And it was.
Just not what she thought.
55
LUNATIC POETRY
Akiva had descended, many times now, through dark levels of mind to the place where he worked magic, and he was no closer to understanding where it wasinternal or external. How deep or distant, or how far it went.
There was that sensenot exact, but near enoughof passing though a trapdoor to another realm, and as he had pushed farther and farther, never meeting any kind of boundary, he had begun to envision an ocean vastness, and then even that was insufficient. Space. Limitless.
He did believe that it was his. That it was him . But it seemed to go on forevera private universe, a dimension whose infinity transcended the notion of mind that hed always heldof thoughts as existing within the sphere of his own head, a function of his brain.
What hugeness was a mind? A spirit? A soul? And if it didnt correlate to the physical space his body displaced, then where was it? It dizzied him. Each time he emerged, feeling vague and drained, it gnawed at him, his frustration with his own ignorance.
And that was before he attempted entering another persons mind.
He sensed, at the threshold of Elizas mind, another trapdoor, another realm as expansive as his own, but distinct from it. Infinities are not for casual exploration. You could fall and keep falling. You could get lost. She had. Could he draw her back out? He wanted to try. For her, because the idea of such helplessness appalled him and he wanted to rescue her from it. And for himself, too, because of her ceaseless, plaintive streams of language. It was his language, curiously both familiar and exoticSeraphic, but spoken in tones and patterns he had never heard, and godstars, the things she was saying
Beasts and a blackening sky, the openers of doors and the lights in the darkness.
Chosen. Fallen.
Maps but I am lost. Skies but they are dead.
Cataclysm.
Meliz.
Lunatic poetry, Zuzana had dubbed it, and it was both: poetic and lunatic, but it struck a resonance within Akiva, like a tuning fork that matched his own pitch. It meant something, something important, and so he crossed from his own infinity to hers. He didnt know if this could be doneor, if it could, whether it should . It felt wrong, like transgressing a border. There was resistance, but he penetrated it. He searched for her but couldnt find her. He called for her and she didnt answer. The space around him felt different from his own. It was dense and turbid. Kinetic. Aching, uncalm, and afraid. There was wrongness and torment here, but it was beyond his understanding, and he didnt dare go deeper.
He couldnt find her. He couldnt bring her out. He couldnt. But he tried, tithing his own pain, to soothe her chaos, at least.
When he came back out and opened his eyes, it was with a feeling of reclaiming himself, and he saw that Karou was present, and Zuzana and Mik. Virko, too, though the chimaera had been here all along. And right before him, Eliza. Her manner had quieted, but Akiva saw with his eyes what hed already known in his heart: that he hadnt fixed her.
He let out a deep breath. His disappointment felt like loss. Karou came to him. She had a decanter of water, and poured out a glass. While he drank, she laid a cool hand to his brow and leaned on the arm of his chair, her hip to his shoulder. And this was an astonishing new threshold of normalKarou leaning against himand it lifted his spirits. Shed spoken of their happiness as though it were an undeniable fact, no matter what happened apart from everything else and not subject to it. It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasnt a mystical place to be reached or wonsome bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find itbut something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. Food, weapons, happiness.
With hope that the weapons could in time vanish from the picture.
A new way of living.
She seems more peaceful, Karou said, studying Eliza. Thats something.
Not enough.
She didnt say, You can try again later ,
because they both knew there would be no later. Night was falling. They would leavehe and Karou and Virkovery soon, and they wouldnt be coming back here. Eliza Jones, then, must remain lost, and, with her, the Cataclysm and all her secrets. The problem was, Akiva sensed a peril in letting it go. I want to understand what shes saying, he said. Whats happened to her.
Could you tell anything?
Chaos. Fear. He shook his head. I know nothing of magic, Karou. Not even basic principles. I have a sense that we have, each of us, a He groped for words. A scheme of energies . I dont know what to call it. Its more than mind, and more than soul. Dimensions. Still groping. Geographies. But I dont know the lay of it, or how to navigate it, or even how to see . Its like feeling forward in darkness.
She smiled a little, and there was effortful lightness in her voice when she asked, And how would you know what darkness is like? Her hand brushed his feathers and they sparked to her touch. You are your own light.