Chapter 2
“The will of the universe shines kindly upon you.”
“You are not in the will of the universe.”
“The will shines kindly upon you…”
There were one hundred. On our knees!
The masters prowled in between our ranks.
“The will of the universe agrees with you!”
They were taking turns, dealing our fate –
“You are not part of the will.”
“You do not belong in the will of the universe.”
– with nothing more than their faith
The master that spoke to me before, came to Law now, and my heart was beating for him. “The will shines brightly with you,” the master said, and I watched as a proud smile carved its way across my friend’s face.
Then came the other master – he who had been silent in the docking bay. He hid beneath his hood still, but low from my knees, I caught his face; it was severe, yet not sinister. I sensed that he had seen many sights in his life, which had made his eyes become such sunken things – timeless mirrors. He stood tall before me, like a stony precipice, and all in the hall fell to silence. I felt Law’s eyes turn to mine and I felt the other master’s audience too. I looked up and stared into the face of my future as he stared into mine – his jaw unhinged slightly, teeth bared, eyes thinned – a look that could have equally been of admiration or disgust. He hesitated – brought a single fingertip to my forehead and recoiled.
I heard his sharp breath as it preceded his hollow voice. “The will… shakes before you!”
My heart drummed violently. What did that mean? An answer, I needed – my mind demanded to know. I remember feeling such panic; such panic I had never felt before. Yet then I saw the master’s mouth flicker and contort – for nothing more than a second – a faint smile, I saw.
The masters returned to the others, slowly flitting between them, passing them their fates with low and unchanging voices. Law and I had drawn their attention the most – stirred up their faith the most; I did not understand why at the time, but for the young child that I was, such a fact made my ego burn bright, and my ambition – brighter still.
Yet during this process, there was but one unruly disturbance; and I remember it starkly. Someone had rejected his decided fate. “You are ill in the will of the universe,” the severe master said softly.
“WHAT? How…? If those two cowards get through, so should I…” I knew that voice; it was still tied to the fear I felt inside the cave; it was the rabid leader of those boys. His eyes began to burn into the back of my skull; I knew that he was talking about us, but I culled the sudden surge of adrenaline. I held back. I felt myself begin to sweat. “Hiding in that cave. Warming each other, no doubt! They are only here because they hid and deceived us. They have no honour; they are not worthy to join the XA—”
The master with no hood raised his hand calmly. “You inspired a mob! And those two… well, you fell to their trickery, and you sent your followers past the fence – a fact that they relied upon – capitalised upon. They exploited your weak leadership… and weak your fold was. They were foolish; they did not think for themselves; you stole their autonomy so that you could hide behind their numbers. Those two, however, used their initiative; they asked for advice; they confronted their basic needs and found safety; they outsmarted the odds by avoiding conflict and when they were in danger, they retaliated first with their brains and then with their guns. You should know that the XA operate alone at the best of times; there is no place for such mob mentality – there is only sole ingenuity. They devised the safest and most efficient way of finishing the trial; because there is no honour in the trials; there is no glory; there is only success or defeat. My world is no different; I do not have the luxury of honour or glory or status; there is life and there is death and there is success; the line between each is thin. The will of the universe has deemed you unsuitable, simply because I have been the witness to your failure.” The master moved on, and I felt the boy simmer behind me.
“But – did you not see – he took his gun to Narra – fired and fired – until half of his face was cooked…”
A collective terror began to grow in the air, like a noxious gas leaking from a pipe. The other master, the harsher one, paced backwards until he had all of our eyes, and for the first time he removed his hood. A worn face of strict order appeared. Those sunken eyes were beady too, and they were accompanied by deep furrowed lines and small patterns of scars. As his mouth opened, I could almost feel the air disappear from this hall; we each held a deep breath and watched the master’s maw; it hung wide as if by anger strung, and our terror grew with each passing second. “Narra was a fool and you made him so. A convict – a murderer in heart – a slave to class and hierarchy. That was your work; you wormed your way into his soul and inspired wickedness and deceit. The XA are pure… Further still, you dare to protect such treachery. You profane the very will of the universe to think yourself worthy of our ranks.” I saw the master look down to his right arm, which ebbed with an angry molten light; I could see the movement of the blood in his veins; I could see the twist of his bones as he brought his hand to his mouth. He spoke again – his voice – a terrifying insinuation of sound waves, “Escort initiate 593 back to the capital.”
