2. Zariel
Chapter two
Zariel
W hy couldn’t I be left alone?
I was in our library in the Ashen Mountain, in one of the upper rooms with restricted access. It was a place where one expected peace and quiet. No, demanded it, in order for us to complete our tasks. The silver stone ceiling carved with eyes and feathers and covered with white crystalized ash hovered far above us, as if the mountain itself were watching our work and making sure we performed it to the expected perfection.
Though, apparently, silence was too much to ask for.
I was finishing the last flourishes of a document we were to give to the humans at the summit tomorrow when Cael strode up to me, his own completed documents in hand and a swagger in his wings that was mirrored by his long brown hair. Even his position as the High Artist’s son and expected heir didn’t excuse him from mundane tasks—we expected competence and dedication, no matter one’s origins. Cael plopped the documents on my worn wooden desk with an exaggerated grunt, more fitting of a training yard than these staid halls.
“I’m finished,” he said, crossing his arms and giving me a satisfied smirk. “Twenty-five pages detailing the weather patterns of the Glass Plains. What the humans plan on doing with this, I have no idea. It’s not like they’ll ever go there. Luckily it was mostly diagrams, and simple ones. What are you working on?”
“A bestiary,” I said, finishing off a sentence with an unnecessary flourish and scratch from my pen. “The humans wanted information on all the creatures possible, and gave us a list. Probably to help identify who else came here. So”?I waved my hand over the papers?“this is part of a bestiary. A portion of what I was able to translate. With some parts I was able to guess the word based on my memory of the creature, so at a minimum it’s accurate in spirit.”
“You’re abnormally good at this. The translating.” He shook his head. “At least your work makes more sense than mine—poetry.”
“You just said you translated weather patterns.”
“That was today. Father had me working on poetry most of the week before this. I think the weather patterns were supposed to be a consolation for what I endured. ”
I grimaced. Poetry? Suddenly I was glad that I was transcribing records of gnomes’ mating cycles and their rather unfortunate obsession with mushrooms. Angelic poetry tended to be singularly painful to listen to, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had always been that way. When we left our world, our language shifted to match the dominant local human language, but our written language stayed the same. Our library of archaic and almost indecipherable scripts was the first sign that anything had changed. In the years since we arrived, we managed to make excellent progress translating the documents in this library to a language we could understand—working off documents that we had committed to memory before the worlds shifted and using that to rebuild a key with which we re-learned our own language, as well as others from our original world. Our task was more than mere copying—it was translating and transcribing two copies, one for the humans and one for us to take back to our world, where we would want these translations to add to our vault of knowledge. If we ever returned there.
We had spent many months, especially in the beginning, wondering how it was that the language shifted but nothing else about us had. Some speculated that the language shift was an effect from being in a new world with a new physical makeup. Others speculated that it was magic. And then someone disturbingly suggested that perhaps our language wasn’t the only thing that changed and that our memories of our home were compromised, which ended the matter entirely. No one wanted to think of that possibility. Without additional discussion, we had accepted that this was simply how things were, and not the possibility that we didn’t truly remember where we came from. Or who we had left behind. When parts of our world came here, it meant, necessarily, that the rest of our home did not. Perhaps we merely exchanged places—we had kept our mountain, while back home our people suddenly acquired an unusually manicured field.
But in the meantime, these pointless translations would buy us supplies and consequently the time for us to complete our actual research—how to go home.
“Did you manage to replace your work?” Cael asked quietly, watching the angels around us.
“Yes. I managed.” I eyed a discarded pile of parchment in the corner, trying not to grimace. An Artist, a supervisor of sorts, named Gadriel had an “accident” on my desk with an inkwell, making me have to re-do a whole day’s work in a single evening. It wasn’t the first time he was clumsy near me.
“You should apply to be an Artist,” he said. “These situations would stop, if you were one of them.”
