For much of human history, the bright pinprick of light which closely follows the sun in setting and rising was assumed to be a star. But the invention of telescopes proved that it is no such thing, and is rather a metallic object that orbits Šehhinah like a second moon. The “morning star” is not of nature or God, but rather built. And all claims as to who built it lead to one answer: that this structure is one of the greatest works of Theurgy known, made by Lucifer, the first angel to fall…
—Sofcletian, History of Science, vol.2
The massive stone doors of the library are welcome on a day as hot as this one. Yenatru has some time between classes and something he’d like to work on; and where better to do so than somewhere actually temperature controlled?
The great doors don’t open before him, of course. Instead, he goes through the simple sliding glass doors built to the side, much more accessible to mere mortals like him. The stone doors serve little purpose other than to look cool, as far as he can tell; he respects that.
He knows exactly where he is going the second he steps under the warm electric lights. There’s a bench on the third floor, in a section rarely visited by any students. Because of that, he considers it his, even though he knows that it isn’t, not really.
Something in him softens when he walks the corner to it, not a single person around him. Yes, this is safe. He sits down on his bench, the rock wall comforting behind him, like the back of a cave.
A perfect place to work on something he doesn’t want to force anyone else to see, not if they don’t want to. Something he’s never told anyone about, not even Elīya.
He’s going to work on Theurgy, the art of manifesting his very soul into the world.
The first step for him is usually to close his eyes. He focuses, trying to let the feelings and images he associates with who he is to come to him.
It’s much like what that one nameless book he found here in the library over a year ago suggested to do, although it’s just a guide. Theurgy requires his own concentration, his own—well, self. All that book can do is show him how, and it has, so much so that lately he barely references it.
That book wasn’t even on the library’s records. And that’s why he treasures it. Because instead of being a normal book anyone could look up, this one seemed meant to be stumbled on.
Keep this book if you will, young Theurgist… that’s what the inner cover says. Signed by the angel Israfil too. So of course he kept it, of course he uses it instead of any of the much easier to find books on the same subject.
Right, concentrating—he should do that.
The images of him: soft breeze, softer grass. There’s a feeling of safety, and he yearns for it, yearns for what he’s already feeling. There’s a sense of meadows that glows in him, and that very sense is already on his lips, warm and soft. Because he’s already forced some of his soul to exist in the world, just a little. But he can force it further, he can make it stronger, let the softness of him build and build—
He hears the sound of footsteps.
His eyes snap open. He’s already inwardly preparing to make it look like he was doing anything at all other than Theurgy. Like studying, probably? Maybe he should open his bag, yes, that would work.
But before he does anything, he sees the person who’s walked up to him and is now just looking at him surprised and scrambling. A woman, black hair puffed and sculpted around her head, light brown skin. Black circlet and short skirt; no one wears black in daylight hours in summer. And uh, she’s still looking at him.
“I was,” Yenatru finds himself saying, taking a book out of his bag. “I was considering the material of a paper I’ve been assigned to write for, uh.”
But before he can make up the class this imaginary paper is for, the woman smirks and says, “Nah.” Another second passes, and he hasn’t yet formulated a response to that when she continues, “You were doing Theurgy.”
“Uh,” Yenatru says, his mind and heart racing. It’s not secret, exactly—there’s not even a reason for it to be secret—and yet. “Um, no,” he says, “definitely I was not doing that.”
“Yes you were,” she says, her tone teasing.
Yenatru’s heart is pounding. He’s of course imagined someone finding him here, conversing with him—but it’s not supposed to actually happen. This is definitely not happening.
The woman tilts her head at Yenatru, reminding him that he actually needs to formulate a response.
That’s such a scary thought that he looks away from her. Just saying this is going to be hard enough without adding eye contact to the mix.
“Well,” he manages to say. “I guess I was. I guess you’re right.” Against his will, he finds a smile coming to his mouth.
She doesn’t respond, but as far as Yenatru can tell from the corner of his eye, she doesn’t walk away either.
So maybe he can do the unexpected and make another sentence.
“No one really comes here,” he says.
“I can see that. It’s a nice place you’ve got. A good place to set up and do Theurgy.”
Another pause passes and Yenatru still feels incapable of handling this situation. No one’s supposed to talk to him here, that’s the literal point, but then, it’s not like he doesn’t want to try. “Is there a reason you’re here?” he finds himself saying, then inwardly curses. That sounded more accusatory than he intended.
“Nah,” she says, “just bored.”
“Okay,” Yenatru says. And curses himself again—what kind of conversation response is just “okay”?
She takes a step closer. “So. May I sit here? I mean, if we are talking, and all. ’S a large bench.”
It takes a few moments before Yenatru manages to say, “Um, sure.” He’s finding himself thankful that the person who approached him isn’t male; if he’s this bad around someone he isn’t attracted to, he hesitates to imagine what it would be like if he were.
