Fini

They said the monk was dead. They didn’t know who or what he was really; they only said that a man with long, blondish hair wearing strange robes had been found on the beach beyond the seawall. He’d been face down in the sand. When the lycan who’d scented him had rolled him over, the expression frozen on the man’s face had been one of shock mingled with horror.

I sipped my tea, listening as the talk in the Haven continued. Who was he? Had anyone ever seen him around before? He didn’t look like a Righteous or a Shadow. His curious death had become a topic for early morning conversation over a bottle of beer or a full shot glass, the easy idle speculation of bored and hung over patrons.

But I had known the man. I’d known his purpose, if not his origins. Setting down my cup, I templed my fingers to my forehead in concentration, closing my eyes to think. I wondered if he had been successful in his quest. The monk had said he was on a pilgrimage. It was not, I discovered, a pilgrimage to a city or a country: it was, instead, a pilgrimage to Nareth—or rather, the young woman who called herself that. She was his holy place. He’d wanted to take her back with him to the island temple of his faith. He’d wanted to make her a god.

And then she was gone. Without a word or a message, she’d disappeared from the Library where she had taken refuge, slipping away unobserved. The identification card and the communication device I had taken from her were gone as well, spirited away from the locked chest in which I’d placed them. Not only was this future Nareth gone, but the golem Nareth had vanished, too.

“Tag,” Bella had said to me once. “It’s a game to her…making the other Nareths come unstuck in time.” Perhaps that is what had happened. Maybe it was tag. She’d succeeded and they had all gone….

After all, the monk was dead.

****

Off the coast of Cyprus there is an island. The night is balmy as warm breezes blow in from the sea, but in the seemingly endless subterranean passage the girl feels only a cool dampness against her skin. She hears the clicking and chittering of blind cave dwellers, and like them, she has no eyes to see: lidless sockets sit deep in her small, brown face. She turns her head slightly, listening to the sound of a pan flute in the distance….

The Marketplace
Deadweight
Satyr

Days of future past

The brown girl stood next to the hearth, holding her gloves, murmuring that nothing looked familiar, no face, no part of the Library itself. Frank disbelief clouded her face as she gazed on all gathered, eyes lighting on the apparent non-humans: Grr and Lyra. The monk wheedled in a high-pitched worried voice, an adoring sycophant. The girl rubbed her head, saying again and again in heavily accented English, I am dreaming.

“Your holiness, our whole existence is because of you,” the monk Yoshua continued, his voice growing louder, his speech becoming more rapid. “Each generation passing down tales about you, and your coming. I was sent to locate you, and protect you. When you are ready, our journey begins.”

“Do you remember your name?” I interrupted, turning toward the brown girl.

“Yes…I remember my name. Nareth....”

Omega stopped cold, staring at the girl, open-mouthed.

“Nareth's place has always been here,” Grr said to the monk. “Now, more than ever. This is Home, this is…Family.”

“No!” Yoshua nearly shouted. “She belongs with us, the prophesied one.”

Omega’s voice rasped, each word agony. “Nareth?”

Nareth shook her head. “My family…such as it is…is in Cambodia. I have my state identicard.” She reached in a pocket to pull out something that looked like a faintly blinking green plastic button, and then offered it to me.

I took the button in the palm of my hand, rolling it around, looking at it. She said it wasn’t working, it had gotten wet. I extended my fingers, thinking thoughts of flame and heat, and the button rose an inch or so above my palm, a faint glow beneath it. The button began beeping, a light flashed, and then the image of Nareth appeared above my hand. A woman’s voice said

Nareth Nishi, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Issued August 3, 2021
ID Number 4251A-09-2314
Restriction, Zone 5-F
Conviction file 876-d-2

The image flickered, and then winked out. “Hey...I can explain that,” Nareth began as the monk ran out the door having been threatened by Omega. “The conviction...there was...a mistake. I mean…never mind.” Nareth looked utterly exhausted and confused.

Grr looked Nareth over, then looked softly from me to Omega. “I think our guest needs a lay down fer a bit.”

The Marketplace
Deadweight
Satyr

Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you

I walked along the night beach, trying to clear my head. I’d been exposed to some sort of substance at the Garage that made me rather not myself, just too focused on the wrong things. My shoulder ached from GrrBrool’s steady bite. The rain fell in a sea blown mist and the wind was brisk. My calfskin boots were wet with sand, my clothing damp to the skin. I could see a campfire in the distance, impossibly blazing, and thought to warm myself before it. As I approached, I noticed two people sitting with backs to logs, facing the fire: a small, brown girl dressed in black, and a blondish man wearing the robes of some religious order.

They looked at me with suspicion, apparent strangers to the City. The girl was shivering and wet and confused; she kept saying she had been at the market then walked in from the sea, asking when she would wake up from the dream. The man seemed edgy and oddly possessive though he disclaimed knowing her. I didn’t know what to think. I know of only one woman who has walked in the sea: Nareth. But this dark-skinned girl appeared to be human, and looked nothing like Nareth, either the Nareth of iron or the Chylde of Omega.

Because she seemed disoriented and the night promised only more wet and cold, I invited her and the man to the Library for warmth and shelter. As we walked, he grew more and more agitated, begging the girl to come with him to his ship. We could hear explosions in the distance from the Continuum headquarters; the monk’s urgent entreaties, the far off booming and the sirens wailing made the night unnerving. Finally, the monk stopped sharp in the street trying to bar our way, even drawing a sword, trying to coerce the girl to go with him. She merely she walked away in disdain. The monk’s countenance fell as the sword dropped to his side. He seemed to see her as some sort of messiah or goddess and he was clearly failing her in some way that only he understood.


The Marketplace
Deadweight
Satyr