Words of power, twisted space

A little hope in one young face.

The corridor was long, dark and… strange. Initially, it appeared to be constructed of stone, aside from the entry hatch; Ferrian made an experimental attempt to slice through the wall, but any hope of cutting an escape route with his Sword was dashed: an impenetrable barrier of silvertine lay behind it.

After a couple of hundred yards, the stone façade gave way completely to square-shaped panels of silvertine lining the entire hallway – walls, floor and ceiling, as though they were walking through a mirrored tunnel.

And worse, some of the panels were not silver, but made of a familiar, ominous, darkly lustrous material.

Ferrian couldn't bring himself to walk across the black panels, but skirted them hurriedly, instead.

Mekka strode ahead, unconcerned, then paused and glanced back at Ferrian in amusement, his torch reflecting firelight all around them. “You need not be apprehensive, Ferrian,” the Angel assured him. “The trigon will not affect you. It is held in balance with the silvertine.”

“It makes me feel prickly when I walk over it,” Ferrian complained.

“Likely your magic reacting to it. Better get used to it. The whole of Grath Ardan is constructed this way.”

Gritting his teeth, Ferrian forced himself to walk over the trigonic tiles, as Mekka was casually doing. Whatever that black metal was, it disgusted him. He didn't trust it.

“This place is a lot creepier than I thought it would be,” he muttered.

Mekka glanced back at him again, smirking. “Oh, the best is yet to come,” he remarked.

Ferrian stared at his reflection in the walls as he walked, but that wasn't a comforting sight either, so he stared at Mekka's reflection, instead. “I thought you said that if these two materials were put together, they ripped reality apart?”

“What makes you think,” the Angel replied enigmatically, “that the reality you are now occupying is the same as the one from which you entered?”

Ferrian frowned, but Mekka didn't elucidate, just left him pondering that disquieting thought as they continued onwards, into the dark.

A short while later, the corridor ended in a door. It was perfectly square, similar to the hatch that they had entered through, but larger, and bore the same curious, circular design raised in the centre.

“Is this one locked, too?” Ferrian asked.

“It was when I first discovered this place,” Mekka replied. “But I dare say no one else has been in here since I left.”

He gave the door a shove, and was proved right: it swung smoothly and silently open.

They passed through.

An enormous, dark chamber lay beyond. It was lined with the same complicated pattern of trigon and silvertine squares, with several larger, recessed panels that appeared to be other doors, identical to the one they had come through.

In the middle of the floor was a huge grating of some kind. Dim white light poured through a multitude of small holes from somewhere below, rising like a ghostly forest of spears into an infinite black vastness above. Oddly, a swarm of white flecks floated upwards within the beams of light. They looked like snowflakes.

Ferrian, mesmerised by the ethereal sight, walked forward and touched one of the flecks.

It was a snowflake!

Astonished, he crouched and peered down through one of the holes.

Trees could be seen there, leaves and criss-crossing branches, and beyond them, a pale sky…

He stood up, gasping. “What…!”

“As I said,” Mekka explained calmly. “Reality works differently, here.” He smiled, and gestured at the grating. “You are standing on the main entrance.”

Ferrian just stared at him, uncomprehending.

“On the underside of it,” Mekka added. “We are, in relation to the forest, upside down.”

Ferrian's eyes widened.

The Angel walked over to the wall and extinguished his torch. Then he fished a piece of charcoal out of his pocket and wrote something on one of the silver panels.

A moment later, the silvertine tiles – all of them – suddenly illuminated themselves with a warm, white-golden glow, like sunlight.

Light flooded the chamber, chasing away the cold shadows, apart from the trigon panels, which stood out like a dark disease on the walls and floor.

Ferrian looked around in wonder, and then made the terrible mistake of looking up.

“ARGH!!”

He threw himself onto the floor, clutching the grating.

Mekka stood gazing upwards, smiling. “Marvellous, isn't it?”