“I’d never get accepted.” I met his gaze. “You know this.” In my case, it didn’t matter how long I had been in the library or what I had accomplished before and since being here. It didn’t matter that I was getting the reputation of being able to solve translations no one else could. I had my positions as a lowly scribe or archivist as the library demanded, and that was all I was going to have. I was content. For now.
“It’s a waste—”
“ This is a waste—of time,” I said quietly, hoping that the other scribes wouldn’t be able to hear over their scratching pens. Cael was the High Artist’s son, but that didn’t mean the other scribes wouldn’t take a chance to curry favor by reporting anything compromising. I surveyed the hall, the angels of all ages and genders bowing and scraping their pens against papers. In this hall alone there were four rows of ten angels each, and we were trained to produce documents quickly and accurately. We had prepared from adolescence to compete for the chance to serve the library, our bodies themselves crafted to assist us in the pursuit of knowledge. We were trained for far more than working for humans. “We should be searching for a way home,” I added, “not bartering with knowledge they do not need.”
Cael shrugged. As my oldest friend in the Ashen Mountain, he was used to my stewing. And knew better than to indulge it. “We need supplies,” Cael said. “While we have stores—”
“—We don’t know how long we will be here, and they are a precious resource, dwindling by the day,” I said, finishing the Artists’ common refrain. I closed my eyes momentarily, hoping to contain my frustration. The fact that the thousands of us had survived within this mountain for over five years was due to its vast storage rooms, since this place was equipped to be defended against a siege. Though being able to survive didn’t mean that the food was good. Of course, the elite Artists had access to produce from a small garden, orchard, and chicken coop that was located on the higher levels. I was not elite.
“Aren’t you getting tired of gruel?” Cael asked.
“We’ll never have to eat that mush again once we return home.”
Cael paused. “Unfortunately, that isn’t an option. And you know as well as I that if we no longer have our stores, the ones below will be the first to lose their meals.” He levied a heavy gaze at me, one with so much history and understanding.
“I know,” I said. For her. I had to hope the summit succeeded for her .
My sister, Aniela, was below, in the prison that made up the lowest levels of the mountain. When the worlds shifted, we angels didn’t take our palaces or cities with us. No—what was left of our world was merely the Ashen Mountain, which was one of two libraries that both served as a prison and prized library for our people. Prisoners and books both needed guards, and by having them in the same place, only one set of guards was needed. This was the treasure of our people—our knowledge. The scholars, librarians, and scribes conducted their work in the voluminous halls above the base of the mountain’s interior, while the imprisoned languished below ground, never to see the light .
It was a bit of irony—I had spent almost the entirety of the nearly three decades of my life fighting for a place in the Ashen Mountain’s library. From the moment I could grip, I was handed a pen while our lore was whispered into my ears. I had undergone brutal rituals that had twisted my mind and body, all to enable me to serve the mountain. Now I wanted nothing more than to return home so that I would have a chance to leave, to have a life that wasn’t just this .
My stomach wrenched in a familiar knot, thinking of my beautiful sister in that pit of darkness. I visited her when I could, but due to my position in the library and hers as a notorious criminal, there wasn’t much I could do. Even when we returned home, there would be little I could do, except to petition for her to be confined to a more comfortable prison. The cost would likely be magic that connected her behavior to my life, but I would pay it. Or someone in my family would. Once Father heard what happened to her, he’d fix this. He had to. He would do something . He was the High Artist’s friend. Surely, something would be able to be done.
At least the High Artist let Aniela keep her feathers and not make her endure each of them being plucked every month. A small mercy to spare her that shame and pain.
Unfortunately, confinement in the Ashen Mountain’s prison was what happened when one tried to kill the High Artist. She was guilty and admitted it—she told me so herself. But the excuse she gave rang hollow to me—that she was jealous, that she was angry at being denied a promotion. Promotions were everything here, but for her to try to kill … I blinked. There was no point in ruminating over the same thing that I had for the last three years. She had told me the same story many times, even when I begged her to tell me anything that explained why she had done this.
Anything other than that .
