Alright, got my coffee and a bagel. Let’s knock out the day’s readings while the getting’s good.

Ahem.

“Behold the river – it imagines itself master of the banks

Behold the beast – it imagines itself king of its land

Man alone is granted the Flame of Introspection to recognize his bounds

In those bounds to sense his burden and bear his burden to please his God”

You know, not to complain, how come man is always the donkey? I’ve got a manager on my back – I’m already beast of burden enough!

Spring 3

These days, Sebastian carried the mail.

He enjoyed the cadence of this self-appointed task. From point A to point B: home to processing to travel to pick up to delivery.

He enjoyed the weight of it. Hopes and dreams, shared sorrows and silly jokes, advertisements and riches all jumbled into part and parcel.

Mostly, though, he carried the mail to pass the Time. Every missive covered one more tick of inexorable gears. Every package took one step closer to the assumption of his final duty.

He and the mail were kindred souls: parcels marked for delivery.

On Spring 3, fifteen years after the destruction of Lumia, Sebastian began his work at fourth bell in the morning. First in line at the delivery center, he savored the irony of his punctuality. The mail was sorted into ten gates, and he alone awaited at the furthest – the gate for Sevensborough.

Shoving open the gate, the assistant postmaster announced, “Rate’s been cut again.”

“I understand,” Sebastian answered.

The assistant postmaster stared at him. Finally, uncomfortably, the man continued, “A man has to eat, you know…Why don’t you come over to gate one? I won’t ask what you’ve got against the Livery, even if we can’t match the pay, but you could at least deliver packages on proper roads! The highborn lot would welcome you.”

“What few remain,” he agreed, feet planted.

Shaking his head, the man shoved a wheeled linen basket forward. While the other gates had proper crates and such, the mail for Sevensborough came pre-mixed – and frequently pre-read.

As the Inquisition extends its hand even into the letters of sons and daughters to their homeland, Sebastian thought.

Such a simple foolishness. One letter might be delivered pre-cut as a shipping mistake. When every letter arrives such, the borough simply staked where their hunters watched. Little contraband arrived via the post.

In theory, the heresy-sniffing priests could relax!

Instead, they redoubled their efforts. Surely heresy lingered in the request of a daughter for some nostalgic fruit from her father or a report on grandmother’s joint ailments to a grandson in Waves.

The angel of Witness was the second oldest angel, and he watched history repeat itself without judgement.

For what shall the lowly enforcers do but search as ordered? What shall the overseers do but seek to prove their worth? And what shall their grand masters do but seek to convince the world of their righteousness?

For if the heretical could not be found, would not the deacons turn their eye and their funding to greener pastures? Blinded by the motive of a single season, they would disarm the hand that protected the very heart of this great nation.

Nay, it was the duty of every good Inquisitor to bend both body and soul to their task. To justify the machine swollen to terrifying size to answer the great question: why Lumia? Why us?

Thus, Sebastian accepted a linen basket on rickety wheels from which eight missives had been removed, deemed too heretical to deliver; sixteen more assigned but torn open; four packages thoroughly rifled; and one shipment of canned preserves shattered in handling and now rotting over all the rest.

“There was gossip again,” the assistant postmaster muttered.

“The usual chatter,” Sebastian agreed. Bending forward, he inserted his hand blind into the mess of broken glass and rot. One by one, he plucked the salvageable letters free, never bothering to remove the obstructing mess.

His companion shook his head, still unnerved by such accuracy. “Some busybody priest type stopped by.”

To ask after this stranger who dares to deliver the mail to the undesirables.

“Please do not lie on my account.”

“I won’t. Fact is, if half these louts had your work ethic, this department might go somewhere!”

Chatter complete, the assistant postmaster turned his attention to the other gates.

Sebastian took a few minutes to finish assembling his mail. Once a week he rented a cart to carry the heaviest parcels, but today he barely filled a satchel.

Three more cart rentals, he reflected. I must remember to thank old Corrin for all he has done these last years. An unsung hero of the mailroom.

This was a joke.

He knew he would remember.

Today being Spring 3, he started immediately on his way. Starting from the posthouse in Firstborough, he intercepted the constable dragnet searching for Valkyrie Osh as he passed through both Second- and Thirdsborough.

“Have you seen a suspicious person tonight?” interrogated the checkpoint guard.

“Could you describe the suspect?” he asked in turn.

