Revol sat alone.
He’d been talking with Speck, but when Speck fell asleep he explored Solomon’s grotte until he found a gradually ascending hallway that served as another egress to the surface. He exited the doorway, which was barely visible from the outside, then climbed the nearest hill, feeling a strange sort of pull, and sat cross legged when he reached the top. His head had seemed to slowly rise, until he looked upon the underbelly of the stratosphere, pondering the false solidity of its undulant texture. Now and then he would see a burst of static discharge, and occasionally an arc of lightning. Most rare was when he saw an eel drip through, and then it was usually no more than a fin or a tail, though once he saw eyes, glowing white in the dark above him.
He felt lulled by the hypnotic hum of the strata beneath him. Like an engine it rumbled rhythmically in his auricular verge, given temporary strength when the obelisk rose to straddle the horizon. Diamonds could be seen on its outer walls, black as the surface of the object and etched in white luminescence.
“Hey,” said Haruspex. She sat down next to him and commented on the strange emptiness of Bindu Prime. “The only life is in the sky, and the eels are nomads.”
“Are they?” asked Revol. He saw finned serpents of white light swimming through the empty space between the diamonds. There were nine of each, and Revol rested on a contemplation of death.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Haruspex mused. “It’s sad to think about, though, so I try not to.”
Revol turned, no memory of what words of his she responded to.
“Why do you ask?”
He told the truth. “I don’t know.”
The diamonds faded, and the before they followed, the serpents intertwined so that they, after winding about each other in the shape of a worm, formed the outline of a diamond before they were gone. Left was a fading white light in the shape of a leafless tree.
“I’ve seen it, of course,” said Haruspex. “Humans, naturally, and animals. In a way, I envy the Sentinels.”
“Why?”
She sat thoughtfully for a moment. “Because they experience resurrection. When they return to consciousness, humans rejoice. Our deathlessness terrifies them.”
“There has to be a way we can die,” said Revol, watching the tree whither and rot.
“You sound like you want there to be. Are you okay?”
He turned to her, somewhat aghast at her ignorance.
“If we can’t be killed, then what hope have we of defeating a creature such as Haleon?”
“Reev,” she said, “what’s wrong? I feel this place to, changing me. We can talk about this.”
“You sit atop a grave,” said a distortion in the twilight air.
“I hated them at first,” said Haruspex, “but now I think they’re beautiful.”
The tree had nine roots, nine branches, and in its bole were eight nests.
“There is always one that lingers to give life to the next brood.”
Revol looked at the Shadow Child, barely a thought in the mesospheric haze.
“She can’t hear us.”
“Why not?”
“Because she is singing to herself.”
“What are you?”
“You have not heard tales?”
“Haven’t you heard tales of us?”
“Many.”
“And I know little of what I am.”
“Then why ask more self-knowledge from me? A stone knows nothing of mining, or the building of walls. As a shadow knows no more of darkness than what its own black eyes can see. So why does Light question Dark, if not to learn more about itself? Do you think we are a mirror?”
“I want to know what you are, nothing more.”
“Why? Do we frighten you?”
“You surround me. And I’ve never before seen your kind. The tales I’ve heard can only be lies.”
“And if they prove true?”
“They can’t. They’re all too different.”
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“You’ve heard that we are dead?”
“Yes. But I’ve also heard that you’re alive. I’ve heard that you travelled past the Verge and came back changed. I’ve heard that you were lost on a long voyage and became one with the avoid to survive. I’ve heard that you are genetically engineered assassins, meant to infiltrate Zar Zafaran and murder Haleon, but I’ve also heard that you’re emanations of his thought. These things can’t all be true.”
“Every one of them can be true, and truer for the whole. She is listening.”
“Beautiful,” said Haruspex. “I wonder the same thing. What are you? You seem more true to your element than we to ours?”
“Why do you think this?”
“Because we see you as you are,” she answered. Then she held up her hand and took off her glove. Revol loved her hands. They were strong, but still thin and feminine, and her skin was very smooth.
If anyone here is beautiful, he thought, it’s you, Ru.
“I see light.”
“You don’t see flesh?” She was both baffled and delighted.
“I see light. What do you see when you look at me?”
