Mud, Page 3

  “My name. It’s Adem.”

  The angel observes me with sharp eyes, catches every twitch of my face. Every muscle in me tenses. I try to stop the twitches, not to let my edginess show.

  “A golem with a name. How original,” he says. “But then, I knew you were exceptionally well crafted or I would not be here. And it’s even clearer close up. You radiate like a furnace, such great magic compounding inside you for so many years. I can feel it from across the cellar.”

  He stretches his hand out to me like he is warming his fingers.

  “Which, of course, is why I am here.”

  “I am nothing.”

  He stares at me blankly. “Nothing? Do you know what a golem is?”

  I know. More from the Texts than my own experience, but I know what I am. “Mud.”

  He shrugs, light and shadow dance over his shoulders. “Mud. Dirt. Dust. Whatever debris men can find. But it’s more than the materials. Men create golems to do the work they can’t, or won’t. For their strength and durability. For their mindless obedience. But men were not meant to create in the first place—that is for the gods alone. Man’s magic is stolen from angels, and they do not wield it well. Very few men have succeeded in creating a golem, and even then, the process is precarious and unpredictable. Most golems who succeed are grotesque, miserable, broken things.”

  His words pile up, confirming what I’ve always felt. “Like me.”

  He frowns. “Not like you. That’s what I’m saying. You are a masterpiece compared to most. You may be hardly more than a live puppet, but most golems are much less.”

  If I’m among the better ones, the others truly are doomed.

  “But enough of this,” Kythiel presses. “There is much to say and little time. The reason I have broken through the Host to find you in this temple is this: Golem, there is a way for you to be free.”

  The words seep deep into my chest.

  Free.

  The world around me fades and I drop into a haze of disbelief.

  “Do you understand me, golem? I can free you.” Kythiel’s voice is laced with impatience. It’s too much, too good to be true.

  “How?”

  “I can give it to you. But first you must help me.”

  “Help you?” What could I possibly have for so perfect a creature?

  But … to be free.

  “How?”

  His lip quivers at the corner.

  “For you to understand, I must start at the Beginning. Listen. As it reads in the Texts, in the Beginning—Terath’s true Beginning, when man was new—angels had open passage between the Host and Terath. There was no need for a divide between the realms back then. The First Creatures walked side by side with man.”

  “I know about the Beginning,” I say. I’ve read the tired Text pages over and over and over. Everyone knew them, once. The humans looked after the realm; the angels were Theia’s messengers to them, teaching Her Order. The Beginning was beautiful, perfect. Until the men and First Creatures broke the Three’s will.

  Kythiel scoffs. “From what? The Texts? The Three did not share everything with men. To know all, you had to be there.”

  But what more could there be? The Texts are everything. “What do you mean?”

  Kythiel leans toward me. “The Texts only tell what the Gods wanted to share with men. But for the First Creatures, it was different. When the Three created men, we did not understand. They already had us. The humans did not have our beauty, nor our understanding. But, their great heart and individuality soon won us over.”

  He pauses, his gaze drops to the ground for a moment.

  “One of the first women was Rona. She was different from the others—truly different, not in the trivial ways the others were. Theia singled her out with a special gift: unlike most humans, who needed the angels to reach Theia, Rona knew the Goddess’s will and judgment in her dreams. She was beautiful in every way.”

  He spreads out his hand as he speaks and light bursts from his palm, twisting, and whirling. A face starts to take form, a full bust. Striking wide-set cheekbones, full, proud lips. Her eyes are rich, dark, and deep, matching the dark hair that runs past her shoulders and down her back.

  Beautiful. She truly was.

  “I was Theia’s counselor in the village where Rona lived. Her gift became evident, and we spent endless hours walking and discussing Theia’s Order. Even living at Theia’s side, I had never understood some of Her mysteries the way Rona could. Over time, I came to love her deeply, and she loved me.”

  He pauses to take in her image before he continues.

  I cut in, my question refusing to stay in me any longer. “But what does this have to do with me?”

  He jumps and closes his hand into a fist. Rona’s face disappears. He looks back to me.

  “Patience, golem. I am getting there.” He sighs. “Other angels also came to care more deeply for certain humans. It was impossible not to, they were all so different. Some of them started to couple with human mates. Theia was furious at this and forbade the angels to continue. She placed them in different communities far from the ones they loved. The angels were heartbroken. With Her Will planted in our hearts, we angels had no choice but to obey.”

  “But humans, with their free will, were not so easily stopped from seeking out the angels they called their own, and the angels’ hearts were helpless against such powerful feeling. Their love for their humans set a wedge between the angels and Theia. As the wedge grew, some of them began to find they could choose for themselves, and were no longer bound to Theia’s Will as strongly. She was furious at her angels’ straying.”

  “Is that why She called you back?” I find myself absorbed in his story, in spite of myself. The Texts don’t give a reason.

  “Yes.”

  A tear waits to drop at the corner of his eye. “She called us back to the Host and set barriers between the realms so we could never return. But there were some angels so consumed with their love they could choose their own will, and they resisted. They fought back.”