Then there were twenty-four. Twenty-four initiates stamped with the universe’s approval. I would not deny that my younger self was at first sceptical of such heavy mysticism; I always had been, in whatever form; yet time and time again it seemed to fall in my favour, and those who were able to see the world through this ‘will’ continuously saw something in me.
The mysticism of the XA was not, however, in faith alone; in many cases, it was more direct – darker. We sat in a circle in the middle of the wide-open hall, which had a simple wooden floor with white plastered walls. We connected hands, as instructed, and closed our eyes. I remember feeling Law’s grip tighten, as with the girl on my other side. One by one, the masters came to us and told us to open our mouths. They had a kind of dust, they had said – mined from a moon on the furthest out-reaches of human space. They powdered us each. Law. The girl. Me.
I heard quiet chokes from across the circle and then I slowly began to hear body after body crumple into the floor. It came as a wave, and soon I felt the two hands that I held begin to pulsate and spasm, and then my own; it felt as if a thousand cramps had come to seize me – a ridiculous kind of pain, but one in which we had no say, for our minds had already been taken away to another place – far from where we had once been.
My hands were suddenly free and I awoke standing on two feet. My senses were all but dead, yet I had another. A great energy clouded over me, and I seemed to feel it with every asset of my being. I smelt it; felt it; I saw it through the darkness. It was a startling sensation. It was impossible to describe. The only word for it would have been – faith. That I would put my trust in this feeling. That it would take me away. That I would let it. This was the power of the XA. This was the power of their mysticism, and I know today that one can believe in many such things and still achieve the same sensation. Faith is the beautiful symptom of having something to believe in. Yet to this day I still do not know whether it is something created by man or something gifted by a divine force – that there may be an ultimate being that pursues its directive by extending gifts of faith to its subordinates – and if the latter were true, then in what did it believe? In what did it base its own faith, its affiliation – light or dark? Did it even care for us? I did not know – these were questions for my later years, my years now… But in that moment when I felt such power, all I knew was a grey kind of blur – an untelling bright light that would protect me; it was not deviant, but it was not warm either. That was the faith of the XA – or at least my experience of it…
I heard a voice shout out; it cut through this ever-night. It was Law. He felt so far away and he was. I screamed back to him, but my voice was muffled by the darkness. I screamed again, and my words came with all the candour of a friendly conversation. A third time I screamed, and I had worked up such a rage by now that my words ripped right out of my mouth, shredding my throat with vibrations most painful. I heard the single word echo remorselessly, “Law. Law. Law…”
Moments later, I heard my own name flying about; it assaulted me in this strange realm. “Orpheus!” The voice had a hopeful inflexion, yet then my name came again and this time with terror. “Orpheus! OR-ph-eus!” My heart stopped still. Such a mutilated, broken up sound. My friend. Oh, my friend! It was happening again…
My head broke into a run, and my legs followed behind. I hit a wall; no, a pillar; a timeless thing – with a collective of powerful figures etched into the base. My eyes found it wonderous and I felt a great power touch me. My hands caressed its smooth skin of stone and sharp electric needles began to heckle up my arms. Yet my mind began to sprint again, leaving my hands in the darkness; it followed the gargling sounds that bit into my heart. I was guided by nothing more than the sensation of the light that had enveloped me.
I clawed through the dark to find my friend writhing on the volcanic-black dirt. He was choking. No. He was being choked. I saw that despicable son of a Goldenfel tier one.
“What you gonna do skinny boy?”
My lips did not even move for him. I felt a gun in my hand. I lined it up with his skull and fired. There was a colossal explosion, but I did not hear it; I simply watched in a twisted torpor as half of the boy’s face slowly disintegrated into thin air. What remained carelessly leaked out into the open. Half a brain fell to the ground in a gruelling squelch. Then the entire body faded away – as if it were nothing. Yet my mind was branded otherwise.
“Law – Law, are you alright?” I breathed.
My friend took my arm. “I – I’m fine. He just – appeared – out of nowhere – and he was on top of me.”
“Why? Why would this happen again?”
“Must be – the will of – the universe!” Law struggled to say. He was in no pain, but breathless still, because he had already experienced the pain of this situation, and so had I.
I looked at him with dark eyes. “I suppose it must be.” My head fell to my chest; I listened to the slow beat of my heart. “Do you feel that? This sensation – so strong – bright – harsh…”
“I feel it, Orpheus! Like – like we are… powerful but fragile. Like we are holding up the sky, but it can come crashing down at any moment. Like we rule the stars, but don’t know our way around them.”
