6 A Temple-Library

Lorn stepped onto a broad plateau. Overhead, the sky was the same purple and black with sporadic flashes of light, a festering wound.

Ahead, eight pillars stood on the plateau leading to a small temple-like building with a façade carved with garish faces, and nightmarish creatures. This was the base for their resistance?

Axiom detached himself from her, sniffing the air like a warghound; as if reading her mind, he manufactured a nose that was animalistic in shape. ‘Well, he’s still not home, which is a good thing for us.’

She pointed at the structure. ‘This looks more like a temple than a library.’

‘It’s a temple-library.’

Lorn halted, staring at the shadowy mass that denoted the shraed’s form. He didn’t provide any facial features this time, the nose gone.

He floated towards the entrance, moving slickly over the grey rock, and Lorn followed. Then the shraed entered the temple portal and vanished. Lorn stood there for a few moments, debating whether she should follow. She shrugged. What could she do, standing there like a fool?

Taking a deep breath, she followed Axiom inside the temple-library.

***

THE ROOM LORN STEPPED into was a palace chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. Frescos adorned the walls depicting what she recognised as Icarthian artworks. There were little niches with sculptures, backlit by candles, and throughout the chamber were large stone bowls of flickering fire, although she felt no heat from them.

There were steps going down from the entrance to the floor where there stood a broad wooden table. On it was a spread of various kinds of food and drink, and before it stood a woman with long blonde hair in a flowing gown of white and gold. She was smiling as she approached them, arms wide in greeting. Lorn descended the steps and glanced at her shraed companion, hoping he might explain.

She started in surprise; the shraed was gone, replaced by an Icarthian soldier. His face remained a dark mass of nothingness, but the rest of him was a human male, swals, iron scale armour, and a short sword belted at his hip.

‘What are you doing?’ she hissed at him. ‘Now is hardly the time for experimenting.’

He shrugged in a human manner. ‘Not my doing,’ was all he said. If anything, he seemed resigned as though this had happened before, and he’d decided to suffer through it.

The blonde-haired woman reached them, and Lorn felt a sense of recognition, as though she knew this person, or rather, this ghost. She had to be the latter, despite their surroundings.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ the woman said, smiling in a warm manner and Lorn couldn’t help but smile back. That irritated her as she was not in a smiling mood. Who was this soul?

‘There’s one other due to join us,’ the woman announced, ‘but he won’t be here for a little while, so, it’s just us for now. You should come and eat, have something to drink. Ax, you know how to help yourself.’

Lorn spotted others in the shadows, and realised those were guards. They appeared as normal people, if dead, and not as Icarthian soldiers. It was the way they watched and moved which suggested their function.

The woman returned to the table, and grabbing a silver plate, began to heap food on to it. She paused and glanced back at her visitors. ‘What? Do you think being dead means we can’t enjoy ourselves a little? I don’t hold to such conventions. Please, join me.’

Lorn and Axiom both glanced at one another, though she could read nothing of what he was thinking since he formed no face, and then followed the woman down the remaining steps to the table edge.

‘Uh,’ muttered Lorn, before finding her courage. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but who in the name of Grim’s own hell are you?’

‘Huh?’ The woman turned again, as though seeing them for the first time. She lowered the plate in her hands, her face no longer smiling. ‘Oh, right. I do apologise; I ... I get carried away at times. Being dead doesn’t quite sit well with me you see. There was so much I would like to have done.’

She appeared to visibly gather her wits, her face becoming stern. ‘I am the leader of the resistance here in Tharaxis. My father had that honour before me, but he ... fell to the eaters.’

‘So, you do know you’re dead,’ said Lorn, gesturing at the laden wooden table. ‘I mean, we can’t eat or drink, right?’

The woman screwed up her face, and looked as though she was about to weep, but seemed to gain control a second time. ‘Lorn Larthuz, I’m not a fool, even when dead. I know none of this is real. I just ... I like to pretend sometimes. It helps me cope. And I can eat and drink, or at least, I can consume what’s on this table. It just doesn’t do anything. There’s no taste or texture, no way to fill the empty void. It’s just ... pretend.’

The table and its plates of food vanished, though the palace chamber remained. ‘I apologise,’ the woman then added. She placed a hand to her head. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like, being tortured by that ... creature.’

‘The Librarian,’ said Axiom with a nod. ‘I can assure you he’s not returning. Our benefactors have rendered him permanently indisposed.’

‘Wait, wait,’ said Lorn, her hands raised to stall them. ‘Before we get to any of that, who in the name of the Spectrum above are you?’ That sense of familiarity had grown, though she was certain she’d never met this woman when alive.

‘This,’ said Axiom, still in his soldier outfit, hairy arms, and all, ‘is Aiyana Mayala Todralan, once imperatrix of the Icarthian imperium, and sister to the infamous Threadfin Todder whom I believe you knew.’

Lorn felt herself gaping. ‘You died?’

Aiyana turned her head away a fraction as though ashamed. ‘Yes. I abandoned my brother, but I had no choice you see. They were calling to me and I had to answer. It was my duty, my fate. My death, so they might return to the world of the living. The undead horde, for me.’

