Thakelrot paused at an apple tree. The red fruit hung heavily on the limbs. After eyeing the fruit judiciously, he plucked one and tossed it to Warren.
Warren caught the apple and examined it. The fruit looked perfect. Good enough to—
“Eat it,” Thakelrot encouraged.
“Is it safe?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard too many stories of evil witches and jealous queens to easily accept apples as gifts.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. If I did, all I had to do was leave you in that passageway. The Gremlins would have killed you.”
“Maybe.”
“If you’d been conscious, you’d have seen the truth of what I’m saying.” Thakelrot plucked another apple and tore it apart in his bare hands. The being dropped pieces of it into the brook. Almost immediately, fish surfaced and nibbled the bits. None of them died.
Hungry, wanting to remember what an apple tasted like that wasn’t pureed and poured into a can, Warren shined the fruit on his coat and took a bite. The apple was sweet and just tart enough to make his jaws ache. Juice ran down his chin. Despite his strange circumstances, he had to smile.
“Good, right?” Thakelrot asked.
“Yes.”
The creature turned and walked along the brook again. Warren followed, still munching on the apple.
“I wanted to take this opportunity, now that we’re finally alone, to talk to you. There is much I have to share.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because Lilith was here. Hiding among us. There are things she must not know. Or at least things that she must not know that you know. Otherwise she will kill you. And never trust for a moment that she won’t as soon as she’s through with you anyway.”
“I don’t.”
Thakelrot grinned over his shoulder. “No more than you trust me, eh?”
“No more.” Warren flipped the apple core into the brook. A dozen fish set upon it at once.
“You have to trust someone.”
“I trust myself.”
“You don’t know enough.”
Warren didn’t argue that point. “What are you?”
“For now, perhaps for always, I am this Book. But once, I was like you. A creature of my own place and world. I had a family. A spouse. Children.” Pain showed in the little being’s eyes. “The demons killed them all.”
Warren didn’t know what to say, especially since he didn’t know whether he believed the story or not.
THIRTY-SIX
In my village, I was an historian,” Thakelrot said. “I kept the old tales. The ones that no one really wished to hear anymore. But it was my place and I did it. No one believed those stories anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because they were about demons. No one believed in demons in those days. All believed that the Darkness had passed us by. Or—as many began to say—never existed at all.”
“The demons had been to your world before?”
“Yes. Just as they had yours. They monitor young worlds. Send Heralds and Seekers into them to judge when they’ll be ready for the harvest.”
“What time is that?”
“When the population has flourished,” Thakelrot said. “In the beginnings of all worlds, there are only a few. But given time, intelligent creatures continue to breed and multiply, till they threaten to overpopulate a world. No other creature on any world does that with the same dogged success as the intelligent species. Once a world is burgeoning, when the demons judge they can no longer continue without imploding under their own weight, they strike. Just as when a fruit is ripest so that they can suck all the juices out.”
“How do they know?” Warren asked.
“Demons never truly leave a world. They always have some who stay and observe. Like Lilith.”
“She said the demons planned to return before now.” The hill beside the brook rose steeply. Warren’s thighs burned with the effort of the ascent.
“Perhaps they were,” Thakelrot said. “Your people have had many setbacks as a species. I’ve seen them. Wars. Famines. Plagues. All those things set you back and threatened eradication.”
“Why were you made into a book?”
“It was a joke on me. Because of what I’d been.”
“Lilith did this?”
“No. She was there, but my fate wasn’t through any decision of hers. Another of the Dark Wills took my body and the life barely beating within me and broke my bones and twisted me until I became this book.”
“What was the point?”
Thakelrot sighed. “When I was alive, I knew how to hurt the demons. How to hurt them and kill them. What I knew helped forestall the inevitable, but it was too little, too late. Our destiny was ashes, and we were slow to get there. More than that, we didn’t have the Truths in our world. Not like they are in this one.”
“The Truths?”
Thakelrot stopped and looked at him. “Yes.”
“I don’t know what those are.”
“Neither do I. Not entirely. I only know that they are the greatest weapons you can ever have against the demons. By your nature, you are a Cabalist. As such, you are tied most closely to the Truth of the Mother.”
“What mother?”
“I don’t know. I only know that when the time is right, the Cabalists must recognize that Truth and free it. Only then can the demons and the Hellgate be defeated.”
“Where did these Truths come from?”
“Where all good things do. From the Fountain of Light.”
“How many Truths are there?”
“Seven. They must all be found and united.”
Warren’s head reeled. “Where are the Truths?”
“Somewhere in your city,” Thakelrot said. “You must find the Sigil, then you must find the Truths.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because the story of the Seven Truths was one of the tales I knew in my world. I thought the Truths were there as well, but we searched for them and couldn’t find them.”
“They’re physical things?”
“Of course they are. They’d have to be. They’re going to be weapons that can be used against the demons.”
Warren marshaled his thoughts. “You said the Truth about the Mother is tied to the Cabalists?”
“Yes.”
“What other truths are there?”
“One will be tied to the Templar. They are too important to be discounted.
