Seamed masonry. As on the labyrinth wove or was unwoven, the jumping, leaping and rolling of The Ersecutor woke Serib. Corridoors too narrow or filled with obstacles his greathelm scraped chips and joinery from the walls. He turned a corner quick in the darkness carrying her. From a room passed by she heard the ripping of fabric and soft inhale of a thread going through all warp and weft, stitching the same things back together. The smell was fresh as an open window, and the wind threw dust almost sparkling through the sunlight ahead. The more hideous lineage behind them full of slobbering Spine Eaters fading. Gone.
∞
In this new page-and-age Gargarensyr and Argus were escorting Serib slowly with other jailors passing countless cells, and behind each door barred or sealed she saw the same unrecognisable face. She strangely did not feel hurt nor drained from her lightning here, being pulled forth or back through what remains of crumbling Time. Here resetting. There not.
∞
Dragged around another corner by her new chains she heard paper being scratched or scraped across. Nails digging words into stones. Parchment into red shreds one by one. Lay’d Payn and Lady Fate duelling away. Around another corner and creaking downstairs winding Serib then was home somehow, wincing against similar sunlight standing still, feeling dwarfed by lanky plants familiar, feet wet from the river behind her.
∞
The sunny Corridoor had given way to reed-fields next to streams bobbing with sparkles, and over there a village she knew was loud with laughter. A Spring festival was being prepared. Carrying her Earth totem, a great runed metal pole or staff tall as she, Serib searched the huts and hovels for the one she shared with master Gada’il. A roof for travellers and the lost. This was her memory, but the parts were not laid out as she remembered them, as though in haste. And yet - she felt lulled. Her locked hair was long again from all her head, woven into eight thick parts. Feeling no sense to rush at all, forgetting completely the prison and palace and The Ersecutor, Shay and Woid even - distant shadows.
∞
She brushed her hand over an oaken cart and passed into one of the long-houses where smoky far-bark was drying out, losing sweat to its grooves. She dreaded returning to her master, to tell him what she had seen out there among the stars that have not yet been born, and was there longer than those that first were old. What she had been shown by the primordial spirit at the top of the mountain at the end of her task, Entropy its name. The same that Argus had seen from his observatories and then been framed by Lay’d Payn when he spoke out, that his warnings would go unheeded. The same he had seen again through Serib’s furthest eyes: an extreme named Despair, The Writhing Nightmare. Another tome among many on Lay’d Payn’s desk.
∞
Entering the smoky long-house she saw it too late. A ghoul, she thought. Lurking there in leathers, rotting and whirring both. Prosthetic arms and jaw. A device of parts, reaching out its boot against her stride. Though loving, the eyes she could not see behind its mask:
“Back-with-a-whack you go-so. This-rot-bliss is not real.”
Serib tripped and having fallen for a short forever she was being carried again by The Ersecutor through a Corridoor of Lay’d Payn’s Speaking Manor. Puppet-like strings hung cut from the ceiling. His net-cape reeked of musty clothes never quite able to dry from the rain. A door clicked gently shut. The hush on the other side. Moonlight made clear tattered rolls of patterned carpet shouldering into walls of statues. The room was being used for odd storage all there ended up.
“I’ve seen this room before.” She wriggled free of Argus, feeling weak and needing to rest, too tired even to be carried.
Glasses filled with dust awaited return. Brimming shelves were bowing in their centres and once-decadent chairs sat damp, their arms all frayed: the very same room Serib and Woid had eavesdropped above after eating their cakes, listening to the The Dorns and other dignitaries of Courtdom. Surrounded by the smoke of The Black Angel where scarce sense had been made.
∞
Having smelt the bark of home drying in the long-house gone she missed it so, and Serib with her shaking hands made lit the fireplace. Her hands burnt yet numb. First singed the dust and webs over the old logs though eventually they succumbed to the heat, and their first glowing cracks and pops helped Serib snuggle into a broken chair, the legs of which had long since left. A chair full of her nestled shadows. In those shadows she could see the ghoul leaving having accomplished its unknown task in tripping her. Argus kept watch. She could hear drops dripping off him thudding into the dry carpet, perhaps from rain - from wherever he had been before this.
∞
Long passed exhausted, enough for the wet at last to dry fireside. She watched the front of him burning with fire's glow. Tired storyteller.
∞
“You’re quiet.” She accused him, seeing the moonlight hitting his helmet strangely from behind, as though now it were a different shape.
“It is all playing out as I read it would, if only I would have better understood the words. As I saw through your lightning-eyes.”
Serib was not sure if she should be worried. She listened on:
“I have read what lies ahead if we rush… we must wait here a while.” He paid particular attention to the fireplace. “Yes, here. If that is well with you?”
She was too exhausted and comfortable for anything else.
∞
He gently laid down his broken sword by the fire, the blade caked with blood dry and fresher. He left his hand upon its hilt a while. As he sat with his net-cape about him, Serib expected he would try to clean the sword. To longer last without rust. It almost bothered her that he did not. She noticed he had a great many new scars and cuts, and in particular a deep puffy swelling about his elbow.
