Chapter 17
“Are you ashamed of me?” asked Asil.
He asked that question after they had all eaten, and the hlenna had shared stories of their long, cold wait. Melissa returned the favor, sharing with them her journey, leaving nothing out.
Melissa turned away, reluctant to answer. “What do you mean?”
“Are you ashamed of the fact that I was made by you? Do you look on me as less than a person?”
She sat down. “I think of myself as less than a person. What does that make you?”
He sat next to her.
“Why was I created, Asil -- why?”
“Do you really need to know?”
“You did -- it was one of the first questions to come out of your mouth.”
She watched as he leaned back, and knew he was perturbed. She was amazed at how well she could read him.
“Perhaps you were made to keep someone company,” he suggested.
“Not many Archsussa can make an idelfada, much less one that has a full range of emotions and is capable of learning. I only know of one that has been able to accomplish that feat, and I truly hope I wasn’t made by the Freilux.”
“Almost every living being asks why they were created, and what their purpose is in the world.”
Melissa shook her head. “Except my creator might be walking around somewhere as we speak.”
“Is it that you’re afraid of what you might have been created for, or who might have created you?”
Melissa nodded, acknowledging doubts and anxieties that had been welling within her ever since Vincent revealed who and what he was. What if the Freilux created me to be his little pet, and I got out of hand? She sighed. “Do you know what I want? Do you want to know what I really want? I want to go home. I want to go to a place that I know instinctively and truly is mine, and find unique comfort and solace. I was created, formed from the shape of another with the memories of another. And now that I have become someone different, someone unique, I find that I have no root. I exist nowhere.”
“But you live here,” explained Asil. “And isn’t this your home?”
“I might live here,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean that I feel safe here. I can’t describe it, Asil; it’s a feeling down in the core of me, a yearning for this one, perfect, safe place. If I were born then I probably would wish for the home of my childhood. But I wasn’t. I was created out of the ether, and I feel I will roam for the rest of my days, unable to rest, unable to make a nest and move forward with my life.”
“I . . . I couldn’t begin to answer you.”
“I know, and it would be unfair to think you could. Right now, I just need to rest.”
Asil’s expression perked up. “Are you sleeping now?”
Melissa sighed, realizing it for the first time herself. “I . . . I can’t become like Toby. I don’t know if I’ll lose my knowledge, my power, but never again can I treat you the way I did, or allow myself to follow the path I almost did with the scientists. I need balance, and sleep is the only way to achieve it.”
He came to her, and kissed her on her forehead, and she thought it the tenderest thing anyone had ever done to her. While Vincent had shown strength, and Richard intelligence, Asil was by far the most compassionate man she had known. “Then have a pleasant rest; I will keep the hlenna quiet.”
She lay down and slept for several days, entering into a lush dreamland she had never before seen. On a wide landscape of dunes, made of a hot, dusty material, she staggered under a burning sun. Never before had she felt so hot, so dehydrated. The world seemed utterly alien to her, yet familiar. In the distance mountains of metal rose and fell, as if a hundred Imathrins were joined together.
Her attention was drawn to the surface around her, which was now covered with books, Thick books, thin books, with old, dusty covers and ornately written titles all clamored for her attention by the thousands, opening and closing their covers as if they were animals begging to be fed. Many she recognized as books she read to learn of sussa, and she wondered why they were behaving so. They screeched loudly, and it became like a static that erased lines learned from her mind.
I must leave -- I understand why Archsussa sleep so little! But then what’s the answer? I can’t go on like this -- I need balance, clarity, yet I also need the power of sussa.
She sat down in the middle of a wide tract of arid land, hard with visible cracks through the surface. The books flapped and stirred up billowing dust clouds, obscuring their titles and blotting out the words.
I am not afraid any longer. I will not run for you, or anyone else. She wanted to hit the books, beat them into submission. Suddenly, a voice could be heard over the terrible din of the books.
“There is a time to fight, and a time to heal.”
