Further sight. “That is our shared burden.” Argus spoke to Serib. “That we both see fearful futures, and what are we with our finite hearts to do about them?”
He stood in her prison cell with her, where a fine view of the gaseous, sparkling cosmos shone in with natural light. While the ground and ceiling were softly heated stone, the outer wall all-was a window. Watching comets go by - no worlds nor moons known could be seen. Serib sat meditatively on the floor ignoring her decadent bed, sending out here a silent voice that elsewhere was as thunder aloud. Even through her closed eyelids lightning was flashing, silent and bright.
∞
She knew what to do. She hoped the message she had sent out into the cosmos would be heard; for since before this tale began she has been a runaway that did not wish to be found and to many a mystery shall remain: why now does she seek to be exposed?
∞
In her cell, shelves of books waited to be read and she realised returning from her trance, though it indeed was a cell around her sealed by esoteric technologies she did not recognise, the room was in no way designed for discomfort.
“I know.” She uttered distantly in reply to The Ersectuor, being in many places at once: her body, mind and soul all apart. "You sound like my master."
∞
She had been in a vaguer memory with her master, Gada’il, as he taught her how to travel astral as this - through water and air the twin-substances that shamans name Spacious, the deep of starry space and oceans both similarly frozen places she could, albeit clumsily, navigate. The gruff of his wise words soothed her from memory:
‘You already Wonder well and though we must work on your Worry, next I will teach you how to Wander.’
∞
She sensed Argus closer in the room than before, his spirit not swaying unbalanced and weak as she remembered him being sentenced by Justice and then drowning in the rain. Argus here, scarred and armed with broken sword, his net-cape about him, stood proudly until he did not. He knelt eventually before her, almost bowing his helmet to touch the ground.
“I can no longer see.” His confiding here stunned Serib from her trancing and she stood to meet him, reaching her hand out to his armoured head, staring into his many darknesses.
She knew not where the wet, robed and weak version of him had gone. How this warrior in front of her had grown from the gentler Watcher she had seen. Ages as pages skipping-by.
∞
“You cannot far-see any longer? How?” she could not imagine it: this protector severed from his primordial power. “Because you are away from your observatories?” She asked him.
“Who knows the fonts from where our powers spring? Do we earn or does Chance dictate our capacity? I know only: at my observatories or elsewhere, I cannot ‘far-see’ as once I did, as you name it.” His broken sword clanged on the stone floor as he discarded it.
∞
“I know not if Time has been murdered truly or is wounded only… no messages or messengers from either side are pulling through, be they loyal to your side or mine. We are in a new and uncharted darkness.” he crawled and sat by the wall-a-window, watching the stiff stars that should be spheres not ovals, watching Serib.
“…I see nothing when I search as I always have, I can no longer Watch. What do you see?” He crawled almost immediately back to her, pressingly:
“Is it changing at all with our efforts here, what you have seen? Ignoring your too-human heart and what wishful clouds drift in to muddy the shallow vision favourably… what do you see if Time is dead, and thus Entropy increasing no more, if Entropy indeed can be escaped from, to where Empathy ‘lone reigns? These dreams of your Lay’d Payn.” Argus raised his voice higher and higher though his thick helm. “You must answer me Truthfully! It is your duty! The duty of all to tell Truth over Falsehood.”
∞
Serib looked to the door as he shouted and saw the guards there oblivious to what was being said, their heads swaying to unheard music. Argus hushed:
“I have not told them - I did not wish those that follow me to know that my eyes are dark, lest that become another reason to follow The Despair. Look at me… that Time is hurt, and I revert again to secrets and their lies… do I have no faith in the strength of my fellows? All the base has been ripped from under us! You must show me what you can see, and I can return faithfully to The Truth… wherever it leads as I always have.”
∞
Tentatively trusting him, Serib held his tough hand unsure if her shamanic ways would assist him, his being so ancient and once among myth. Her master Gada’il had taught her of such ethereal matters beyond, more fable than physical, though here Argus was to her no such force unknowable. She had seen him shiver and weep and beg, seen him thrash through fights and aeons and his scarred frame he carried always under the helmet clamping across his shoulders. She held his humanity and as her eyes closed all his widened underneath the steel deep of his helm.
As young and ancient adjacent in their meditation adjoined.
∞
Oval stars moved streaking across the dark outside her window. Lapsing. Many dwindled out and none took their place. Argus, keeping all his eyes on many things could see one eye staring at him through a carve in the door: Gargarensyr stood there with blood-dripping sleeves, the guards still mesmerised by unheard tunes.
“Well?” Serib pressed The Ersecutor now, as he took his broken sword and his weighted net-cape trailed out of the room, and the swinging cell door sealed shut latch and lock, code and beam.
She searched lonely for a message from Lay’d Payn, being here-again in her old palace now a prison. Under the bed and up against the glass hoping there scratched would be some telling letters. Maybe dots connected-red or read along the stars, even. Brushing abandoned webs away from the corners of the room. Alas there sparkled or scraped no such assistance written for her to find, and she sat once more with closed eyes. A thunder silent only here.
