Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

  “I’m not really in Numeria, am I?” said Max.

  The man put his powerful arm around Max’s shoulder. “Once that jungle below was all water, all sea. Look at how beautiful it is. You could almost stay here forever. Almost.”

  “I need to get back,” said Max. But where to? He wondered. He knew he had left Caeli-Amur on a mission, but for where, for what?

  “I’m bored here. I need life.”

  Max’s mind was working now. He looked at the vast wonderland. He thought back to his final memories before arriving at this place. They came to him now: the air-cart, the descent beneath the sea. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you’re almost … godlike.”

  The man said nothing but continued to look out over the forest.

  “I asked the Library for the knowledge of the greatest of the Magi. Is that you?”

  The man laughed. “Some would say so, but I wouldn’t.”

  “Will you teach me? Teach me the secrets of the mystagogues. Teach me to use all the disciplines of thaumaturgy as you can.”

  The man stepped back from Max and looked into his eyes. “Why do you need to know these things? Will power make you happier? We thought it made us happier, and for a while perhaps we were right. The strength to move mountains, to drain seas, to create a playground. But did it make us happier in the end? Alerion and I had once been the best of friends, you know. But light does not exist without darkness. There is no method of thaumaturgy in the world of life without engaging the Other Side. That is your first lesson and the secret to moving from discipline to discipline.”

  Max tried to make sense of this. Yes, the warping of the thaumaturgists when they use the art—the Other Side seeping through into this. That made sense. He could see it now: Kamron’s body, the illness, the House thaumaturgists in all their distorted forms. But how was this the secret to unification, to mastering all the diciplines?

  “Tell me more,” said Max.

  The man still did not answer.

  Maximilian tried to speak, to bring the man’s name to his lips. He was surprised that he knew the name, that he’d known it for some time. The truth of it set of cascades of thoughts in his mind, thoughts of gods and legends and history. Finally, he forced it out “Aya.” He started again. “Aya, I beg you. Tell me the truth of it all.”

  Aya turned back to Max. “And you, you must help me. This was my favorite playground once, so I created it to keep me entertained while I lived here, in the Library’s great memory. But it’s not real. None of this is real. Can you see how if you examine things closely, you can almost see their flaws—it’s fake. After a while it disturbs you. You start to feel like everything is constructed to deceive you, that this world is just one big lie. Sometimes you try to catch the Library out: you turn quickly, you peer at the most minute detail. Then you lose sense of what you’re seeing. You must help me to escape this place.”

  “How?”

  “There is only one way.”

  Max looked at Aya in confusion.

  “Let me join you,” said Aya.

  “How?” A terrible feeling crept over Max.

  “You won’t have all of me, only fragments—that’s how it works. Information is lost in the transfer: memories, knowledge. You will still be you, but you will be parts of me also. Free me. I was born to be free.”

  “No,” said Max. This pact would destroy him. What are people, if not their memories? To take on someone else’s, to let them integrate into you, that would be a kind of death. The idea terrified him. He would never be Maximilian again.

  Aya looked sadly at Max. “Well, at least I won’t be so lonely if you stay.” He looks around. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  Through the jungle they walked. Max could never quite become used to the strangeness of it. Just when he thought he had grown accustomed to its cycles of life and death, of predator and prey—the way the jungle itself seemed one vast interconnection of creatures devouring plants, of plants devouring animals—he would be startled by a new image. A fern that opened out to reveal an open mouth at its base; a deadly looking lizard with razor-sharp teeth swallowed suddenly by a bed of red spongy moss.

  “Be careful of these.” Aya pointed toward beautiful flowers the size of a human. Their white petals shivered, as if they sensed the proximity of others. A clear nectar dropped from their velveteen centers where several stamens moved like worms reaching into the air. With a lurch, one of them tore its roots from the ground and shuffled toward them. The others were free of the ground and heading toward them also.

  “Blood-orchids,” said Aya, who broke into a run. Max followed rapidly.

