, find someone as she would have in the city back home. There were itches that were difficult to scratch, and she was shy to approach strangers, not having the authority she once did to take what she wanted.
“I … can’t read this.” Zaja was holding one of the books sideways, trying to make sense of the characters. Pages flipped from her thumb, answering the pull of gravity.
“We could next see if there’s a section for Omati texts,” Chari suggested.
“It’s alright,” Zaja shook her head. “I wasn’t really interested anyways. Reading’s gotten to be kind of a drag.”
A … drag? Chari’s look of horror was not lost on her companion.
“It’s all distractions,” Zaja explained. “Reading, the stuff I watched on the screen, the music I used to listen to. They were just things to do while I idled away in a warm room.”
Parts of Zaja’s statement were cryptic to Chari, who’d known no such technological luxuries on TseTsu. But she had gleaned enough from her Earth companions to follow.
“I wanted to be active,” Zaja told her, excited. “I wanted to run and tumble. I wanted to dance.” She became softer, sentimental. “I wanted to learn so much how to dance. The one time I tried, I overdid it … so they took those videos away.”
Chari felt pity for Zaja, as much for the losses that brought her here as for the blue-skinned girl’s inability to relax and find pleasure in the little luxuries, especially now that they were so hard to come by.
“And if you had attained the work you sought, back in Kana?” Chari implored. “Could you then have resumed enjoying those indulgences?”
Zaja appeared to give the question serious thought, but only shrugged in dismay. “I don’t really know.” She reshelved the book she’d been holding. “Maybe it’s better I can’t read anything we find. It’s one less distraction to fall back on.”
Chari wondered why the written word would be lost upon travelers when the spoken word seemed something shared in common. She and Zaja understood each other, and only if she listened close could she find something amiss. But never was expression lost between them. It was not hard to guess the cause: They had moved through worlds, touching things no ordinary human could understand.
*
Flynn lost track of time, but he estimated that a few hours had to have passed. The subtle cues weren’t there—the need to eat, to urinate, and even rest were all absent in Heaven. He placed his hand upon his chest and found that his heart still beat. The rhythm had not faltered or changed.
Staying close together, he and Poe had wound through the passages, fingering through books on various subjects—most of which neither could read. Left alone, Flynn would have idled a while longer, at least until daybreak met the windows and made him acutely aware of how much time had been w
asted. But Poe slammed a book shut sooner, declaring, “We have been wasting our time here,” and prompting an agreement to speak with the elderly librarian Chari had approached earlier. Flynn had intended just to look around, get a feel for the place, but it was easy to drift without any biological distraction. The librarian closed his book as they neared, as though he’d deliberately finished the last page in sync with their approach.
“Edlemin,” he introduced himself, leaning over to shake Flynn’s hand. Despite his age, he had a liveliness and virility in him, and moved to clasp Poe’s hand with the same enthusiasm. “Vetniau Edlemin.”
“Flynn,” the first replied.
“Guardian Poe,” said the second.
“I knew it,” Edlemin was pleased. “You are the Guardian. There is an aura of liveliness to you that even my fellow Celestials lack.”
The elderly man only further confounded the sense of timelessness surrounding them. Flynn had seen no others so aged in Purgatory or in the pathways outside. He needed to shelve these mysteries: There was a job at hand.
“What do you know about the Guardian line? Is there a contract concerning their conditions of fealty?”
“I—what—?” Edlemin stumbled, caught off guard. “No, there wouldn’t be any need for a written document at the time when your ancestor was conscripted.”
“Why is that?” Poe’s reply was short and strained.
“Unamia’s intentions were known by all when she presided over the Heavenly realm,” he explained. “All who were in Heaven knew how she wanted things run.”
“Unamia?” Flynn asked, deducing status and role. “A previous Mystik of Love?”
Poe slammed an impatient palm on the desk. The knick-knacks scattered across it shook. Pens rolled and ink danced from its well. “Who else, then, might know this Mystik’s intentions? You, old man?”
Edlemin maintained his sunny demeanor. Whatever threats Poe issued had limited effect on their recipient. “You misunderstand me, child.” The man laughed, returning order to the table. “I came here long after Unamia’s era.”
Disgruntled, Poe withdrew his hand. He reached over and set a small figurine back upright, while Edlemin tapped a finger to his chin in thought.
“Two Mystiks of Love succeeded Unamia,” he mulled aloud, “and both would of course have had to agree to her intents before being passed the mantle. Other than them … Cybel would know.” Uncertain that they knew whom he meant when they remained silent, Edlemin clarified. “The Archangel.”
Frustrated, Poe turned away and let out an incoherent scream.
Flynn, his heart quickening, vented more softly. “Son of a …”
His slitten eyes trained on Edlemin, imploring some strain of hope. The librarian seemed at first tempted to scold Poe’s outburst, raising one hand in ready response, then lowering it, thinking better of it.
“Ah, now … there, there,” he tried to console. “I may be able to dredge up Unamia’s intentions if you show me some patience.”
Poe, breathing heavily from his liberating scream, turned sharply on the old man. “You said there was nothing written.”
“There are always other ways to find such things,” Edlemin explained. “Please, follow me. I will show you.”
Stepping out from behind his desk, Edlemin reached his hand to the sky and waited. After a few moments, a celestial wisp floated in, circling a few times before landing in the librarian’s hand. Without exchanging a word, they tailed him, descending deeper into the library than light reached or candle burnt. When they reached the lowest basement—where books had given way to minute wooden drawers—Edlemin tossed the wisp up into the air a few feet, where it followed him closely. While Poe kept near, Flynn strayed, able to see farther than the others. The depths extended well beyond even his range, and the three walked for some time in patient silence, waiting for Edlemin to find what he sought.
