“Excuse me,” she said.
He turned to face her and leaned on his staff with both hands, letting out a tired sigh.
“We. Are. Closed. I don’t know how you people got here, but there’s nothing here for you. Go away.”
“Are you God?” Nessa asked.
“If I say yes, will you go away?”
“No.”
He rolled his amber eyes. “If I say no, will you go away?”
She took another step toward him. Marie and Hedy followed at her side.
“My name is Nessa Fieri. This is Marie Reinhart. We have been cursed, we have been mistreated, and we have been wronged. We will have justice.”
He squinted at them. Then he rose up and nodded, as if he was seeing them for the first time.
“Ooh. You’re a couple of those. Figured one of you would make it here eventually. Well, hate to disappoint, but I’m not God. I just work here. Used to work here, when there was work to be done. Now I just…maintain the place. I keep watch over these poor, broken souls and occasionally tidy up a bit.”
“Then you’ll take us to him,” Nessa said.
“Can’t. He’s elsewhere. Locked away. Doesn’t answer my letters anymore. Nobody can get to him. Impossible.”
Nessa’s hand snaked into the mirror bag. It came out gripping the copper bell. She flicked her fingers and it let out a crystal chime that rang along the midway.
“Oh,” he said. “Don’t suppose you found the candle, too?”
“It’s not with us,” Hedy said, “but we have it.”
“You asked about the candle, but not the book,” Marie said.
“Did you find the book?”
Marie latched onto the mistake like she was getting a confession out of a perp.
“You know we didn’t. Same reason you didn’t ask us if we found it. Because you have it.”
“Bell, book, and candle,” the old man said. “You know what that means? Any of you girls raised Catholic?”
“I’m not from their planet,” Hedy said.
“Excommunication,” he said. “It was a little joke, on the part of the Kings of Man. The relics could have looked like anything, or nothing at all. They chose those forms to make a point. Anyway, the Demiurge—that’s what I always called him, you’d call him God, or a thousand other names, doesn’t matter really—fled to a very tiny world of his own creation and locked the door when the civil war began.”
“The nine kings against the three faithful thrones,” Nessa said.
“Exactly. The keys were designed to crack their way in. Drill a hole straight to the Demiurge’s hiding place. The thrones stole them. Couldn’t destroy the things, so they scattered them across the cosmos.” He paused. “Not a bad plan, there’s a lot of cosmos out there. Of course, the kings could hone in on the keys—they crafted the damn things, after all—so the thrones made a sacrifice play.”
“When we found the bell,” Marie said, “it was inside a coffin. Inside the corpse.”
The old man took the sapphire manacles out from under his cassock. He gave them a rattle before slipping them away again.
“Angel-forged. Potent magic. Some of the oldest magic. Powerful enough to bind even a throne and steal his powers away.”
Hedy’s lips parted as the implication sank in.
“Wait,” she said. “You’re telling us they chained themselves up?”
“Each of the three faithful crafted their own tomb. They sealed the keys inside their bodies, to hide them from the sight of the Kings of Man. Then they chained themselves, becoming reliquaries, and waited to die. Such was their love for their creator, and their desire to save him from harm.” The old man leaned on his staff and frowned up at the overcast sky. “Fools.”
“You have the book,” Nessa said. “That’s the last key we need, and I don’t have much time. So I’m going to ask nicely. Hand it over.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Absolutely,” Nessa replied.
“What would you do with it if you had it? If you could open a doorway right now and stare the Demiurge right in the eye—the creator of worlds, the father of man and mankind—what would you actually do?”
“Demand that he free us from this endless cycle.”
“Don’t know if he can do that.”
“She’s Shadow sick,” Marie said. “We’d ask him to heal her.”
The old man shrugged. “Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Fifty-fifty.”
“And if he’s that useless,” Nessa said, “there’s nothing left to do but punish him for his crimes.”
“You’re not selling me on the idea of cooperation,” the old man said.
