"Admit it, Balthazar!" Bilqis says. "We're lost!"
Your sister's protests elicit no response from you. It's not that you're too proud or afraid to admit your mistake – for you are, indeed, quite lost amidst the Stacks of this infinite Library – but your mind has wandered elsewhere than your current predicament.
When you left the Main Hall this morning (what passes for morning in this place, anyway), off to search for a copy of Holian's Heretical Hagiographies, you were warned to pack the essentials: enough food and water to last you seven days, a spyglass to check far-off shelves for your quarry, a portable heat source, a spare change of clothes, and a Medallion of Deliverance to help Librarians locate you should you become irremediably lost amidst the ever-shifting labyrinth of bookshelves.
You did not bring a map or compass, of course. There are none to be found that can help you navigate the Wanderers' Library beyond the more concurred areas – about a day's travel past the Main Hall – no matter how much the Wandsmen work to chart these farther regions. Out here, everything is in constant motion, changing and warping around you, the contents of the shelves becoming ever stranger – nigh-incomprehensible at times – as knowledge adopts shapes and formats much too alien for your human brain. Who could ever hope to gain any knowledge here, if not beings so different from you that their media is incompatible with your senses? You know that, by the time you awake from your slumber tomorrow, the bookshelves will have once again changed position, capricious in their classification, erratic in their behavior. And you and your sister will be deeper in this eldritch domain than is prudent for those whose very soul and nature are not attuned to the Library itself, lost until you give in to fear and despair, and whisper Help upon the Medallion, at which time you will be thankfully rescued and brought back to the Main Hall by a mouthless but reproaching Docent. You will feel a bit humiliated, perhaps, but at least you will have a story to tell other incredulous patrons.
All this trouble could have been avoided, of course, had you asked a Page for the book, but where is the sense of adventure and discovery in having everything easily delivered to you? What good is an infinite Library that holds all books ever and never written if you lack Wanderlust? Bilqis will not say it now, but she agrees that it is much more exciting to brave the dangers and undergo stark trials than simply waiting for someone to bring you what you desire. No story worth telling ever came from someone who just sat and waited, she once told you.
Besides, even if you do not find what you are looking for, what you do find might be just as eye-opening, just as enlightening as what drove you this far out into the unknown. You, for one, are fascinated with the creatures that live and prosper through the expanse of shelves and corridors. Beasts and plants of many different shapes and sizes populate this never-ending maze of bookshelves, chittering and howling and letting you know you are not truly alone in your quest. From solitary and somber Masked Canines who will not deign themselves to approach you, to shimmering lantern koi who silently float through the black leaves of Durwood trees like pieces of a shattered rainbow in the dark, the Library is more than endless paper and parchment arranged throughout eldritch architecture – it is wonderfully alive.
That is why, when you walk into the clearing amidst the Stacks – an ample atrium where no shelf impedes your sight or steps – Bilqis' words fall on deaf ears, and soon she too is mute with wonder. There, its emerald leaves tinted with soft golden light that seems to emanate from a hidden sun, is the most beautiful Tree you have ever seen. Its mighty trunk is all rugged bark, deep brown and dripping with subtle streams of red sap. It twists in on itself, into a subtle curve that could guide your path up to the heavens. Its roots are long and pronounced, exposed halfway through and digging deep into the soil where it is planted, a tangle of mighty tendrils that you could very much envision to spread beneath the Library, reaching every corner of infinity. The light that shines through its leaves – its origin unknown – forms a warm halo around its canopy, a crown of rays that radiate all throughout the atrium, gently touching but the most tender shadows. Up and down the Tree march ants of every color – black, red, brown, gold – a heterogeneous colony forming uninterrupted lines that reach upwards into the verdant beyond and downwards into the earth, careful not to become entrapped in the sap, fossilized forever.
It looks just like one of the Great Trees, you wish to say, but no sound leaves your mouth, for not even you could believe it if you were told. The Tree of Knowledge burned long ago – everyone knows this – and the Tree of Life was lost to the ages. And yet, as you and Bilqis approach it, as you feel its gnarled trunk and caress it down to its roots, all you can think about are the stories that you've read in ancient tomes about the Garden, about the sacred Trees and the tragedy that befell them.
You feel like you are dreaming, your mind hazy and your senses dampened by surprise, as if forcing your way through a block of gelatin. So this is what it feels like, the triumph of discovery, of finding something you never thought to look for. You know that it is unlikely that you and your sister are the first people ever to lay eyes on the Tree, the first to step into this secluded corner of the Library, but you do not care. One need not be first to bask in the bliss of having the unknown revealed to them. Today, you are true Wanderers, you and her. Today, you are witnesses to all things lost and hidden.
"I cannot be, can it?" Bilqis mouths, breaking your elated stupor. "I mean, this clearly is not one of them, right? By the gods… Maybe– maybe it is…"
"It is." A voice like quiet thunder, like rain in darkness, comes from behind the Tree. "And it is not."
A black figure stands up from the roots of the Tree, towering taller than any man of woman born, his clothes cut from shadow and his contours delineated in threads of stolen moonlight. Upon his face is a silver mask of exquisite make, a piece of art that hides his visage but for two piercing eyes of potent green fire. Atop his hooded head are four bolts of searing white light fashioned into the phantom of a crown; it floats ever so slightly in frigid stasis. You stand before a king, an emperor – of who and what exactly, you do not know, nor would you care if not for the unnatural urge to kneel that stings the back of your head like a swarm of wasps. It only goes away when the being – the Emperor – resumes his cross-legged position at the foot of the Tree and motions for you and your sister to do the same. Today, it seems, you are all equal.
"I am Mortis," he says while gracefully bowing his head to you both. "And this Tree is much like those that came before it: a Symbol given substance; a Word turned matter. Worry not: its branches bear no fruit, so you will find no temptation in it, no Serpent to beguile you."
"I thought there were only Two Trees in the Garden," you venture, still awed at the miracle you are witnessing.
"Indeed," Mortis says. "Two Trees were all there once was, and now none of them remain. Yet we know that duality, like many other things we take for granted, can often be an illusion. This Tree is new, as young as its twin predecessors were old. It has not yet reached its true magnificence, the apex of its potential, but it is no less deserving of honor and respect than the ones in the Garden. Its gift is, after all, a power just as mighty, a blessing just as precious as Life or Knowledge."
