Eden's Jester (16 page)

She rubbed her stomach as if she were pregnant. “You are a strange and surprising Engineer, Elson. I guess this is just the beginning, isn’t it?”

“Sister, you ain’t kidding,” I said.

“So, what now?”

“Now, we go on our honeymoon.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry dear, but the best I have to offer is an all-paid adventure vacation into a big cave.”

“What?”

“Actually, it’s kind of small. Come on, it’s not far,” I said. I led her into the ethereal plane. It was very hard to follow someone in the ether without being detected, and I was about to take her to my most secret place. A place that I was guessing held a clue as to what Diomedes had planned.
 

We traveled with extreme caution, being careful not to be observed, to a small island in the Detroit River. There was an abandoned zoo there. It was small even in its heyday. But that day had past. Now it was an empty shell made of cages and fish tanks.
 

The prisoners had left long ago, destined for another zoo, I guess. All they left behind was the smell of a hundred kinds of crap.
 

Hidden deep below the zoo was a cave. That cave kept me coming back to Detroit.
 

After traveling nearly a mile down, the blackness turned to bright white light. We entered an enclosed chamber and stood there, back in the prime material plane.
 

I never could locate the source of the light.
 

We gazed at the walls. They were covered with symbols and glyphs like no other language I’d ever seen—until recently. In fact, the only other places I’d ever seen them was the white pyramid in the Builder’s Plane and on Aeson’s birdbath. I knew the glyphs by heart, but I didn’t have a clue what they meant.

“What is this place, Elson?”

“It’s sort of home, for me.”

“Home?”

“This is where I awoke, where I was born.”
 

She looked at me, then at the walls, then back again.
 

“I remained here for a long time. I studied these writings, trying to glean some clue to help me understand the words given to me at my birth. But I never could. Recently I had asked Diomedes to look at them. He was the only other person to come here, I suppose. He told me at Aeson’s Gathering that they were interesting, but he didn’t say why. Can you read them?”

She stepped up to the nearest wall and began to study the markings. They wandered every which way. It was hard to tell the flow of them, if there was any.
 

“Some. It’s a story. Or a history. Could be either. Or maybe a biography.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

She pointed to a small section that seemed to make a unit. “This refers to the hosts of heaven. Probably early Engineers. They are fighting someone. The Angel of Death, I think.”

“Really? Huh.” That was interesting.

“Yes. It tells a story of a war in heaven.”

“Probably an allusion to the Schism.”

“Maybe. It says that the world was beautiful and full. There is a description of rivers in the east. A great forest. Then the Patron of Man came and there was war in heaven. The Patron of Man sent the Angel of Death and another--someone called Laughter, or maybe Jester. Odd. Seems like a yin and yang duality. Death and Laughter. Polar opposites.”

“Don’t think so.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because Death and Humor are not polar opposites. Trust me.”

“Ohhkaay. Whatever you say.” She thought about that. “You’re a sick person, Elson.”

“What else?”

“There are pictures of the Patron of Man looking upon the battlefield. There is a whirlpool to one side of where he stands.”
 

I took a step close and looked. The whirlpool reminded me of Aeson’s birdbath.
 

“Uh, yeah.” I wondered how Aeson had managed to get his sticky hands on that piece of hardware. You’d think someone as powerful as the Patron would be able to keep it safely hidden away.

Aello walked around the chamber and inspected more of the pictures and glyphs. “Most of this looks pre-historic, or pre-human anyway. Myths, mostly. This is probably an ancient shrine of some sort.”

“Why do you think they’re myths?” I asked.

“Well, first of all it’s pretty fantastic. Second, it recounts events so old that it’s unlikely that they would have been transmitted down through the ages without corruption. Finally, I don’t see any mention of the Designers, which is inexplicable, given their involvement in these early times.”

“Maybe that Patron guy is a Designer. Who knows? Anyway, I know someone I intend to ask about it.”

“Who?”

“You don’t want to know. It’ll rattle your conveniently simple worldview.”

“Elson, you’re a jerk.”

“I know. I hate myself.” I looked around. “Diomedes was here shortly before he was captured, probably shortly before he planned this whole thing. So what’s in here that Diomedes would have wanted us to see? I don’t think it was stuff about ancient wars and the origins of the Schism. That’s old news.”

Aello stopped at the raised platform in the center of the room. It was scorched and blackened, as if it had been struck by lightning. “Is this where you awoke?” She asked.

“Yep. That’s it. Seems like a long time ago.”
 

I wandered around the chamber, looking for anything that might help us figure out what was going on.

“There’s a name here,” she said, brushing away dust from the base of the platform. “It looks like an altar to the Jester, or whoever that opposite of Death would be.”

Something caught my eye. I walked over to a spot in the lower corner of one wall.
 

“Aello. Does this spot look like it has been cleaned?”

She left the platform and came over to the wall. She bent down and studied the surface. “Yes it does. And not too long ago, either.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

“It’s more history. Hard to follow.” She studied it for some time. “It’s quite cryptic. It refers to the secret of the astral, and monsters of the pit. There are references again to the Patron, who, it seems, stole some knowledge and trapped some creatures in the pit for eternity to protect mankind. None of it rings a bell to me,” she said. “You?”