“That’s it. I don’t know what it is, Law. I don’t even know if it can be trusted! It’s like it soothes me, but what if this is a test? What if this feeling makes us complacent – comfortable? What if we need to keep our wits from this ethereal soothsayer?”
“Perhaps, that is the danger! What if this feeling is a great tool, but dangerous for those who follow it blindly? We can use our wit to temper it.”
“That’s wise, yes… and we need to stick together. Let’s get out of here.”
So, we walked this labyrinth, and I remember that we were both scared – a fear, it was a terrifying fear – enough to turn us to stone. We followed the sensation that we shared and we did question it, but it never once threatened us; it led us to where we needed to be, and we saw many sights and many other initiates; they were all stuck somehow or other – taunted by demons of their own making. A girl stood panic-stricken. A large man loomed above her. “You don’t make it here. You’re coming straight back to me.” Then later we saw a younger boy, sitting in the middle of a thousand mirrors; he was bound by his own reflection.
“So, these are the demons that home themselves inside our minds,” I whispered. “But, Law, was that really your demon – back there?”
My friend looked back at me with surprise. He thought to himself and then his words unravelled, “No. I’ve been through far worse things than that…”
“Do you want to talk about it…?”
He looked to me again – this time, as if he were burrowing deep into my soul… “You know – it’s hard being a no-tier; survival fits between fulfilling a quota and braving the elements. In other words, both society and the natural world try to kill us the same. My uncle! One bad harvest – not enough grain – and the gentry, the tier fives that owned his land, accused him of hoarding and then took away his farm… He died three weeks later; his body was eaten not by wolves, but by the rest of the villagers, who had too failed upon the harvest.”
I looked to Law as if I had just awoken from the grave. “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing that I had no means to understand the pain he felt; I felt selfish in a way – that it was impossible for me to feel as sorry as he.
Yet my friend continued and his voice began to strain, “It doesn’t stop there! His children – my cousins. They came to stay with us. Now, they had lived on the other side of the Granary Mountains, so they weren’t used to the weather on our side – the suns barely rise above the mountains in winter… and so, when winter did hit, well, the food stores were running low – nearly empty… My mother told me to take the young ones to the lake – lake Fairfield—”
“I know that lake – I used to go there on… vacation.”
“Well, not in the winter…” Law looked away; when his eyes had returned to mine, they were red and sore and dripping. “I took them out – to the middle of the lake – told them that they had to bathe, my mother would be angry if they did not…”
“Law…?” My voice croaked.
“I never saw them again… Now, I can tell myself, my mother told me to do it – that we would have starved otherwise – but it was me – I did it – and nothing will ever make that right.” Law wiped his face and then looked back at me with a distorted smile. “How about you, wise Orpheus? What are your demons?”
My heart turned cold and I felt a strange kind of fear creep over me. My voice was but a whisper, “I haven’t – I haven’t met them yet!”
We carried on walking; I think that Law had feared that I would become disgusted with him. But I felt only closer – like our bond had been quenched somehow. My younger self did not blame him then and I still do not blame him now. For when the dark times of my own making came to afflict the Galaxy, I saw just how delicate the ideal of humanity could be. For when society falls, humanity suddenly becomes human and every person must live for themselves or face ruin. To this day I still wonder when the darkness will pass – if we will ever heal our great division – but the universe threw me into the fire and now the smoke becomes darker and darker. But back then, I simply stared at Law like an innocent lamb before the Goldenfel harvest, choosing to trust him and accept him, because he was a friend and I needed him.
In time this strange place began to change; it became clearer to the eye, but far more twisted to the mind – a labyrinth.
“That feeling,” I said.
“It’s back again,” Law replied.
“Should we follow it?”
Path after path we walked, deliberating and then deciding, stopping and then turning back, before selecting a different route. I must admit – this sensation did little to guide us, but I think I began to realise that its true power was not that it would aid our journey but simply that it would see us to our destination. Its gift was hope!
Yet then we made one turn and suddenly the entire labyrinth fell into a beautiful winter’s day. Steam rose from a lake like a deity’s breath and the three suns hid behind the mountains tall. Their light flooded over the peaks, and set the dark clouds aflame; they burnt a smoky ochre. But then there was a boat; it floated towards us; it was upturned.
Law fell to his knees before frantically crawling into the water and towards the boat.
“Law, don’t!” I shouted. “It’s not real. It will only trap you here. You will be like the others!”