Lorn scratched her head. ‘But you were undead too, right? I think I remember Threadfin telling me you were.’

‘Virals can still be destroyed,’ said Axiom. ‘What you see is what remains of her soul, the once-living half of it at least.’

‘Then, where has the Librarian gone?’

Aiyana shook her head. ‘Taken, imprisoned, and likely suffering eternal torture. To be honest, I don’t really care. That creature, it ... no, no, never mind. That is done with. I must look to what I can do now for Tharaxis, and if I can, for my brother.’

Thinking of her brief time with Threadfin, Lorn felt a deep sorrow welling up inside her. She’d abandoned him too. The only consolation was that he wasn’t in Tharaxis, though a selfish part of her wished he was. ‘I think I understand,’ she whispered. ‘I sort of feel the same way.’

Aiyana’s form faded a little, becoming see-through, and the chamber faded with her. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, looking at Lorn. ‘I know what you meant to him. I saw it in his eyes after you died. He was in anguish though he would never admit to it. He also liked to pretend in his own way.’

‘Wait a second,’ said Lorn, throwing up her hands. ‘I only just arrived. How could you have seen him after I died, if you were here before me? When did you die?’

‘Oh, oh,’ said Axiom, throwing his hand in to the air, and then realising it was holding a bronze sword, dropped the weapon. It vanished before hitting the floor. ‘I know this one. Me, me, me!’

Lorn folded her arms while giving him a long-suffering stare. Despite herself, she was growing fond of him. ‘Yes, Ax?’

‘Time in Tharaxis is meaningless,’ he said in a rush. ‘When you die and when you arrive doesn’t have to make sense. Time is not linear. You mortal humans don’t have any concept of this, but if you don’t want your head left spinning every time you think about it, you’d best start getting used to it. See? I told you I knew this one.’

Lorn frowned, trying to understand what he’d just said and then glanced at Aiyana. The other woman, however, was nodding as though she understood. She recalled that Aiyana Todralan was said to have been a bit of a scholar.

‘Yes, that makes sense,’ said the former imperatrix. ‘I’ve never come across this theory, but I did hear of a philosopher once who ...’ She stopped, and her face fell. ‘I wish I had at least one library to visit. Somewhere I could study more about this. It’s all gone.’

Lorn gestured at the chamber around them. ‘Can’t you just create a library, or whatever it is you did?’

The scene around them changed and Lorn found herself turning around, trying to take everything in as the palace chamber dissolved and a library formed in its place. It also had a high vaulted ceiling, but this one was held up with thick granite pillars. White stucco fresco art depicted imperial scenes from Icarthya, along with angelic beings, all intricately detailed.

The floor was of polished marble, inlaid with a mosaic pattern. Heavy wooden doors with bronze fittings formed the entrance. Wooden shelves lined the walls, stuffed with ancient scrolls and innumerable books of all sizes.

‘I can,’ said Aiyana with a sad voice, ‘but I can’t recreate the content within so many books. They are all filled with blank pages.’

‘There are other ways of learning on this side,’ said Axiom. ‘The Librarian managed to keep a whole library of information spanning the entire Spectrum. Not one of those book had actual pages. The study of time should be easier from this side, in fact.’

Aiyana’s face brightened at the idea. ‘Wonderful! Okay, so does this mean it doesn’t matter how long we’re here, that time in the living world doesn’t correlate?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Axiom excitedly, ‘you’ve got it! There is no link between the perceived passage of time there and here. None, whatsoever. A person who died a thousand years ago, could turn up this morning or have been here the past five hundred thousand years. While I wouldn’t call it random, there is a pattern if you look hard enough. I’ve another cousin who studies, temporal disjunction.’

He then paused, looking sheepish. ‘Uh, I mean, no I don’t. I’ve no cousins at all. There are no others like me whatsoever.’

Lorn was feeling ill, which she didn’t think should be possible. ‘I don’t get it.’ Even when dead she felt like an idiot. She hated when others connected over an idea that left her feeling as dumb as a gutted grolg in a ditch.

Aiyana offered her a sympathetic look. There was a scattering of benches and short tables. The former imperatrix chose a long bench with velvet cushions and sat. She raised her hands to gesture at her creation. ‘Well, until I can get at that other celestial library, I guess I can still pretend.’

Lorn turned to Axiom who was no longer a soldier in appearance but a politician in imperial robes, though his face was still a mask of darkness. The shraed seemed to resist forming a face to go with his new bodies, perhaps out of stubbornness? She doubted he was enjoying being manipulated.

‘How are you doing this?’ Lorn demanded of the former imperatrix. ‘How can you change your surroundings like this? You seem to have a control no other soul possesses.’

Aiyana shrugged, looking deflated. ‘I wish I knew. I just can.’

‘She was a viral mage,’ said Axiom, his voice a little sour. ‘Though her necromantic thaumaturgy abilities ended with her death, she still possesses what one of my cousins—um, I mean an acquaintance, refers to as, spectral thaumaturgy resonance.’

‘A what ... what?’ Lorn noted Aiyana nodding along. Well, at least someone understood what he was nattering on about. She then realised that Axiom was no longer a politician but returned to his normal form; a writhing mass of darkness with a vaguely human shape.

