She was imbued under my skin in a way I never imagined myself feeling. Now that I was aware of my dreams — and I still didn’t fully understand the reasons — all I could think of was her. Even when I was around the Maors’ table, eating and desperately trying not to gag in front of their disgusting plates filled with insects and entrails, her lips and hands were still touching and kissing.
I shook my head before a part of me woke up and embarrassed me around the assembly that regrouped for lunch.
Kâl had joined, feeling much better after probably the equivalent of two days, and eagerly dived in her plate, grabbing the fruits with both hands and biting hard on them, her appetite still surprising me each time, her eyes glittering in front of all the different foods.
They brought Min and Geia’s courses from the library, the two little Maors never leaving the place. As I recalled their appreciation facing Samay, their full admiration and praise, I wondered if they didn’t know more than we expected at first, and I made the mental note to interrogate them later that day.
Samay was sitting among us, no plates in front of him as he couldn’t ingest anything, his powers and magic feeding him what he needed to be spiritually present. Shay-In and Krolea had spoken at the beginning of the meal to honor the ones that were not here to enjoy the banquet. I still felt terribly guilty about Hei-Tria’s death. Knowing they were one of the most excited regarding this mission, so the Maors could go back to Fryor, although we weren’t sure this planet was still alive.
I started changing the aspect of why I was doing all of this. The more I was around magic and magical people, the more I became familiar with the abilities, even when I had been frozen in front of the Arzallis. Samay had tried in his own way to reassure myself, but I was convinced he did so I wouldn’t just give up what we started to do.
So, we were now eating and talking about what was about to happen to all of us. “It would be a real pleasure for us to return to our original native environment, Samay,” Krolea explained, sucking on the bones of an unknown animal. “Our exile has been too long already.”
“You said it happened when, exactly?” Samay asked, one of his forearms nonchalantly dropped on the table, his other hand on his thigh, playing with the fabric of his robe. “Because I had never heard of Maorat.”
“Our ancestors from centuries ago have been expelled to Zelian. And the ones after might have created Maorat. The information has been passed on orally, and might have been deformed with the years.”
Shay-In intervened, “I’m the oldest one now, since Hei-Tria left us. And with my three hundred and fifty years, I was born inside this dome,” their voice was calm and explicative. “I think we cannot imagine the time that has passed ever since.”
Samay stayed quiet for a moment and tried to recall what he knew before he disappeared somewhere unknown, somewhere nobody could reach and he couldn’t escape from. He then proceeded to gesture to Shay-In to go on. “What is there to know about your kind? There’s not so much I remember myself, unfortunately.”
The Maor dropped whatever they were eating and cleaned their long fingers with their tongue, and the sight alone of that thin and wiggly thing made me mentally swear I would never fight with them. “The Maors and the Malrys were living under the reign of the Lady,” they smiled at the mention. “She was more of a symbol than an actual… how do you call them, queens?” they added, watching us, humans. Kâl shrugged. Shay-In resumed. “But she was considered and respected as a queen would have been in the human realm.” They ogled Krolea for a split second and the latter accepted that they would continue. “She was having the final say on any matter regarding Fryor, at least Menia, which is the main place Malrys settled in. It had been like this for generations and generations until an evil man mingled with the imperial affairs.”
“He entered the Lady’s close circle and managed his way up until he charmed her and got tangled in her sheets, putting a baby inside her, and made her so infatuated with him, she wouldn’t question any of his requirements.”
As I was translating everything to her, Kâl emitted an impatient sound and raised her fingers, chewing her food as fast as she could. We waited awkwardly until she loudly gulped and stated. “I’ve seen this in the books you shared. His name was Karl, wasn’t it?”
Shay-In curved their head down, hearing the name. “The manuscrit talked about this happening more than… ten thousand years ago.” Kâl’s eyes widened and waited for the answer.
“We have reviewed many, many books and have learned of the ways we were living back there. The freedom we had, the space we possessed. But sadly, the rest of history hasn’t been written. Something deeply traumatizing must have happened.”
“I stopped when he asked something to the Maors?” She added, already stuffing a piece of bread in her mouth. Even I didn’t need to eat that much and had been full twenty minutes ago. I tried to contain my smile with my hand on my mouth but couldn’t help the laugh escaping my throat. She looked at me, unaware. “Yes,” Shay-In responded after Samay repeated. “He is the reason the Maors have been evicted from there. As he slithered his way to the Lady’s mind, suggesting the wrongs of the universe could be our doing and that we needed to be dismissed. She believed him, and made a public statement.”