“Who are you?” asked Melissa. “Show yourself!”
“There is a time to fight, a time to heal. A time to listen and a time to act. The secret of life is knowing when those times begin, and when they end.”
“Who are you?” she asked softly. “Please.”
“I am he who has lost more than any other; he who is almost beyond redemption. You will see me many times though the sight will give you no pleasure. One day, near the end of all your days, you may see me yet again. And it will be a time of great joy, and unending sadness.”
Melissa knelt in the sand, her vision blurred by the dust storm generated by the books. How can I fight the wisdom I have learned? Is there anything more futile? She sat back on the heels of her feet, and lowered her head. Often as a child she had seen her mother practice this form of exercise/relaxation, and it always seemed to center her mind. Melissa echoed those movements, pressing her hands together, then opening them as if they were petals of a flower waiting to be nourished.
She did this several times, chanting a sacred word her mother taught her. After a time, the beating subsided, the screeching abated. She slowly opened her eyes, and saw the myriad of books lying on the ground, slowly opening and closing their covers as if breathing. She got the impression they were tired, and needed to be fed. Instinctually, she walked over to one, and opened her mouth over it. The book pulsed back to life, the words etched on its pages glowing with an iridescent blue hue. She did the same to the others, reviving the books, and when she finished, she found she had an even greater understanding of what she had read. For a moment, the entirety of creation yawned before her, and she saw her relation to it. But it was fleeting, and vanished, leaving her in a black void.
A light ignited in the distance, and she ran towards it. Pulses of light dispelled the darkness of the void, and as she drew near their source, she understood. She stood above the surface of Iqui, watching as Toby led his army into battle with the Freilux. They fought in the skies surrounding Imathrin, trading great plumes of white fire. Six Archsussa fought alongside Toby, and for a time it seemed as though he would prevail. But the Freilux, now thin and strong, surged forward, with one hooded Archsussa whose body shifted in the light like Vincent’s. His power was incredible, and with one blow that dark Archsussa shattered the skulls of three of Toby’s Archsussa. They exploded in great fireballs, and Toby’s forces stumbled in their advance. As the Freilux unleashed a hoard of Igra, Toby turned to face Melissa directly.
“Help me, dear Lissa . . . help me!”
She bolted awake at his plea, knowing he was just now uttering those words.
No matter what he has done, what he would do, he is still my brother, and I have lost too much of my family already.
She threw on her clothes and bolted to the door. As she was about to manifest a ribbon, she remembered the tan book. While she had read every other book from cover to cover, she couldn’t seem to decipher the language of the tan book. It was deceptively thin and small, and something told her the words written held some unimaginable power.
I must take this with me -- for some reason, I think I might need it.
“Where are you going?!” shouted Asil, who
stood in the living room clad in a blue robe. “How can you leave in the middle of the night like this?”
“The time has come. My brother calls for me -- even now, he fights the Freilux, and is losing.”
“And what does it matter?” he asked. “He isn’t your true brother.”
“You’re not truly a man, yet I love you just the same.”
A heavy silence hung between them, as she finally had spoken what was never dared mentioned.
“You . . . love me?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why won’t you let me stand with you?”
Melissa sighed. “Because . . .”
“Because I’m not an Archsussa? And yet you’ll call on the scientists to help you, won’t you?”
“Yes,” admitted Melissa. “We could use all the help we can get.”
Asil came close, and held her hands. “Then find a way that I might help you. You say you love me? Then I tell you I wouldn’t want to live if you perished.”
Melissa began to weep, and Asil wiped her eyes.
“I have had a long time to think about you,” said Asil. “You mentioned earlier that you wish you had a home? Well this is mine -- it is all I’ve ever known, and you’re all I’ve ever known. I’m sure I could live on a levitating city and none would know who or what I was, but I know it wouldn’t be home to me. This is my home, and you are my Lissa.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “And you are my Asil. I think I know a way you can join me in battle. We will leave in an hour -- prepare the hlenna.”