Academy of Light

by A Y Beltran

  “Angel-tongue? I thought we were already speaking angel-tongue,” he said.

  “Ether is one giant translator. It translates all languages, from fledgling-tongue to fledgling-tongue, and fledgling to angel-tongue.”

  “In that case, the translator is not working for me,” he replied, looking a little disappointed.

  “And I have something else to tell you.”

  He stared at me waiting for me to finish what I said.

  “I know the author of the book.” I leaned over and whispered it to his ear.

  And just as I suspected, Venir made a gasping sound. His eyes and mouth were wide.

  “Wow.”

  And then I proceeded to tell him what the rest of the book said. It took me a while to convince him that his friendship was his payment. I described to him how overjoyed I was when he came back and waited for me in the Garden. Otherwise, life here would be lonely. I threw a glance at the angels who were passing us either by foot or by wings and returned my gaze back to Venir. Yes, Venir’s companionship was worth more than the knowledge I shared with him.

  He threw a couple of kalaskig into his mouth. After that, we fell into a companionable silence. He looked deep in his thought so I decided to leave him be and turned my attention to the berries in my hand. I mentally thanked the archangel Emerald for bringing the kalaskig in heaven before I greedily devoured them.

  Venir and I went around and explored the garden that to our surprise was more than how it looked on the surface. We watched the white flowers turn their petals into wings and then transform completely into white birds. To a fledgling like us, it was magical. But to the regulars, bird-turning flowers were ordinary sights in the garden, which we realized to be true when we discovered that all of the flowers regardless of colors could turn into birds.

  The gleeful ruckus we heard shifted our attention to the water fountain where most angels were gathered. A few angels used the water to transform it into different shapes. One angel made a mirror out of it.

  “Hello, Orieumber and whoever your friend is.”

  Venir and I both turned around to face the speaker. Venir raised his eyebrows, for he had not met Tarain before.

  “Hello, this is my friend, Venir,” I said, introducing him. “And it’s privileged information,” I added.

  Tarain gave a half-smile. “Oh, so you’re learning. By the way, this is Naia.”

  This Naia had a pair of yellow wings and gray eyes and a smile that looked sincere.

  “Hello, Orieumber and Venir,” she said.

  “I told Naia that you have very interesting information that may be worth a trade,” Tarain said, smiling while her lips were clenched. “So, since you all are green walkers and hoppers too.”

  Greens? I threw a glance at Venir to see if he caught that. He responded with a furtive nod. Tarain continued talking with her enthusiastic hand gestures.

  “We’ve decided to offer you a worthy trade. Are you ready for this?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Oh, did he…know it too?” Tarain asked me, referring to Venir.

  “Yes, he knows.”

  “Okay, then this is our deal… oh, I’m so excited. Naia is going to show you how this magic water works in exchange for the name of the author of the book Navi,” she said clapping her hands in excitement.

  “We can easily learn that by merely observing them,” Venir answered pointing at the angels who were working at the water fountain.

  A frown marred Tarain’s smooth face. “I bet you my wings, you won’t learn much by simply watching them.”

  That’s a daring bet, but I wouldn’t want Tarain to lose her wings. So I said, “I accept.”

  They all turned to me as though I’ve spoken an ancient language.

  “I meant…let’s have it. Let’s trade!”

  “Oh, this is exciting!” Tarain said.

  I noticed Tarain was flapping her wings in excitement, a gesture I surprisingly understood, for I could feel it, the urge to fly round and round. Holy crap. I supposed I was now adapting.

  Naia led us closer to the fountain and we intently listened to her as she explained it.

  “The water contains bendable energy. It was placed in the first house for angels to widen their imaginations and to be aware of what is in store for them once they reach the higher houses.”

  She then gave each of us a cup to fill up with water from the fountain. Then we watched.

  Naia stared at the water inside the cup. Her eyes were focused and, the moment they glinted, the water surged out of its container and transformed into a mirror right in front of us.

  My jaw dropped.

  “Wow!” I said. “How do we do it?”

  “Just establish a connection by talking to the water mentally and then tell it to turn into whatever the image is in your mind.”

  Venir tried it first and then made a transparent bracelet out of the water. He gave it to me. I said, ‘thanks.’ But the moment the bracelet touched my skin, it returned to its water form and spilled to the ground.

  “What happened?” Venir asked.

  “The connection was broken. The transformation is not really permanent,” Tarain answered.

  I then tried it myself and they laughed when they saw what I created.

  My own image stared back at me.