  Aya led Max into a dark valley where it became cool. The sound of a river drifted through the trees, then disappeared a little later. Here in the coolness, the trees became thinner and taller, covered with gray lichens and slate-colored molds. Flowers grew rare and the undergrowth more sparse.

  Buried beneath the jungle were stone ruins. Here a crumbling wall was covered by lichen so that he almost mistook it for the roots of a tree. There a stone slab was overgrown by a seething bluish moss. Over a little rise, a gnarled and winding tree grew over a stone structure that might have been a one-room house; the tree’s roots clamped over the building like a great hand. Then, in the middle of a clearing stood a pyramid the size of an apartment block. Small trees clung to its sides, their roots splaying out, searching for cracks in the stone. A walkway circled the pyramid about halfway up its structure; carved into the stone wall was a great bas-relief of humanoid figures and unknown histories.

  Breaking off green chunks of mold as they walked, Aya and Max climbed the stairs that ran up the pyramid, and stood before the bas-relief. The humanoid creatures seemed to be waving elephantlike trunks at each other. “This stood before we arrived. It was built by some of the original inhabitants.”

  “Before you arrived in Numeria?”

  Aya smiled and crossed his arms. “No. Before we arrived on this world.”

  Confused, Max examined the bas-relief. It told a story of deadly fraternal conflicts, of exile and banishment, of war. “What happened to them?

  Before Aya could answer, Max noticed a young boy squatting on the top of the pyramid, squinting at them. In one hand he twirled a leafy branch and absentmindedly ran his other hand over his bald head. Max took a step back from the bas-relief.

  “Well, what do you think?” Aya asked the boy. “What happened to these elephant people?”

  The boy plucked a burgundy berry from the branch and threw it at Aya. With a wave of his hand, Aya stopped the berry midair and propelled it back at the boy, who ducked as it flew over his head.

  “You know their history, Library. Won’t you tell us?”

  Without answering, the boy scampered down the pyramid’s face, leaped onto the walkway, threw another berry, which Aya stopped once again in midair, but this time let fall to the ground.

  The boy scampered down the rest of the pyramid and ran off into the jungle.

  “I don’t know why it torments me. For its own pleasure, I suppose.” Aya spoke pensively.

  “You stopped those berries without incantations, without material elements. You stopped them, just like that. Is that a function of this world, or some kind of thaumaturgy?”

  “Let me show you something.” Aya stepped directly into the bas-relief and disappeared.

  Max put out his hand to the stone, which was rough and impermeable. From the rock an arm grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward. A strange feeling rushed through Max’s arm as it passed into the wall. It felt as if the stone was passing through him, like water through burlap. As his face was about to touch one of the elephant figures, he pulled back. Then Aya gave a tug and again the stone passed through him, as he passed through it.

  Max found himself in a large chamber. In its center sat a great statue of one of the humanoids, its trunk curling up around its own neck, then down onto its own lap. The creature’s eyes were sad, as if they looked out
into the vast vistas of space and time, and there found only emptiness.

  In a corner of the chamber the Library-boy played with stone figurines that had trunks sprouting from their faces. Whether it was a second boy, or the first who had returned secretly, Max could not tell.

  Aya stepped across the floor of the chamber toward the statue. “I fear that somehow we wiped them out, when we arrived to build our beautiful world.”

  “What do you mean arrived? You were the gods.”

  Aya stared at Max and burst into laughter. “Gods! Is that what you call us?” Aya repeated to himself in the voice of a man whose worldview had just been fundamentally rearranged. “Gods!” He laughed again.

  Max felt a rush of anxiety. If they weren’t gods, what were they? “You pulled me through the stone. You rearranged matter as if you were stirring soup.”

  Aya shrugged. “Thaumaturgy.” He looked back at the great statue. “There’s a cost. There’s always a cost. But you forget, this is not the world. We live inside the mind of the Library. We live in its fevered imaginings, however close that is to the world outside.” Aya reached forward and touched the statue’s trunk: “What happened to you, my beautiful alien species?”