"But how?" Bilqis asks. "Something like this Tree does not come into existence by mere happenstance. And why is it here, of all places, hidden away from everyone but us?"
"There is a story to answer all your questions," the Emperor says, his words strangely tender. His tone is that of a man who caresses his newborn child for the first time, of a mourner who has found solace in the remembrance of the dead. "The Tree whispered it to me as I sought enlightenment at its shade, as my dreams grew dim and my soul grew heavy. In return, I am to tell what I was told so that others may receive what I was given: the true gift of the Third Tree. Would you like to hear it, Wanderers? Would you like to know the tale wordlessly whispered – the story of Meliora and the miracle she wrought?"
And so, you and Bilqis sit and listen, your eyes wide with wonder, your ears attentive to the words that Mortis weaves out of light and memory, the tale long inscribed in the ceaseless marching of the ants.
|
The taste of iron flooded Meliora's mouth as her head hit the ground. A spasm ran through her from one end to the other as her body finished responding to the blow the Foreman had struck against her belly, making her cough up a dark mixture of blood and phlegm that sprayed across the cold, gray concrete, almost reaching the Overseer's black, shiny shoes. She grunted in disappointment; though it would have gotten her another beating, she would have smiled watching him writhe in fury as his immaculate footwear was ruined. A fresh flash of pain tore her from her thoughts of revenge. The Foreman's dirty, wet boot – perpetually encrusted with grime and rust – pinned her head against the ground, making her gasp from the pain like a fish drowning on dry land. "I'm very sorry about this, but it is as it should be," the Overseer's honeyed and falsely polite voice was sticky like the ink with which a missive announcing a mass dismissal is written, each syllable rough as sandpaper rubbed against bare skin, each word a poorly sweetened cruelty like a whip adorned with withered flowers. Meliora felt disgust beneath the layers of agony that clutched her battered body, an abysmal revulsion against the veiled malice of the entity whose appearance was but a sinister parody of the human form. She would almost have preferred to receive a shock from the electric prod that the Foreman always wore on its belt than to continue listening to that infernal sound; at least it did not pretend to be anything other than a full-fledged monster. "We are all a team here at the Factory," the Overseer continued as the cracked corners of his mouth curved upward mechanically, filling his ashen face with labored wrinkles. "We must all cooperate to keep the Factory running at maximum efficiency. An efficient Factory is a happy Factory. Obedient employees make the Factory efficient; employees who are not obedient breed disorder, and disorder breeds inefficiency. And if we are inefficient, what do we breed?" The Overseer tapped his foot twice, and the Foreman pressed its boot even harder against Meliora's head. She felt as if her eyes were going to burst out of her skull, as if her teeth were about to shatter against each other, as if her head were about to become an unrecognizable mass smeared on the Factory's floor. "That's right, we breed a toxic work environment," the Overseer crooned as if he were giving an introductory speech to new workers instead of torturing her. "That's why we need exemplary disciplinary measures; we must let everyone know what happens when someone is disobedient. That is how it has always been, how it always must be. Isn't it, Foreman #298? Now, please provide Employee #17662 with a reminder of her duty towards the Factory in accordance to her lifelong contract with us. A permanent reminder." A mechanical whirr followed as the Foreman rearranged its right arm into a novel instrument of torture, its boot lifting from her head giving her a minuscule respite before the worst came. A clicking of gears and the groaning of servos well past their obsolescence date gave way to an instant of dreadful silence, and then the branding iron blinded Meliora with white-hot pain. Her scream drowned the sizzling of the skin on her right cheek, and the stench of burnt flesh joined the taste of blood, rust, and filth that filled her mouth in nauseous concert. The Foreman held her for seconds that felt like eternity as if relishing in seeing her twitch and scream her throat raw before letting go, her body falling limp with a wet thud. "There," the Overseer chirped, and he clapped his hands with lifeless enthusiasm. "This will help you remember what your responsibilities are. I have no doubt that you will be a more productive, more loyal employee from now on. Very well, back to work everyone! The Factory does not stop, must not stop. Ever." He clicked his shoes and faded down the aisle, past the assembly lines that – through Meliora's entire ordeal – had not once stopped belching products. The filthy, emaciated men and women chained to their workstations looked at her with hollow eyes and went back to assembling whatever abnormal, nonsensical stock they had been tasked with. Back to work, the Foreman's speech was a labored droning coming from a busted voice box encrusted at the bottom of its neck. It wheezed from the effort of moving its malformed body, obsolete augmentations sparking as they rubbed against each other, exposed cables jutting in and out of what little flesh remained to remind it of its former humanity. It turned and limped its way to supervise the other workers, joining five others of its kind in their never-ending labor of keeping everyone in line, making sure the workers stayed productive until their bodies and souls cracked beyond repair. Such is the way of the Robber Barons, L.S. had once told Meliora. Such is the way of the Factory. Meliora got up slowly, liquid streams born of pain dripping down her face and into her wound, the salt in her tears making it burn anew. Her entire form was a lump of bruised skin and bones that by some miracle had not yet splintered. As she pushed her arms against the floor to climb back up to her workstation, she caught her reflection on the spilt blood and bile that marked the spot where she had been punished. She looked just like any of the other workers – a bird with clipped wings, a soul with no hope of ever escaping damnation. The only difference was the raw mark now burned into her flesh, the brand of the oppressor that would never let her forget her place: Property of The Factory, it said in stark, sterile lettering. That is all she – or anyone – would ever be to the evil that ran this hellish kingdom of rusted gears and sun-blotting smokestacks: property to be used and abused in the name of a blind industry, components to be integrated and subsumed into their ever-hungry system, raw materials to be devoured, processed and excreted as finished product for nonexistent buyers. That is what we all are to the Factory, all we will ever be, Meliora thought. She did not ponder on it further, however. Instead, she finished lifting herself, briefly slumping against the wall before regaining her standing and making her way back to the assembly line. She was on one of the emptier ones, with only five other people working the shift. The products that came their way in need of manual assembly were simple and mostly mundane, requiring little of her attention and allowing her mind to focus on what was really important: the finishing of the Great Work, the mission she had volunteered for in the bowels of this accursed place. She would see it through to the very end, even if she had to endure the horrors of the Factory, even if she had to use every drop of mute resolve in her body and soul not to break. She found strength and comfort in knowing her pain would not go to waste. Today, her sacrifice had bought her a small victory, one that no amount of punishment could spoil. She made sure no Foremen were near and knocked three times on the conveyor