Stairs reclaimed. “Do you have a family?” Shay asked.
“My sister Arensys: she trains barely with my old master, Passag’wyr Ironbane, at our library Ba’yt Al-almaerif. Many of my kin tend more to serve Need or Greed; our obsessive nature, you see.” He seemed to intend this as a joke about his eye. Somesoul nearby thought it was funny. “I am loyal to Hierarchy, and my place here at the temple, while my sister aspires to combat in the arena.” the scholar shuddered, sad and distant.
∞
High knees rose to slow victory step after sloping step, by blurred plaques under statues wreathed with supposed, inherent might and meaning. The steps began as steps do albeit anciently, raising no comment nor question aside from their size, some requiring a jump or assistance to surpass. Floating chairs full of bums drifted up far more simply. Soon as faded the first section, the steps to follow were not of one design but many all here-there combined into one climb, as though from assorted places. Scattered ages all in conjoin. In parts oak and stone, metal and uneven bone.
“These steps were brought from the dregs of the second world to aid in this temple’s construction. They saw much use and still do - note the curve, where the slow tap of feet over many aeons. Excuse some parts, they are being excavated - as we walk, fossils often crack free, and the various eologists come trampling over.”
In parts mosaic or glass, tourists found many seats to rest defeated upon, gazing and drinking icy waters or teas, watching Courtdom-in-horizon sway, baking and bathing in Summer’s soft arms. Soft and colourful, when seen from shade. Yet more chunks of the steps were not particularly practical for walking; jutting and spiralling in each direction even upwards as branches, encouraging much pause and wonder among the climbing groups, between breaths, resting on one another.
Such discordant steps Shay interpreted so: that some steps we take, albeit with all our planning and purpose, still lead nowhere at all.
∞
“And you, family?” Gargarensyr asked, unbothered by the toil.
“Not anymore.” Again Shay thought of Serib and could smell that smoky farbark crumbled-strong over her soup. The wings of a statue ahead were reaching as a claw over the steps Shay now was mastering. The stone wings bat-like in shape and form.
“The Way of Decline and Decay.” Gargarensyr answered and with his fingers offered in formation or gesture Shay did not recognise; perhaps mourning for her.
∞
Remembering those that came before her, Shay could feel the bed of Grief. As prey wrapped in silk. A spider was scurrying away from her on the near steps. Flailing its spikes into a crack.
“Blessed it is I daresay, that youth ageing old into Indifferent Death is all we need worry over now. War has fought and won, insatiable Need is satiated. Getting through to the other side of this museum and past the temple, we will see The Triumphs of our General Artorias, and his Knights-a-Legion in formations light-year wide returning home.”
“I’ve always enjoyed watching them.” Shay strode against the weight of Grief. “It’s very hopeful - to see something won or finished.”
Her parents always had another job to do for Courtdom, and there was restless peace in scarred retirement. Shay could see The Dam’e sitting at her desk coughing against extinguished candle smoke, handing out what would or could have been her parents’ contracts, to her instead.
∞
“Speaking of hope, I am hoping to discover more about you. You climb these steps with an ease few have despite your injury, which is healing oddly well. You were being chased and so on… in a lasting age so fine as ours, what are you running from? And what more hope do you need…”
Strange promises were written or scratched across the steps and columns to follow. Some in faded red. Travellers, Shay included, were all trying to see what the highest or most hidden words said, and ahead the gigantic winged statue waited for us all.
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∞
Long clothing blew about in a suddenly strong wind this high up above the world. Other climbers were puffing and panting the thin air, making their seats among the ever-stairs. From there not only the horizons of Imirka could be seen, but too the other floating townships. An archipelago of islands settled in azure skies rather than blue seas, all by the first inspired: a city by the name of Haven-o'er-Hadaeon. For another rhyme, that place. All Shay could see was floating safe from myths and worse, Gargarensyr said.