“Right now,” she said, “I barely see anything.”
“Ah! Because of where he sits. When the corse has yet to fully fade, the mausoleum is a house, and you can hear their whispers through the cracks around the windows.”
“You’re funny,” she said. “But I mostly see you as shadow.”
“Then Solomon was right. We can be allies in this fight.”
“How did you meet Solomon?” Revol asked, remembering how dashed he felt when he was not called for Solomon’s private meeting.
“He slew the Archeus, who held us prisoner.”
“So he freed you,” Revol mused.
“As Imogen freed you.”
“Imogen.” The name danced off Haruspex’s tongue. “So Solomon’s told you our history?”
“No. He only speaks of futurity.”
“That’s a change,” said Revol. “He was always an amateur historian. Emphasis on amateur.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?” they both asked in unison. They smiled at each other through their skullforts.
“Before he saw your death.”
“So, it can happen,” said Revol.
“It must happen.”
Revol looked at Haruspex again, expecting her to look troubled or confused, but she sat there in a state of pure calm, blissful in the ring outside the peak of the hill. Revol wanted to speak, but nothing he thought to say carried any meaning, so he was quiet, watching the glow of the western sun pulse from far away, piercing the blackness of spice with a haze of orange that painted the Temple of Fiends with an enduring twilight shade. Somehow, the floor of the stratosphere retained its brooding dark hue, and then as he was thinking of the eels, a great many of them dipped below and hovered overhead, their tails curled in the clouds while their eyes blinked down at them. Had Speck not been struck from the sky, he would have seen them hanging like chimes as he soared among them.
“They see me.”
“Do they see us?” asked Revol.
“Not yet. It will take some time. They’ve only just begun to see us.”
Revol felt agitated by his memories of floating unseen before Solomon found him.
“I wonder what they’re think of us,” said Haruspex.
“They are gentle, but hold tremendous power.”
And so they must have, going wherever they wished. They braved the void across the cosmos, and seemed to know no predator, or to be bothered with the minutiae of traversing the material plane.
“Will you eat with us?”
“I’d love to,” said Haruspex.
“Sure,” Revol shrugged. “As long as you don’t chew with your mouths open.”
The Shadow Child laughed. It was a surprisingly pleasant sound, like the tinkling of crotals. They followed it to a low space between four hills where dozens of them had gathered. They were all of varied sizes, and some even looked to be of differing species. But most were human adults, though there were a few young ones among them.
There was no food, but mimicked the passing of bowls and breaking of bread, holding phantom morsels to their phantom mouths. Revol pretended to be eating a slice of pizza, and Haruspex mimed the downing of spirits. They laughed, and the Shadow Children laughed with them, pretending to throw their invisible food at each other. It wasn’t long after that they danced to the thought of music, and filled the twilight for hours with a festival of silence, dancing to ideas and memories and keeping the sounds of each a secret.
Revol and Haruspex spent what would have been the night outside with the Shadow Children, laying on their backs as they did when they still slept. A very young Shadow Child pretended to snore, and its parent beside it wept.
“As Imogen freed us,” Haruspex whispered. “I wonder what that means.”
“She was the first Harbinger to manifest visibly,” Revol speculated, “after finding a way to kill that Yllias that captured her.”
“But what does that mean? How did the Yllias capture her? I’m thinking about our conversation earlier, and I’m wondering if Shadow Children aren’t exactly what our friend was saying. If they aren’t a mirror to us. And if they are, then I’m beginning to think they’re living people who were somehow changed by the Archeus in the same way the Yllias changed all of us.”
Revol rolled over on his side and propped his head up on his hand. “I’m assuming you have a theory.”
She rolled onto her side to face him. “I do. I think we were humans once, and that we died. But I don’t know if I believe the Yllias were imprisoning us, or just sort of keeping us.”
“Like pets?”
She shrugged. “Or like nurses. Of all the non-humans, they’re the strangest. They’re alien to every form of life that’s ever been catalogued in Genomony.”
“So, they died, and the Archeus resurrected them, and Solomon freed them the same way he helped us take form? I’m confused.”
“Yeah, me too.”
She laid her head on his shoulder and they rested there for another hour or so, before returning to the Grotte to hear what Cap and Cat had to say.