It didn’t make sense, but I received no other explanation. No matter how many times I asked.
I shifted in the chair, and my metal-touched wings grazed the ground. The runes on my stomach burned just enough to irritate, as they had been doing lately. The runes gave us our magic and let us dwell in a land of ash, but the cost could be pain. If this kept up, I’d have to ask a healer, or … something.
What was the magic trying to say or do by burning so? Was there anything, or was it nothing at all, something that was merely a consequence of the magic binding with our bodies? A binding that was paid in blood. The irritations usually only happened at times that made sense, such as when our magic was being used.
To obtain one of the runes, I had consumed the fresh blood of a condemned glawakus, a creature that absorbs memories with a look. As such, my memory was impeccable, to the point that I could recall the creature’s sticky, tangy blood perfectly. Was that why the runes were burning today, because I was searching my memory and using my magic to translate ?
This part of the library was a cavern of stone that carried a dim reflection, as if the hall was made of muted mirrors. Lights from oil lamps that were encased in thick protective glass and iron gates were placed on stands around the room, illuminating the dozens of scribes working on the finishing touches for tomorrow. It had taken months for us to come to an agreement with the humans about what documents they would receive. We needed this summit to go well. Stern librarians roamed the aisles, watching that the precious papers were treated with the care they deserved.
“Are you going tomorrow?” Cael asked me. Ah, that’s why he was still here, lurking next to me.
“Apparently,” I said. I never argued with the Artists. The fact that my sister was a traitor was enough to put me under suspicion, even though I was careful never to step out of line. If the Artists wanted me to go tomorrow, I would.
“You don’t seem excited.”
“Why should I be? They’re humans. I’d rather spend the day flying.” The mountain’s exterior was a marvel of pine trees, snow, and ash, even in this new world—the outside was so different from the oppressive rock of the mountain’s interior. With the ashen clouds hiding us, it was possible for us to soar and forget that we were far from home. At least for a little while. When the Artists didn’t forbid us, for reasons of their own.
“Wouldn’t we all.” Cael sighed. “But you know the Artists respect you. ”
“Hardly.”
“They do.” He swallowed. “If it wasn’t for … the circumstances, you would be an Artist by now.”
“I’m glad to have your confidence.” No matter that there was no point in wondering if there was truth to it.
“Aren’t you a spark of brightness.” Cael turned to leave but didn’t actually take the steps to do so. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Try not to glower too much tomorrow. We don’t need the humans more afraid of us than they already are.”
“When they’re not trying to worship us.”
“Yes … that is unfortunate. And disturbing. We need to go home. That’s the only way you’re going to find a mate and some sort of life that isn’t here.” He lowered his voice even further. “It’s not like you’re going to find someone here.”
“A mate? I have other concerns.”
“And you’ll be able to help her ,” Cael whispered. “Once we’re home.” Cael, Aniela, and I grew up together. They were friends. And as Cael put it on more than one occasion, “My father can be a brutal prick.” He, too, thought that there had to be more behind Aniela’s motives, but neither of us could afford to discuss it.
“We first need to get home,” I repeated. “It’s the only way to fix things.”
“That’s what tomorrow is for. To give us time to do so. We need the humans.”
He was right. We needed the humans. And I hated it.
I nodded in agreement as Cael left me to my own devices .
What he said to me was ridiculous. A mate? We were trapped in another world and my sister was a prisoner, whose life was likely in danger—the prison wasn’t known for having residents with long lives. A mate was the last complication that I needed, and fortunately there was no such inconvenience for me in the Ashen Mountain. I was more concerned with staying alive. Besides, an angel had dozens of potential mates in the world, and it wasn’t like one wouldn’t be there when I was ready.
I turned my attention back to the document. I was almost done with the translation, but I was caught on the last sentence. This tedious work was a waste of time, though Cael was right—we needed the supplies. We needed the humans to give us paper and food. We needed them to keep holding us in distant awe.
And to do that, we needed to give them something they wanted.