“No!” For once, Ferrian was actually grateful that he was dead, as he felt sure he would have thrown up otherwise.

Bracing himself, he risked another look, and immediately squeezed his eyes closed. He could remember experiencing something like this only once before in his life: when he had stood staring too long at the stars one night in a clear sky. A feeling of unimaginable hugeness had gripped him, as though he were an insignificant speck in a universe too vast to comprehend, and that he was about to be swallowed up by it. It had filled him with a brief, cold terror and left him covered in sweat afterwards.

This was a similar feeling.

Above him – or below him, as the case may be – lit up by the glowing walls, stretched a seemingly endless array of rooms, arches and walkways that made no physical sense if he looked at them too closely. And all of the rooms were lined with books – thousands, perhaps millions of books.

“It takes some getting used to,” Mekka admitted.

Ferrian forced himself to his feet, determinedly not looking above – below – him. That Mekka had mentioned they were standing on the ceiling did not help matters. He picked up his Sword, which thankfully had not plummeted into the impossible, book-lined abyss.

“Okaaay...” he said, taking a deep breath. “What now?”

With a flap of his black wings, Mekka leapt into the air, backflipped and landed neatly on the wall. He waved Ferrian over. “Follow me!”

Ferrian stared up at the Angel in dismay, then walked reluctantly over to the wall and placed his hand upon one of the silver panels.

He fell forward onto his face.

“Oof!”

Pushing himself up, he found that Mekka was standing the right way up and the grating with light streaming through it was now situated on the wall behind him. The shaft full of books and insane architecture no longer rose above his head, but was a vast corridor in front of him.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It was a slight improvement, now that his brain was no longer telling him he ought to be falling into an infinite pit. “Takes some getting used to,” he muttered. “Wow. That's an understatement...”

“Come on, now,” Mekka said, folding his arms. “Don't be like Hawk.”

Ferrian shook his head. “I don't think I could be like Hawk if I tried.”

“Really?” Mekka turned and started walking. “Just act like an insufferable idiot and make tasteless jokes at inappropriate moments.” He stopped and looked down into one of the rooms. “You'll soon get the hang of it.”

“Yeah,” Ferrian replied. “I'm starting to miss him, too...”

Mekka leapt down into the room. Ferrian stepped up to the edge, which was in fact a pillared archway, and watched the Angel walk onto the wall and pull one of the books off a shelf.

Swallowing, he looked around, then carefully touched the wall beside him.

In an instant, he found himself flung awkwardly onto the floor.

“You should try to do that a little more gracefully,” Mekka commented, without looking up.

Ferrian picked himself up and brushed the dust off his clothing. “Sure,” he muttered, scowling at the Angel. “How did you do that, back there?” he gestured with his Sword. “With the light, I mean?”

Mekka shrugged. “I just wrote 'Light' on the wall,” he replied.

“Really?” Ferrian said, taken aback. “It's that easy?”

Mekka ran his hand gently over the page of the book he was holding, then carefully closed it. “Words in this place,” he explained, “contain great power.”

He looked up at Ferrian. “Words written outside of Grath Ardan are replicated here, once. Words written within the library itself are replicated an unknown number of times… perhaps infinite. They reflect back on themselves, gaining power until their meaning becomes literal.”

Ferrian stared at him. “So… couldn't we just write 'Exit' on the wall and create a door?”

Mekka shook his head. “No. Anything that is created in Grath Ardan exists only here. A door must exist in this reality and also in the outside world in order to function. And besides,” he shrugged again. “I have already tried it.”

Ferrian's eyebrows raised. “You have? What else have you tried?”

Mekka waved a hand vaguely. “Various things.” He stared into space contemplatively for a moment. “I tried writing my name, once,” he said. “It created an exact copy of myself. It was extremely annoying. I wouldn't recommend it.”

He looked back at Ferrian, his expression serious. “Be exceedingly careful what you write in here, and where.” He shook his head. “This place is very complicated. There are some rules that I still haven't figured out.”

