Academy of Light

by A Y Beltran

  “I… will then…yes, I will….next time,” I said, stumbling over my words.

  When she returned her attention to her book, I took it as a sign of dismissal so I decided to go back to my wall and started reading. That wasn’t so bad at all though the conversation was enlightening. At least, now I know that all the knowledge I acquired had its own worth.

  A couple more books later, I went back to the Mash to meet up with Venir. Surely we could take a break from reading right? Since both of us knew nothing about the place, we followed a few angels and they led us to the garden.

  Glittering colors of kalaskig adorned the tree-walls, the shrubs and the slabs for tables. Now that I knew the name of those energy fruits and how they were created, I saw them with an added layer of beauty to it.

  Most angels preferred to sit on the tables with their legs crossed and so Venir and I copied them. With plenty of kalaskig in our hands, we chose a table near the water fountain.

  “So how is it up there with the betters?” Venir said, adding an extra sarcasm with that last word.

  “It’s quiet, not a lot of talking, and a whole lot of reading.”

  Venir stared at me like he was trying not to laugh. But he laughed anyway.

  “I haven’t met a lot of angels, but you’re the first one I know who doesn’t like reading.”

  It was not the reading part that I didn’t like because I found the activity quite fascinating, but it was the part where it was uncertain to me why I was doing it. They said I read to grow up, but was growing up necessary in this world? What was there waiting for me in the grown-up world anyway?

  “Let’s just say I’m still getting used to this kind of life,” I said, then swallowed the berry that had stayed longer than necessary in my mouth.

  His eyes were assessing me again like I said something that triggered his suspicion. Was I really different from the rest of them?

  “This kind of life? Ori, you speak like you’ve had another life before this,” Venir said.

  I put a couple of berries into my mouth and then chewed them.

  “Look,” he added when he noticed my struggle to explain it. “Although we’re both new, I was born first and had accumulated more navi before you, so I guess it’s just normal for you to act like this.”

  He tried. But even Venir could not hide his bafflement about me. It showed as he stared at me like I was another puzzle to solve.

  “When you say normal, you mean it’s normal for me to question what I believe to be the existing norm here?”

  “Everybody here has questions. I do. In fact, I have a lot of questions, and these questions excite me, they make me figure out the answers. I stare at the books and think that one of those contains the answer to my question. The only difference between you and me, for I don’t want to speak for the rest of the angels, is that you voice your questions while I kept mine.”

  “Why? Why do you keep your question? And I noticed a lot of them do that too. They kept it to themselves.”

  Venir smiled. “Because questions are like answers, they have values. They are like personal quests that you don’t want the others to know.” He leaned closer. “I don’t share them because I don’t like the others to find the answer first before I do.”

  In other words, I didn’t fit in this place. I couldn’t think that way. I couldn’t hoard questions, for fear that others may steal them. This sounded ludicrous. But Venir was my friend and I regarded him highly. His way of thinking was the norm here on Ether. Mine was the deviant. The oddball. But, perhaps, I could adapt to their way of thinking. And maybe this was what the Academy was for, to learn my way around until I would be ready for my next journey. I heaved a deep sigh.

  “I think I could learn to think that way,” I said.

  Venir raised his brows and then tilted his head to the side. “Let’s see.”

  I stared at him while I was munching the berries. He stared at me. An amused smile hovered on his lips. I wondered if Venir was also realizing the fact that this school did not have any sort of guide or supervision. Was this going to be like this? I understood that angels did not have parents and so we were forced to raise ourselves. But without guidance? Who were we supposed to emulate? What was the standard of a good angel? And what was that darkness all about? Was it a natural phenomenon? Was it part of Ether? So they would rather have a one-sided conversation with themselves than talk and use our Womb-designed vocal cords. This was stupid. All right, what hell!

  “I can’t do it,” I said. “I can’t have a conversation with myself.”

  Venir laughed, freaking laughed like full laughter with his hand on his belly. He attracted some attention, but the angels instead of asking merely gave us a frown. It took a moment before Venir reverted to his old self.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a compliment. Maybe he confused stupid with amazing?

  “If I don’t talk, if I don’t share my confusion, my questions, all of this in my head, I’m pretty sure I’m going to explode and turn into a cloud of smoke.”

  He narrowed his gaze on me and said, “Go ahead. Give me all your questions, your possible answers, and I’ll protect them.”

