Awakening Part III: Turn the Page
Continued...
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked about finding a picture of myself in a ruined tomb within this city of the Dead. I have been chasing after a corpse-ified knight for the last half hour, crossed the River Styx, and was branded at the gates to the Underworld. It’s not like my father didn’t spend all those years seemingly prepping me for the fucking sky to drop on my head one day, and not in the way Christians and other zealots talk about the Rapture and all that. No…he made it seem personal. Like there was something waiting for me. Thanks Dad, really. maybe this is how Moses felt. "Well crap that bush is burning and damn if that ain't the voice of Yaweh...shit I must have drank to much."
I walk towards the glyphs, bending low to get a better look at them. Sure enough my longish hair and even my backpack are drawn there. The fact that there are two tiny circles painted on my hand barely causes me to flinch at this point. However, there is something in the picture that does give me pause. In my other hand I am holding something, a square of midnight black. Stepping back towards the knight I put down my pack, and rummage through the cassettes, jeans and t-shirts, and shove my hand to the bottom of the bag. Pulling what I find up through the junk of my life, the bundle my father gave to me a few years ago seems right at home here in the land of the Dead. The cloth looks like it could have been woven from the shadows which linger in every corner. He told me to wait until the right time. That I would know it when it happened. Well, shit Dad, if you didn’t mean now…
I turn over the cloth in my hands, looking for a place where it starts to unwind. But after flipping it a few times I can’t find one. It’s like some kind of loop of black that just folds in on itself forever. After a moment’s thought I dip a hand back into my bag, pulling out the knife I keep in there. It was a birthday present from my parents when I was five, to use when I went hunting with my father. They told me it came from a very old place across the ocean, where our family was from. The six-inch blade slides free of its sheath almost eagerly, but like everything else here there is no shine to the metal, just the dullest of reflections.
Gently I put the edge of the knife to the wrapping, careful to cut away from whatever is inside rather than against it. The wrapping gives easily, whatever force was holding it in place all this time while I carted it around New England coming apart in less than a second now. Before the wrapping can come off all the way I turn and stuff the knife back in my bag. I’m pretty anxious about examining whatever my mother and father left for me and I can feel my hands shaking a little. With a growl I push away all the worry and fear. This is mine, and no use whining like some little girl with a skinned knee, whether it’s a burden or a blessing or both.
When I pull at the cloth the wrapping falls away quickly. Underneath is a book, bound in black leather, and thicker than I remember the bundle being. The cover has an etching of a lion, traced out in silver, the same lion as the one on the knight’s tabard. Freaking crown and all… I go to open the cover, to look inside and see what secrets are written there, but there is a hand on my shoulder suddenly. I look up, startled, to see the knight giving me subtle shake of the head. Again he points to the temple, a brick wall in the way of my exciting new discovery.
With a sigh I get up and sling my bag back over my shoulder. There is something about the intensity of my guide’s gaze that tells me it would be pretty stupid to ignore him. He just continues pointing the way, those strange eyes looking ahead through the archway. I decide to follow his suggestion.
The entrance to the temple is a high stone arch, one of the few spots on which there isn’t writing or any kind of adornment. If it was dark outside, then as soon as I step into the temple I get introduced a whole new kind of lightlessness inside. I stumble forward for a bit, feeling the walls with my hands. Underneath my fingers pass more of the writings and pictures. The only thing I can think to do I start a slow circuit of the room, letting my hand guide me instead of my eyes and clutching tightly to the book. The brand on my hand burns again, every time some of the cold and rough stone scrapes against it I have to clench my teeth. I keep going around the room, counting walls. Somehow when I reach four though there is no archway, and the stone doesn’t feel the same as it did when I started. The door to the temple is gone? What the hell? There seems to be little I can do but keep walking, Again I feel my way around the room, but the doorway isn’t there. Nothing is there which seems familiar, no patch of stone or piece of the floor. Finally I stop, frustration mounting in my mind. There doesn’t seem to be any way out.
Ok, I am back at the door. I know I am. Four walls. I counted. I didn’t screw that up. Now what? Did the knight lead me all this way just to stick me in some…oh what the fuck was that word? Oubliette? C’mon, I am smarter than this. There’s gotta be a trick or something. Like a maze or a test. He wouldn’t do that… I need to move forward, always forwards…
Taking a deep breath I step away from the wall. I open my eyes, concentrating on the darkness in front of me.
two… three…four…am I going downwards?... five…the room isn’t that big…six…concentrate stupid!…seven…there is power in numbers, certain ones, remember that…and if it isn’t seven…eight…just keep walking…nine…there need’s to be wall here!...ten and where is the damn wall?...eleven?…
After twelve steps my sight clears and there is another archway cut out of the wall directly in front of me. This one is smaller by the size of the opening than the first. I actually have to duck my head when I pass through, taking my thirteenth step to cross the threshold. The room beyond is lit by pale white lights; they aren’t torches or electric lights, just glowing orbs.