Ferrian nodded, glancing around at the bookshelves. They were dusty and cobwebbed, the books bound in ancient leather, but in surprisingly good condition. Ferrian went to the nearest shelf and leaned his Sword against it. He pulled out one of the heavy tomes and opened it.

And encountered a problem that he hadn't even considered until that moment.

“Oh no...” he said, flipping through the pages. “Oh no...”

He shoved the book back in its place, then hurried to the other side of the room and pulled out another, only to find the same thing.

“Oh, crap!”

“What's wrong?”

Ferrian shook his head in frustration. “These books,” he said in despair. “I can't read them!”

“Of course you can't,” Mekka replied calmly. “They are written in Ancient Angelican. Most Angels cannot read them, let alone a Human.”

Ferrian let himself fall forward slowly until his forehead thunked against the bookshelf in a puff of dust.

Mekka walked over and took the book gently out of his hands, and leaned against the shelf beside him. “However,” the Angel said quietly, “you don't need to.”

Ferrian blinked and straightened, giving the Angel a confused look.

“Because,” Mekka went on, smiling, “this is not the real Grath Ardan.” He nodded at Ferrian, and winked. “Like I said: the best is yet to come!”

* * *

The guards hadn't bothered with shackles, or even a prison cell. Instead, they had found a unique but effective means of preventing Hawk from escaping.

They had dumped him on a circular platform a few hundred feet in the air, with no way off. Except, of course, if one possessed wings, which Hawk didn't.

This wasn't the worst part, however.

The thing that really burned Hawk up was that the Angels found this hilarious.

He had awoken from unconsciousness, rudely, by one of those disgusting fruits smashed into his face.

Quite a crowd had gathered to laugh and point and gawk at him, as though they'd never seen a Human before in their lives. And most of them, Hawk realised, probably hadn't.

All he could do was grit his teeth and endure the humiliation. At least they seemed content to hurl rotten fruit and inventive insults, and not something harder or more pointy…

Eventually, the crowd had grown bored and wandered away. Now Hawk sat, gloomy and shivering, in the middle of his platform. A cold breeze blew at this height, and snow fell now and then. At least, he thought with great satisfaction, the guards appeared to be suffering equal discomfort…

Two white-winged guards stood nearby, leaning on their spears and ruffling their feathers, or occasionally pacing around to keep themselves warm. They had lit a large, gilded brazier, which sat between them on the edge of the rounded precipice where the city dropped off; the heat reached Hawk on his platform, preventing him from freezing.

The Angels were dressed inadequately for the weather, however. Aside from their golden armour and winged helmets, their legs were covered in criss-crossing leather straps that ended in sandals. Their arms were bare, too, apart from their gauntlets and stylish pauldrons. Hawk guessed, with a smirk, that they hadn't expected Winter to drop on them so suddenly.

The common Angelfolk were similarly poorly attired, Hawk noticed; they were all dressed in loose, flimsy clothing, as though for a warm summer's day. They regarded the snow with just as much puzzled fascination that they had shown towards Hawk. Children were playing in it, in the wide, open plaza directly opposite where he sat.

Have they never seen snow before, either? he wondered curiously.

Hawk had plenty of time to observe the city and its people as he sat waiting to see if someone was going to skewer him on one of those spears.

Fleetfleer was a beautiful city, he had to admit. White towers, slender and high, rose before him to the clouds and fell beneath him to the dark forest canopy. Many of them were inlaid with green and yellow decorative designs. There were gardens everywhere, too, plants and colourful flowers spilling from walls, courtyards and planter boxes. Ivy twined around the towers, here and there.

A grand, open space, probably the central plaza of the city, lay in front of him, surrounded by large, multi-storied buildings. The plaza simply dropped off, with no railing or parapet, in a large curve. Five round platforms were suspended a few yards out from the edge, equally spaced along its length. Hawk had no idea what their intended purpose was, but one of them, at least, was currently being used for novelty entertainment: him.