“Who is this?” Shay stopped and read the giant’s plaque: ‘A Recover’d Statue of The Great Freedom’.
The plaque suggested to her an allegory, but the face of the enormous statue was known to all human hearts, without really knowing why. One could hear the statue’s moveless batwings beating all this wind around. There were other, smaller likenesses of her, holding parentally a tortured soul. These were housed in a smaller section named ‘Konisoki’ and ‘The Siblings Entropy and Duality’. Though as Shay saw this, she could hear scholars arguing over what that section should be called.
∞
“She is to scale, would you believe!” Shay heard Gargarensyr claim, and she stared up to ‘The Recover’d.’
The angel there stood hooded and cloaked. One of her bat-like wings was larger than the other. Armoured in Grey plating and armed with a spear towering over her, and upon her arm a shield huge and round as a moon, and indeed upon the shield’s face were deeper craters filled with starry dust, bored there by the hammers, arrows and swords that had against her, that she had prevailed over. The statue was too massive to possibly be to scale, Shay thought.
∞
Other travellers splayed grateful of the cooling wind and laid in front of the statue of The Great Freedom as though struck by her, or running around in that winged breeze unchained. Unbridled.
“Wrath Heirself.” Nodded the Heir-Scholar. “Bringing Truth to all that know the stars, and Choice to all souls left famished of will by Falsehood. General Artorias, War himself, brought news of Heir victory theirs and ours, for she did not return from the last battle, Heir foe great as she if not greater in mind and might, though Heir spirit it is that lives in all humanity, and so fell the old ways you are too young to know. The spirit of anew, of revolution… of change everlasting and chance to order chaos, if only we dare try together for all humanity: that is what you feel in here when faced with adversity, and Wrath alone stirs above the rest of all words you know.” He held at his heart. “Courtdom shines, and needs for now no Heirarchy, no Heir of Anew to lead us into bliss, for in bliss we now remain. Praise Her, The Wrathful Angel, that struck Falsehood down with Her hammer-spear.”
Shay found a step to sit upon some distance away from the statue, from here able to see the eyes under Heir hood, one baleful and the other tender, or together a baleful tenderness. She could not help but feel part of a constant pilgrimage. A greater return to the cave Freedom's wings had made. Gargarensyr there a while stayed distracted, kneeling as in reverent prayer, joined by a passing group of his brethren:
“Whomsoever is the next Heir, rests. And we are in that deeper place.”
∞
The mountainous steps still taunted ever upwards to blurred-invisible heights, and Shay saw there ahead yet fewer and fewer pilgrims with breath enough for the topmost journey. Most settled here with The Great Freedom’s statue, by the wind of Heir stiff wings renewed, and from there with that they pressed onwards or aside. Shay and Gargarensyr too here lazed a while with others marvelling at the marvellous size. The eyes baleful and tender compelled Shay to speak here, where more than her or Grief was lord:
"If she is Freedom, then why does Fate rule your world?"
"Our world." Gargarensyr frowned his lone eye - he was right, though it was Imirka from a very different lineage. "There are two Freedoms, To and From." he explained. "One soul in flux as is the human soul, between Love and Reason torn at worst or straddled at best. Freedom defeated Falsehood, though a fundamentalist - a leader of the revolution; in victory she turned away knowing she was not the one to rebuild what had been destroyed. The scrolls since do not mention her, she has not been seen. Her foe great as she."
Shay thought about that - about knowing when to turn away. Letting go of a thing long fought for. Her mother's illness. Her father's decline after that:
“I am a Shadow, as were my parents.”
“You daresay… really?” Gargarensyr almost clapped excitedly. “Your creed are mentioned in pieces here and there; our scholars are always discovering, tentatively.”
“High Courtdom prefer to keep such-much truths as secrets. I wanted to ask you…” Shay froze.
Gargarensyr’s eye was then wide as his face not looking at her but behind her, watching with many others horrified - watching the changing skies left behind.