“The Maors didn’t know this choice of action could come from anyone other than the Lady, and when that man contacted my ancestors, he used the same charms and eloquence to force them into creating an artifact. A powerful one.” They took a deliberate pause, inhaled loudly. “He demanded an object capable of betraying the primal laws of any natural being.”
“Invisibility?” I proposed, assembling the pieces together.
“Oh no, much worse,” Shay-In refuted, their smile anything but warm. “anti-aging properties.”
All sounds quickly faded into an uneasy feeling. I took a moment translating to Kâl. “He became immortal?” She exclaimed, this time with her mouth full.
“He did. He had promised a word with the Lady in hope to change her mind regarding the Maors but of course, the very next day, all of them were escorted to the portals and sent very far away. They understood the tragedy far too late to do anything about it.”
“They were scared of you,” I listened to myself saying. Scared of their force, of their capacities if things had to become messy, if they had to enter a surviving mode. Any species capable of creating such terrifyingly powerful objects, or ones with their own consciousness, were to be horrifying. “He was scared of you all.”
“It is possible.” Krolea joined.
Shay-In interrupted. “As they should be. I expect you will help us find our way back there, Samay,” they added, their stare only would have made thousands kneel. “If this person still has the artifact, I want to be the one gripping it out of his head.”
The story unraveling before us had so many layers of complicated details, I wondered if we would be capable of comprehending at least the bare minimum to succeed in this quest. Samay stared, an amusing smirk on his face, glaring at the Maor as if they were old friends, but Shay-In had their mouth very straight and nothing but pure anger traversed their cold and sharp features. Then, the Master of Time took a deep breath and said, “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll need to establish a connection with another Orulis there, and with my powers being held back, it could take a moment. But I will. Of course, I will.” His smile was apologetic now, and understanding. That was all the Maors hoped as they nodded and thanked him generously. After a silence of sealed promises, Kâl dropped down her knife and fork and exhaled a satisfied sigh. Her smile on her face made everyone chuckle.
Samay also looked at her, at both of us, and something in his expression echoed weirdly around the corners of my mind. His voice crossed the space between us, entered my head and spoke loud and clear against the walls of my skull.
This will be fun.
֍
The large leather armchair from the library welcomed my wide body like he had been made for me. I waited a moment, in the familiar and relaxing silence, only the clocks with their weird sounds, faster than a usual second, and the crackling noises of the fire in the enormous hearth perturbing the smoothness and the ambiance of the place.
My brain had turned the situation over and over and couldn’t resolve into a position. The book in my hand, my book, the one about the Yons, had become warm and uncomfortable over my sweaty palms. An idea had occurred to me while being at the table with the others, Samay’s word resonating in my ears from the moment they had been unleashed into the world, I had been sitting here, weighting the pros and cons and realizing they were no cons besides having more knowledge about my tattoo and what it all meant.
My enigmatic father always had me suspicious about these things but he also had been so convinced into avoiding all the questions. He had the best answers possible for whatever interrogations I had, and the fact that my life was in great danger sufficed to keep me quiet. But I was safe now, at least as much as I could regarding the situation. What could this book tell me that would change the way I had lived for twenty-five years? I had been chased all my life for various reasons, putting aside my differences and living like any other was a possibility I was ready to consider. And accept.
I thought about telling Kâl. Admitting who I was, what I was, explaining my fear of committing, of opening up, being always defensive, physically and mentally. Now that we had shared so much, it felt like the right time. But would I create the right moment to say it?
I thought about asking Samay to read the book, and to return it when he was done. It was the largest of the whole library, in dark material, the Y carved and painted in silver, with drops of red here and there, like blood dripping from the one holding it. Like tears falling from the reader. It was as curious as the language used inside and among anyone here, Samay was talking all languages. He had said so the first time we exchanged words. The fact that he had been dormant for thousands of years but was still capable of speaking with any species or race was something truly magical. Maybe he had his own language, but his powers and identity translated instantly into the person’s ears or mind.