The wheels of bureaucracy turned slow, and the description had yet to reach this young man scratching at his conical cap.

“You know. Suspicious!”

“I am afraid not,” Sebastian answered. “I have seen the other postmen, the bakers, the truckers, and many others up before this chilly dawn for our duty, but I cannot in good conscience ascribe to them suspicion on account of this hour. After all, are we not both here as well?”

A flicker of sympathy sparked in the checkpoint guard’s eyes. “Yeah, suppose we are. Wouldn’t want to impede the mail and all that. Onward with you.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian offered.

He joined the constables for the money. His uncle vouched for him. He is young and yet uneasy with the truth of his position. He accepted that there would be the need for the club at his side at times; yet he still imagines that the club is a tool of protection. He is haunted by the look of terror when he raises that implement.

Seeing himself reflected in his victims’ eyes, he nurses a terrible suspicion that he upholds little peace in this time.

A fragment of gold for his soul to carry home when the Black Gate called his name in sixty-three days.

Continuing onwards, he stopped at a grocer in Fourthborough. There, a husband and wife opened early, courting the dawn shift with fresh-baked bread and sweets under stark electric lights. They offered excellent deals on the bread and made their gold on the coffee – a system Sebastian had suggested some years ago.

“Bread is man’s incarnate kindness,” he had said. “Since the first days, it has been the offering that bridges strangers. In its generosity you will find many friends.”

“Kindness cannot pay the rent for this shop,” the husband had retorted. “How shall we pay?”

“All men must eat,” agreed the angel of Witness. “Coffee, though, is optional. Less required but no less desired in the darkness before the fifth bell rings. What you surrender in the bread, add to the coffee. So long as it is hot and ready, you will not want.”

There were twenty-seven people in line when Sebastian arrived, and twenty-three of them took a coffee today.

On his turn, he listed his groceries to the wife.

“The last onion of last year!” she laughed, bagging his requests. “You have the devil’s own luck!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It is a matter of timing,” he agreed. “Two thermoses today as well.”

“Taking up coffee at last?” she teased.

“Alas, for a friend forced to toil through the night.”

“Aren’t we all!” she laughed, handing over his bag.

Thus armed, he detoured twice more. Once to hand his bread to a homeless man tucked into the shadow of a borough creek and once to leave that last onion of the year on a fence post before a worn homestead now swallowed by Fifthborough.

As he walked away, a light flicked on in the homestead as its inhabitants woke.

In an hour, the harried mother would realize the missing ingredient to the day’s meal.

Stepping outside, she would open the old gate; it would bump the post; and her onion would fall into her hands.

A minor Spring miracle.

He arrived at Sixborough’s western edge three minutes after the fifth bell in the morning. Here he paused, setting the bags between his shoes and counting minutes. Then, as the clouds parted, he watched the flash of red like a star that vanished into the night sky.

Mirielle Visage, streaking away in search of Thea.

Like so many angels, she would search an age and never find.

Ah, but she shall drink her fill of ancient secrets. All the sins of Eden. Until her chalice runneth over.

He watched her star dwindle on that abortive flight, contemplating the cruelty of his inaction.

For Sebastian knew exactly where Thea was to be found. The where, the when, and the how…

Just as he knew how many would die in Mirielle’s quest.

Sebastian picked up his bags and carried on.

***

The Woodhaven complex formed a rough square, poorly cut from the surrounding borough and accessed via a massive boulevard that ran straight south to meet Main Street. The complex hosted forty-eight shops, benches and gardens, and a grand fountain at the center of its plaza. The two towers occupied the north and eastern perimeter, angled inwards towards splendor.

Its designers dreamed of the bourgeoisie, though none here knew that word. They dreamed of the impulsive spending habits of princes a generation too late. Instead…

Woodhaven now served as a motor pool. Thanks to its broad boulevard and spacious court, it hosted day laborers covered in the dirt of the dreaded lower classes.

The two remaining jewelers in the complex had installed bars across their storefront and refused entry to any man that had worked more than a score days in his life.

Both stores teetered on bankruptcy – though not for much longer.

An end easily avoided, he observed. High or lowborn, all men need presents for their sweethearts.

And yet the end all the same.

Unbothered by such drama below, the Mishkan loft consumed the entire top floor of the eastern tower, Woodhaven Two. From the wood-paneled hall of the top floor, the door opened onto a den the size of a yacht lit by floor to ceiling windows. The glass panel balcony door slid open at a touch, admitting the occupants onto a spacious landing where to appropriately loom over the peons below.