belt, hard enough that her message would not get lost under its unceasing whirring. A small figure – short, blond, and green-eyed – darted from beneath the conveyor belt and into the shadows beyond, leaving behind nothing but the rattling of broken chains. Meliora smiled with contentment, ignoring the sting of her branded face. They were safe now, and that was enough for today. I'm doing this for them, she thought as she looked around at the wretched souls whose only hope for freedom had been, until then, the merciful release of death. Then she saw a glint in the dark beyond the assembly lines, the door that led into the hallways and into the deeper levels of the Factory. A small face blackened with spots of oil – thin from weariness and malnourishment, yet somehow still soft and delicate – emerged from the shadows and gazed at her between curtains of unkempt hair. Another pair of eyes soon joined it, and then another one, until five different faces lined the door, careful not to attract the attention of the Foremen, all of them looking at Meliora with expressions that verged on shy smiles. Among them was the one she had rescued today, the blond child for whom she had incurred the wrath of the Overseer himself. Their eyes were not yet hollow. Yes, she thought as she got back to work. I'm doing this for them. ⚘ "The philosophy of the Factory is the philosophy of cancer," Karim said. "It is a blind force, industry with no purpose other than itself, an insatiable hunger that seeks only to devour endlessly, to produce endlessly until the line between consumers and the consumed is entirely blurred. To the Factory, everything and everyone that exists is raw material to be processed and turned into products, products that will then attract new customers and new employees, expanding the reach of its hunger until everything is the Factory. And once it has devoured the whole world, once everything exists within the Factory and for the Factory, it will seek a new reality to settle in – a new universe where there is trembling meat waiting to be consumed – and the cycle will continue, relentless in its gluttony." "How does one combat such evil?" Salomé asked. She sat next to him, inspecting the tome detailing the atrocities of the Factory throughout countless universes, grimacing as she read. "How can we possibly stop it on our own?" "We cannot," Karim responded. "The Robber Barons are much too powerful to be destroyed, even temporarily. All we can do is save the people enslaved in the bowels of the Factory, rescue the ones not yet too far gone and put the lost ones out of their misery. But we need backup, and that is why Meliora has volunteered herself to argue our case before L.S." They both turned to her and smiled, their forms becoming vaporous as their mouths continued to speak, but no words came from them. Meliora did not react, did not address their praise nor ease their doubts. She simply allowed the memory to pass through her and fade into the background of her dreamscape, not wanting to dwell on past follies more than was necessary. The dreams that came to Meliora during her scant resting hours were often her sole source of solace in the Factory. The inside of her own head was her fortress, the only place the reign of rust could never touch, the Eden that they could never take away from her. Here she could reminisce about better times and draw strength from the world she knew still thrived beyond this industrial perdition, from the memories of friends and loved ones, from every vow she had ever sworn. Dreaming was her way of regaining what the Factory sought to steal from her – her freedom, her will to go on – and face each new day with renewed determination. Sometimes she dreamt of her late mother and father, of their little house atop the cliff overlooking the sea. She felt the rough sand beneath her bare feet and the marine breeze cooling her skin, a prelude to the big chill she felt when she dove head-first into the calm waves. The warmth of her parents' embrace crowned her dream, and she woke up feeling as if she could endure anything the Factory threw at her. Some other times she dreamt of Karim and Salomé, the friends closest to her heart, her loyal accomplices in countless efforts to change the Multiverse for the better. They had been friends since they were children and they had all joined the Serpent's Hand together, hoping to put what skills they possessed to good use in service of the oppressed and the downtrodden. Karim, a mountain of a man whose brute strength belied his bookish nature, knew everything there was to know about the dangers of the Multiverse. He would assess the risks and the chances of success in every mission they undertook, and he would have his friends and colleagues prepare accordingly. Nothing ever went beneath his notice, and he had a knack for map-making and star-charting that even the Wandsmen envied; he could always find a way in or out of any place or situation. Salomé, an artist like no other, had tattooed most of her skin with sacred glyphs that amplified her natural magical abilities. She had glyphs for healing most injuries, for making drinkable water out of thin air, for translating any language, for forcing Ways open without Knocking. She was the heart of their group, always ready to listen and offer words of comfort, to give succor to even the lowliest creatures. Without protest, she would undertake the tasks nobody else wanted to do, never flinching if it meant helping others. Meliora could not have asked for better friends. Her dreams of them were mostly joy and tender remembrance, a guiding light amidst the all-encompassing perdition that was the Factory. She remembered them as they had always been to her: kind beyond measure, loyal to a fault. She remembered long sessions of daydreaming with them about what they wanted to do when they were older and more experienced in the ways of magic, where they wanted to go once they learned how to navigate the Ways. Karim wished to chart worlds unknown and help whoever needed him there, following the many great explorers who had come before him; he did not care to be remembered as one of the greats, merely to live out the dream of discovery. Salomé wanted to paint murals that memorialized the fallen and the forgotten of worlds that had suffered and now sought to rebuild; she would use her talents to touch the hearts of people and make them stand united against any adversity. Meliora helped them to see these wishes fulfilled in their dreams, showing them how to shape their dreamscapes into reflections of their hopes for the future, how to reach lucidly into their own psyche and build wonders from their deepest emotions. That had always been her gift to them, for she was the Dreamer, the one who drew upon the deepest recesses of consciousness to work miracles in the service of their cause. She fondly recalled Karim's shy compliments of her dream magic and Salomé's vivid paintings of the visions she gifted them in their slumber. There were times in which she linked all three of them together, and they walked hand in hand into the Dreamlands, venturing into the realm of the Oneiroi to see the beauty born from the minds of countless unknown dreamers. The dream now unfolding in Meliora's mind could have been any of the tender memories she held of her friends, a recollection of any of their adventures together. But she knew that she would find no happy ending here, no epilogue filled with joy or celebration. She had chosen to dream this dream not out of a desire to be comforted, but out of a need to reinforce her resolve to survive, to save and avenge. She stood before the woman in dark clothes that matched her raven hair and pitch eyes, the one who currently held the title of L.S. – "Little Sister" – and whose countless versions across countless worlds were known in hushes as the Black Queen. Alison Chao, estranged daughter of one of the foremost minds in service of the Jailors, had built quite a reputation in the Wanderers' Library. Feared by some, respected