The writing on the walls is different here, not the carvings of the Egyptians and their slaves. It’s older, and trying to read it makes my head hurt like something is trying to climb out the hard way. Something I should remember or know?
It looks like that writing from my father’s books. Atlantis and the Ancients? What the fuck is that doing here? It was all bullshit…just his crazy ramblings after mom left us and some crackpot books from the 50’s with comic book art. Why here? I don’t understand!
I sit down on the bare stone, trying not to look at the walls of the room and the dull ache that comes with them. Sitting Indian-style I put the book in my lap. It feels heavier now than it did before. My hand trembles a little when I go to open the cover, but I can’t stop now. I need to know what is in here. What secrets my father made me wait all this time to discover. What my mother needed me to know.
When my eyes settle on the first page I feel a cold shock running through me, like I just dove headfirst into an icy lake. And the walls seem to close in.
In the beginning, there was only chaos…
…reading on…
…journeyed far. Here there are many like us. We gather…
...pages turn…
…the City is our home. Atlantis.
…and turn…
…Great Work. The Way across was opened and we stepped forth…
…turn…
…what had we done? We were not meant to…
…pages, walls in my way…
…we cannot protect them any longer. They are mad…
…I must know…
…so much lost, many killed. A Final Battle yet, to answer for their arrogance…
…pages, turning…
…from the Oracles. Even as the City sank beneath the waves…
…reading and knowing, breaking the walls…
…flee to the Fallen World and preserved what we could…
…turning the pages again; the writing is different here…
…so much blood in the streets. It is like a City of the Dead, not the City of God which we set out to reclaim. We have defiled it with murder and ashes. As surely as the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah was laid low by angels~ we have come as devils to this holy place. The stillness is broken only by the mocking of crows and the march of booted feet through the dark stained streets. Cries for mercy stopped long ago. Even the Temple was no refuge. Innocent blood spilt on the sand and the stone for days and nights, all in His name. I have had enough. I think even my tears are bloody. I am so tired. I have begun to hear and see strange things. There is no water only blood, no food only ash. What kind of world allows for such misery? What purpose is all this death? What good comes of lives taken and ended in this way? I cannot stay. I will go into the desert…
…more, I must keep going…
…to the summit. The sand could not kill me, though it tried. The mountain could not kill me, though it tried. The wind could not kill me, though it tried. Man could not kill me, though it tried. I took life, from the sand and the mountain and the wind, I took the life of men. They called me by my name as I did. All to survive in this wasteland, I have made endings of things to see the beginnings which spring forth. Since my thirteenth month in the desert I have been able to see the shades of my brothers-in-arms and of our enemies who we killed wandering the sands. I reach out to them, pray to join them at last instead of this bitter pilgrimage. I have tried to know death so many times, as a lover, as an enemy, as my god. Each time I cannot find it, only the world of flesh and dust. I must know it as I know myself. I must know Death.
…know death, to understand…
…wandered west over the mountain to a new place. I followed a lion, white like the sands in the sun. He led me on, this sign, to the river. Am I the wolf? D'hib. Isn’t that what they called me? The living and the dead called me that. There is a temple here, buried in the sand. I must know death and this is a gate to the underworld. Like in the Greek stories, it is a Door. This traveler must enter. I must know…
…there is more to know, no more walls…
…turning the pages…
…but the pages…all the pages are blank…
A temple? And a WOLF? Who is he? Who am I! Am I dead? What the hell is going on?
I roar. It is a primal scream, something from the deepest part of me. Something trapped since I was young and my mother died, something which I swallowed when I saw the place of my father’s murder. It hurts my throat and my lungs burn by the time I am done. Tears sting my eyes, and blur my vision.
I stand up and walk forwards again. I do not even look up to see if I will hit the wall, just put one foot in front of the other. Faster and faster, until I am jogging. Then running. I am aware that I have passed out of the temple, back into the twilight world. I don’t stop though, just keep running with my pack bouncing against my back and the empty book clutched in my hand. As my eyes clear I can see a high wall ahead and a gateway carved into it. Above the portal is a symbol, one of those in the ancient language that reminds me of a dragon somehow. Eager for escape, to keep moving forward, I brace to hit the gate. But when I get close, the doorway yawns wide all on its own.