Turning left from the entry, one would find the kitchen shimmering and modern in every regard.

Turning right, a long walk down Deepbloom paneled planks offered admittance to two enormous bedrooms, a private library, the traditional receiving room, and a studio suitable for one’s royal hobbies.

Royal, thought the angel of Witness as he set the mahogany table for four. A fitting word for this locale. Luxury calls for the House touch; who else could afford the lease?

Sebastian found the stairs more interesting than the fine marble countertops. After all, the countertops served their purpose: to gleam brightly in polite disuse. The stairs, though…the stairs were the same for both a House scion and the pedestrian folk living two floors down. A man could simply walk up them and knock on this royal door.

Yet no one ever breached the intangible, impermeable barrier.

At this moment, Alisandra and Oliver ascended the servant’s entrance nestled into the corner of the tower. They would enter the top floor lobby behind a fern.

Meanwhile, Sebastian poured out the first thermos of coffee to serve three: a cappuccino with milk and sugar for the Archangel, just as she had taken with her father; a double-strength macchiato for the mayor with a long day ahead; and straight black for himself. He would not drink his portion, but the decorum of the host required that he make the token gesture to include himself.

As the duo mounted the second floor, he fetched the fourth cup, its surface glazed with a sylph mascot, and set it on at the very edge of the countertop, poised to fall and shatter at the slightest provocation.

He did not get out a broom.

As the duo reached the fourth floor, he set the second thermos of coffee beside a freshly packed lunch.

Then, entire seconds to spare, Sebastian stepped to the front door.

First:

Hells, my keys are at the manor. Let me–

“Hells,” Alisandra huffed, “my keys are at the manor. Let me–”

Sebastian opened the door for his guests. “Archangel. Mayor Oshton. Please, come in.”

In the first microseconds, he read the suspicions that crossed their expressions. The furrowed brow, the pressed lips, and the thought all but shouted, What is he thinking?

Alisandra recovered her composure first, of course, her reaction time honed to a warrior’s edge. Sleep-deprived and distracted, Oliver lingered on his wariness for the full tick of a second.

Recovering, both accepted the invitation.

“I hope you will find things prepared to your liking,” the angel of Witness said, bowing.

Next:

No need to be so stiff!

“No need to be so stiff!” Oliver exclaimed. “We’re just looking to bunk a troublemaker.”

“Might I recommend a hotel?” Sebastian asked, smiling.

The joke landed like a rock.

After all, novelty was essential to humor.

“No thanks,” Oliver muttered.

“This way,” the angel continued. Starting down the hallway, he indulged himself in a little game.

Sebastian closed his eyes.

Oliver will run his finger along the leather couch and lick his lips. He is ever ill at ease with ostentatious wealth; how many families could a man house for the cost of this couch? Alisandra will surreptitiously lag, her attention elsewhere. Her halo pulses when the drums of war sound, just the tiniest shiver along the points of her crown. Distracted, she will brush against the counter; the glass will fall, and…

He heard a finger rub leather; Alisandra’s step lag; the rasp of glass sliding…

Sebastian waited, tracing the revolutions of the tumbling glass…

And then Alisandra hooked the glass with her boot, catching it an inch from the floor.

Third:

My mind is too far distant this morn

“My mind is too far distant this morn,” she chided herself, returning the glass to the counter.

Sebastian motioned as he walked. “Left – library and receiving. Right – the studio and then the bedrooms. I have taken the liberty of purchasing a lock for your study that your Works might remain undisturbed.”

Oliver paused, testing the door. The door resisted him like a mountain.

Observe the nature of mortals: ever to yearn after mystery.

“The key is by your cup, Archangel.”

Alisandra crossed the den to sip her drink. Silently, she inspected the key and noted the sigil etched into its base. Closing her fist over it, she pressed her hand to her mouth and breathed.

The loft trembled, and the door to her study rang.

Oliver frowned and tugged at his ear.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” Alisandra said, tucking away the key. “Prescient as ever.”

Fourth:

I strive to serve.

He hesitated before his part.

His tongue could spill forth other words.

He could step off this path.

And when the gears grind to a halt, and the last black wind sweeps along the last dead plain of this broken place…

When fathers, mothers, children, worlds all gasp their last; when they whimper before the agony of retreat to the Gate; when they weep and rail and beg for an uncaring God?