“Well, the astral plane is an odd place. I’ve spent considerable time there. It does raise many questions but nothing comes to mind. The pit may be a reference to the Abyss. There are stories about ancient baddies being imprisoned there, and I’ve seen some.”

“Some what?” She asked.

“What?”
 

“You said you saw some. Some what?”
 

“Uh, nothing.”
 

“Elson. You’re keeping information from me.”

“Yes. But it’s not relevant.”
 

She began to get that sour face again. I could sense through the glamour her anger rising.
 

“Hey, my world is odd. When I talk about it, people begin to think I’m crazy. So I don’t talk about it.”

“Okay. Keep your secrets. But don’t preach to me about trust. Okay?”
 

“Yeah, yeah. What else does it say?”

“Let me see.” She sat on the floor and began working to find the boundaries of the narrative that had been cleaned. It was taking a while.

“So here we are. This is quite ingenious, don’t you think?” I said.

“Yes. Only the two of us, working together, would have been able to uncover anything meaningful here. I didn’t know about the place, and you can’t read.”

“Right. I wonder how Diomedes knew we’d work out our differences. He took a major risk, with you being prejudice and all.”

“You’re a jerk, Elson.”

“You said that already. Maybe he hoped we’d balance each other out, somehow.”

“There’s a song here,” she said.

“A song?”

“Well, verses. Perhaps a song, or a poem. I can’t quite translate the name of it. It’s something like the Fifth Side of the Square, or the Fifth Corner. I’m not an expert in this language, and poetry is hard enough in a language you do understand.” She worked at it for several minutes.
 

“It reads:
 

The air is a waterless place

A land laden with promise grave

My corpse breathes its life

A frame broken in death

By the treacherous union

As horizon’s fire holds its dire due

At the sight the element stands

And war will be waged for the one

The element is the essence of the one

The breath of the one is the essence of me

I have seen the Elysian Fields

I have seen the blue sky of my awakening

In dreams arising from the earth

Of my rising from my rest

I will drink full in the light of that day

“Really? It mentions the Elysian Fields? That’s a Greek myth, far younger than this place. Far younger than me.”

“The Greeks didn’t make it up. Besides, it really doesn’t say Elysian Fields, but that’s the best way I can translate the concept. It’s the same idea.”
 

She went on, past the song.
 

“This section also mentions something called ‘the Breath,’ like in the song. It seems that whatever it was, it caused quite a stir. It says the Breath didn’t understand the ways of the host of heaven, and was defenseless against them. Here, the Patron is shown taking the Breath from this host and locking it away from their reach. I wonder what it means.”

I drew a square of orange flame in the air and left it hanging there. “Do you see any fifth side?” I asked.

“No. But I wouldn’t dwell too much on it. It’s probably just a riddle, meant to get us thinking about some deep spiritual truths,” she said.

I shook my head. “Normally I’d agree. But look at this place. A mile below ground with no entrance or exit, except by one of our kind. This isn’t just a simple shrine. It was put here for a purpose. For a time.”
 

I moved the square over to the wall, next to the song. “Could the words you translated as ‘side’ or ‘block’ mean ‘element’ ?” I asked.

“Maybe. It means fundamental part, or essential part, I think. It could mean essence, or element. What are you getting at?”

“Look at the song. Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. The Elements. The four types of elements that have, for eons, been seen as composing the world. We have hosts of elementals who fall into one of those categories. They have even been pictured as the four sides of a perfect square. But here, we have a fifth element. A fifth side. What is the fifth element, according to this song?” I asked.

She studied the text. “Well, technically it could be three things in the song: breath, life, or the promise.” She said.
 

“I’ll add two more: essence and light. That makes five things the fifth element could be. Hmm. I don’t buy coincidences.” I smiled.

“They’re all the same,” she said. “The fifth element is the essence of breath, life, promise, and light.” She touched my square and it filled with a purple hue, like a sunrise. “The fifth side is the center of the square. It’s what the square is all about. Wow, very spiritual indeed. I wonder how it all fits.”

A fifth element. “I wonder. Do you think a fifth element means a fifth type of elemental?” I asked.

“You mean a spirit elemental? That’s crazy.”

“Why not? Whoever made this world made the elementals, too. And if they made spirits like us, why not a spirit elemental?”

I thought of Rolic and his Discipline of Life. Such a creature would not be news to Rolic. What would they do, I wondered, if they had access to such a being?

“Elementals have great authority over their element. A spirit elemental would be very powerful over any spirit, I’d think. Don’t you think we, being spirits, might have heard about that?” she said.

 
“Maybe. But doesn’t this story say that this breath thingy was defenseless against the host of heaven and hidden away? If that was long ago, we might have forgotten. That knowledge might have been lost, or hidden.”

“But why now?” Aello asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. This story has been out of circulation for eons, maybe longer. Why now?”

She was right. It didn’t add up. “Diomedes was here almost a year ago,” I said. “The course of recent events has had a very urgent flavor. This info didn’t bother him for a year. Why act now? What could have happened that made the situation so urgent?”

Aello turned to me. “Whatever caused him to act was in the intelligence pipeline. I’m sure of it. Why else go to such extreme lengths to destroy it?”

“And why get us involved?” I knew at least part of the answer. It was the only thing left.

“Aeson,” I said. “He learned what Aeson was up to.”