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked about finding a picture of myself in a ruined tomb within this city of the Dead. I have been chasing after a corpse-ified knight for the last half hour, crossed the River Styx, and was branded at the gates to the Underworld. It’s not like my father didn’t spend all those years seemingly prepping me for the fucking sky to drop on my head one day, and not in the way Christians and other zealots talk about the Rapture and all that. No…he made it seem personal. Like there was something waiting for me. Thanks Dad, really. maybe this is how Moses felt. "Well crap that bush is burning and damn if that ain't the voice of Yaweh...shit I must have drank to much."
I walk towards the glyphs, bending low to get a better look at them. Sure enough my longish hair and even my backpack are drawn there. The fact that there are two tiny circles painted on my hand barely causes me to flinch at this point. However, there is something in the picture that does give me pause. In my other hand I am holding something, a square of midnight black. Stepping back towards the knight I put down my pack, and rummage through the cassettes, jeans and t-shirts, and shove my hand to the bottom of the bag. Pulling what I find up through the junk of my life, the bundle my father gave to me a few years ago seems right at home here in the land of the Dead. The cloth looks like it could have been woven from the shadows which linger in every corner. He told me to wait until the right time. That I would know it when it happened. Well, shit Dad, if you didn’t mean now…
I turn over the cloth in my hands, looking for a place where it starts to unwind. But after flipping it a few times I can’t find one. It’s like some kind of loop of black that just folds in on itself forever. After a moment’s thought I dip a hand back into my bag, pulling out the knife I keep in there. It was a birthday present from my parents when I was five, to use when I went hunting with my father. They told me it came from a very old place across the ocean, where our family was from. The six-inch blade slides free of its sheath almost eagerly, but like everything else here there is no shine to the metal, just the dullest of reflections.
Gently I put the edge of the knife to the wrapping, careful to cut away from whatever is inside rather than against it. The wrapping gives easily, whatever force was holding it in place all this time while I carted it around New England coming apart in less than a second now. Before the wrapping can come off all the way I turn and stuff the knife back in my bag. I’m pretty anxious about examining whatever my mother and father left for me and I can feel my hands shaking a little. With a growl I push away all the worry and fear. This is mine, and no use whining like some little girl with a skinned knee, whether it’s a burden or a blessing or both.
When I pull at the cloth the wrapping falls away quickly. Underneath is a book, bound in black leather, and thicker than I remember the bundle being. The cover has an etching of a lion, traced out in silver, the same lion as the one on the knight’s tabard. Freaking crown and all… I go to open the cover, to look inside and see what secrets are written there, but there is a hand on my shoulder suddenly. I look up, startled, to see the knight giving me subtle shake of the head. Again he points to the temple, a brick wall in the way of my exciting new discovery.
With a sigh I get up and sling my bag back over my shoulder. There is something about the intensity of my guide’s gaze that tells me it would be pretty stupid to ignore him. He just continues pointing the way, those strange eyes looking ahead through the archway. I decide to follow his suggestion.
The entrance to the temple is a high stone arch, one of the few spots on which there isn’t writing or any kind of adornment. If it was dark outside, then as soon as I step into the temple I get introduced a whole new kind of lightlessness inside. I stumble forward for a bit, feeling the walls with my hands. Underneath my fingers pass more of the writings and pictures. The only thing I can think to do I start a slow circuit of the room, letting my hand guide me instead of my eyes and clutching tightly to the book. The brand on my hand burns again, every time some of the cold and rough stone scrapes against it I have to clench my teeth. I keep going around the room, counting walls. Somehow when I reach four though there is no archway, and the stone doesn’t feel the same as it did when I started. The door to the temple is gone? What the hell? There seems to be little I can do but keep walking, Again I feel my way around the room, but the doorway isn’t there. Nothing is there which seems familiar, no patch of stone or piece of the floor. Finally I stop, frustration mounting in my mind. There doesn’t seem to be any way out.
Ok, I am back at the door. I know I am. Four walls. I counted. I didn’t screw that up. Now what? Did the knight lead me all this way just to stick me in some…oh what the fuck was that word? Oubliette? C’mon, I am smarter than this. There’s gotta be a trick or something. Like a maze or a test. He wouldn’t do that… I need to move forward, always forwards…
Taking a deep breath I step away from the wall. I open my eyes, concentrating on the darkness in front of me.
two… three…four…am I going downwards?... five…the room isn’t that big…six…concentrate stupid!…seven…there is power in numbers, certain ones, remember that…and if it isn’t seven…eight…just keep walking…nine…there need’s to be wall here!...ten and where is the damn wall?...eleven?…
After twelve steps my sight clears and there is another archway cut out of the wall directly in front of me. This one is smaller by the size of the opening than the first. I actually have to duck my head when I pass through, taking my thirteenth step to cross the threshold. The room beyond is lit by pale white lights; they aren’t torches or electric lights, just glowing orbs.