“Read? How much have you read?” she asked strangely by fire and moonlight.
“I suspect I have read all you know and more than you remember doing - and too, through your eyes I have seen all that you have.” He tried to massage his elbow looser, holding it a little closer to the glowing flames. Flexing and extending it, it seemed to be awfully stiff, the swelling ever worse.
“Lay’d Payn told me there would be those like you - readers and scholars of her ages trying to destroy or rewrite her pages.” Serib was captivated by his helm half in firelight the other brightened by the moon I repeat, his helm definitely having a stranger shape than she knew it to before.
“It will seem to you that I lost my far-sight only recently, but this version of me you speak with here is far older than the one that broke you free from your cell. Strange, these Corridoors of Lay'd Payn's speaking manor.”
Perhaps a thick cloud drifted by, for the moonlight far lesser fell upon the quiet room, full of wood crackling more often, and fire’s deeper, warmer glow all they had together.
∞
“While you saw again your sewn 'homeland' I was written into different paths, and had many resources to research. I knew not the reach of your Lady nor mine stretched so far, that I was sent back before even… Before…” Argus trailed off. “…when even your world from which all our elements come, was young. And still! The stars there were ‘ovals rather than spheres’ - Forever itself has changed in Time's depart.”
Serib had for her home with Gadail a deeper reverence, and she looked hopeful up to the gilded ceilings, her eyes feeling attacked by the moon-scarred frescoes. She was searching for wherever she and Woid had been hiding and spying. There seemed no such place. Argus was facing the fireplace sat with Serib but his everywhere eyes would know before she asked or so she thought:
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“The Black Angel me and Woid passed by… you read that?”
The Ersecutor held his elbow as though it was worsening, breathing deliberately through the coming pangs as they went.
“Hmm?” He stood supported by a groan and strode crookedly over to the windows through the flickering dark, bumping into ornate chairs clearly there. He startled himself.
The latches of a window gave a vile squeal as he opened it with his better hand and in an ocean’s breeze was cool. Giving the fire some breath. Argus’ ribs were flaring out and shoulders upwards as he breathed with the wind crashing as distant waves. His net-cape had many twists and knots totally frayed apart. It likely was useless now.
∞
“Where lost things…” he stared at the moon and then strongly faced each corner of the room separately, leaning forwards to better see the floor for one moment, and for another moment leaning back.
From what Serib could tell, there was no connection between his staring at the moon and facing each corner of the room. She thought he could see all around, his eyes as they were underneath his helm. He finally answered:
“An old superstition in the pages, that if you speak of The Black Angel, they will appear. Perhaps they now are approaching this space but not in this age.”
He returned to sit by the fireplace and spoke gracefully by his slivered blade, flamed glows flickering across him scarred. Sitting with a sense of finality:
“They are Silence… the dark statue that hid you. The one angel that longest boils in the oceans you destroy with your fully formed and forged totem. In pages other than these.”
Serib dared only imagine the power of that lightning within her older, stronger self to come. Dared until she knew Shame in knowing she would not stop; unsure if it was Bravery or Fear that led her so.
∞
Argus’ voice was soft against the crackling flames: “With the death of Time is brought more impossible things, all Pillars of Heir Plan, She, The Great Freedom. Whom even deeper than Lay’d Payn dwells incarcerated in this that once was Heir palace. Soundless Silence and Colourless Despair, and told it is there be an Emotionless one out in the Tayl, to complete the triumvirate of our endings. Unlikely ever to be found, or altogether forgotten. Theirs shall be at once the shield and the weapons of Heir Plan, the structure and the substance.”
Serib heard a scratching, a fall of ash from the chimney maybe. ‘For souls are emotion, colour and sound’ it read in darkest red above the burning fireplace. She asked:
“Does that mean Silence is the angel that least wanted to serve The Great Freedom? The most disobedient…”
“If old or young Gargarensyr were here, he would Daresay at you gleefully with a question like that!” Argus spoke with fleeting excitement - Serib thought, protective or proud of her and reminiscing.
“Some texts, the oldest, claim the same as you or the opposite. That they Silent most were loyal to Her, for Her Conscience is Her worst enemy. She needed obedience most of all. One Heir Scholar of Gargarensyr’s school thought The Dam’e was The Black Angel, given your meeting with them in such proximities to the club. I believe Silence is far more than all of that.”
Serib remembered sitting at The Dam’e’s desk, and the weird drawer of props:
“I don’t think we know who The Dam’e really is.”
“Indeed. Then The Dam’e vanished off - with Shay in disguise - you suspected, when you were there. That masked servant. And then after your cakes there The Black Angel was, dwelling away. These the sorts of things Lay’d Payn wanted for me to trouble myself over, planting for Fate to find and fuss around. Strong evidence on either side for us to convulse over, how does it all fit together. Chasing all the wrong rings, you among them, but I am glad to have been led. Led so far away. Turning back I could see far better than when I was ‘amongst and amidst’.”