by others, her magical prowess was legendary, and her activities and operations – including successful raids against the Foundation and the Bookburners – had gained her the loyalty of the otherwise leaderless Serpent's Hand, who now deferred to her for sensitive cases and missions. For Meliora, however, L.S. was more than just a leader to rally behind, more than a symbol of resistance against the evils of the Multiverse. She was a friend, just like Karim and Salomé, someone to ask for help and counsel when about to face a life-or-death endeavor. "Call me Alison," L.S. said the first time they met, and they had remained close through thick and thin, trusting each other even as they dove into mouth of Hell. If there was anyone who could ensure that Meliora and her companions triumphed in their mission against the Factory, it was Alison. That day, however, showed Meliora the limits of their friendship, of their trust. As the memory marched on and the Meliora-that-was told L.S. about their plan to save as many people as they could from Horu-Rabella, where the Factory had made its stronghold, the Meliora-that-dreamt stepped out of her own dreamform and watched the conversation turn sour. "This is suicide, Meliora!" Alison said, her brow heavy with indignation at her proposal, at her recklessness. "The Factory is not like any enemy you have faced before. It does not yield, does not stop. Ever. And if you step foot into the heart of its power, you will all die – or worse. There will be no rescue, not for you three, not for the people already trapped in its belly. I'm sorry, but I won't—" "You won't what?" Meliora-that-was retorted. "You won't move a finger to help these people? Alison, I know it's dangerous, but we can handle it just like we've handled other missions before." No, you most certainly cannot, Meliora-that-dreamt thought. A great knot oppressed her chest as she continued watching the exchange, flinching at every hurtful word her past self flung against L.S., wishing she had listened and maybe apologized. It was much too late now. It felt like hours while they went back and forth, L.S. poking holes in her plan, Meliora-that-was accusing her of being too afraid, each succumbing to the worst parts of themselves and losing any semblance of camaraderie in their self-righteous anger. "We lack resources and people for this. Why won't you understand?" L.S. said. "I've fought worse battles with less," Meliora-that-was retorted. Fool. Coward. You will get yourselves killed. We'll die trying. Don't count on me for this. I never should have. Please, Meliora… You are a disgrace to the Serpent's Hand. Goodbye, Alison. Meliora-that-was stormed out, burning tears welling up in her eyes. Alison slumped in her seat – not a throne for a Black Queen, but a mundane chair for a sobbing woman. Meliora-that-dreamt approached Alison and caressed her shivering shoulders. She then knelt down next to her and, gently wiping the tears that flowed down Alison's face, kissed her forehead. I'm sorry, she whispered at the shattered remains of their friendship, at this last memory of Alison that was quickly fading, leaving Meliora with nothing but the bittersweet taste of having seen her again. "What happened?" Salomé's voice echoed through Meliora's dreamscape. "Will she not help us?" "We're on our own," said Meliora-that-was, quick to wipe away her tears so she would not ask any further questions. "We stick to the plan. Black Queen or not, we are still the Serpent's Hand – at least the ones who will not cower. We'll go in and do whatever we can." Arrogant. Foolish. That is all we were back then, Meliora thought, and a part of herself – dreading what came next – tried to coax her body awake. But the memory was already manifesting itself before her, and her eyes were held wide open by the unyielding pull of guilt. Her friends' screams were just as fresh as if she had heard them yesterday. It all went wrong very fast. Karim tore his way through the encroaching Foremen, leading seventy men, women and children out of the depths of the Factory and up towards the rafters where Salomé awaited, the glyphs on her skin glowing in anticipation of opening a Way out of that hellhole. Meliora was at the rear, firing spells at any Factory agent – Foremen or otherwise – that came near. She cast lightning and incinerated a half-human, half-beast monstrosity that was about to pounce on her and used a word of power to turn a diabolical machine with blades for hands into a pile of dead grasshoppers. They were almost through now, almost past the– A sudden rumbling stopped them cold, and a hungry orange light flashed from every corner of the Factory, momentarily blinding them. When she regained her sight, she cast a spell against a charging Foreman and… nothing. Her fingers flailed pathetically without any magic, frail and useless against the roaring monsters that were quickly closing in on them. No… Meliora thought. This can't be happening. Not now, not now… She had but a few seconds to take in what had just transpired, that the Factory had somehow nullified her magic – and probably her friends' as well. She ducked in time and the Foreman crashed against the railing before tumbling into the abyss below. She then turned to Salomé, who was about to open the Way, and screamed for her to stop. It was all in vain. Salomé, not privy to the Factory's new anti-magic defense, activated her tattoos in a flash of rainbow lights, only to scream her lungs out as the glyphs burned as if they had been sprayed with acid. Her skin bubbled and smoked for a few instants before tearing itself off her body along with her hair and clothes, leaving behind a bloodied, flayed form that dropped to the floor with a sickening splash and twitched for a few instants before going limp. Shocked, Karim screamed Salomé's name and tried to reach her, but only managed to run a few steps before a Foreman dropped from somewhere above him and cut him off. He tried to hold back the terrified crowd with his own mighty body, but they were too scared to notice the horror that had transpired, and in their panic, they pushed Karim into the Foreman's deadly grasp. He whimpered like a beaten dog as the monster dug its claws into his flesh, tearing his ribcage open and pulling out his entrails in a rain of blood and gore. With her plan in ruins and her friends dead, Meliora helplessly tried to improvise a new escape route, to lead the people to some place safe, but the shock was too great for her to do anything but shriek in horror as the Foremen descended on the pleading multitude and started crushing and grinding them into unrecognizable paste. Blood and orphaned pieces of flesh trickled down the stairway and towards Meliora, drenching her boots with the stench of rusty iron and death. She looked at the mutilated remains of her friends, at the monumental shadow of her failure, and she found the strength to do one last thing. She pointed a finger at her temple and, knowing she was dead either way, fired one last spell. She awoke from the dream just as she had awoken from her attempted suicide: breathing heavily, throat raw and fists clenched, covered in cold sweat. Her head still reeled from what she had relived in her dreamscape, and her eyes took a few moments to adjust to the dim light of the barracks where the Factory afforded its slaves little more than four hours of sleep. She inhaled deeply, careful not to rouse her fellow sleepers or attract the attention of the Factory itself. Then she let the rest of the events play out in her mind's eye; she did not need to dream in order to relive what had happened next. After trying to take her own life, she had awoken with her arms and legs chained, the Overseer leering over her with a mechanical grin. Words like "corporate sabotage" and "property damage" and "debt" dripped from his thin lips and into Meliora's ears, rattling her brain even as she tried to get up, to keep fighting if they would not let her die. Then the Overseer took out a piece of paper labeled Debt Agreement and