Marie took a step forward, hands clenched around her batons, suddenly desperate.
“He owes us,” she said.
His bushy eyebrows lifted. “Does he, now? What does your creator owe you, do you think?”
“He owes us an answer,” Marie said. “He wrote the first story. He made us, cast us in these roles. You want to know what I’d do if I could look him in the eye right now? Nothing. He needs to look me in the eye. He needs to see my face and hear my voice. He needs to admit what he did to us.”
Her eyes glistened as the words burst out like water from a breaking dam.
“He needs to answer for it. And if he can’t fix it, if he really can’t set us free, then at the very least he has to tell us why.”
The old man fell silent. He studied Marie. Then he gave a tiny nod.
“I’ll take you to the book,” he said. “One condition.”
“Name it,” Nessa said.
“I want to tell you a story along the way. Might change your mind, might not. Will you listen?”
“Lead the way,” Nessa said.
He turned and they followed, guided by the unsteady thump of his staff on the puddle-streaked midway.
“First thing you have to know,” he said, “the Demiurge isn’t the first being you’d consider a god. In the beginning—the beginning I know about, and for all I know there was a beginning before the beginning and a beginning before that one—there was Sophia.”
He raised his staff and waved it at the sky. The day tore open down the middle.
The clouds and muddy blue sky parted, opening like a zipper, exposing the night beyond. It was dark over the carnival now, and they stood bathed in the inky blackness of space, lit by a thousand twinkling stars.
“Now she was a goddess,” the man said, resuming the walk. “A being of pure ascended spirit. Perfect. Luminous. She made the light and saw that it was good. Not the starlight or the sunlight, the inside-you kind of light.”
“I’m not much for inner light,” Nessa said. “Sounds a little too close to peace and love.”
“There was a time, young lady, when such things were not food for mockery. There was a time when peace and love were things a being was, not things you momentarily felt or ached for in their absence. Anyway, Sophia was lonely, so she created herself a son.”
“The Demiurge?” Marie asked.
“Mm-hmm. He had her spark, but not her skill. He wanted to create, just like mama did. And he made himself a world.”
He raised the staff once more as they walked and pointed to a spot in the distant heavens. A shape was racing toward them, billowing from the void between stars. Then it jolted to a halt. The Earth, bigger and closer than a full moon, hung above their heads. An Earth, Marie thought, realizing the mist-shrouded continents of lush green didn’t match the ones she knew.
“The first material creation. And he made dogs and cats and serpents and the first ostriches—” He paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Ostriches didn’t always look that dumb. There were ill-advised revisions later. And then he got really inventive. He made beings that could think and feel and love, just like him and Sophia.”
“Humans?” Hedy asked.
“Not yet. Gods, tier three: angels. The thrones were the greatest and most powerful, built with the purp
ose of helping him to manage these new creations. After all, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Then humanity. A garden, a woman, a man.”
“You’re telling us the Garden of Eden was a literal place,” Nessa said.
“You have to understand that the myths and legends of your world are mostly wrong. Of every world, honestly. Not your fault, but you received bits and pieces of truth filtered through eons of mistranslation. So yes, there was a thing like what you picture as the Garden of Eden, but there was no snake tempting Eve with an apple. It ended…differently.”
High above their heads, the Earth curdled and died.
A flash of light erupted in the heart of the green. And from it, in all directions, spread a sickly yellow rot. Marie watched as it consumed the planet, the clouds turning vomit-brown, the oceans churning and dark alien shapes writhing beneath the poisoned waters, so vast they were visible from space.
“The first human family,” the old man said, “was an epic shit-show on every level. You’d think that would have deterred him, but no. The Demiurge tried again. New planet. New humans. But remember what I said? He had his mother’s power, but not her skill, and his hopes of perfection fell short. So he tried again. And again.”
Nessa pushed her glasses up on her nose. “All of these parallel worlds, all these alternate realities…they were do-overs?”