Yet his mind would not listen; he rocked the boat over and gasped. I saw the back of his neck turn as white as the distant mountain snow. I rushed to his side and saw three small faces staring back at me – from beneath the water – their mouths disfigured and writhing like worms, “Why? Why? Why?”
“Law. Law! It’s not real. They’re not real.”
My friend turned around; his head hung dead like an anchor. “What I did – that was real.” His face sank further towards the water, cold; he was stuck; I was losing him.
“But you were just a child, as they were. Your elders made you do this; your situation made you do this – the damned hierarchy of this planet. You told me, in the other village they resorted to cannibalism; at the very least, you spared their dignity. Some things in this world are worse than death; you chose to spare them from suffering, from dishonour, and you chose to endure the pain that that would bring you. I cannot even begin to imagine that pain! My whole life, I have known nothing but comfort and I – I am sorry… I am sorry that I don’t know how you feel. I wish I knew how to make it better but I don’t believe that anything ever will… I am sorry.”
I put my hand on his shoulder as he put his hand into the water and closed the eyes of the fallen – forevermore.
The visage of the lake faded into the darkness of the labyrinth and to my disbelief, a sense of comfort returned with this inky black realm. The horror of life was horror quite complete.
We walked on; Law was silent throughout the rest of the labyrinth. I had no idea that his life had been so arduous – so tied to survival, in every sense of the word. I had no idea that Goldenfel even had such poverty; I knew it was in a feudal way, but it was still one of the key worlds of influence. That meant that it was not just Goldenfel’s doing, but the entirety of the Communion that allowed for such depraved living. To think that the largest planet in the grain belt had its own citizens feasting on each other, just so that the rest of the galaxy could eat. It made me sick. It made me sick to think that I had been born into the same echelon that had devastated Law’s family.
One day – one day, they would be made to atone. That thought was born there and then with my child’s mind; it was the first sign that my excitable ambition was changing – into something else entirely. And I can tell you now; that day of reckoning had come and gone, and another one was now patiently awaiting us all…
Eventually, we came to a wide hollow and the labyrinth departed into the heavens, and the stars in their plenty scorned down upon us like lustreless zircons. Their dim light fell upon the surface of this realm. The ground was ashen and windswept, but there was no wind. There were plants and pockets of grass, but no water nor creatures – all save for one.
A midnight beast sat upon the ash land; all but his eyes stood out, and like two bright and silver moons they glared at us. We approached him with a sluggish haste. Steam rose from his nostrils which flared with our every step.
“How do we get out of here?” I called to him softly.
Silence returned.
“Perhaps the beast is mute,” Law said cautiously. “Perhaps, it is but that – a beast!”
Yet then the land began to shake and stir; a heavy rumble resounded in the ground. The beast rose tall from its rest and speared itself upright with two great hooves. It stabbed itself closer, and I saw that it had a set of steely horns, which protruded ahead of its face and collected the leftover glimmer of those murder bright eyes. The thing unlocked its jaws and I stared into its inners; truthfully, I awaited my end. Yet all that came was a low resonance – a vibration upon this hollow. I felt it everywhere and it soon projected itself into a voice – the voice of the creature. It spoke not with the air of its own breath but with the air all around us. “I am the Taurus.” The words impacted my chest; I heard them with my entire being.
“What – what is Taurus?” I asked as I looked over to Law – his one eye in wonder – with disgust in the other.
The creature came again, “I am but the hand of a celestial clockface. I am the Taurus. I know the way of the stars – in between and beyond. I know of the will but I do not know what it entails. I know that destiny is a lie; there is only change – sped along by the impact of every individual. I wait here for the one who will change everything! Now, tell me, children; what demons did you face? Tell me, and I will send you away to your fathers.”
Law looked to me and then spoke up; he bitterly retold his woeful tale and what had been done to escape its hold in the labyrinth. The beast folded his long arms, warming himself almost – the horror – the turmoil – the suffering; he savoured it all. Then when my friend had finished, those two shimmering eyes beamed to me and I found myself flustered in their light.
“I – I did not have a demon.”
The realm roared back at me and the entire plane shook heavy with laughter. “Child! Do not worry yourself – I am not here to cast judgement over you. I have waited here for millennia; your stories satisfy me – help me pass the centuries – that is all. Now, tell me; what demon awaited you?”
I looked up – dead into the beast’s right eye – the beast who was still laughing at me – like an old man laughing at a boy. “I told you; I did not have a demon. I am sorry!”
And just like that, the laughter halted. The beast stabbed its hooves closer to me and he sunk his head to mine, barely missing me with his horns. His eyes scolded me, and the hairs upon his face prickled in a hideous delight. “Do not jest with me,” he hissed.