pushed it into her face, giving her but a few instants to read – she only managed to comprehend the terms "lifelong" and "repayment" – and gave her a fountain pen that felt like a scalpel in her hands. Before she even knew what was going on, a force not her own drove the pen into the paper, and her possessed hand scribbled a signature that spelled her eternal servitude to the Factory. She was then dragged towards the assembly lines and chained to her workstation, left to slave away amongst the myriad of lost souls with hollow eyes that fed the Factory with their sweat and blood, forever. Yes, that was how it had been ever since, long shifts that never ended – only paused – and would continue until the day she was too weak and infirm to keep on working. Then they would take her into the darkness of the lower levels, as they had done with so many people before her, and she would never be seen again. What horrors awaited down there, Meliora did not know. Before she ever stepped foot in the Factory, she had heard rumors about monstrous mutilations and torturous rebirth for those who were too injured to be of use, about new limbs and mechanical augments being stitched into broken bodies, minds driven beyond the brink of insanity and into unthinking subservience. That was where the Foremen came from: built from the pain of the dead and the dying, they agonized forever, yet they served the Factory with blind loyalty. She had heard worse things still, horrific whispers that told of breeding pits where new workers were created through crimes most foul, of women forced to serve as living incubators for children who would not even get to know warmth or joy before joining the workforce. If that place truly did exist, Meliora had yet to see it for herself, and she was most lucky not to have been sent down there. But the presence of children with no parents or names of their own made her keep her eyes open, always vigilant. She still had a mission here, and she would make sure to take as many of these people with her as she could. Meliora allowed herself some respite before her shift began anew. There remained a few precious instants before the bell rang its baleful call, and so she closed her eyes – her purpose reaffirmed by the memory of her greatest failure, of her lost friends – and drifted into a dreamless slumber. ⚘ The first three months after her capture had been the hardest for Meliora. Deprived of all sunlight or fresh air, her only way of telling the passage of time were the clocks installed throughout the Factory to tantalize the workers with the promise of a few hours of sleep after the bell rang, but also to torture them with the realization that only death could set them free. Every time she was allowed to rest, she cried herself to sleep and dreamt only of the horrors she had witnessed, of the death of her friends and her own grievous failure. Working long shifts helped her stay sane. Had she been left alone with herself, her guilt would have crushed her into madness, into a state of mind worse than that of the hollow-eyed workers who seemed to have forgotten how to speak, how to be human. Instead, she allowed herself to lose all thought in the mechanical routine of assembling and disassembling, mindlessly performing menial tasks like any other worker. Even when the workload was heavy or risky, even when she was injured by the sharp and rusty components she built into unknowable products, she kept going on without flinching; the alternative was so much worse. Be it for fear of punishment or because what little humanity remained inside them resented her, her fellow slaves refused to address or even acknowledge Meliora. They simply pointed and grunted wordlessly whenever they needed something from her, lumbering on without looking back once their task was complete. Meliora could not blame them. She had failed them all, given them hope only to tear it away and crush it beneath the heel of her own hubris and recklessness; they were more broken now than before she had tried to set them free. On marched the shifts, the months sluggishly dragging themselves past her. She worked, she ate bland sludge that provided almost no nutrition, she dreamt dim dreams, and she struggled to remain whole. Her nightmares had become worse. She relived the same events again and again – the flaying of Salomé and the disembowelment of Karim – but now their eyes remained fixed on her as they died, as if knowing in their last instants that this was all her fault. She begged for forgiveness, pleading to the Factory to kill her as well, but the only answer she ever got was her own shaky breathing as she found herself back in the waking world, damned to live with what she had done. By the end of the third month, Meliora was a shambling thing, a creature made of many fragmented parts barely held together by a primal drive to survive, to see the end of this day and the next, and so on. This was no life worth living, she knew, and she thought many times of jumping into the abyss so that gravity would relieve her of her suffering. One shift, however, she saw that a new chain hung from the conveyor belt. At the end of it was a child no older than seven, her head shaven and her black eyes staring at Meliora with unbridled curiosity. Meliora gasped at the realization and tried to reach for her, but the child flinched with fear. On her skin were bruises and burn marks just like the ones left by the Foremen's electric prods. The child looked away from her and began assembling products, not once letting her hands go still. Meliora held back tears as an old fire resurrected in her chest, surging from within and rising like a pyroclastic cloud that swallowed her guilt and her self-loathing. She felt it in her veins, in her heart and gut; it reached her throat and all she wanted to do was bring the world down with her screams. She grabbed the nearest tool – a hammer – and brought it down hard on the child's chains. "Run!" She screamed as the alarm rang, as the Foremen came rushing at them. The child looked at her, unsure of what to do at first, and then darted into the darkness. It doesn't matter now, Meliora thought as she was caught, flogged and electrocuted, punished for her new violation of Factory policy. Through the agony, she saw within herself the hole, the pit that she had carved into her own heart in her despair. It was no longer empty. A tiny seed of the deepest brown now occupied it, its smooth surface drinking in her blood and tears – not voraciously, not greedily, but with quiet gratitude. She got away. Another surge of electricity made her gag and scream. She would find them – all the lost children of the Factory, all those who had been born only to serve – and she would tear open the sky for them. This was her vow. This was her purpose. I will help them all get away. ⚘ Salomé was the name Meliora gave to the first child she freed. Then came Karim, Bernardo, Noelle, Emilio, Canek, Alison, Cristina, Balam, Zainab, and Aisha. She named them all, for no one had ever given them names before. She named them after the people who were important to her – friends lost to her, and friends to whom she was lost. "Names are important," she told them. "They are at the core of our being, and that is why they have power. As long as we have them, we remember who we are. Your names are one of the things the Factory can never take from you, and never again will you be owned by it." "The second thing the Factory cannot take from you is your dreams. The Factory tries to crush them, to make you believe that all that exists is its meaningless cruelty, but your dreams are your own. No one else can see or touch them, unless you choose to let them in. Even then, only you decide what to do with these dreams – whether to keep them forever in your mind's eye or bring them forth into the world." "Why do we dream?" Canek, oldest of the bunch, asked Meliora. She meditated for a moment. A question such as this one deserved the best answer she could find within herself. She had become a teacher