As Balim came into view, the sun had already started to set. The rocking of the carriage on the dirt road caused small vibrations as I had my head pressed against the glass, gazing at the building. Looking at it now, I think it's much bigger than the imperial palace. As I gazed out towards it, the rocking slowed and stopped as the carriage halted. I lifted my head from the tracks and looked towards L, confused as to why we stopped here.
L stood up and left the carriage, turning to face Nigel and me from the doorway as the driver started to offload things from the roof. "Listen up, you two, we've all been here before, so you're going to pose as your usual selves, returning to study further, while I'll be your guard. So we'll have to leave our royal uniforms here and approach as little more than travellers."
L stepped back from the wagon, grabbed some luggage and placed it down on the grass. Nigel and I emerged from the wagon, removing our coats and tossing them back inside. L approached us with simple light brown cloaks and held them out to us. There were also travel packs on the floor for us that were half empty to make it look like we had walked here. We've indeed been here before, a few times, but when has L been here?
"Alright, so just like the last time, I'm a guard. Nothing more. Understood?"
Nigel and I nodded, wondering what he was talking about. L then raises his hand to his mask, gripping it and lifting it slightly, we both leaned in slightly, curious to see the face underneath. As he pulled off the mask, I remembered who he was; we had indeed seen his face before. L was Levi, the guard who first took us to Balim. It was him, there was no doubt.
"You punched me in the gut!" Nigel blurted loudly, stepping forward.
"You deserve it." Levi moved toward the luggage and rummaged through it, putting on a helmet and picking up a breastplate, the same one he had worn when he was posing as a border guard when we first met him.
"So, is your name actually Levi?"
Both Levi and Nigel's heads snapped in my direction. After a moment, Levi smiled. "I'm surprised you even remembered that, yes, that is my actual given name. Levi Katal specifically."
"Katal?" Nigel placed his hand to his chin in thought. Did he recognise the name perhaps?
"Yes. Katal." The driver came over and helped him lock his chestplate on as he put on some vambraces. "It's a Tahwili name. I come from the desert."
"The desert? Does that mean there really is a secret city there? Where do the best warriors in the world come from?"
Levi held his finger to his lips briefly before reaching down to pick up some boots. "Now, I don't need to tell you what will happen if you cannot keep my identity secret, right?"
The driver walked over, handing Levi a sword, looking back at us before walking away. The answer to his question was obvious, so neither of us had to answer. Once Levi was finished donning his costume, he looked exactly as he did when he escorted us to Balim the last time. With the travel packs slung over our backs, we headed off towards Balim, leaving the driver and carriage behind.
"Hey Levi, why were you at the border last time anyway?"
"It's that obvious? Because of you."
Me? I thought about asking more, but I already knew. Xudo said his spy network was vast; he probably learnt of me through the church from Josephine's report. He probably knew where I was in the Black Lands from that little show at the gate, maybe even the Ravens were in his pocket. He's been looming over me from the start? But why? Does he just want to use me as his attack dog? Or is there something else to it?
After a few more minutes of walking, we arrived at the front door to Balim. When knocking, though, there was no response. We waited a short while and knocked again to no response. I knew for a fact that the librarians didn't go to bed this early; usually, they would be preparing dinner just after sundown, and the main hall would still be full. Levi stared back at us, a scowl on his forehead as he was either confused or wondering what to do next. I stepped forward and banged hard on the door with one final, loud knock. Then, the door shifted. It was unlocked.
With a hefty push, the door groaned open, revealing the grand hall to be empty, utterly and completely. With trepidation, we stepped inside, calling out for someone to no response. We walked down the grand hall towards the far end. Even though it was empty, I couldn't help the creeping feeling that someone or something was watching us.
As we neared the far end, I kept glancing up towards the upper floors, looking for any movement or even a pair of eyes peering down at us from above. It was strange that this room was empty; someone had to have heard us and would have come down by now. The three of us stopped before the large door that led into the next chamber and would also lead upstairs to Rahǩãn's office.
"Well, new visitors are meant to go and visit Rahǩãn anyway." Levi stepped forward and pushed the door open.
Beyond the door was the pool in the middle of the room, a shallow body of water in a circle. The stained glass windows. And, most prominent of all, the óskkúla, the orb from the basement of this building, was hovering in the air above the pool, the size of a house. It levitated by itself as its body rotated impossibly, each section moving in a direction contrary to the other sections' movement. Then the movements would stop and continue in a new direction that, by observing how it moved before, should be impossible. It was like a puzzle box that was trying to solve itself, and standing at the far side of the óskkúla, Rahǩãn.