Before they die, they will ask me if I could have prevented this, and how shall I answer?

Yes. My relief was more important.

Time clicked mercilessly; he would speak or he would not; he would not be spared.

The burning gasp of inevitable decay clogging the gears in a universe of random, stupid matter that sputters towards a pathetic, whimpering end.

He did not deserve to be spared.

No, Sebastian mourned for the others in this play.

“I strive to serve,” he said.

“I know,” Alisandra agreed. Her fingers twitched, curling into the very beginnings of a motion to touch him…but stopped short.

“This is my room,” the angel of Witness informed Oliver.

The angel of Witness had removed the furnishings to make more room for tables. Sheets of cheap paper covered every flat surface, held down by inkwells and stained brushes, and each page hosted a single symbol of the only language that had proven beyond the Tyrant’s reach.

“The old tongue?” Oliver peered. “Does it really need a whole page per letter? Seems an awful waste.”

“A hobby,” Sebastian answered, “for when I have an hour to spare.”

Ever perceptive, the mayor asked, “What are you looking for?”

“Imperfection.”

“I can always knock your brush while you work, you know.”

“But such would be your intent, and the mark its maturation.”

Oliver stared at him. “What?”

Alisandra chuckled. “Allow me to translate, dear mayor. Be spontaneous!”

“Oh, hells, you’re as bad as the girls in my old school. ‘Oliver, do something random, you stick in the mud!’”

“Like march off to Lumia at seventeen?” the Archangel teased.

“Now that wasn’t random,” Oliver corrected. “Dumb as a mule, sure, but hardly random!”

“Foolish or not, I am glad you did,” Alisandra offered.

Sebastian reached the end of the hallway. One door led into the spacious bathroom with a tub like a sauna. The other led into a room transformed to radical tastes. The walls were painted a soft peach; its space dominated by a massive, fluffy bed with a cream comforter and a mountain of pillows. A rotund teddy bear waited at the vanity, its lap full of selected readings, and a variety of cheerful clothes lay neatly folded against the closet door.

Oliver knelt beside the clothes, plucking up a pink shift with frilled shoulders. He shook the dress out and measured it against Alisandra…

“My mother could not coerce me into such frippery,” the Archangel stated.

“You look better in those low-back silver dresses anyways,” he agreed. “More to the point, Sebastian, this thing runs a little small…”

His suspicion echoed.

Rather conveniently like our guest-to-be, in fact!

“Unfortunately, styles are limited for a girl of Valkyrie’s stature,” Sebastian apologized.

Oliver shuffled through another couple dresses, opened a make-up kit, and peeked into the vanity. Inside, he found a neat row of earrings and necklaces.

“She won’t lack for luxury,” he groused.

Alisandra, meanwhile, inspected the selected readings. “Jungle and Crucible? Hmm…”

Sebastian explained for Oliver’s sake. “Tis an examination of Deepbloom’s menagerie, the most comprehensive of its type. Almost half of it is true.”

“Dresses, teddy bears, and Deepbloom heretical literature.” The mayor shrugged. “Setting up an impressive education here – if she’ll actually read it.”

“Sebastian has endured worse adolescents,” Alisandra reasoned. “We must provide her unsettled soul an outlet.”

The mayor scowled. “And if she starts reading the old tongue off Sebastian’s hobby?”

“I will supervise her tutelage in every respect,” Sebastian promised. “I will prepare her, and anoint her, that she might find a path from this turmoil.”

Oliver wavered, doubtful.

Last:

The seed of everything yet to come…

She may yet come to serve the sea

“She is twice now Azure-touched,” Sebastian noted. “She may yet come to serve the sea.”

Even turned away, he felt the words find their mark.

Alisandra crossed her arms, tapping a finger to her cheek in thought. Idle contemplation, easily forgotten and left to grow.

Exactly as must be.

Ah, to be humbled by ignorance. For the moment to slip away; for the shattered cup or the errant stroke!

For any relief from perfect vision, Truth, and the steady click of Time’s gears.

Sebastian bowed. “If this inspection is satisfactory, I have prepared a light meal while we discuss the paperwork.”

Thoughts drifting to their own schedules, both agreed.

Sebastian Mishkan would babysit the Valkyrie this Spring.

While they spoke of the accommodations, the lawyers, and the costs, the Song continued to ring out. Infinite paths, all shimmering with possibility…

And only one that would win.

For those with the eyes to See.