“I tell you the truth. Nothing awaited me in your labyrinth.”
The beast growled and I stood still, transfixed in terror, as a set of ancient claws silently scraped up my neck and then under my chin and onto my face; I felt them draw pale scratches into my skin as they sliced slowly upwards – towards my forehead. Then in an instant, I felt the beast plunge its elongated death makers into my skull as if my bones had all the permeability of water. My entire body became stiff and lifeless and I saw but a bright white light. The Taurus had entered my mind.
I felt the beast rushing about like a wild river’s rapids under a black storm. He searched and he saw. My entire life flashed before me – too fast to even remember – from my birth to the end of my days. All I retained was a pure sense of horrific excitable terror. The Taurus left me…
Slumped on the ground, my consciousness returned. Law held me and was shouting at the monster, “What did you do? What did you do to him?”
I crawled to my knees; my head was devastated. The beast had his back to us, but his hooves were all jittery and his neck would twist back every now and then, and I would see a slither of those silver orbs staring at me. I opened my mouth. “What – did you – see?” I managed to gasp.
The thing finally faced us again and there was a clear sheen of madness upon his twisted face. A hot fountain of steam released itself from his airways, and he snorted thrice – angrily – furiously – most amiably; and then… he was gone… and the realm appeared a little brighter.
A set of bright stars appeared in the heavens above. The beast, in all his splendour, had ascended to the sky – perhaps, to finally watch the chaos unfold – the drama that he had, for so long, awaited.
The Taurus would bear witness to all the years of my life – those that I currently recall – and then the rest of them, unknown.
Yet then with the beast’s departure, the realm was damaged – unbalanced; it began to fall apart. The black sands whipped up around us and the desert dunes took to the sky, dimming all in the heavens, save from the Taurus. He remained, and his form pulsated violently. And Law and I soon began to lose our placement in this realm; I felt weak; I watched his eyes close; I fell to my knees and looked across to the ends of this hollow, where the labyrinth was fast disappearing beneath the rising tide of ashen sand. Law bled into the ground and I felt my mind collapse. Screams resounded around us. Real screams…
My head woke up. My eyes were still closed, but I felt my fingers twitch. I felt another hand moving, and yet another hand dead still – and cold – and sweaty. My heart shuddered and I leapt from my rest. The circle was broken.
Law too came away and we watched the rest of the initiates; they looked so cold and pale; their hands were fastened together as if in some kind of death grip. The one master greeted us; he slowly brought his translucent arm to each of our shoulders. “Orpheus. Law,” he said as the other master – the sterner master – crouched by the break in the circle and re-joined the initiates’ hands. “You two left the labyrinth together – in an outstanding time, I must say… far beyond what I have seen in the past. You are gifted – both of you. Now, please, you must be tired. Come with me!”
We followed the flowing white robes of the master, and soon we found ourselves on the highest floor of the centre, looking out to the emerald mires of southern Goldenfel – an untouched, desolate land – another world. We sat at a couch that was made from the stained hides of local creatures, and we warmed our cold hands with the grip of a steaming cup of fill. Its scent surprised me. It took me back three thousand miles – to home; and I remember thinking of those small comforts – that any place could be made home. Even if they killed the civilian in me, I would always appreciate these little things – the mundane things that made me human.
Yet it was not long before the impending question came knocking – my heart beneath my ribs. I looked to the master and he looked back with kind eyes. “Orpheus?” he asked.
“What about the other initiates?” I replied, looking to Law, who then joined me.
“They looked… deathly!” he said.
The master raised his hand and smiled. “Do not worry. They will be fine; the dust is harmless when applied correctly. It has been used for thousands of years, and it can only feed on the demons that you already have. It may well open a wound, but in many cases, one returns with a scar, healed. The dust is a blessing; those who return in good time will be stronger than when they left—”
“But I don’t think that it was normal this time!” I breathed.
The master’s smile turned into a concerned frown. “How do you mean?”
“I did not have a demon.”
The master’s face almost fell apart – into disarray. “That’s impossible. No one can escape the horrors inside their mind; and no one is without such horrors, either.”
“The Taurus!” I breathed again, and the master recoiled thinly at the name – taken aback. “He told me that he had been waiting for millennia – for the one that would change everything. He went inside my mind – he saw all my years – and then – he – he left. He took to the sky and left the realm behind. There were – there were screams…! And the labyrinth – it was falling apart—”
The master turned to nothing; he looked out of the window – across the mires and to the mountains north of us, and then I saw the furrowed lines ensue, racing across his face; the blood pounded in his neck and he dipped his chin into either a prayer or a curse. “Come with me!”