  The boy stopped playing and scampered up to Max. His great eyes looked up like pools of darkness from the round face. “Will you play with me?”

  The little figurines hovered in the air behind him like a stone constellation. As they swept in the air around him, he looked up laughing and chased them. Aya laughed also, as he made the figurines fly through the air. The Library jumped up and down, trying to touch the feet of the little elephant-men. Together the Library and Aya laughed some more. Then, as quickly as things started, the boy lost interest and walked back to the corner of the chamber, where he drew pictures in the sandy floor.

  “Who were they?” Aya asked the boy. “Please tell me.”

  The Library-boy looked up at Aya, his face serious. His voice came out deep and unnatural, an adult voice. “They’re the presentiment of your failures. History is long, Aya. Even I am dying. Me, the Library, dying now. You know that. Soon my energy will run out and all will be lost: all the vast knowledge, all the Histories. Water will gush into me and ruin the books, darken my lights, destroy my memories. The history of things is vast, the sun dies, the stars blink out.” The boy’s face suddenly shifted. “Want to play hide-and-seek?”

  “We already are,” said Aya.

  They left the child in the chamber and passed back though the jungle as twilight shifted. Shadows played across the foliage. Max followed Aya back to the cliffs, where they looked out over the darkening landscape.

  “History is long,” said Aya. “The Library will die and me along with it. Unless you save me. For that, I offer you my knowledge. I offer you the secrets of the mystagogues. The truths of the Magi. If not, we will die together. But me—am I not the last man of a dying race? The end of the firstborn on this world? The last man is also the final instance of a whole species.”

  Max looked out at the vastness of the forest that stretches out to the horizon. He feared letting Aya’s memories become a part of him. Yet if he refused, he, too, would face his own death, along with Aya’s and the Library’s. He thought of the seditionist movement, of everything he had dedicated his life to. The cause is greater than any one individual, he had always argued. Had he not made that claim, when they deposed Kamron? Did he not believe it? And yet himself, his mind, his memories—how he also valued himself. He thought of the dreams he had for his own place in history. How he had wanted others to say his name with respect. Not for the sake of it, but because of the things he had done, the sacrifices he had made. What would it mean to say he returned to Caeli-Amur a great thaumaturgist, if he was not himself? He wrestled with this dilemma as night fell around him. He was filled with a nameless anxiety.

  Aya led him to a nearby cave in the cliffs, where they cooked spiced meat on skewers and a red paste made with a small bean.

  “How long until the Library dies?” Max said.

  Aya shrugged and pulled one of the pieces of meat from his skewer. “It does not regenerate. Its energy fades bit by bit. Who knows? Any time the sky might black out, the waters cease to flow.”

  Max did not sleep that night, but sat at the cave’s mouth and watched bats circling over the jungle below. Strange caws echoed from the canopy: monkeys or birds, he could not tell. Slowly the eastern sky lightened and high clouds were streaked with gold and red. Behind them stars continued to gleam silver, before the sun burst over the horizon and extinguished them from the sky.

  Aya squatted beside him, looked out over the jungle. “There is a lost city down there: a city of the elephant-men, long gone. There you can see their histories inscribed in greater detail in towering bas-reliefs in vast dismal halls. They had their own myths, their own gods, their own terrible heroes. One cannot examine them without feeling one’s insignificance in the vistas of the time. We are but specks in the seas of infinity.”

  Maximilian, paused, and finally he said, “Let’s both escape, Aya. Let’s both return to the material world. Yes.”

  Aya looked across at one of the vast waterfalls. “You won’t be the same.”

  “Will either of us?” Max asked.

  PART III

  TRANSFORMATIONS

  When the other Gods caught Aya, they dragged him from the jungles where he was hidden. The earth had been torn asunder; much blood had been shed. Aya was thrown into a small dark cell on an island from which there was no escape. The joy leached from his body until he was nothing but a naked and shivering creature. It is said that in that cell, Aya cried for the first time.

