One of Sraosha’s brows inched up, as if Rami had asked if the sky was blue. “The primary virtues, of course. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”
“Oh hell,” Hero muttered under his breath. It was like the entire afterlife was built to menace him for the simple happenstance of being his story’s villain. It really grew old.
“Thank you,” Rami said without sounding as if he really meant it. Sraosha herded them between the low tables effortlessly. Hero noted that new souls had appeared during their conversation, looking around with disorientation before nervously taking a cup of tea in hand.
They pushed through the heavy doors of the tearoom, and Hero began to wish he hadn’t gulped his so quickly.
The sky was a forbidding and violent oil painting. Dark carmine reds swirled and roiled against indigo, lashed with occasional blooms of orange. It felt too thick and vibrant to be air. The clouds churned like undertow, threatening to pull them up into it. Navigating the roil like agile fish were figures on winged mounts. At least he assumed they were mounts; Hero saw them only by their silhouettes, inkblots against the oil sheen of the sky.
“We should be cautious. Stay close,” Rami said, drawing Hero’s attention back to the earth. The tearoom had emptied them out onto a simple paved square. It was the kind of open area you’d find in a historic village, pavers too uneven and chalky to be modern. It was also clogged with people. Young and old milled around the square, mostly single but sometimes in tight, anxious groups. The majority were dressed in the same kind of bland fashion Hero had observed humans preferred these days, though some of the older ones were embellished with heavy gold jewelry and brightly threaded coats and dresses. Burial wear, Hero realized. The crowd simmered with a roil of emotions—not violent, but erratic and volatile—that must have been what put Rami on high alert.
The crowd milled, though more or less reluctant progress seemed to be made in the direction of the far end of the square. From a distance, it appeared more as a wall than a bridge, so steep was the incline toward the sky. But the details gradually resolved as Hero and Rami were inexorably jostled closer.
The bridge was composed of embers of color, shimmering sparks that somehow supported the heavy traffic stumbling across it. It stood in stark contrast to the rough cobbles and appeared to arch up nearly to the clouds, like a moon bridge, before dropping again to a distant cliff.
It spanned a mist-choked nothingness of a ravine, so devoid of the oil-paint colors above that it was nearly white. Wind currents stirred movements here and there in the depths, though Hero could make out nothing else from this distance.
“Good deeds.” The voice was so close behind them it made Hero jump, though Rami was calm enough to have heard the approach. Sraosha stood with their feet planted in the crowd, seemingly unmoved by the press and jostle on either side of them. Souls seemed to shy away. They studied the bridge briefly before looking back to them. “Good deeds, that much I can grant you.”
“You’re one of the judges,” Rami said.
Sraosha nodded. “Your shadows cast enough tales for me to be certain of that much. I can grant you the judgment of good deeds. But good deeds only. For the other two, you will have to face the divines.” They gestured, and Hero twisted to follow the line of their arm up, up, up.
The blots of indigo, which Hero had previously mistaken for storm clouds, had gained shoulders. Two impossibly large figures flanked the sky above the bridge, obscured in clouds and roiling twilight. They were so large it was impossible to discern whether they looked down on the bridge or away, or if the petty world escaped their notice entirely.
“How can they even see us, let alone judge us? It’d be like you discerning which are the very kindest ants in an anthill!” Hero was done; he was completely over the idea of being judged, cast in a role, given a title, measured up, inevitably found wanting.
His outburst gained the attention of the crowd, and souls cast them dreadfully reproachful looks before skirting a wider berth around them. Rami gestured furiously for him to quiet. He looked nervous, but Hero was past nervous; he was scared. And when Hero got scared, he got philosophical. “What even are good thoughts and words anyway? Who decides what is good? And good for whom?”
Philosophical, and a touch dramatic, granted.
Sraosha was unflustered. “To ask what ‘good’ is. Yes. Perhaps you are right: you don’t belong here.” With that, they bid them farewell and slid back into the crowd toward their tearoom.
“Have you never heard of the trolley problem?” Hero hollered at their back. Granted, he himself had never heard of the trolley problem until one particularly boring night inventorying the unwritten morality narratives section of the Library, but he was a book; a god of moral conscience really had no such excuse.
“It’s all right,” Rami said. He wasn’t bothered by Sraosha’s words. His attention was focused again on the bridge. “You’ll pass through just fine.”
Hero stopped short. He scrutinized Rami’s profile but couldn’t detect a hitch of sarcasm. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m a villain! Worse, I’m not even human.”
“See, you didn’t mention good or evil a single time in that statement.” Rami focused on Hero with a hesitant smile that did terrible things to the outrage in Hero’s chest. “You are a good person, Hero. You fought for your fellow books; you’ve risked much to make it this far and help your friends. Even Sraosha had to grant that those were good works.”
“Oh, I’ve done my fair share of wrongs.”
“A minority. Your words have more sting in them than real malice most of the
