Chapter 33
Present Aeon
Lila’s scrap of parchment rested on the table. Her work cooled, unfinished, on the anvil. She always left something with him, but never herself.
Luc didn’t know why he’d thought this time would be different.
He took a deep breath, as if doing so would expel her from his lungs.
So he was truly alone. No matter.
He’d always been alone, more or less. Alone in his ideas and his passions. Alone in his visions of what could be. Alone because he’d been brought up that way. Or because something inside him was cursed. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.
Because Luc did his best work alone. He did his best thinking alone, staring out into the Void. And as soon as he finished this sword, he would take whatever he wanted and go wherever he wanted and create whatever he wanted alone.
Nevertheless, Luc snatched up Lila’s parchment and studied it: the straight, uniform sketch and her artisan signature, unchanged in the past aeon. He stuffed the design in his pocket next to her old carpentry pin and the crystal containing her vision.
Luc didn’t know if he would return to his house once he left; he should take the essentials with him.
Eventually, Braun returned. In Luc’s workshop, he gaped in childish delight as Luc drew the finished sword. Taking the sword in hand, the student warrior inspected it, testing its balance and maneuverability.
Luc smiled, pleased to see the sword met with such awe.
“Its name is Alligare,” Luc informed the boy.
“Alligare,” Braun echoed, holding the blade up for closer inspection. “What does it mean?” He glanced at Luc.
“To bind.”
“To bind what?”
“That will be determined by its user.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll show you something special about this sword, but for that, we’ll have to leave this place.” Luc cast Braun a meaningful look.
“Oh.” The boy lowered the sword. “I see, sir. Um, I’m not sure—”
“Come now.” Luc snatched the sword from him. “You said yourself that I don’t deserve to be here.”
“Well, yes, sir. But perhaps we should wait for Michael to send for you. Then we can make your case—”
“Braun, you saw the humans when you went to Earth, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, well, what you don’t know is that Michael has me locked up in here because of them.
Because he’s afraid of what will happen to Heaven now that the Creator has these other creatures to attend to.
” Luc let that sink in, then continued, “Michael won’t care to listen to me right now, but that sword you’re holding is the solution to his problem.
It has special protective properties, but I need to test it first, so will you help me leave this place or not? Do I need to explain myself further?”
As Luc spoke, Braun’s eyes grew wide, and when he’d finished, the young warrior babbled, “Of course not, Master Lucifer. You need explain nothing to me, sir. I’m just a student, sir. I’ll help you right away, sir.”
“Very well. Then come with me.” Luc swept out of the study, sword in hand, a white linen traveling pouch at his side and his cloak drawn over his head to hide his distinctive hair.
The domed barrier around his house remained, shimmering in the aether. Luc waited until the nearby path was deserted, then slashed at it, certain that if anything could free him, his newly invented sword would.
He was wrong. If anything, he crashed into the outer wall of his house with more force than before, and when he rose, he saw that he’d cracked the stone.
“You can’t break through it that way, sir.”
“Obviously,” Luc bit out. Noting the seriousness in Braun’s face, he asked, “Have you seen this before?”
“Only once, sir.” Braun scratched his head; his hair spilled out of its knot as sloppily as ever. “We had a demonstration during lessons. It’s supposed to be a stronger protective field to repel the darkness. I’m not sure why it’s working on you.”
“Well, how can it be removed?”
Braun frowned.
“I don’t think it can, sir.”
“Every material has a weak point. Think. What did you see during the demonstration?”
Braun padded over to the barrier and studied it, glancing from top to bottom.
“I think…”
“Yes? What is it?”
“I remember how the barrier was formed. There was a crystal, and the instructor held it over—”
“A flame?”
Braun spun around.
“How did you know?”
“Never mind that. Is there a crystal here?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve walked the perimeter. I didn’t see anything like that.”
“Well, what did the instructor say?”
“What do you mean?”
“When the barrier was formed. Were there any words—”
“Oh, yes, sir! I remember now. Um, it was that phrase you see everywhere.”
“Ex nihilo aliquid?”
“Yes! That’s it!”
Luc ran his tongue over his teeth. He had a thought.
“Fetch me a candle.”
“Sir?”
Luc shot him a cutting glance, and Braun rushed inside.
“Yes, sir!” he called out, reappearing moments later with Luc’s request. The student warrior lit the candle, then placed it in Luc’s outstretched hand.
Luc produced Lila’s crystal from his pocket.