  “That’s very creative and imitative,” Venir said.

  After the water lesson, Tarain led our group to a secluded area in the garden.

  “We can’t risk others overhearing us,” she said. When she was sure that no one was eavesdropping, her gaze found me. “Now tell us.”

  I made a gesture for us to gather closer. Then in a clear yet whispered voice, I said:

  “The author’s name is Archangel Michael.”

  CHAPTER 9

  We all went back inside to resume our education or our quest as Venir and I put it. We were determined to unravel the mystery of the darkness.

  “They referred to us, the bottom readers, as green walkers and hoppers,” Venir said, taking another book from the shelf. “I called them floaters.”

  I laughed with him and told him that I would have to join the floaters now.

  “For our cause,” he said as I flew up back to the Min, the yellow sphere.

  I randomly picked a book from the first wall and started reading it. Then when I finished, I started another one. I advanced so fast that I moved on to the wall where Tarain was currently hovering. She gave me a curious look and then returned to her book.

  When she finished her book, she started a new one and then put it back. I made my way to the book she skipped and started reading it. I finished it quickly and moved on the next. I made sure that I was reading the books that were close to her. I earned another curious look from her, and this time there was an added glare in her eyes.

  The third wall was next and voraciously I read the books though I skipped some. It would take you an eternity to finish reading all of the books, but I was trying to prove something. So I kept on reading until Tarain came to me and understood what I was trying to do.

  “So what do you want?” she said.

  “Darkness. Do you know anything about it? Tell me and I’ll answer any of your questions about a book that I assumed you haven’t read yet.”

  She took a deep breath and then winced as though it hurt her to say it. “I don’t really know anything about it. I’m really trying to get information too.” Her eyes gleamed and there was a little tremble in her lips. “Orieumber, what if it comes back before I find anything out about it?” And then she moved closer to me. “There are others too who are in the hunt for the answer. Some of them turn it into a game.”

  “Have you joined this game?” I asked.

  “No. I just want to know what it is so that I know what to do when it happens.”

  “Then we can work together to figure this out. Do you know of anyone who might likely share information for whatever I can trade with them?”

  She looked p
ensive for a moment. And then later, her eyes glistened in excitement.

  “I have an idea. But we need to wait for Naia to come. She is actually in Rebu.” Rebu or Rebusphere was the fourth level. In this sphere, the books were plated red. Tarain continued, “And she only comes here to visit me.”

  And so we waited. Our manner of waiting was, of course, reading some more books. I read two more books before Naia came by.

  “Hi,” she said. She had dimples on either side of her mouth when she smiled.

  “I have an idea how to get information about the darkness,” Tarain said.

  Naia’s forehead creased. She glanced to my side. “And I assumed it has something to do with her?”

  “She might have information you can trade up there.”

  “I used that information about the author of the Navi. And in exchange, they told me a little bit about it, at least what they so far knew.”

  “So what is it?” I asked.

  “Up there, the darkness is called the Great Riddle. Everybody there was so scared that we’ve decided to work together to solve this riddle.”

  “Why?” I said, then changed my words. “Ask me about a book in Min that you haven’t read yet in exchange for the reason why they are scared.”

  Both Naia and Tarain laughed.

  “Oriuember, you don’t make a trade every time you ask someone how they are feeling,” Tarain said.

  Although embarrassed, I kept my focus on the main issue. “So tell me then.”

  “Up there, there are five angels who disappeared after the darkness had passed.”

  Five missing angels?

  “Are you sure they’re missing?” I asked.

  “Yes. Because they are friends of some angels and they couldn’t find them. We all deduced that the darkness has something to do with it.”

  “So the darkness made us go to sleep and then took some angels with it?” Tarain said.

  Fear was reflected in her glossy eyes.

  “The voice,” I said. “I heard a singing voice when we were in the dark.”

  They fixed their eyes on me.

  “I didn’t hear any singing,” Naia said.

  “Neither did I,” Tarain agreed.

  But I heard it.

  “It must be Archangel Emerald trying to calm us all?” Naia explained.

  “But the voice is male,” I said. “And it said sleep, little angels…” And I told them the words in the song.

  They stared at me flabbergasted and said in chorus: “You understand archangel-tongue?”

  I had not noticed it before. I could see the lines of worries on the angels’ foreheads as they focused on the books they read. I could see the fear, the hesitation, the doubt, the insecurity hidden beneath the small glances they threw my way. They knew I knew something and they refrained themselves from making the trade because their knowledge may be unworthy, less valuable. Insecurity. Several of these angels were feeling like this. Not everyone was like Curi with a healthy dose of self-confidence.