“He just couldn’t get it perfect. And he couldn’t see that since he was working with mortal clay, he never would. Life was never meant to be perfect. So while he was crafting Earth after Earth and screwing up the ostrich, trouble was brewing. See, the thrones were supposed to become the spiritual guides to humanity. A perfect ideal. He wanted humans to look up and say, ‘We will strive to become like them.’”
“I assume that didn’t work out,” Nessa said.
A lamppost near the midway’s end cast a pale arc of light across the concrete. The old man stood in its glow, resting for a moment, leaning against his staff. Off to one side, bumper cars rusted away in the dark. Across from them, the cages of a petting zoo were open and empty, a musty smell like old hay hanging in the air.
“Nine of the thrones,” he said, “looked down upon the worlds he’d built. And they said, ‘No. We should be like them, and they will worship us as gods.’ Thus were born the Kings of Man. They looked at humanity and saw only your worst natures, the flaws that hound you, the burdens that drag you down. Greed, hatred, bigotry, cruelty. You didn’t choose to have those things in your hearts, you’re only human. But they…they embraced them. They chose to become those evils, to embody them. And they twisted themselves inside out, becoming a parody of their former selves.”
“Why?” Nessa asked. “What could they possibly gain from that?”
The old man looked back at her.
“Because that’s how they feed,” he said. “Every time a human being gives in to their darker nature. Every time you people raise your fists to one another, or destroy something beautiful, or lie or cheat or steal or break a lover’s heart, the Kings of Man grow stronger. And, oblivious to what was happening right under his nose, the Demiurge just kept building more Earths.”
“More humans,” Marie said. “More power.”
“I’ll never know where Sophia was, all that time. She’d gone somewhere. Maybe she’d gone to sleep. Or she’d slipped off, stepped sideways into some other multiverse. All I know is that one night she came home, and the kings were waiting.”
The lamplight turned the old man’s face into a map of weariness and pain. Every wrinkle, every furrow in his brow was deep as a chasm as his eyes went distant.
“They combined their strength. And they tore her apart.”
He waved his staff and banished the night. The starry dome ripped like a sheet of paper, crumpling up and tumbling over the edge of the horizon. Beyond it was absolute darkness. An endless, eternal void. Then a lightning storm flashed in the impossible distance, with alien sigils etched upon the onyx in gold, flaring and then dying. They left outlines that hovered in Marie’s vision when she shut her eyes.
“They killed her,” the old man said, “but they couldn’t destroy her. Sophia’s blood spilled out and filled the space between worlds. A realm of pure and absolute spirit, winding between her son’s flawed, material creations.”
Marie was about to say something, but then she noticed Nessa. Her lover was staring up at the void, eyes wide, mouth open, frozen where she stood.
“Nessa? What is it?”
“All along,” Nessa breathed. “We had the answer all along and we didn’t know it.”
The old man chuckled. “The scholar among you knows. Go ahead. Tell them.”
Nessa tore her gaze from the darkness and looked to Marie.
“Sophia. It’s a Greek name,” she said. “It means ‘wisdom.’”
Marie blinked. “Wisdom wasn’t the first witch. She was the first goddess.”
“And all these years,” Hedy said, “all this searching—”
“We already knew,” Nessa said.
“The Shadow In-Between is Wisdom’s Grave.” Hedy raised her hand and pointed to the void. “The wellspring of magic. Wisdom’s Grave isn’t a place. It’s every place.”
“It wasn’t always so dark, you know,” said the old man. “No. When Sophia died, and her death and her blood gave birth to magic…there was light.”
He lifted his staff in both hands and brought it driving down, thundering against the carnival pavement. In response, the sky exploded. It erupted in gold, in white, and then a rainbow, dizzying colors dancing upon the firmament. It was riotous, joyous, all-encompassing, and Marie felt a tear roll down her cheek as she stared up at its glory. Nessa’s hand curled around hers, holding her close.