to the children, and so they all looked up to her for answers to questions that they had never been able to formulate before. All they knew was the Factory and what Meliora told them. "We dream because we are alive," Meliora answered. "Dreams are the deepest part of ourselves, deeper even than names, for they are our rawest desires and our most closely guarded secrets. With them, we shape the world around us. As long as we can dream, we can hope for better things, for better lives for ourselves and others." "What do you hope for?" Zainab asked, and the children mused with expectation. Meliora smiled. "I hope that you will one day be free, free from this Factory and from all bad things. I hope that you will live good lives, that you will find whatever makes you happy, and that you will know what it is like to dream under the stars in the night sky." A little hand tugged at her clothes. Bernardo, youngest of the children, asked with eyes full of wonder: "Meliora, what are the stars?" ⚘ Meliora knew that stories were the best way of teaching the children about things they had never seen or experienced. She used them to explain everything from the jungles to the oceans, from the mountains to the stars. She spoke to the children about the wonderful creatures of all shapes and sizes that populated countless planets, and about the kindly peoples who strived to make their world a better place. She retold the struggles and adventures of heroes old and new, how A'habbat broke her chains and how Coyote Woman outsmarted the gods themselves. The children felt enraptured by her words, glued to their seats as she spoke about the living world that waited for them beyond the Factory. They listened, asked questions, and went to bed filled with an unquenchable thirst for more. Soon, their fascination grew until it was a drive, a determination to see it all for themselves. "I want to meet a dragon," Balam said as she finished telling the story of how the magpies learned to steal. "I want to see one fly and breathe fire! That's gonna be the first thing I do when we get out of here!" Meliora's smile grew wider. She was educating the little ones under her care, yes, but also instilling in them the will to escape this place. In her heart was a seed of hope, one that she watered every time she heard them talking about the things they wanted to do when they were free. They were so eager to live, to learn, to go further and make their own stories. If only I could give all of it to them now, she thought. She tried her best to keep the children's minds off the things that happened at the Factory. Although she sought to shield the children from the worst horrors of their prison, she could not hide everything from them. Each child knew that rescuing them had cost Meliora pain and blood – beatings, mutilations, diminished rations and overtime – and sometimes there was guilt in their eyes as she limped past them, off to stitch her own wounds with what little medical supplies she had managed to find and steal. Meliora wished she could make them understand that she would gladly pay for her disobedience a thousand fold if it meant getting even one more child out of the Factory's clutches. "The best you can do to help me is to stay safe and take care of each other," she told them. "What I do, I do for you, and for you alone. This is what I have chosen to do with my life, so that you may one day claim back yours." Indeed, the children had begun doing more than just wait for food and new stories from Meliora. They watched from the shadows as she kept working hellish shifts, alerting her to any new children that were brought in to serve the Factor. They smuggled food and materials, fashioned tools to defend themselves, and held each other close when fear and sadness haunted them. They even started giving names to the new children. The blond boy who had cost Meliora her face was named Hevel, and this name made him happy. The children had recalled it from one of their favorite stories, the one about the Garden in the desert and the people who lived there at the shade of the Two Trees. This tale fascinated the children not only because none of them had ever seen a tree, but also because the ones in the Garden bore gifts of unparalleled magic. They often played pretend as explorers who sought to find the lost Tree of Life, as guardians who stopped the hordes of evil from burning the Tree of Knowledge. Salomé, first of the rescued children, often played the role of Hawwah – the First Woman – and her heart swelled with the promise of leading her people out into the new world. Meliora encouraged them to play, to seek out wonder within themselves, to remember that good prevails over evil even when everything seems lost. The seed of hope within her was beginning to sprout; the children's dreams were fertile soil where it could grow roots, and their laughter was like sunlight after endless nights of cold darkness. But for hope to prosper, more was required than just what they now had. It had been two months since the Foreman had branded Meliora's face, and almost forty children were now under her care. The need for a safe place they could live in was becoming ever more pressing. So far, Meliora had hidden them in the spaces between walls and in the rafters, holding meetings with them in derelict rooms full of debris, but she knew that this was not enough. The children needed a better shelter, a better sanctuary, a place they might perhaps call home. "What is a library?" Hevel asked Meliora one day. "Libraries are beautiful places, filled to the brim with books," Meliora responded. "They are quiet places where one can sit down and read, or simply enjoy the sound of rustling pages and the sighs of entranced readers." "I can't read," Hevel mused sadly, and he was right: none of the rescued children could read. The Factory had only ever cared that they could work, so it never bothered to teach them anything but how to talk and perform labors. What use had slaves for such frivolous things as reading and writing? "You will learn one day, I promise," Meliora said, caressing his face. Then she turned to the rest of the children. "You will all learn to read and write, and when you are ready, I will take you to the most beautiful Library there is!" Yes, she thought. I must take them to the Wanderers' Library. It's the only place where they will always be safe. It was then that she noticed the ants. She saw them one shift while on the fifteen-minute lunch break all employees got. Minuscule black dots marched their six legs on the concrete floor, a single file going back and forth, their mandibles carrying crumbs and whatever organic matter they could find in the Factory. Onwards they went, diligent and unyielding, until they reached the mouth of their lair: a small hole in the wall, too well hidden for anyone to find unless they knew what they were looking for. Meliora was amazed. The ants had found a way to thrive even in this place, their colony kept safe and unnoticed for gods knew how long. She remembered the stories she had read when she was a little girl, the ones that told of secrets only the ants and the trees knew. Whomever seeks the Wanderers' Library must first listen to the language of the ants. If the tales held any truth, then maybe these tiny yet industrious insects could lead her and the children to some place better. Perhaps, she hoped, they can even show us the way out of the Factory. At once, she knelt down and gave some of her food to the ants, a proof of her good will and gratitude. Then she whispered a magic word, a word so small that she hoped it would slip past the Factory's anti-magic defenses, yet so full of meaning and intent that it could never be ignored by those to whom it was addressed. REMEMBER, Meliora said. ⚘ Meliora dreamt of the ants that very night, their numbers greater than the stars in the night sky. There were so many – small black ones with thin thoraxes and short mandibles; rough-looking red ones with dreadful stingers; frenzied yellow ants with long