He emerged from behind it, pacing slowly towards us with his hands behind his back.
"I have studied the óskkúla every waking moment of every day since your departure, red-eyed one. I have learnt a great many secrets of this world. The óskkúla is not simply a key, as said by your woman friend, but is in itself the lock." He stopped to its side, marvelling at it.
Levi looked back at us and shrugged. "Might as well get this over with." He pulled from his sheath his blade and walked calmly towards Rahǩãn. "Rahǩãn, you are suspected by His Majesty Emperor Kor the Third to be the leader of a cult that directly engages in heretical activity as deemed by the church. You are sentenced to death. How do you plead?"
"If your goal is to kill me, then you do not need a blade. I do not plan to live past tonight, for tonight is the night of reckoning. I have long awaited this day, and at long last I have found it, the lock… and the key. All that's left is to open the door."
"Enough of this." Levi walked closer, raising his sword into the air, ready to bring it down onto his neck.
With a loud clunk, the orb stopped moving and contracted slightly as it started to vibrate the air. It was oppressive and overwhelming, making even movement difficult. We were frozen in place by an invisible force, all of us, except Rahǩãn, who began to casually walk towards me.
"You see, I have learnt the truth of magic. It is not something that has faded with time; rather, it is something that was deliberately locked away. What we see and experience as magic are the fleeting fragments of a dying thing, separated from its source. And you, the only marked child in history to retain his mind, the only one to host a half-bound sin of a soul, you are the key. Do you hear me in there, Sin? Your body is waiting for you to reunite with it; you need only open the door."
My body began to move against my will. My legs lifted and shifted forward, my right hand reached out towards the orb as my skin blackened and my hand deformed into that clawed shape again. Wrath was taking control; he was moving my legs, my arm. I was trying to fight it with everything I had, but it was no use. Step by step, I edged closer to the orb, and with every step I took forward, I tried with all my might to take a step back.
"You have my gratitude, marked one, all who stand behind you will join you in paradise." Rahǩãn placed his hand on my shoulder. I looked at him as I tried to move my hand. I wanted to claw his face off, but all he did was smile and walk behind me. I strained my eye to look back as much as I could, barely catching a glimpse of the grand hall as Rahǩãn walked into it. I saw bodies fling themselves from the balconies of the grand hall, with ropes tied around their necks as Rahǩãn drew a large orange blade and thrust it into his own neck.
I returned my eye forward, the orb was closer now, the words upon its surface began to shift and warp across it, congregating in the section just below the palm of my hand. The characters and writing upon its surface all merged into one shape as my palm finally made contact, releasing a blinding light.
I saw it in the moment, it was like I was flying high above the world, looking down upon it. I could see the Wall of the North that separated the lands of the living and the dead. I could make out the imperial city, the southern mountain ranges, and the ironwood forest. As I looked, the only thought I had was whether my mother was okay.
I then felt a strain in my neck. I wasn't looking down at the world, but up. As I tilted my head down, I was met with another world, a foreign and alien world, a red world of barren sands, distant red mountains and endless nothingness, and an empty, dead world.
I shut my eyes tight, wondering if what I was seeing was real, and when I opened them again, I was somewhere else. A beach. I sat atop the edge of a ridge looking towards the ocean. The ridge descended sharply with a steep face towards the water and is in the shape of a semicircle. In the centre of the circle was a small piece of land that stuck up above the water. And above that land, floating in the sky a man's height tall was a crack, as if the air itself were glass that had been shattered. It was hard to see, but against the background of the water, its faint white glow was clearly visible. Is this what lies beyond the wall? Is this what death feels like?
"Shinya!" A voice yelled out nearby. It sounded faint and distant, but clear enough to make out the word. It was Levi, who was crouched next to me, yelling at my face. Had he been there the whole time? What was he saying? "What did you do? What the fuck did you just do?"
Ah, I see, this isn't a dream or death. This is real. I turned my head, and to my back was a wall, tall and made of stone, with shattered glass around it of different colours. Was I inside a building? As I looked around, I recognised that the area I was sitting in was half of the room we were just in, meaning the direction I'm facing now, the direction of the sea, that used to be Balim? Where then did it go?