  Barriers. Suddenly the red-haired woman is at the front of my mind. And the boy, too. So close, every day, just outside my window. Yet I could never break free and be one of them.

  But that’s not important right now. I pull myself back to the moment.

  “The First Realm War.”

  The Texts warn against straying from the Three, tell stories of the terrors of the First War. But they don’t speak of this, of why the First Creatures fought against them.

  “Yes,” he says. “When we were called back, my heart ached for Rona so strongly I was sure part of it had broken off and stayed with her. She also suffered greatly, and I watched her from the Host with no way to comfort her. But I did not fight. I was too bound to Theia to fight against Her, and too consumed in being separated from Rona for anything else.”

  He pauses. I search my mind for something to say, but the silence is heavy between us. Thankfully, he starts again.

  “We all watched over our beloveds from the Host. Angels’ hearts are made to be constant and unchanging. The angels loved their human mates until their dying day and will continue to on until forever. But men,” Kythiel’s tone deepens into a growl, darkness clouds his eyes. “Men move on quickly. They mourned losing their angel lovers at first, but eventually they forgot them and found comfort elsewhere. Many despaired and lost their connection to Theia altogether, wandering away to Terath or the Underworld and never finding their way back.”

  I’ve seen it myself, how quickly men can change. How quickly they forget old ways, old friends, wars, even the Gods.

  “But my Rona did not forget me. She cried out to me in her prayers, and I heard her pain. She left for days, wandering, trying to find a way into the Host, but Theia had left no gate unsealed.”

  Kythiel’s velvety voice rings with pride.

  “It hurt me to see her in such suffering. Each day was worse than the one before, and finally, my desperation helped me discover I
could reach her in her dreams the way Theia did. The first time I found her in her sleep, we were filled with ecstasy. But she was unhappy in her life, and we longed for each other every moment she was awake and we were apart. Our love grew so deep that the hours she was awake and I could not be with her, I felt half of myself was missing.”

  His eyes hollow with desperation. I instinctively step away, resisting their pull. Why is he telling me all this?

  “I came to hate my ties to Theia, for while others slipped away to Terath, they bound me to the Host. But at least my Rona was loyal. Some humans were happy to see their angels again, but others had already forgotten, or would not leave their new partners, or were too old to start over again by the time their angels broke free of Theia’s hold. When this happened, the angels fell into despair. And in their despair, they lost their way and were unable to return to the Host. They were trapped in Terath, alone and heartbroken.”

  Lost in Terath? Locked out of their home? It’s no wonder some of the First Creatures turned so bitter toward the Gods.

  “The angels felt all the bitterness of this cruel trick, and they rebelled. They sought other human companions to ease their loneliness. They wandered the land and led humans away from the Three with promises of other great ones, usually themselves. Because they could harness magic, which humans do not understand, they had no trouble gaining followers. Some even taught magic to their human followers. They became free and wild and no longer cared about the Three’s Order.”

  Kythiel’s eyes are large and tense. He stares past me a moment, then drops his gaze to the ground.

  “I spent all the time I could in Rona’s dreams, and the rest of it thinking of her, content with what I had for myself. So much so I didn’t see how Rona was slipping away, the toll this double life was taking on her. Not until it was too late. She grew weary, then strained, then desperate. I realized after, she had become trapped in her own mind. Finally, she could bear it no longer. She shut herself off from the Host and, unable to reconcile her worlds waking and asleep, she killed herself.”

  Kythiel’s voice wavers and he bows his head, rubs his eye with his palm. The abrupt end of his story leaves a dead weight through the empty cellar.

  He wants my help? With this?

  “This all passed long ago. There is nothing I can do for you.”

  “No! You’re wrong!” The marble figure steps toward me, comes forward until his face is inches from mine. His perfect features crinkle into deep sadness, his eyes churn wild. “Golem, bring her back to me.”

  My hope for freedom snuffs out. I step away from the great creature, my head shaking slowly side to side.

  “You would need your Goddess for that.”

  His great inky wings ruffle. “Theia does not disrupt the Order she set,” he scoffs. “She is not a Goddess of mercy, but of rules.”

  I take another step back. A pit twists in my stomach. “This is not my quest. Go and find her yourself.”

  Kythiel’s fist slams into the wall and rattles the temple’s foundation. I flinch, remembering the humans just above. Are they still there? I try to listen for signs of them. But then Kythiel roars at me, “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Do you think I would be here if there was any other way? I have been searching for a way to bring my Rona back ever since she left me. Centuries. But I am as bound to Theia as you are to that box. Even coming here to you was a struggle. And even if I could break that bond, even then—angels are all soul. Souls cannot free themselves of the Underworld. It has to be you. You’re a golem, you have no soul. You can enter the Underworld and bring her back from it.”

  The Underworld. He wants me to break into the Underworld. Steal a soul back. He must be mad. “Find another golem.”

  “There are no others like you,” his words are rushed and tight. “Do you know what most golems are? Dull and misshapen, hardly more than the dirt they were made from. But you, I watched you for almost a century before I managed to break free tonight. In all that time there has been nothing close to what you are. It has to be you, you’re my only hope.”