legs and antennae; enormous ants that towered over the rest, their chitin glowing like dewdrops. They walked all over her, tickling her skin but never biting, marching up and down her body in rhythmic patterns. Meliora knew that she had to pay the utmost attention to understand the wordless meaning of their language, a language conveyed through touch and pheromones. In her dream, she sat cross-legged and focused on the sensations beyond the tingling dancing of the wise insects, the secret communicated to her in this place where thought could exist without substance. First, she saw the world as the ants saw it: innumerable corridors and abysses, tracts of land that spread towards unfathomable horizons. It was terrifying, and she felt as if she was leering at the edge of a bottomless pit, about to plummet into the depths of outer space. The world was big enough for humans; for the ants, it was close to infinity. And yet, they had prevailed and conquered, their kingdom reaching farther than any petty king or tyrant could ever dream of. Here, in the Factory, the ants had also triumphed, and in their everlasting quest for food and safety they had mapped every corner of the accursed edifice, every crevice unknown even to itself and its minions. Onwards they marched, past the monstrosities that the Factory churned into the world, past the mechanical madness of Foremen and Overseers, past the suffering of countless enslaved souls and past the very gates of the building. Meliora followed them there, walking in their steps, up and up towards the ceiling. Then came the stench of smoke, noxious and asphyxiating. Before her stood the Factory's smokestacks, triplet trumpets of end times that ceaselessly belched out gaseous perdition towards the agonizing sky. The horizon was an ugly shade of brown, thick clouds the color of sewage drowning the devastated earth with acid rain. Nothing grew on the dead soil. As far as the eye could see, ruined structures beset by rust littered the wasteland; they were the last vestiges of a civilization whose greed had made it succumb to the Robber Baron's infinite hunger. On this corpse of a world, only the ants marched undeterred, undefeated. There is nothing outside. By the gods, this is all there is, Meliora gasped with horror. The ants were showing her what they had seen, what they knew awaited beyond the confines of the Factory. Simply fleeing their prison was not an option; there was nothing for her or the children in this world. Show me, venerable ants. Please show me the way out. The ants began climbing up the smokestacks, slowly but surely smothering them beneath their infinite numbers. The deadly vapors dissipated, and the structures themselves crumbled under the insects' might. In their place was a hole, a pit so deep that Meliora could not see the bottom. In and out, in and out the ants crawled, circling it with unmistakable intent. Meliora approached it and peered into it, her eyes meeting nothing but pitch darkness before she realized that she was staring not into a gaping abyss, but into a tiny entrance on a concrete wall. This was the gateway to the ants' nest, the home they had built in utter defiance of the Factory. But when she looked deeper inside, Meliora did not find twisting tunnels or labyrinthine chambers filled with food and resources. Instead, she saw a single point of light, a faint green glow that slowly illuminated the entirety of the hole, revealing nothing but soft black earth. At the center of the light was a seedling, the same one she had envisioned inside her own heart. Small roots now emerged from it, reaching into the soil and drinking in its nutrients. It was beautiful, a delicate thing that grew stronger with every passing day, a promise of better things amidst the desolation. The seedling thrummed faintly, the green glow becoming more and more potent as the ants marched around it in circles, forming an endless spiral that beckoned to her. Meliora felt a wisp caressing her face like the phantom of wild wind, and reached into the hole, into her heart. She awoke and felt a small weight resting in her open palms. She had done it. The seedling glowed and thrummed one last time before dimming and becoming still, its mundanity in the material world belying its true nature. Meliora closed her hands and held them close to her heart. She silently thanked the ants and lifted a prayer to whichever god could hear her. They were getting out, all of them; she was certain of it. When she opened her hands again, the seedling had disappeared, but she did not fret. She held it in her heart, now as before. No one could ever take it away from her. No one could ever crush her hope. ⚘ Theirs was an exodus unlike anything the dead world had ever seen. Fifty children – filthy, ragged and emaciated, but with eyes full of hope and wonder – moved through the Factory in a single file at the cover of darkness. They traveled in utmost silence, for though their hearts brimmed with joy, they knew not to tempt fate before they reached their destination, the promised world beyond the perdition of rust and smog. Like the ants to whom they owed their path towards salvation, they crept and crawled through dusty ventilation ducts, past sections of the Factory where no man or monster dwelled, and up flights of stairs that nobody had trod upon since the beginning of the end. For days they marched, sustaining themselves only on the supplies they had managed to gather and on the strength of each other, huddling together to stave off cold and fear, and telling stories to keep their spirits strong. At the head of the group was the woman who had cared for them from the very beginning, the one whose sacrifices were no longer meant to atone for her past mistakes, but to create a future for them all. Her name was Meliora, the harbinger of hope. She guided the children – her children – up and up towards the outside, towards the place where the Factory ended, towards the blighted sky beyond which lay the promise of better things. "I thought it would be prettier," Salomé said upon seeing the moribund firmament, full of ugly brown clouds that barely let sunlight shine through. The other children nodded in quiet agreement. Disappointment was a new feeling for them. "Just wait," Meliora said, and she had the children join hands in a circle around her. She then took a piece of charcoal and began drawing on the floor, tracing rough lines and sharp glyphs, connecting everything together until she had created a crude but functional sigil. Meliora pressed her open palm at the center of the sigil. As the children looked in awe, it pulsed with a soft verdant glow, a color none of them had ever seen before. It spilled over the lines and glyphs, coursing through them like a myriad of rivers from their source and bathing the children in its light. It was the color of life, and it sang to them with the voices of every creature big and small, with the whispers of peoples past and future. And now, she thought, comes a new beginning. But before she could do anything else, she felt a shock of pain and fell to her knees, bleeding from her eyes and mouth. A bolt of malignant power had struck her right below the sternum, piercing her so deeply that she could feel some of her organs rupturing and her bodily fluids beginning to boil. Standing behind the assembled would-be escapees with a perverse smile carved onto his unnaturally gray face, surrounded by a dozen Foremen, was the Overseer. His right hand held the gun with which he had incapacitated Meliora, a Factory-made product designed to inflict the worst possible agony upon its target. "Well, well, well," the Overseer grinned. "Now we know where all our missing assets went. It seems, Employee #17662, that you refuse to learn your lesson despite how many disciplinary actions we have implemented against you. You disrupt our workflow with your laziness; you sabotage your fellow workers by removing their Factory-mandated bindings and leading them away from their workstations; you waste precious resources