  Was he being sarcastic or did he mean it? Although he had shown to me that he was capable of pranking me, he was endearingly honest.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “That’s a pledge that requires my forever servitude to you if I ever break it.”

  “No. I’m not accepting that. You don’t need to promise anything when you’re the one helping me.”

  “Ori, remember when you said that the air around us is like a universal interpreter?”

  Where was he going with this? So I gave a hesitant reply. “Yeah?”

  “They record promises too. So it’s done. Let’s move on. Now talk to me.”

  My mouth, my eyes, I swear even my heart—they were open in shock. This was dumb. Really unnecessary.

  “Go ahead, tell me what’s in your mind.”

  “That Heaven was designed by dumb people,” I said.

  Now it was Venir who had his jaw drop. His hand holding a berry partially inside his mouth froze. Was he offended? Was I not allowed to say that?

  “What’s heaven?” he asked.

  Venir’s question completely erased any sliver of doubt I may still have about me being ‘not’ normal. So no one here in the academy knew that this place was once called Heaven?

  Now Fide’s words made sense.

  “Heaven is the ancient name of Ether. It has never been used, nor spoken here as far as I could remember.”

  The thing was that I did not only know the word, but it was also one of the very first words I uttered after being born. Crap. What if I was not meant to be born here?

  CHAPTER 7

  Maybe it was time to end the break and go back inside. But Venir looked honestly curious like I had given him a special gift, which gave me an idea.

  “Consider it a freebie,” I said, smirking and then leaned closer to him. “You really haven’t heard of the word? Like never ever?”

  Venir shook his head. “Not until now. So…” He grinned, leaning closer and in a whisper, he said, “You said freebie then tell me about heaven?”

  “It’s the ancient name of Ether,” I answered in a whispered voice.

  Venir looked like he just discovered the secret of the universe. He was in a daze. His eyes were glistening in wonderment and his mouth gaping. “So you’ve read it here in the academy?”

  They said angels didn’t lie? Well, they had not met me yet.

  “Something like that.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for this gift of knowledge. I owe you a debt and I’ll promise to repay you with the knowledge that’s equally worthy.”

  Venir shot a questioning look at me when I was gawking at him more than necessary.

  “Where did you learn to talk like that?”

  “To talk like what?” he prompted for me to further elaborate.

&
nbsp; “Like this. You’re giving pledges because I told you some stuff that I didn’t even know had value?”

  “I think you missed a must-read book in every house in the academy.”

  “Are you even going to share it with me?”

  He smiled like he was sympathetic to my plight. “I’m not allowed to tell you the name but I’ll tell you its location.”

  ‘You are not an angel yet.’

  This was the first line in the book that Venir dubbed as a must-read.

  ‘You are yet a fledgling. Your wings cannot take you past the walls of the academy.’

  That remained to be seen. This book was written differently. The lines appeared one by one instead of the whole passage.

  ‘Each book responds differently to each reader. This one is no different.’

  ‘Explore the library and acquire all the knowledge and the answers that you can get as it is inherent at your birth.’

  ‘You ask the question. You seek the book that can provide you the answer.’

  ‘There is no answer if there is no question. There is no information to be sought, and no quest to be undergone.’

  ‘Since the question is important, you need to treasure it the way you treasure its answer.’

  Why? This random question flashed in my mind. Then another line appeared that shook me to confusion.

  ‘You asked why?’

  ‘The answer: because it is yours, it is your value, it is your identity.’

  ‘You were born because a question is born in the Womb of Ether. And the question takes a form. And then the essence of a god breathes life to it.’

  ‘To get the right answer, you need to ask the right question.’

  Was this thing reading my mind?

  ‘This thing is a book. But it is not an ordinary book. Read its title.’

  I quickly turned the book to the side to see the front title. And there it was written on the cover—the Guide.

  The guide, I assumed was some kind of librarian. My heart suddenly quickened. I glanced up to make sure no one was watching me for fear of embarrassment. I needed a corner to hide so no one could see how I would make stupid expressions. With the book in my hand, I searched for a corner where I could be inconspicuous. Venir threw me a glance when I passed by his side.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “How much if I tell you the answer?”

  He stared at the book in my hand and nodded. “You must have read it there. But that question is trivial. The answer is worthless.”

  “What? My physical condition is worthless?”

  “Not in the grand scheme of things.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’m looking for a corner where I can read…you know…quietly.”

  He made a quick look of our surroundings and then said, “This is not quite enough for you? Maybe you want to go back up there?” He gestured at the upper level.