  His wild eyes empty to a dire hollow. I know this look. I see it often. When the Silencers take a child from a mother, a wife from husband. Humans do wild, desperate things when they look like this.

  It only lasts a moment. He straightens up, smooths out his face.

  “I’m your only hope too, golem. Has anyone else come to you offering freedom?”

  No. In all my centuries, they only came to destroy me, to take the box. It’s been my whole life. All I’ve known. Protecting it. Trying to destroy it. Now here it is, a way out. Dropped from the sky right into my hand.

  But the price. It is more than I am capable of. I don’t know if it is even possible. I study the pain etched across his face. Could he bear it if I failed?

  “I don’t know—”

  He abruptly collapses into a gleaming heap at my feet, dark wings sprawled at his sides.

  “What is it you want? I will get it for you. Anything, anything you ask. Just please save my Rona. Bring her back to me.”

  What do I want?

  It’s an easy question. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is for the hunt to end. For the killing to stop. To be free of the box.

  To be free to live.

  And here it is.

  For the first time, in all those dark years, I see beyond the box, beyond my small prison. And all I find there is more darkness. More empty corners. More nothing. I could never fit among the humans. Not like this. That would take more than freedom.

  “I want to be human.”

  I jump at the sound of my own voice. I didn’t mean to say it aloud. But it throws from me loud, angry, and packed with endless years of splintered emptiness.

  Kythiel’s head snaps up to me.

  “What?”

  Now that I’ve said it, I know it’s true. This ache’s festered in me all these years. This is what I want. No, what I need.

  “Make me human.”

  Kythiel shakes his head. “That requires a soul,” he says.

  “Then I will help you for a soul.”

  Silence. It drags on like a stick in setting mud.

  Finally Kythiel speaks, his lip quivering. “I cannot give you that. Souls come from the Three, and the Three alone.”

  No.

  “This is my price.”

  “You do not want a soul. A soul is pain. A soul is weakness. A soul is death.”

  A soul is life.

  “You said anything. A soul. Make me human.”

  The need for it burns through me as a hollow tree set on fire from within. I cannot, I cannot go on without it. Now that the idea has caught within me, nothing can extinguish it.

  The angel droops. His wings, his shoulders, his head.

  “I can’t give you that.”

  Silence buzzes between us. Despair pours out of his eyes. My hope hardens and turns to anger.

  “Then we’re done.” I turn to the stairs.

  “Wait!”

  His exclamation is wet, almost a sob.

  The air hangs heavy. Kythiel paces the cellar, rubbing his neck, his mouth half forming the words as he mumbles to himself, wrestling, weighing.

  I use all my bulk to become immovable. A soul. Nothing else.

  Nothing else can give me what the humans have. The love, the passion that fills their short lives so fully, fuller than all I could muster from my hundreds. The connection to each other.

  To be free of the box and have nothing to go to, it would be even worse than now. It would be nothing. But a soul … to be one of them …

  I would try, risk anything for this.

  Kythiel’s pace slows as he turns toward me yet again. He stops an arm’s reach from me.

  “You will have it. After you retrieve Rona.”

  His words are like magic. Something in me lightens until I feel I am floating. Under it, something nags at my gut—something not quite right. Something too easy. But in my chest, there’s a burning, cravi
ng hole where my soul will go. I shove the caution away into the shadows, take a deep breath, and let the tension break away into the air. A soul. My very own. Just thinking of it loosens my shoulders and sends tingles up my neck, like I am floating.

  “Then we are settled? I must go,” Kythiel says. And he begins to turn away with finality.

  “Wait!”

  A million doubts cloud my mind, a tangle of eagerness and fear. He turns back to me halfway, watching me with defeated disinterest.

  So many questions. I pull one out as quickly as I can the one closest to the surface. “How do I get to the Underworld?”

  “Walk to the sea. Row out on the water until the sky touches the water on all sides. Swim West. It will be easiest to break through on the new moon,” he says. “When you have her back on Terath, I will come to you.”

  He begins to turn away, and then looks back to me. “And hear me—Trust no one and nothing. The realm of the Underworld is strange and inconstant. Abazel is ruthless and deceptive. He will say anything to confuse, hurt, and hold you there, anything to prevent you from bringing her back to me. Do not believe his lies. Many have been lost to him.”

  Abazel, the demon king. The name turns my stomach. The myths of his wrath, his destruction in the Realm Wars, were once the stories that kept children up at night. The Texts say he started it all. That he is the root of the brokenness that still has the realm in chaos.

  Kythiel releases a soft sigh, his pearly, brooding forehead tightening into troubled creases.

  “You are my only hope, golem. Don’t fail me.”

  Then he turns and walks away, his glow bursting into blinding light. And then he is gone, and I am alone again in the temple cellar.

  Chapter 5

  I STAND ALONE in the empty dark.

  My mind is disordered and confused.

  In the silence, Kythiel’s promise clouds with everything else that he said. Too much information buzzes through my head for me understand.

  But I can’t just keep standing here until I do. Too much time has passed. Day is surely coming. The Silencers will claim the streets any minute and begin their guard, pacing, policing, seeing everything. I need to get back to my tower now. Shove all this aside; decide what to do with it later.