the air fairly crackles with it, and I am made rigid, as if electrified by live current. Helpless with longing for movement, for air, for what once was. We were friends, I am sure of it. We laughed; we were equals.
‘We ruled the world,’ he says softly, as if he has read it from my mind, and I know it for the truth.
‘Bully,’ I manage to gasp out.
‘Traitor,’ he replies swiftly, menace in his voice.
The word makes no sense to me, my recall having inconveniently hit a wall.
For an unguarded moment he relaxes his absolute dominion over me and in that instant, I reach out and grab his hand, like someone going under for the last time.
It is white, his skin, like marble or alabaster, without flaw, and smooth as fired glass or porcelain. Unlined on any surface.
I turn his palm over, and see that Carmen’s small hand is lost in it, when the burning begins. Quickly it engulfs her left arm, her torso, all of her, until we are incandescent, rigid in fiery glory.
Uri looks down on us … with pity? Compassion?
We burn, burn, and our mouth is stretched wide to scream, to bring the walls of this house down, when I see, I see — — two great human armies doing battle on a desert plain; beings like Uri among them, above them, on the ramparts of the beleaguered city, doing nothing save watch as hundreds go down, armoured and on horseback, on foot. Called to their deaths by blaring horn and sackbut; a tide of red, human blood sinking into the unforgiving sand as the watchers do nothing.
Uri, suspended, like a star, above the dome of a great stone mosque, the walls of a sprawling pink desert fort at sunset, the keep of a floating palace haunted by music and the scent of jasmine, the peak of the tallest mountain in the world, the bell tower of a city overrun by plague and death. Uri, falling from the sky yet landing lightly upon the surface of the earth. Uri, passing like a spirit through the bodies of a magnitude without leaving any sensation of his passage. Uri, in a thousand improbable places, yet bending the laws of nature with ease.
Then the years peel back — or do they run forwards? — as cities are raised then sacked, then raised again.
Always the new upon the old — or the old upon the new — until pattern, memory, coherence all waver and blur with the rapid passage of time. As I watch through his eyes, the sun and moon streak across the sky continually as fires, famines, wars destroy cities. Civilisations — both celebrated and forgotten — begin to snake out across the surface of the world as vines are wont to do, buildings grow more opulent, more complex, ever taller, like plants reaching towards the sun. We traverse continents, seas, forests, mountains, vast ice floes — experience all of this together, strangely conjoined — as seasons change, and all that is around us alters then decays then alters again. Always and everywhere, the faces of millions — of every creed, colour, age, station — wither and become as dust, and among them walk the shining ones, ever watchful yet held apart. Unseen by any save their own kind. Rarely moved to intervene.
Time bends, sound, light, distance, perspective, and all around me the shifting world and everything in it.
Until, for an instant, I see, I see — — Uri and seven brethren arrayed against me — all beautiful, all terrible, their instruments of power raised high — and behind them, a glorious multitude in white, the great universe wheeling and turning about us.
Planets, stars, suns, moons, the greater and lesser bodies fly by; comets, black holes, supernovae, strange fissures in time and space twist and curl overhead like a painted, yet living, ever-changing dome.
Home.
The word catches in me.
I know this is a true memory, one of my earliest, for beside me I sense Luc — my heart leaping — another shining multitude arrayed at our backs, the two of us the epicentre of something vast, a conflagration waiting to happen, an ache in time, a breath suspended.
Then I see him, my beloved — like a lion, like a sun god when he walks — as if I am reliving the moment, as if the moment is now. And before I can turn to him, speak, lay my hands upon him in fearful gratitude for the miracle of such restoration — how long have I waited for this? How long? — I hear him say, ‘Then, as an act of faith — of goodwill —shall we call it — take that which is most precious to me.’ His tone is final, without emotion, a death knell. ‘I permit it.’ And then I feel searing pain in my left hand, the original pain, the wound that begot all wounds, all misfortunes, thereafter, and then the world goes white and blank.
And I am rendered deaf, dumb and blind. For all purposes, dead to that shining multitude, removed from them in an instant, cut off forever, as if a limb amputated, never to return.
And I am lost again, as I am suddenly hurled out of contact with the being, Uri, who is clearly shaken.
‘ Exaudi nos, Domine,’ he whispers as he looks at the place where our two hands were joined, as if a new scar might have formed there. It could have been days or mere seconds that we touched.
‘You of all people should know how it works, Uri,’ I reply. ‘The Lord only helps those who help themselves, remember?’ As I say the words, I discover that I am finally able to sit upright. I hug Carmen’s bony knees gingerly as I look up into Uri’s beautiful countenance, startle a crooked smile from him.
‘ That, my friend, is where we differ in philosophical outlook,’ he says, a touch ruefully. ‘A shift has indeed occurred, it would seem. Disturbingly, my informant does not prove false.’ Time is short in every sense, so while I am able, while the creature’s mood nears benevolence (as much as one such as he is able to feel benevolence), I say raggedly, ‘Then help me this time? I need to find her. I need you to intervene. Just this once. For me. Such a small thing, brother.’ I struggle to keep my tone even, still wondering why, so many times, he and his brethren watched while all around them were lost or destroyed, transfigured forever.
And still they stood by and did nothing when they had the power in them to do anything … everything.
Uri pauses perceptibly and I watch the light bleed from him in little drifts, in errant curls of pure energy.
When he finally answers, his voice is gentle. ‘It has already been decided. You know this as well as I do.
Everything now and to be has a past cause that may be known or deduced and from which all consequence flows. We are the masters of natural law through which all events may be viewed and given meaning. Further are we above all beasts and all men, the first caste, the foremost. Therefore, intervention is pointless. The girl is already lost and gone. She is nothing. Forget her.’ The answering fury I feel is swift and unexpected.
‘Surely, we are not the only ones with liberty!’ I cry. ‘ They exercise free will every day, every second of their lives. The world is chaos, as are all who live in it.
Nothing is fixed from moment to moment. I have seen it. Lived it! How can you deny it?’ Uri’s face is impassive. ‘Consider your current state. Does she demonstrate any such freedom of will?
Everything she does is a direct consequence of your actions.’ For a moment I am speechless. It’s a good point.
When tested, it does not seem to yield.
‘But she is constrained,’ I rasp out finally.
‘Because we willed it,’ he replies calmly. ‘We have always and ever been the masters of their fate, and our own. With one only having higher authority over us all.
Free will is an illusion. You would do well to remember it, if nothing else. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps you have altered beyond all recognition.’ I am almost begging. ‘But she is likely still alive, brother.’ As I say the word again, brother, Uri’s eyes narrow and soften momentarily.
‘If you will not free me,’ I sigh, ‘at least do this one thing I ask of you.’ His expression is unreadable once more as he shakes his head, his long, brown hair falling freely about his shoulders. Every strand straight, even and perfectly the same. ‘I cannot do it. Do not ask it of me.’ Is there sadness in his words? Pity?
‘Will not, more likely.’ Frustration roughens my tone. ‘What are you?’ When he replies, his bell-like voice holds a note of challenge. ‘No. The question is, what are you?’ We glare at each other fiercely, both freezing as we hear someone ascend the staircase outside Lauren’s room. Heavy footsteps head down the hallway before pausing and retracing their way to her door. There is a soft tapping.
‘Carmen?’ It is Stewart Daley’s voice, weariness in it.
‘Is everything all right? May I come in?’ I see the handle turn a fraction, clockwise.
‘I’m fine!’ I squeak out, loud enough for the man outside to hear. ‘It’s nothing. Just a bad dream. Sorry I disturbed you.’ Did he often stand there, like that, when his daughter was home and asleep in her bed?