‘The magic she used when undead imprinted her soul,’ Axiom explained, ‘so she can now create illusions in death. I think it might be something peculiar to viral mages, though most manifest as dragons on this side. I have no idea why that didn’t happen in this instance.’

‘Huh,’ was all Lorn could manage. Dragons? What were they? She glanced down at herself and note she herself hadn’t changed. When she glanced up, Aiyana smiled at her.

‘This is why I’ve been waiting for you,’ the former imperatrix said. ‘You are different, and most essential to our cause. I knew you would come.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. The same way I don’t know how I can pretend like this.’ She gestured again at the imperial library. ‘It’s like I just know things in a way I never did.’

‘The Spectrum of Existence,’ said Axiom in a whisper. ‘It extends its will through you. You know,’ he added after a brief pause, turning to Lorn, ‘I think the Spectrum is exerting its will on us all. Interesting.’

Lorn examined the shraed for a long moment. ‘What would you know of the Spectrum? Your entire being is devoted to destroying existence.’

The shraed raised a finger, a long immaculate and well-formed one. ‘Actually, no. Regarding most of my kin, well yes, you would have a point. However, not me or my, uh, well, never mind. Suffice to say, I was once like that, but I then developed a mind of my own. The Shadow Twins and I are different to other shraeds. We have gained our independence, and we now exist within the Spectrum as sentient beings. We are no longer the will of Tartaros.’

‘That doesn’t make you forces for good.’

‘No, it does not, but then good is just a mortal concept, like evil. It doesn’t exist. We have free will, like you. We get to choose. Some will make bad choices it has to be said.’

Lorn snorted, but Aiyana was nodding. ‘It makes sense,’ said the former imperatrix. ‘The Spectrum is fighting for its very survival. It will use any means to succeed, just as Tartaros will do the same to destroy it. I think that’s why shraeds like Axiom exist. The Spectrum is turning shraeds against Tartaros, or as many as it can. This all goes far beyond any of us.’

Though she didn’t feel like sitting, or much of anything, Lorn walked over to the bench while avoiding a particularly unsteady tower of books, and sat next to the other woman. ‘Why am I here, imperatrix?’

‘Don’t call me that. I was ill-suited to the role, and I am no longer one now.’ Aiyana was rubbing at a ring on her finger, one that looked smudged. ‘We wish you to join our resistance, Lorn.’

‘Who’s we?’

Aiyana grimaced. ‘All of us who remain sane, and are willing to fight back. It’s not many, but enough. I hope. The souleaters are insatiable; they cannot be stopped by simply fighting back. They are too powerful and our souls too weak. We need an edge.’

‘Which is?’

‘You.’

Somehow, Lorn knew that was coming. Axiom and Shakti had already warned her of what they wanted her to do. ‘You needn’t worry. I’ve already agreed to this. You want me to steal this List of Souls. What I don’t understand is who exactly has it, and how do I reach them.’

Aiyana continued to fidget with her ring. ‘My brother told me of you, and of them, the Shadow Twins. I know you had some connection to ... Manic and Mania, isn’t it? They will see to the finer details of all this.’ She nodded at Axiom. ‘That is why he is here.

‘The list is in the possession of an ancient being we have come to call, the Primordial. She is—’

‘Wait ... she?’

Aiyana shrugged. ‘I guess it’s the same as with Manic and Mania, or Axiom. Shraeds are neither male nor female, but those three chose to take on a gender. They could just as easily take on none. I imagine this creature is similar in this regard. She gives off a certain feminine vibe.’

‘Yup,’ said Axiom in a far too human manner. ‘Won’t catch me in a dress anytime soon, let me tell you. I’m all male. Want to see?’

Lorn threw up a hand to block her view of Axiom, who had proceeded to reveal himself. ‘Uh, no Ax! Trust me, we believe you.’

‘Oh, well that’s a pity. You know, I’ve been practicing with all the human body, not just the face and hands.’

Lorn lowered her arm, and thankfully the shraed was decent again. ‘How do you know, though?’

‘It’s just something we feel. Most shraeds can’t think and therefore don’t care.’

‘And souleaters do?’

‘No,’ said Aiyana, ‘but the Primordial is not a souleater. I don’t know what she is, only that she created them long ago.’

‘I see.’ Lorn took a few moments to let those words sink in. They wanted her to steal a list of souls from an apparently very ancient and powerful creature of unknown origin. She regarded the shraed. ‘And you are somehow the method for me to reach this primordial?’

Axiom formed a hand and waved it in an uncertain manner. Indeed, as she spent more time with him, he seemed to become more human-like, in mannerisms and speech if not always appearance. ‘Not exactly. I can’t do it without one other. He should be arriving any time now. Then we can get started.’

‘Okay, so tell me how exactly do we cross—’ She never got to finish as Aiyana leapt to her feet, her form turning near invisible. The library vanished and a dark cave lit by a sicky green and sourceless light surrounded them.

‘Oh, no,’ Aiyana cried. ‘He’s in trouble!’

‘Who?’

‘Yaldo!’