∞
The cyclops monks and guards swayed their heads dreamily, still with sense enough to bow as The Ersecutor chased by, and he dismissed their gestures as distasteful or misinformed. The Corridoor walls were paintings layered atop others, jutting out so far as to almost press against his shoulders as he strode, the frames splintering against each other with struggle, trying to be first atop. Crimson drapes hung heavy as though soaked, and dark floorboards creaked objecting against any footsteps.
“Master - do you think she can be turned?” Gargarensyr walked with Argus, taking their discussion into a room of empty bookshelves and a lone, stooped grandclock.
“Where is the music bellowing from?” The Ersecutor faced onwards but his eyes crawled over everything, as 'arpsicordian strings' waltzed abreast the churns of a breathy organ, echoing as in an empty thedral, taking the less careful monks from themselves.
∞
“Is the prison secure?” Argus urged Gargarensyr.
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“Master…” the cyclops-monk bowed deeply, his sleeves staining the already dark boards. “It has all been seen to; Lay’d Payn is in her cell in the bowels of this pit, living out her sentence of sentences, scribbling and scratching away in nonsense.”
Argus paced, receiving Heir Scholar Gargarensyr’s report. He could hear Lay’d Payn’s nails on the walls.
“The source of the music will be found, master - it is a play of hers. Trust that I long have been her jailor and know best her petty ways; I better than any have studied the stories and know her weaknesses. Complete control over this place that once was hers is folly, a mistake of my predecessors as wardens - it is a play of mine that I allow her these small moments; it ensures she chases the wrong things.”
The Ersecutor said nothing, contemplating the entire room and his companion; whom had once been a scholar and had risen from The Gathered Steps to become his enemy's own jailor in Timelessness. Answering Necessity’s call when all others turned to despair. Argus stared at the stiff, erroneously oval stars.
∞
“Having lost our observatories, we must get the prison moving untraceably again. Should Lay’d Payn’s Amneshay find us here, we will have fallen a step closer to her Tayl and away from Lady Fate’s story. All our Lady wove is becoming true.”
“Please do not feel burdened, master, I have seen to it as well.” Gargarensyr looked over at another monk with a studious eye, surprised by his master’s almost deflated aura. He thought better of silent obedience and questioned: “Is it being rid of the ordered arenas and plunged into all this manic that tears at you? How may I serve?” he bowed down again and did not for a while rise.
“The whips and malice…” The Ersecutor began, hearing the roaring screams of spectori watching him survive. “Thank you, Brother Gargarensyr. Should the stars not be moving faster if we are safe, as mere strings or streams to our eyes?” he spoke, from the longer perspective of his lost observatories.
∞
“I know it does not look this way, the stars remaining mostly still out of our windows, but the prison is hurtling unknown through the worming tunnels among black and burning stars. A maze of Lay’d Payn’s own design that we have repurposed. It dipped out of motion for our boarding close to Imirka’s systems, and having ensured we were not followed, since then we have not stopped. We have handled various…break ins…” He brushed a tuft of fur off himself. “The windows are a more hopeless effect for the other prisoners, staring often out. Keeps them calm. One need look no further than history for inspiration and innovation.”
Argus did not reply.
“You have been with her a while, as far as I understand - for how can we now measure such things...” Gargarensyr walked away from the stooped grandclock and began again, reaching: “Is the shaman turning you to Payn’s madness? It is us that must convince her.”
“We must listen to our enemies, their hearts are ours. Though, it is this place.” Argus sighed breathily through his helmet. “It is these halls themselves perhaps, that long has Payn here bled and soaked into the stones. Saturating the oakenstone. I feel here as I did in Greed’s arenas: both fighting that I might live, and watched as I do so.”
∞
Gargarensyr had a dread expression, remembering those dire ages of traitor spiders reigning where monks far longer had: “Payn would savour to think she has gained control of the prison, turning it slowly back into her palace: though she will never bleed enough for what she has done.” The Heir-Scholar spoke with shame having heard his master sigh, his soul knowing what his mind was about to ask:
“May we consider killing Serib again, perhaps? And try again in another version as we are now and have before? We have learned even more now of our Enemy’s plan than in our previous attempts.”
The Ersecutor looked at his broken sword, replying:
“And they of ours have learned even more. Internecine is one of Lay’d Payn’s favourite words. Her Amneshay has slipped free from predestined loops and returns to the board as one of her pieces. If Shay is given assignment to find Lady Fate and helps her forget what most is core…” He placed his hand on the stone wall, and the boards groaned knowing he was there.
His hand felt numb afterwards, as though now coated or laced with something, and his tune changed.
“No - I have seen what comes and it is nigh; it is all as Fate’s woven pages spoke at Ba’yt Al-almaerif. Just as Shay wants to find me and end the chase, we must be equally as willing-” he paused.