  Iria, despairing, retreated to her Tower. There, it is said, she renounced godhood and all action. She allowed herself only to meditate on things and events. There she embraced her pain.

  Alerion and Panadus fought over Aya’s punishment. Panadus—tall and imposing—stood calm as Alerion raged and fumed.

  “He has upset the balance! This was meant to be a world of joy! He must be ended!” said Alerion.

  Aya was carried from his cell and thrown before the other Gods. Cold, naked, he dragged himself to his feet.

  “Beg forgiveness,” said Panadus. “Beg forgiveness and you will be saved!”

  Alerion circled in the background like a carrion bird. He watched the scene from the corner of his eye.

  “Beg forgiveness!” said Panadus.

  Aya looked at the other Gods. A twinkle came into his eye. A twitch danced on his lips. He fell to the ground and waved his legs in the air, like a turtle on his back.

  To the rear, one of the Gods laughed. Smiles came onto the faces of the others.

  Aya hummed a jaunty tune to himself as if he was happy. “Doo-do-doo-do-doo.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  At the appointed time, Kata and the others ventured to the docks to meet the lobster fisherman who would help them pick up Max. When they arrived, they stood and stared in horror. Corpses of Xsanthians lay scattered around, already stinking like great fish. Others, heads hung in defeat, were unloading cargo from the ships. Guards from both House Marin and House Technis looked on, leaning against pikes and chatting to each other. Standing at the end of one of the piers, a small group of black-suited thaumaturgists spoke quietly.

  Kata walked along the pier until she came to a Xsanthian carrying a great bag. She leaned in and said, “I’m looking for Santhor.”

  The Xsanthian walked on.

  She grabbed the creature by its scaly arm. “Santhor, where is he?”

  The Xsanthian stopped. “Taken. Taken away.” He shook off her arm and continued on his defeated march toward a line of carts, where cargo was being deposited.

  When Kata returned to the group, they had already climbed aboard the fisherman’s lobster boat. She followed them, filled with despair as they made their way out to the buoy that had been set, marking the point where Maximilian had been dropped. They lowered the winch and waited. Rikard accompan
ied them; now he and Josiane openly monitored Maximilian’s group. Kata much preferred having the quiet brooding young man to the former philosopher-assassin beside her. There was sincerity behind his tough exterior that Josiane, despite her words back on the cart, lacked. As she thought this, Kata wondered if she was being too hard on Josiane.

  After the assassination of Director Lefebvre, Ejan’s people were filled with a crazed confidence. This would be the beginning of a program of attacks, where one by one officiates would be killed and the upper echelons of the Houses thrown into a state of confusion and disorganization. And then, on Aya’s Day, the people would come forth and show who the real power in the city was. But Kata was filled with dread at the thought of the young woman who had died in her arms. The death of innocents: that was the cost of politics.

  But other seditionists stared off into the distance as if reliving some past horror. For the first time, some slipped away never to return; the group was shrinking slightly. Aceline’s group had fallen into quietude, watching with the passivity of a threatened animal, afraid to run from a predator. The exception was Thom, who, running his hands through his wild black hair, proclaimed loudly that Ejan’s program would lead to ruin. For some reason, Ejan’s group left Thom alone, though at one point Josiane stood threateningly in front of him. Thom, filled with bluster, stuck his chest out, hands behind his back and said somewhat cryptically, “Indeed?”

  After the attack, House guards had struck at anyone who spoke out against them; citizens disappeared into their dungeons. The spate of strikes had been crushed, most brutally the Xsanthian strike. The city itself had fallen into a deathly silence. Now citizens hurried through the streets with downcast eyes. Even the university was quiet.

  As Kata stood looking into the deep waters, hoping that Max would return, Rikard stood serenely next to her. Below, Caeli-Enis was obscured by murky currents.