for your own sake; and now, you steal Factory property. What's next? You'll stoke our workers into forming a union?" He flinched and gritted his teeth as that last word left his mouth. Then he turned to the children, who fearfully huddled close to Meliora, and opened his arms as if welcoming back into his embrace – the Factory's embrace. "Now, now, no need to be afraid," the Overseer said with false reassurance. "You will not be harmed, although a thorough inspection will be conducted to find whichever fault within your conditioning led you to be so easily stolen. We do not want you running off again and leaving your responsibilities behind; after all, you are our best answer to the draught of new personnel we have been facing, and we cannot afford to lose you and disrupt our production." He motioned towards the children. The Foremen began advancing menacingly, whirring heavily, electric prods and whips at the ready. "Of course, those who do not conform to our standards even after reconditioning – like Employee #17662 – will be promptly scrapped and recycled. Come along now. I would rather not damage perfectly good assets before their time. And as for you…" Another bolt struck Meliora in the abdomen, making her spasm uncontrollably as the children around her sobbed and screamed at seeing their savior fallen. They wept for her to get back up, to keep on fighting, to protect them one last time. "Please, we are so close now!" Hevel said, holding her head so she would not bash it against the concrete floor. His tears fell onto Meliora's face, joining her own as she desperately tried to regain control of her body. Get up. Get up now! I will not abandon them! I will not let them be slaves again! Through her agony, through the screams and cries, Meliora felt a faint rumbling, like millions of feet marching in the distance. She smelled old paper and petrichor, and felt her fingers digging into wet earth. And as a new wave of pain washed over her, as the Foremen grabbed for the children, she heard a call from beyond the sigil. The singing, she realized, had never stopped, and only now did she understand its message. Meliora breathed in and reached into herself, into her heart where the seedling rested. She caressed it gently, lovingly, and spoke a single word to it, the one it had been waiting for since the dawn of its existence. BLOOM, Meliora said. The light within the sigil exploded, swallowing Meliora in its verdant radiance. The seed that lay in Meliora's heart began to grow. In an instant, its delicate roots became as thick as columns and pierced the concrete with a thunderous quake, burrowing through level after level and floor after floor until they reached the black earth that lay buried beneath the Factory and anchored themselves to it. As they plowed through the Factory, the colossal roots coiled around the assembly lines and entrapped the surprised Foremen, who barely had time to react before being crushed under the weight of green vengeance; their mechanical parts whirred one last time and shut down forever. Entire sections of the building crumbled into dust and debris, the Factory itself letting out an anguished choke as the roots strangled it from within. NO! The Overseer howled with fury, but his screams were lost amidst the collapse of his employer, and he finally fell silent when one of the smokestacks crashed down on top of him. In its place, a colossal Tree – its trunk so robust that it dwarfed the derelict smokestacks, its leaves and branches so lush that it looked like they held all the green in the world – reared its titanic canopy and pierced the heavens. Around its crown, the brown clouds dispelled like a half-forgotten nightmare, leaving behind nothing but a clear blue sky, an opening through which warm sunlight spilled across the land for the first time in ages untold. Atop the canopy of the great Tree, surrounded by the thick greenery of its leaves, fifty children found each other, shaken and surprised, but unharmed. There was laughter and cries of celebration, long hugs and joyful tears on the immense branches of the Tree: they were free, each and every one of them. This was a magic like no other, a magic born from a seed sown in the depths of a hopeful heart, and it had triumphed even over the Factory that lay in ruins amidst the mighty roots of the verdant titan. The children knew that no one could ever chain them again, that nothing could ever rob them of themselves – the future was finally at hand, and the sky welcomed them with all its magnificence. "Where is Meliora?" Noelle asked suddenly, and a shadow of sorrow fell upon the children's faces. Their savior – their leader, their mother – was nowhere in sight. It did not matter how many times they called her name or how much they tried to find her voice amidst the wind that rustled the leaves; Meliora was gone, and not a single rumor remained of her amongst the leaves of the Tree. She had sacrificed herself, they realized, so that the Tree may grow out of her heart, so that the children may at last reach for the heavens, so that they may live their lives under the sun. She had given them her hope, her dreams of better things, even if it cost her everything she was. "What do we do now?" Alison asked her fellow children. Salomé stood and took her hand in hers. Her brow was heavy with determination, and her smile melted away all fears. "We go on," she said. "We step into the Library and tell the tale of what happened here." Then she pointed at the ants – black, red and gold, all of them marching ceaselessly – and said: "The ants will lead the way, now as before. We will follow them, and we will never again be lost." The children formed a single file and, with Salomé at the head, they once more followed in the footsteps of the ants, off to the place that was promised: the Library where all dreams and hopes may yet bloom and flourish. At the rear end of the line, Karim paused for an instant and lifted an ant on the tip of his finger. The tiny black insect did not bite him nor tried to flee. Hope, the wind rustled the leaves like a loving whisper. Through hope, you shall endure. |
Mortis finishes the story and again stands to his full height. Solemn and regal, he places a gentle hand upon the Tree as if it still whispered to him. He bows to you both, but speaks no more, for there are no more words left to be spoken. Then he steps into shadow and, like a shade at night, he vanishes.
You and Bilqis are left alone, alone with the Tree of Hope and the interminable procession of the ants. You sit mutely and wait for words to come anew.
…
…
…
"The harbinger of hope," you mouth at last. "So, this is her legacy, her parting gift. What do you think became of the children?"
"I don't know. They lived their lives, I guess," Bilqis says. "I have many questions still, but I know now why the Tree has no guardian."
You nod in agreement. The Tree of Hope does not need a Voice of God or a Serpent to look after it or to keep the unworthy away, because its gift is meant for everyone to receive. Through it, you endure, and through your endurance, the message lives on. She lives on.
"I think… I think Mortis is right. We should tell everyone about it, just as he did with us," you say. "That is what Meliora would have wanted. After all, who speaks for the dead if not those of us who carry on?"
Indeed, tonight you shall return to the Main Hall with word of what you have seen and heard, and deliver unto your fellow Wanderers the gift of Meliora and her Tree. Tonight you shall plant within them a seed that can withstand the weight of the heavens themselves, spark a light that can conquer the deepest darkness of the heart.
But for now, you sit together with your sister and watch the ants marching up and down, up and down the rugged trunk of the Tree of Hope, wordlessly retelling the story once known to them alone, their oath unbroken. On the lingering rays of sunlight – their origin ever unknown – dance echoes of children's laughter. You do not mind spending a few more minutes in silence.