Serib’s eyes seeped with tears, saddened to see the fruition of Payn’s schemes - to see Argus so thwarted and tragically grateful. She was unsure where all these words were going, though Argus was holding his swollen arm less, and she wondered if all this was helping:
“Are Silence and The Black Terror the same? The same that me and Woid heard mentioned in this room? The same soul in different stories?”
∞
“A fine thought you should keep well in mind, but not in this case.” Argus’ head swayed forwards then back again, as though he almost fell asleep. “The Black Terror was once and still is The Duke - of The Woodlands Everwere no less, those that ever have bordered the abstract realms leading to Lay’d Payn’s palace, and subsequently, to this prison. The Duke was not always a beast as other tales will tell. A soul inspired by The Black Angel’s loyalty, and he hopes to mirror or mimic that, serving both Heir and Lay’d alike. Then there are other tales… that The Black Angel fell into The Despair but looked aloft, and was instead inspired by The Black Terror when they had a different name in another life or lineage; shining with a different colour. Something Silence saw in tumour-skies. It all is strange; this is what Lay’d Payn has wrought or is wreaking. For all my Watching… it is to say I understand but one leg or less than, of a creature with eight different limbs. Inconsistencies, complications, contradictions and convolutions. All the duelled-design of Our Lay’d against Our Lady. What else is Humanity in Entropy's throes?”
Serib remembered only the flame as she touched The Black Angel, wading through billowing smoke, feeling mercy or pity for their defeated pose. And the fires in front of her danced deleteriously away at the old logs cracking with smoke and ember. She left her unstable chair and sat close to Argus, his swollen arm soon around her. Two watchers, two seers between tales.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked sleepily.
"Bravery was Heir to Heirarchy, once." Argus remembered. "And in you I see the spirit of Bravery reborn though twisted to Fear's ends. If only you and Shay were not afraid... do we no longer know our strength together?"
∞
She slept and awoke and into yet deeper realms of Rest did go in and out with Argus’ wavered breathing, in and out with the ocean breeze she could not see.
∞
It was when she felt at last less sore and not so drained that Serib’s eyes opened, and she still was held closely by Argus, The Watcher O’er Humanity. His voice that once crawled with eyes over everything, had faded:
“You may not see me again, Serib - to you he shall be a slightly, only slightly ‘younger’ version of me. These are not the proper words, you understand - but those that make most sense. No proper words exist to explain Timeless things, as is Payn’s intention, I no longer doubt.” Serib stirred to hear this. “Go on - I will follow soon.” He leaned away from her and into the dark, sitting there but ‘away’ in all other sense, beside fireplace-glows.
“You said…” she stood, feeling forced to.
“Go on… I will because I have. I will because I to Truth and only Truth am I Most Loyal. No matter where it leads. Strive for Truth will you, always? Will you promise yourself that? I need not my long gone and tattered robes of Once Ago, to be as I always have. Timeless as Rhyme now be, I will follow - for I always have therefore and always will. It is most important, Serib, that one’s word is one’s own and true above all. To be loyal and go forthrightly, into all that is horror and evil, and be the goodness I have always seen. Inherent how good it is for all, when we all do that…”
∞
Seeing that she was not moving, his hand moved feebly for his broken sword. She did not want to make him brandish it for he seemed without the heart for it, so she stepped slowly backwards - towards a moldy doorway truly fearful that she might blink or turn and he would disappear.
“You were such a planted thing for me, child… I was tricked into chasing you, tricked that you were core and key to Lay’d Payn’s plan, alas you are but one piece upon her endless board. Heir of the next age, yes - though in chasing you all the rest fell out of its place. ‘If only I could stop you’, I was fooled and thought. Believed that shattered things would together-again. But I am glad of it; that in your faith was my own renewed. Now I believe: has anything shattered at all if Serib is among us still and strong?”
"I need you to know..." Serib grit her jaw against her tusks, cold as she backed away from the fire. "...do you know why I am doing all of this? Why I am so afraid..."
"Of course..." Argus leaned forward again and stopped himself; Sleep or something calmer called out to him. "...all this way to save them from Death's indifference. The wild child, the ages say of you... the runaway Spring-sworn. A daughter's love is what I see... a sister's love. Reality cannot be changed, Serib - this Spring you and Lay'd Payn have made though long, is still temporary against Infinity's undiscovered mirages, along the shores of Star Lake where the siblings Time and Entropy belong. Your love for your sister and your master cannot change this, and that is Tragedy but it is not Evil. I hope you will come back to the Tragedy of life, to the beauty of its undertaking forthright. And perhaps with me away from Lay'd or Lady, defend what is over what can never be."
Serib backed out of the room weeping, watching Argus fade smaller and smaller by the glowing and growing fireplace, her voice seething with power and without it:
"Tragedy is our foe." She wanted a blanket to wrap around him, his breathing slighter and shallow. Too the waves in the wind.
The back of her head bumped into something jolting her alert and she could smell toxic air as she stepped back into the brighter Corridoor.
“Where have you been?” Woid asked her as she turned around, and again her eyes winced against the sunlight of a different epoch - a threshold surpassed and left behind. His eye was closed over by bruises.