What I hoped for from the book, I didn’t know. Perhaps a way to use magic despite the circumstances. Perhaps an enchantment that would erase that gigantic black letter so deep under my skin it wasn’t so black anymore. And the laceration across my back had deformed the tattoo so much it wasn’t even recognizable. Except for me, no one would understand what was inscribed on my flesh, and if we managed to reach Fryor, if the latter hadn’t disappeared, they wouldn’t know about the meaning either. Being able to be my true self around the others had impacted my wellness in a drastic way, and with lighter feet, I stood up and rang Min and Geia’s bell, all alone in the library, to have a moment with them.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The book displayed on the large wooden table, I left it aside while I waited for the two Maors to magically appear in front of me. Seconds passed, and maybe after two or three minutes, they decided to answer my call, their head as low as the first time I’d met them. “Yes?” they said in unison.
“I would have wanted to ask a few questions; would you agree to answer them?” I tried making my voice smoother and less demanding than usual, as I wasn’t so sure how to approach the two creatures.
“Depends on the requests,” they breathed, smiling.
“You knew about Samay and his fire, you knew about the Door and the Voice and what it was all about. What else do you know?”
They seemed to think and lifted their combined arm to sign something in the air. “We know a plethora of things, deiraist,” they said, the ancient word making my brows frowned, yet different from the one they had used the last time I was at the library. “What do you wish to know, exactly?” the sharpness or their tone, the clicking sound of their pronunciations bringing shivers to my whole body. I wondered if all of this had been a good idea after all. Their words were murmured and echoed inside the room, like it had been the only three — two? — of us in it.
“Do you know about all the books that lie here?”
“We know about all the books we possess.”
“Did you read all of them?”
“We have, once. A long time ago.” They cocked their head to the side, without lifting it up. Searching why I was asking all of these questions. “Anything else?”
“How much do you know about our universe?” I continued.
“A certain amount.” They answered, and I sighed.
“Do you have to be so cryptic about your response?”
“We are taking time for you. You need to be more specific about what you ask.” Their hissing voice licked a line of shivers against my spine. They could just faint into the place they used to disappear and leave me alone with my questions. They had said before, the answers would come to me once I would be ready. Only, I was ready. Ready to have my interrogations heard. They talked before I could speak again. “We can see how torn you are,” they lifted their arm to point at the Y book. “Is it related to the tome?”
“Might be.”
“Fear not. Ignorance is bliss. Sometimes.”
“What does that even mean?” I exclaimed a bit too harshly. The silence that followed reminded me of my place.
They crossed their arms against their backs. “Why are you drawn to it? Why not any other grimoires in this place?”
I wondered why they asked the question. Wondered if they really needed me to voice it, for them or for myself. “I have…” I started but then realized what I was about to reveal. We were alone. At least I thought. And I was tired of the games. Tired of ignorance. “I have this letter plastered over my back.”
They hummed. Didn’t move, didn’t gasp. Their hair shifted over their faces and for a second I saw a glimpse of their bloodied eyes. “And you think the two are correlated?”
“Are they not?”
“Might be.” And the smiles that stretched over their faces only enraged me more.
“Why can’t you tell me?” I lost my patience and stepped forward to them. Step that I immediately regretted, as they had to bend their heads so our eyes would meet, and the same feeling I had experienced the first time I had seen their faces engulfed my body and froze my every cell.
Their next words did even worse. “It is not ours to tell.”
The same sentence Hidram had said to defend himself once I had asked again about it. But he was no one. Just a Collector, just a father trying to make both ends meet in his miserable life, having to force his own child into drugs so he would grow into a fucking machine. Min and Geia were… Librarians with terrifying magic and even more terrifying knowledge. They were somehow much more important and they had nonetheless used the same phrase. The same excuse.
“You are disappointed.”
Instead of answering, I decided to deviate from the subject. “Could I have the dagger back?” I softly demanded, and Min and Geia disappeared in a whisp of gold shadows before returning, the dagger flat on their hands.
“There, deiraist.” That word again. What were they calling me?
“Would you happen to know how this dagger works?” a quiet frisk of fabric reverberated inside my right ear, behind me, and I heard the voice before I had turned around. The two Maors bowed even deeper and closed their mouths tight, as Samay was answering for them. “It is a powerful object.”
The sisters kept quiet and I did the same, imagining Samay would elaborate on the subject, but he only approached, smiling adorably to the librarians.