  As my gaze appraised them further I had come to realize what the book called Guide really meant when it described us as fledglings. Not angels yet. We were still growing our navi. We were still sucking on the knowledge the academy was feeding us. My gaze swept around, measuring the entire hall as far as my eyes could reach.

  We were still babies. The knowledge was our milk. And this academy was our mother.

  Strangely this realization comforted me. Or it must have been my desperate attempt to disprove the idea that angels were born motherless.

  As my train of thought made a sharp turn to the corner of the maudlin and melancholy, I resumed my knowledge-milking with the book in my hand. This one talked about the hidden chambers in every house of the academy, places where the angels could go if they wanted to focus on their study. As I read further I had come to learn that these hidden chambers called Focus Rooms were the safest place in the entire academy, for once inside no one could find you unless you told them the doorway password. After I finished reading it, the author’s name appeared one letter at a time. It spelled out: Archibard.

  I quickly hovered toward Tarain.

  “When you’re done, come see me down on the Mash. And bring Naia with you.”

  “Why not wait for her here?” Tarain asked, looking at me like I was not making any sense.

  “Because I have to pay what I owed Venir.”

  Venir was reading the book Navi when I found him. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, eyes fixed on the page when I tried to surprise him from behind.

  “You’re not that sneaky, Ori, even when you try to be,” he said without taking his eyes off the book.

  “How did you know it was me?” I cringed a little at the whine I could hear in my own voice.

  He turned around to face me. “You have this energy around you. Like this.” He made a grasping gesture in the air. “This is like a little thicker. I meant the air or whatever this is. If I stand several feet from you, I will feel normal air. But when you come closer, the air becomes different. It only happens when you’re around.”

  Astonished. Shocked. Confused. Incredulous. These I felt all together as I stood there listening to what Venir said.

  “But how come it’s just you who noticed it?” I asked, hoping there’s some logic into this.

  “Oh, others noticed it too. Did you feel their gazes every time you passed them by?”

  So that was what the glances were about. “I thought it was because of my wings.”

  He smiled. “You do have beautiful wings.”

  The sudden tinge of heat creeping into my face in response to the compliment caught me off-guard.

  “Thank you,” I said anyway.

  “This book, by the way, is hard,” he said, glancing back to the book as though he did not notice my sudden awkwardness. “I don’t know how you can read this.”

  I peeked at the page he was reading. “What are you seeing?”

  “Letters that don’t make sense. Sometimes when I stared harder and longer some words would appear, but without the rest of the words, I might as well be reading a blank page.”

  Curious, I asked, “How does it look to you?”

  “It’s like this. I understand the word kalaskig, but then the words before and after it are like criss-crosses, lines inside the small circle.” He shook his head. “Gibberish.”

  “Why don’t we take a break? Let’s go to the garden. I have something to tell you.”

  “I have no knowledge to trade with you that you haven’t possessed yet. So don’t tell me,” he said even before I opened my mouth.

  “If you were not here with me, if you had not offered your companionship, I would be so bored and lonely that I would start talking with the flower in the garden, with the trees, and probably come up with an imaginary friend just to have someone to talk you. So I owed it to you that I am not like that.”

  “You made friends all by yourself. And you’re not a bad companion either. So, no, you owe me nothing.”

  I crossed my arms against my chest and stared at him. “You’re telling me that I don’t owe you anything for the companionship you’ve been providing me even when in here...” I pointed at where my heart should be. “And in every fiber of my being, I feel this sense of gratitude for it. I’m happy that I can enjoy exploring this world of Ether with you. I’m indebted to you. And when I said that, I meant that…so don’t tell me otherwise. Just don’t!”

  There was this little sense of guilt nagging at me as I watched him absorb my overblown dramatic speech. He was looking at me with his eyes getting narrower and narrower.

  “I’m glad I came back to wait for you in the Garden,” he finally said. “You’re so chatty. Now that I think about it. You’re like the rumble in my stomach when I get hungry.”

  “What?” I said incredulously. After everything I said? Then he continued.

  “You’re like the noise my heart makes, reminding me that I’m here, alive…and that I exist.”
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  That actually sounded better than mine. My heart did some rejoicing with the way it beat louder and faster.

  “So I can tell you now?’

  A smile broke out on his face. “If you insist.”

  We were floating a few inches from the ground, cross-legged when I told him about the existence of the Focus Rooms and what I thought the academy to be—a mother.