He had no time to waste, but he wasted time studying it anyway.
It occurred to him that he might never see Lila again, and the crystal held the only image he’d have of her, save the ones in his mind.
Could he really risk destroying it? He didn’t know what the barrier would do.
And yet, he had no other crystal, no other method for leaving. And he had to leave. Right then, or perhaps never.
Luc swallowed.
Why was he still thinking about her? Why did he care? She didn’t.
At any moment, someone could walk by and spot him outside his house.
Before his weaker emotions got the better of him, he thrust the crystal over the candle and muttered, “Ex aliqua re nihil,” reversing the phrase.
He’d expected the incantation to work—possibly—but he hadn’t expected it to work so quickly. One moment the barrier was there, and the next it had been sucked into the crystal, evaporating in a burst of light.
“Whoa!” Braun stared at the crystal, his mouth agape.
“No time for that.” Luc pushed him forward into the clear aether, checking that there was still no one in the vicinity.
As one, they slipped around the backside of Braun’s house, then around the next house, then the next.
When they’d traveled far enough from the scene, toward the heart of the Artisanal Courtyard where traffic was thinner than it was near the Great Hall, they took to the aether above for the last leg of their journey.
The Void was as Luc had left it, and the watchtowers were, thankfully, still empty in that deserted part of Heaven. Luc and Braun dropped down by the obelisk and approached the edge of the Void, though Braun hung behind Luc, hesitant despite his training.
Meanwhile, Luc approached the Void as if it were an old friend, and perhaps it was. The type of friend that necessarily had to be an enemy.
Braun had a practice sword with him, and this Luc used to make his initial strike into the darkness.
It had been over an aeon and a half since Luc had learned basic sword fighting.
All the students were required to take beginners’ courses for defensive purposes, but only a certain number of angels became warriors.
Luc was out of practice, but due to his smithing projects, he remembered his basic attack and defensive maneuvers.
As he struck it, the Void groaned, and where there had been utter stillness, billows of dark gas swirled around the outside of Heaven’s protective dome, trying to break through it.
A few wisps managed, and Luc blocked those, dispersing them into the aether where they vanished with a crackle and a spark of light.
His muscle memory returning, he struck again in the same spot, and some swirling gas outside of the dome dispersed also—Luc remembered learning that the Void was weaker when in motion.
Still, he could only drive back so much of the dark matter at one time. There were limits to what a single warrior with one sword could do.
Stepping away, he set the practice sword aside and unsheathed his experimental sword. Hoping against hope that the Void would not render his entire project useless by devouring the sword immediately, Luc took a breath and lashed out at it.
Where the Void had groaned before, it now roared, and for a moment, Luc feared he’d made a dreadful mistake.
But instead of billowing in a heightened rage against the protective dome, the dark mist fell back; it parted where Luc’s sword had been, folding away from the blade instead of rushing toward it.
He swung his sword a second time, and the darkness spilled away like one of Earth’s tides returning to its ocean.
In the Void’s wake, only light remained: a small space of empty white.
Luc produced a piece of quartz from his pocket and a small set of tongs. He held the quartz out into the light to see if it would vanish, but it did not, suggesting that the darkness had completely fled that space.
It was as Luc had predicted—when combined, the properties of os lucis and the Void were far more powerful than they could be alone.
“Is that…” Braun ventured. “The Void…it’s gone! It’s going away!”
“Indeed, it is.” Luc smiled. “We must test it further.”
Boldly stepping through the barrier, Luc spread his wings and hung in the non-aether, surveying the white path he’d cut through the Void. Already, the Void was swallowing it up again, but if only he were to make it larger…
Luc struck out again. And again. And again. The Void growled, but relented, scurrying back at his command.
“Braun.” Luc held out his hand. “Come. We’re going to Earth.”
“Earth?” Braun surveyed the path Luc had created with nervous amazement.
“There’s something else I need to test. Are you coming with me?”
“Um…”
“Or do you prefer to wait around for them to realize I’ve escaped?”
“Yes, sir…I-I mean no, sir. I mean…” Braun inhaled, appearing to gather his courage.
“I’m coming, sir!” he replied, taking one tentative step out of the barrier, then another.
His wings unfurled, and when he was also hovering in the midst of the darkness, a grin broke across his face. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “This is amazing!”
“You can be amazed as we go. Now come on.” Luc waved him over. Despite himself, he smiled as he turned back to his task.
He would miss the young warrior when he left.