“A cunning creator, betrayed by venal men who cut her down,” Nessa murmured. “Sophia was absolutely the first witch.”
Slowly, the colors and the light faded. They went pale, then gray, then dark. Marie felt her heart ache, her stomach clench as they drained away. She felt like a love she’d never known, something pure and absolute and unconditional, was being stolen away moments after she’d discovered it. She felt like she was watching her mother die.
Then there was nothing but the darkness. And the loveless ache in Marie’s chest became a slow, simmering boil of anger.
The old man didn’t speak for a moment. He hobbled ahead, leading them down dark paths, past shuttered and abandoned rides. They came to the tent of a sideshow attraction. The marquee was faded, almost unreadable in the dark, but it still showed the caricatures of carnival acts from days long gone. A strongman hoisting a dumbbell, a woman wearing a snake around her shoulders like a shawl.
He pulled back the tent flap with the head of his staff. Dust danced in the shadows beyond the entrance.
“But our tragedy’s not done yet, so neither is the show. Step right up, ladies. I’ll tell you what became of hell, and show you what became of heaven.”
Thirty-Six
At the far edge of the darkened carnival, a spark ignited. It hovered in midair, spinning, and stretched out razor-wire lines of hard light. The lines curved and stretched. They took on form and definition as they carved the impression of a suit of armor, etching it like a pencil sketch.
Then, with a gust of ozone stench and a distorted burst of static like a speaker blowing out, the image turned sideways and stepped into reality. The Golden Saint set one mechanized boot down on heaven’s midway.
Rosales tapped the side of the helmet. Metal shutters over her face clicked, telescoping back and opening wide. She took a deep breath.
“Got all my fingers, all my toes, and nothing inside of me is outside. I’ll call that a successful test run. How about you, Doc?”
An arc of tar spat from the neck of the armored suit like a toxic fountain, splashing onto the wet concrete. Savannah put her body back together, rising to her full height as the last of her spurted out.
“None the worse for wear,” she said. “Or for being worn. You were right:
that was so much easier than my last few attempts at interdimensional travel.”
Rosales took in the shuttered booths, the black void sky. “Now where the hell are we? And where are they?”
“Assuming we followed her blood trail correctly, Nessa can’t be far.”
A rustling sound drew their attention. From the shadows of the Ferris wheel, a broken and hunchbacked figure with a single dirty wing shambled toward them.
Then another, and another, the creatures circling as they became a pack.
“I believe we’re trespassing,” Savannah said, stepping closer to Rosales.
Rosales tapped the side of her neck. The helmet shutters snapped down, sealing her in, and she slapped one gauntleted fist into her palm.
“Yeah we are.”
“You seem…eager.”
“Doc?” Rosales said. “I’m wearing a prototype suit of mechanized armor built for combat, with an interdimensional jump drive, magical shielding, and jet thrusters. Is there any reason I would not be eager right now? C’mon, let’s take this baby for a test drive.”
* * *
The space beyond the tent flap wasn’t a sideshow attraction. Not in any sense Marie expected. It was also impossible.
They stood upon a stretch of white marble floor in a hall of gold, its walls wider and soaring taller than the tent outside. Thick, rounded arches reached up to the vaulted ceiling, like the gilded bones of a great whale. Here and there, plush sofas and divans upholstered in snowy white formed conversation nooks. Small tables of gold and glass stood abandoned, their faces kissed with dust.
“I try to keep the place clean.” The old man’s staff clunked on the marble as he led them along. “Not really sure why. Nobody’s ever coming back. Gives me something to do, I guess. That and take care of the wayward boys.”
“The things outside, with the masks?” Hedy asked.
“Those things, missy, are angels. Nothing on par with a throne, mind you—that’s like comparing an ant to an elephant—but still. A little respect for the broken and the lost. They were purpose-built, you see. All they understand is taking care of this place and the people who live here. Then the people all left and took their reason to exist with them.”
Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3) Page 28