∞
“There are other moments in the history to intercept… different tomes altogether.” Gargarensyr said, as he was offered a change of robes from another monk and water to wash his bloody arms. “We could head yet deeper into the prison, where The Great Freedom Heirself sits and sips her medicine, through deeper Corridoors than even Payn. Is Freedom not our Lady Fate’s greatest foe?”
Cleansing water spilt and splashed as Heir-Scholar Gargarensyr washed, spills slapping against the oakenstone floor. Argus tried:
“The Great Freedom is inevitable, Gargarensyr. We can contain Heir with Heirown tricks, but that is all; the spirit in us all she personifies cannot die or be forever chained. Without the boiled army of fallen angels Serib helps Heir to create, Freedom will be unable to lead Her final assault on Time. Though there will be other attempts, with variables rearranged. I still believe. We may yet reverse what has been done, and our enemies will again as our allies. You must understand as I do, that The Great Freedom is not evil; She loves - more than either of us could ever dream to understand. That is why she and Serib and others are doing as they do.”
Gargarensyr took a moment with this statement, trying to accept it. Argus walked over to him:
“This is the way of The Truth. Of Heirarchy. To be a saviour in one age is to be a destroyer in the next; it is too complicated a matter to be answered so simply; the acceptance of it is the divine. You and I shall not be remembered in the annals as such, so let not Heir fanaticism tempt you; we must as Light and Shadow both, as she - flows hooded in Grey. While She seeks a reality further-than light and shadow, Beyond good and evil or Before, the rules used are our own natural laws, twisted as they may appear. You must remember this.” He implored. “That she is one of you, and you one of her. Do you understand?”
Gargarensyr breathed his tension away, asking after:
“What has this to do with Serib?”
“I think Lay’d Payn is blind to Serib’s true power. Potential a better word.” He felt absorbed by obsession, his hand still tingling from touching the living-manor wall. “Killing her returns her to Payn and a cycle starts again… no! We must help her see in this loop of events. I am closer than before.”
∞
Gargarensyr dwelled on this for a while, asking then:
“Is there still hope? You feel yet without as you speak…”
“There is always! Though not always the sort we prefer. We must go where Truth leads.”
“Our Enemy will not be fair in their arts…” Gargarensyr tried to breathe away his restlessness, remembering his equally restless youth which first had led him to the temple's steps, where first he met the temple's leader deep with thought and ale. “…should we alert The Ring States, The Dorns, Greed and more of our plans here? We might rally unstoppable support.”
“They are all out there fighting in their own ways beknownst or not, strung so by Our Lady Fate against Payn, or by Fate against our Lady. I would not bring Courtdom further into this; these matters of Truthdom Our - The Rendering has long served humanity better than that. Much of High Courtdom has been fooled, and does not stand with us. They would not know if they did. My sentencing being proof enough of that.”
The new leader of the monkhood nodded, his neck and jaw tight with anger.
∞
“I know of The Gathered Steps, Brother Gargarensyr… I saw them before you did, in so many ways have I seen them; even in all their separate places - Before - at last being gathered there as I always knew they could be.”
Gargarensyr closed his eye for the boiled angels in his mind, his fists and kicks breaking their statue-shells open, pouring with human shrieks and scalding water long inside. Their spears ravaged the gardens and exhibits, hateful towards the history he loved. Lost relics. He could not imagine further - into the reaches of Argus where only his countless eyes blinking have seen.
∞
“And when I knew how they would end… and what was I met with when I came warning, as I always had? Came warning as was my duty By Decree?” Argus explained by asking, pressing slowly his broken blade against the stone wall, chipping off a moaning chunk. “You are young, but you stepped forth broken when others cowered unharmed, you! With Alyoshian strength.” He pointed his halved sword at the monk: “And witness! How feared are us broken things.”
Clean again from water, Gargarensyr clutched at his heart, that so highest of things had been spoken from his master.
“Alyoshian?” he trembled.
“All humanity born with hearts Mityrian, striving flawed that we might so.”
“You hope again, master… only moments ago you did not or could not. From where your new heart has rushed?”
“From you! And from that Serib in there… I must ask, Brother Gargarensyr…”
“Anything, master. And I must also - will you forgive my frustrations? It is my nature.”
He closed his lone eye.
“You needn’t hide behind that…” Argus answered. “Are all among monkhood calm? Or do many seek such a temple’s roof to best learn their struggle? I ask of you: will you ever again return to your lighter, sillier ‘daresay’ self? Whom with no less passion than this… was steward-curator of gardens and their museums... to strangers a guide.”
He pointed his sword at the bloodied robes heaped in a slop.
“…could captivate a group of new travellers through old exhibits. I fear that The Gathered Steps ruined you and I understand that they could, though I hope they have not irreparably. Do you remember speaking like that? Joyously, and despite…”
Listening, bitter tears ran directly to the tip of Gargarensyr’s nose. Mourning what was.