The writing on the walls is different here, not the carvings of the Egyptians and their slaves. It’s older, and trying to read it makes my head hurt like something is trying to climb out the hard way. Something I should remember or know?
It looks like that writing from my father’s books. Atlantis and the Ancients? What the fuck is that doing here? It was all bullshit…just his crazy ramblings after mom left us and some crackpot books from the 50’s with comic book art. Why here? I don’t understand!
I sit down on the bare stone, trying not to look at the walls of the room and the dull ache that comes with them. Sitting Indian-style I put the book in my lap. It feels heavier now than it did before. My hand trembles a little when I go to open the cover, but I can’t stop now. I need to know what is in here. What secrets my father made me wait all this time to discover. What my mother needed me to know.
When my eyes settle on the first page I feel a cold shock running through me, like I just dove headfirst into an icy lake. And the walls seem to close in.
In the beginning, there was only chaos…
…reading on…
…journeyed far. Here there are many like us. We gather…
...pages turn…
…the City is our home. Atlantis.
…and turn…
…Great Work. The Way across was opened and we stepped forth…
…turn…
…what had we done? We were not meant to…
…pages, walls in my way…
…we cannot protect them any longer. They are mad…
…I must know…
…so much lost, many killed. A Final Battle yet, to answer for their arrogance…
…pages, turning…
…from the Oracles. Even as the City sank beneath the waves…
…reading and knowing, breaking the walls…
…flee to the Fallen World and preserved what we could…
…turning the pages again; the writing is different here…
…so much blood in the streets. It is like a City of the Dead, not the City of God which we set out to reclaim. We have defiled it with murder and ashes. As surely as the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah was laid low by angels~ we have come as devils to this holy place. The stillness is broken only by the mocking of crows and the march of booted feet through the dark stained streets. Cries for mercy stopped long ago. Even the Temple was no refuge. Innocent blood spilt on the sand and the stone for days and nights, all in His name. I have had enough. I think even my tears are bloody. I am so tired. I have begun to hear and see strange things. There is no water only blood, no food only ash. What kind of world allows for such misery? What purpose is all this death? What good comes of lives taken and ended in this way? I cannot stay. I will go into the desert…
…more, I must keep going…
…to the summit. The sand could not kill me, though it tried. The mountain could not kill me, though it tried. The wind could not kill me, though it tried. Man could not kill me, though it tried. I took life, from the sand and the mountain and the wind, I took the life of men. They called me by my name as I did. All to survive in this wasteland, I have made endings of things to see the beginnings which spring forth. Since my thirteenth month in the desert I have been able to see the shades of my brothers-in-arms and of our enemies who we killed wandering the sands. I reach out to them, pray to join them at last instead of this bitter pilgrimage. I have tried to know death so many times, as a lover, as an enemy, as my god. Each time I cannot find it, only the world of flesh and dust. I must know it as I know myself. I must know Death.
…know death, to understand…
…wandered west over the mountain to a new place. I followed a lion, white like the sands in the sun. He led me on, this sign, to the river. Am I the wolf? D'hib. Isn’t that what they called me? The living and the dead called me that. There is a temple here, buried in the sand. I must know death and this is a gate to the underworld. Like in the Greek stories, it is a Door. This traveler must enter. I must know…
…there is more to know, no more walls…
…turning the pages…
…but the pages…all the pages are blank…
A temple? And a WOLF? Who is he? Who am I! Am I dead? What the hell is going on?
I roar. It is a primal scream, something from the deepest part of me. Something trapped since I was young and my mother died, something which I swallowed when I saw the place of my father’s murder. It hurts my throat and my lungs burn by the time I am done. Tears sting my eyes, and blur my vision.
I stand up and walk forwards again. I do not even look up to see if I will hit the wall, just put one foot in front of the other. Faster and faster, until I am jogging. Then running. I am aware that I have passed out of the temple, back into the twilight world. I don’t stop though, just keep running with my pack bouncing against my back and the empty book clutched in my hand. As my eyes clear I can see a high wall ahead and a gateway carved into it. Above the portal is a symbol, one of those in the ancient language that reminds me of a dragon somehow. Eager for escape, to keep moving forward, I brace to hit the gate. But when I get close, the doorway yawns wide all on its own.