  “You think I can take this with me?”

  “I think so as long as you return it.”

  “Thanks,” I said and flew back up. But when I reached the height where the yellow books began, my wings were unable to take me any farther like there was some kind of demarcation line that I was not allowed to trespass. I flapped my wings and propelled myself upward. The line was immovable. I began to attract an audience. They were staring at me with amusement, looking at me as though I were stupid, which in fact I might have been. I tried again. I’d show them how not giving up was done. So I thrust my hands upward but again there seemed to be an imaginary ceiling that I could not penetrate. I glanced at the angel who was within a hearing distance.

  “Aren’t you going to help me?”

  She turned her head to the other angels who were watching me and together they all started laughing. A flush crept across my cheeks. I caught one angel pointing his chin at the book I was holding. An idea came to me. Why not asked the book? I spoke in my mind. Book how could I get past this limit?

  ‘The book cannot be taken outside of Mashsphere.’

  I glanced up to the snickering angels and gave them a good flutter of my bright angelic wings, a gesture received with an expected reaction—sullen looks and sneering from the jealous fledglings.

  I flew back to the Mash and grounded myself and sulked toward Venir.

  “What now?” he asked when I leaned against the wall beside him.

  “I just embarrassed myself over there. It turned out I couldn’t take any book from Marsh up there.”

  His eyes immediately registered sympathy. He touched my cheek.

  “So? What is important here is that you learn your lesson. It could have been avoided if the rule is written in the book,” he said.

  A crease was formed in my forehead.

  “So you didn’t read it in the book? It says after—”

  “Stop,” he interjected. “Finish the book and you’ll see why. Now go read it all.”

  Although still confused, I stalked back to the wall where I found the book and opened it to the last page I read.

  Now, book. I said to myself. ‘Tell me what I need to learn in the first house.’

  But nothing. This one was testing me so I could test it myself. I phrased the questions in my mind: Tell me about the darkness. Why did it happen? Why did the darkness occur here in the academy?

  ‘There is no darkness in Ether.’

  A lie.

  ‘It is not a lie when the word does not exist in the book.’

  I described how it happened in my mind but the book was uncooperative. It kept saying that there was no darkness in Ether. So I asked. What about in Heaven?

  I did not expect it to answer. But when it did, I did not expect its answer to be this shocking.

  ‘Heaven no longer exists.’

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘How do I know it?’ I asked mentally.

  My heart was pounding in my chest while I waited for the next words to appear. My grip on the tablet tightened. I waited, and waited, and waited. Nothing.

  ‘You don’t know anything about it, do you?’ I asked the book in my head.

  My eyes feasted on the blank page. Did the Guide take a break?

  ‘The Guide is non-corporeal. It does not need any break.’

  I rolled my eyes. I was certain now that the book may not know about heaven. I took a heavy sigh and then asked the book questions about what I needed to learn in this house.

  The words came one after another in greater urgency. It gave me information about the four spheres in every house: Mashsphere, for ground or first level, Minsphere for the second level, Salsusphere for the third level, and Rebusphere for the fourth level. There was a long-winded discussion about the use of the garden and then it ended with what became every fledgling’s motto:

  ‘Treasure your question as your question defines your purpose. Put a value in your knowledge to show respect to yourself, to your experience, and to your fellow angel. Do not share what you learn from this book. Do not share the title of this book. Happy reading, fledgling!’

  I returned the book to the shelves. If I were a well and the water was the knowledge, reading the book made the water recede instead of filling the well up. Before going back to Min, the second level, I sought out Venir first.

  We were back in the garden, eating energy-berries. Disregarding the warning of the book not to share knowledge without a price, I had decided to tell Venir about the author of the book Navi and what was in it, at least details that he needed. And if Ether would insist on the price, Venir’s offered friendship was more than enough compensation for it. I would be forever indebted to him.

  When I told him I finished the book Navi, Venir looked incredulous.

  “Are you serious? The book is hard to read. I honestly repeated reading the same sentences like five times before the next paragraph made sense. If your Navi is below the level of the book, the words will look incomprehensible. That at least I noticed.”

  I gave Venir the same look he gave me. If I remembered correctly
Fide said that a translator kind of energy existed in Ether, so I assumed that it was the translator that was making my reading much easier. I never realized that it was not so.

  “Are you serious?” I said, throwing back the same words he used. “The words came out intelligible to me. Maybe I’ve already learned the angel-tongue.”