But at least he wasn't the only thing drawing attention.

Some kind of market or festival was going on in the middle of the plaza, the cold seemingly not dampening anyone's enthusiasm. And above it all floated one of the Seraphim.

Hawk found it difficult not to stare at the Seraph. He hadn't expected it to be so huge, or its weird blue eyes so mesmerising. It was beautiful and creepy at the same time.

Somewhere in Arkana, there were two more of those things, maintaining the Angels' Aegis.

The golden colour of the Aegis cast a yellowish tinge to the light, like late afternoon, despite the cloudy sky.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing casting a yellowish tinge. One of the guards decided to take a moment to relieve himself off the edge of the plaza, right in front of Hawk. He didn't look embarrassed about it, either.

Scowling at the guard, Hawk shifted position, turning his back in disgust.

He tried to think of a way to get off the platform. It was slightly too far to jump, and the edge of the plaza was made of smooth, polished stone. There was nothing to grip on to, except perhaps the brazier, but he would never be able to reach it without a rope. He wondered if he could taunt one of the guards over, then wrestle his spear off him and threaten him with it–

“Hello!”

The voice was so incongruous amid his daydream of punching a guard in the face, that Hawk initially ignored it. But then it came again.

“Hello!”

He turned.

The guard had thankfully finished his business. In fact, both of the guards had wandered a little way away and were leaning on their spears, watching a couple of performers. No one was looking his way, except for a little girl, sitting on the edge of the plaza, swinging her legs. She lifted her hand and waved at him.

Hawk lifted his own hand uncertainly, and waved back. “Uh. Hi?”

The Angel girl tilted her head on one side. “Are you a Human?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Hawk replied.

She giggled. “You look funny!”

“Thanks,” Hawk replied drily, scuffing his messed-up hair, as though that were the main cause of his odd appearance. “I try.”

The girl giggled again. Then she got up and began dancing on the edge of the precipice, and humming along to the catchy music from the performers.

Hawk winced. He knew she was an Angel, but still, seeing a kid frolicking about on the edge like that…

“Urgh. Don't do that!”

She looked over at him curiously, but didn't stop what she was doing. “Why not?”

“Umm?” Hawk looked away, and sighed. “Never mind...”

A moment later, he glanced back, but she was gone.

He shook his head. Kids.

And then something poked him in the back.

He spun.

“Wow!” the girl said. “You really don't have any wings! That's so weird!”

Hawk frowned at her. “Look, you can't come over here,” he glanced anxiously over his shoulder at the guards, but they weren't paying any attention. “You'll get into trouble!”

The girl just shrugged.

Hawk scowled at her again. “I'm a prisoner. I could be dangerous.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “You don't look dangerous.”

Hawk wasn't sure whether to take that as an insult or not. “Why don't you go and play with the other kids over there?” He pointed.

She went quiet, then, and her face fell. “I'm not allowed to,” she said, staring at the ground.

“You're not allowed to?”

She shook her head. “I'm not allowed to have friends.” She glanced sadly at the plaza. “I'm not even supposed to be outside, but I wanted to look at the snow.” Lifting her head, she peered up at the golden clouds, and her expression brightened. “It just falls out of the sky! It's so pretty!”

Her cheerfulness suddenly restored, she started dancing again.

Hawk watched her, baffled. She was a cute kid. Her short, coppery hair was tied in a little curl at the back of her head, though her fringe fell into her eyes. Her wings were white, with a reddish-coppery pattern, and…

He went still. An image flashed before him, a scene that he had tried hard to forget, but this girl had brought it back.

The Angel in the infirmary: the poor guy that Cimmeran had murdered. His wings had been bandaged up pretty well, so Hawk couldn't be sure of the similarity, but a few of the longest feathers were poking out.

They had been bright, fiery orange.

Just like the wing-tips of this girl.