The sound of our boots thundered down the corridor. Law and I struggled to match the powerful stride of the tall and dominant XA; his robes moved now with all the fury of whips or flailing serpents.
“Should I get the army doctor?” Law said in a panic.
The master shifted his neck and denied my friend with the flick of his head. “No – no; he won’t be able to help.”
Then I watched as the slight orange glow in the master’s right arm burnt into a very sudden and bloody red. It began to vibrate and the very outline of his skin became distorted. He put his hand to his ear and listened to a phantom vibration, before he shouted into his arm, “Kill the dust – NOW!”
The circle was now a morbid mess – bodies as white as the pure robes of the XA. Spluttering. Choking. A feast of death was about to begin. The stern master was ever sterner now, but there was something new – a humanity not seen before; he wore it on his face even bolder than his once lighter counterpart. I watched as he hastily crafted a concoction of the dust and another oily substance, before smearing it on the face of the youngest initiate and tearing him free from the circle. Then he rushed back and closed the gap once again – hand in hand – before finding the next youngest to repeat the process.
We were quickly shown what to do, and Law and I began wiping the substance on the initiates, breaking them free, and re-joining the rest. Our pace was sluggish – terrifyingly slow. I remember the pure fear of not knowing whether I was doing right or wrong – more harm than good. It got to a point where we did make a mistake; we left the circle apart for too long; we were fussing to get more of the substance. But the death croaks and gargles were alarms to the XA who both halted and raced to us, chaining the hands back together, but the damage had been done and a guttural terror returned to haunt us. The master, who saw us down, shouted at us, “Tend to those two. We will deal with the circle!”
So, Law and I held the heads of the two initiates that we had left apart. I watched in horror as the blood vessels of my patient turned a morbid grey and began to spiral out of control. She started to cough and then splutter; in a sudden convulsion, she parted her mouth and then released a sea of black vomit. It burnt across my hands and into the once stainless wooden floor. It smelt sickly, but almost metallic too; I looked to Law who was now kneeling in the mess. His face was grim – as was mine. He had automatically brought his initiate’s neck down in anticipation for the worst, but his did not unfurl. I simply saw a rapid and intense sweat emerge – and a foam at the mouth. We were lost for words – we did not know what to do – we had only one vocalisation – “Help… Help us!”
The stern master came in an instant; he smeared the two in our arms and broke them free. He then hissed a directive into his burning arm, before turning back to us. “Go with the army doctor; help him.”
The circle was re-joined. There were ten initiates left by the time the doctor burst into the hall with his team of medics, but as we departed, I saw that the two XA were quickly losing their collected nature. I heard their voices turn to thunder as we ran to the sickbay, and I knew that the situation was becoming far graver.
After an hour of constant battle, the doctors had managed to stabilise the two initiates, and one by one more initiates were escorted our way. The first were able to walk themselves, but as time went on the initiates became increasingly weak, with the last few being rolled in on stretchers – unconscious. But there were still four missing, and I remember thinking that the time between each of the arrivals to the sickbay was growing longer and longer. On the third hour, all had returned – but one.
Law and I found out when we were told to check on the XA. We entered the hall quietly to find the stern master on his knees – with the icy face of an older boy resting on his lap, staring back up to him – dead… The other master, who had once appeared to be the calmer of the two, now stood tall and angry; “He was strong in the will of the universe; stronger than the other ones – the ones that you chose to save first.”
“They were children – young children,” he hissed, looking up in disgust; his strict face rebelled. “They couldn’t have known the danger. The older ones… they know! They know what they are signing up for. We shouldn’t even open our doors to such youth!”
“It is the will, Dante!” A hiss of restrained anger contaminated the room.
Yet this other master now revealed to me as Dante – now he too was furious. He set down the boy and closed his eyes with a trembling hand. He slowly rose to his feet – to match the stature of his counterpart. “The will of who?” he growled. “The will of the universe, or the will of the XA?”
“ENOUGH!”
“Because I am beginning to wonder which is which!”
Dante knelt down again and hid his face beneath his hood; he picked up the boy and made the long walk out of this wide hall – his white robes pure no longer – stained with the dark specks of bile and blood.
The other master caught our eyes and lamented under his breath. He swiftly saw us back to the top of the centre, where we made our rest – or tried to, at the least.