My eyes dropped on the knife and reminisced the power held by such an ornamented and beautifully carved piece of weapon. It had reacted to gems inserted in its tip, stones that were related to Lumnis and Samay and…
When silence answered my questions, I yet again realized we had no idea how much we had to learn. “So many of our belongings scattered all around the worlds, it is almost heartbreaking.” Samay joked, a playful smirk across his face.
“Our?”
“Me and my comrades.” His eyes twinkled with amusement and also sadness, as his memory constantly slipped through the fingers of the entity that could control Time.
“Lord…” The two Maors whispered and almost dropped again on their knees.
“Oh, I am no Lord, mingeias. No need to act so respectfully around me, really.” He frankly smiled and bowed slightly in return, the two Maors’ eyes still covered by their long and thin hair curtaining their faces.
“Mingeias?” I asked, hearing their two names into one.
“It is Trushzai for siblings, or Siamese. I suppose their master had little imagination. Or a lot of humor.”
The two Maors cracked a terrifying smile I could only see half through their hair but didn’t wish to see more again. Their echoed voices resonated in the room. “Our lesstar died a long time ago. But we liked the name. And chose to keep it. As we lived among books, we were never called anyway.”
Samay laughed hoarsely again, thanking the two Maors for their time and sending them away without consulting me. He then gestured for me to take a seat, and as I obeyed, he understood the questions I had held back concerning the dagger, and much more even.
“We, my comrades and I,” He explained, “have powers each. Powers so immense we needed vessels to contain them. To sublime them. Some, we had fabricated ourselves, some were offered by the people we had helped. As an homage. This one can react to our stones. Changes purpose depending on which is inserted.” He ogled the artifact that I had kept in my palm. “Mine is communications.”
“How does that work?”
“It can reactivate Orulis, can interact with powerless people, and can speak inside minds. The entirety of the possibilities have yet to be discovered.”
“But you can do that yourself.”
“With the Orb, yes. We couldn’t be everywhere and anywhere at once. See it as a portion of my powers that I would be granted to the holder.”
“What about the others?” I started answering, “Did they have their own portion once their stone would be inside?”
A faint smile crossed his features. “Absolutely. Lumnis would transform it into a complete work of art. A weapon that would never miss its blows.”
“How many of you were there?”
“Four.”
“And you were all linked?”
“In some ways, yes.”
I nodded and twirled the dagger between my two fingers, one on each extremity. Behind my vision was the book I had left at the table, untouched, almost unopened for centuries —might had been the case— and I couldn’t know where to start. How to ask him, how to demand such a request. It seemed like there were bigger problems. But as my eyes were switching from left to right, never really focusing on something particular, I saw Samay’s face dipping low enough to enter my sight. “Your mind is troubled.” He stated.
“Can you read it?” I asked, wondering how all of this had worked, in Jalyons’ territory, in the tunnels, in the Iris Chasm.
“We usually think in images, in feelings, sentiments. I can only grasp your thoughts once you use words, once you talk. And once you direct it to me.”
“Could you talk in each other's minds?” the questions flooded out of my mouth and I couldn’t contain them.
“Yes, when we established a connection. But we were trying not to be too intrusive. At least me and Elah tried. Lumnis was a real busybody. And Lesrel… ah, Lesrel had their mind firmly shut.”
I imagined the four of them around a table, just like I had seen Nina and her family, although they seemed to be very different, and the latter had only been in my imagination, the sense of family, linked people by fate or choice, it reminded me how lonely and alone I was. “What do they look like?” I asked once more.
“Although I appreciate your eagerness in the learning department,” Samay spoke while standing up. “I came here for a reason, and I’m sorry, it wasn’t to spend the night in the library.”
“Yes, of course.” My tone had resonated a bit too deceptive for my liking, and I tried being interested in something else to avoid the embarrassment of his pity look. Min and Geia appeared just a second after and they opened the passage to the Door another time, the words getting stuck in my throat as I had my eyes fixated on the Y book just in front of me, Samay already crossing the veil, out of reach. If you need me for anything, you can always ask.
I almost dropped the dagger and jumped so high my chair stumbled backwards just an inch. A few seconds passed, my fingers tracing the pattern over the cover of the book, full of curves and bumps. It can wait.
As you wish. He responded. But one last question popped into my mind, and I hailed before he completely entered the Glaze.
Samay, what does ‘Deiraist’ mean?
It means ‘Pretender’. And the connection faded.