Flynn was unable to make out the writing on the drawers, if it was something he could even have read at all. Restless, he let his curiosity get the better of him and opened a tiny drawer to find a spiral seashell, smaller than his hand. Cradling it, he thought he heard something within, and put it to his ear.
“… A date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace …”
“This is vexing,” Edlemin spoke with concern. Flynn placed the shell back in the drawer, carefully sliding it shut as he rejoined the others.
“What is vexing?” Poe was tense, his hand resting on the Dark Sword.
“There is no space set for her words,” Edlemin explained, “almost as if her intents were never recorded at all.”
“What does that mean?” Flynn asked, placing his hand on Poe’s wrist in warning.
“If it is spoken and heard, it is remembered and finds form here. She spoke before all of Heaven at the time. It should be here, and yet it is not just that the words are missing—there is no space set for it, as though it never were.”
Poe turned on Flynn, glaring at him in the dark, and lifted him against the opposite cabinets. “What options do we have now?” he demanded. “Every way we turn, there are walls!”
“And all with the same familiar smirk,” Flynn agreed, neither struggling nor paying mind to Poe’s abrasive outburst.
“There may be … one more way,” Edlemin conceded with some reluctance. “I have heard tales of memories snagging at times in the Dying Lands. I would not place my hopes in it, but—”
“We’ll pursue it,” Poe said decisively, letting Flynn down without another thought. “Tell me what we need to look for.”
Edlemin seemed reticent. “Par … pardon my asking, Guardian, but why such interest in your familial obligations?”
“I need to quit,” Poe stated. “I wish to know how.”
The old man gave pause. As did Flynn, who would not have shared so brazenly—instead misdirecting or teasing out the situation. They didn’t know to what lengths this realm bowed to Cybel, how far loyalty and toadying reached. It could have been nothing more than the mark of a practiced liar, but Edlemin gave no struggle, put up no further argument. Perhaps he did just want to know, Flynn considered, as the old man asked them to follow, agreeing to share what information he possessed.
“These ‘Dying Lands,’” Flynn asked, “they’re far removed Heaven and the gates, aren’t they?”
Poe, in such a hurry the moment before to find a solution to his dilemma, seemed troubled. But he nodded at last, decisively. “If I wish to be free of this obligation, I will have to abandon it for a time. I have no other choice.”
Chapter Sixteen: Old Vendettas
A Celestial stood as the interim Guardian at Heaven’s gates, bearing the Searing Truth’s weight in one hand. She held the blade vertically, balanced unevenly as she scrutinized it intently. After someone like Poe, the girl who replaced him didn’t seem the right material. The redheaded angel had a mohawk running down to the back of her neck where it tapered and curled. Her pristine ivory robes contrasted with her blackish skin, and were too ungainly for combat.
“You’re certain you can handle this task for me?” Poe was reluctant. The Celestial—Gretz, she had called herself—didn’t inspire much faith. As if to assure himself, Poe turned to Flynn and promised, “The journey won’t be long.”
“It … it’s fine,” Flynn assured him, then walked over to the others, who were waiting a comfortable distance down the road, close enough to see and far enough to run.
“He is still coming, right?” Zaja asked.
“Poe is just making sure things are handled,” Flynn assured her.
Despite this advancement in their mission, no one was especially enthused by what came next. A name such as “the Dying Lands” didn’t readily foster anticipation. Glancing at Poe, Flynn expected their collective reluctance went back to his attempt to kill them. They’re being petty, he thought, though he, too, was unused to
the rigors of ever-shifting allegiances where killers become comrades at a moment’s notice. Recalling then how close he had come to disemboweling the swordsman, Flynn conceded that he might have briefly acted a little petty.
Poe strode quickly over, and Chari’s hand reached back for her rifle before she could consciously restrain herself. Chari wasn’t the only one who wanted to wash her hands of him, and it was Flynn’s responsibility to keep his friends together in light of this new entry.
“I knew her when I was a boy,” Poe explained of Gretz. “After my father’s death, she entreated to comfort me. We talked for hours while I awaited Cybel’s consideration on a previous petition.”
Behind them, Gretz had already vanished from sight. Flynn remembered her features well, though. She looked no older than any of them. Hard to believe she’d known Poe when he was young, looking as she did now.
“What became of this ‘previous petition’ you filed with Cybel?”
“She granted it,” Poe replied, sharing nothing more.
*
The bloody patch in the road had been washed by the rain but it proved indelible, the whitened roots of the ivory road now colored with a pinkish hue. Poe asked nothing of the felled tree on the path, merely taking the initiative to climb over it and hop down to the other side. Most of the others took their time while Poe walked on without looking back.
“This is courting danger,” Chari hissed. “The man is a violent zealot! And we seek to give him enough power to be thought of as a god?”
“If I could gift it to you instead, I would in a heartbeat,” Flynn replied. There was nothing warm in his tone, but the meaning of his words touched Chari deeply, and she softened to smile at him for the first time since the ambush.
“I wouldn’t have it,” she confessed. Then, sullenly, she leaned near to ask, “What trouble would we encounter in simply leaving?”
“I sensed a way or two from this world,” he confided. “But I can’t leave without Poe, and he won’t until this matter is closed.” Reluctantly, he continued, “If you want to exit badly enough … I’ll make a detour.”
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 35