It takes another several moments before he realizes that he has to get his bag out of her way.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t really have friends…
“So,” she says, sitting down. “When you’re not doing a terrible job trying to keep secrets about manifesting your soul in the world and all that, what do you do?”
“Uh.” Yenatru takes a quick glance at her—she’s smiling, somehow—and then goes right back to looking at the floor. “Well, for now I’m in the general program here, but I guess in a few months, I’ll be learning law?”
“Law, huh. Planning to change the world? Right some sort of wrong?”
“Um, maybe. Like, it’s a thought, helping people, but it’s also like… options. Having a training in law means I have a lot of options for things I could do later. It’s that sort of motivation, I guess.”
“Ohhh,” the woman says, “so you want power.”
“Um, well,” Yenatru sputters, “that’s not really— I mean— I didn’t say that.”
“Nothing wrong with power,” she says.
“You don’t think so?”
“Nope! ’Course not. Well, with at least one caveat. Don’t—don’t ever—go getting any power you don’t want.”
“I… guess that makes sense,” Yenatru says with a nod. “But, um, that’s probably enough about me and my life plans and stuff. I mean, I don’t want to monopolize the conversation. Like, I don’t even know your name—oh wait, you don’t know mine either, so I guess that isn’t enough about me—”
“Calm down,” the woman says. “Names don’t have to come first. If anything, I’d prefer they don’t. It’s better this way.”
“Okay. Well—what are you doing here? Like, not in a bad way, but what brings you to a weird slab of rock?”
“Passing through? An enjoyment of weird slabs of rock?”
“But, um, I’m sure you’re looking for books here, right, that’s what most people do—“
“That doesn’t seem to be what you get up to here,” she says.
“Yeah, but—”
“But you’re special?” she asks.
Yenatru blushes. “I was not trying to say that.”
“Nothing wrong at all with being special,” she says. “In fact, you might even be. There’s not a lot of people who go out of their way finding places to do Theurgy.”
“Are you complimenting me?”
“I dunno. Am I?”
Yenatru decides not to spend a moment thinking about that. “But, you. You’re passing through.”
“Yup. And, if I’m being really honest, I kind of am looking for books, if I can find any here I haven’t read before. Like, new releases and stuff. I feel in the mood for a good coming-of-age story—but a conversation’s even better.”
Yenatru blinks; there’s a lot of books here, she can’t have read them all. “Uh. Conversation. Right. About that… uh, are you from Ēnnuh? Or, no, you said you were just passing through…”
“Not from here, yeah.”
“So are you from… somewhere in the Fourteen Rivers? Eden? Across some ocean or another? I guess there’s a lot of options, the world’s pretty big…”
“I might be from some of those,” the woman says with a shrug. “Depends on what you mean. I like this city though, it’s been pretty nice every time I’ve visited.”
“You have… family here?”
She scoffs. “Fuck no. Or, at least, I hope not…”
Yenatru tilts his head.
“But anyway,” she says, “it’s my turn to ask something. You’re doing the general program before going into law—why?”
“I guess for the same reason most people do,” Yenatru says. “You know, finding out what’s out there, taking classes in lots of things to decide what to do as a specialized program later… the usual.”
“You guess?”
“I mean… sure?”
“It’s your life,” she says, “I kind of expect you to know.”
“Well, maybe it was something like that two years ago. Now I’m just finishing it because I said I would, in a way.”
“Ah,” she says, “plans changed.”
“That is the point,” Yenatru says. “I decided I’ll enter the law program next term, and that’s because the general program helped me look around.”
Though the general program was also going to be something he did alongside Tamar. Maybe it would have been nicer if that had worked out.
“So you’re a big fan then? Program worked exactly as planned, you’d recommend it?”
“Are you a reporter?” he asks, narrowing his eyes a little.
“No, not at all. Just a conversationalist! Although maybe I’m not that good of one, at least not when I’ve just met someone.” She shrugs. “Well, I try my best, that’s what matters, right? And I’m curious, I do a lot of traveling, and well, I like getting to know what people actually from a place think about that place’s culture. You know?”
He’s not sure he does, but maybe he would like to. And what does that mean, that he would like—
Just as he’s thinking that, someone passes by the bench. Two in one day; that’s weird. And as that person passes, Yenatru’s strange conversation partner waves, and—
—something about her face just shifts.
For a moment, she looks somehow much more masculine. But her features change overall too, her hair even straightens. Then she turns back to him and this time he watches her face change to what it was before.
Yenatru blinks. Huh.
That was obviously something Theurgic, some way that she’s manifested her soul close to her body, so that it can do this.
But he knows well that Theurgy is personal—is literally about being personal—so he decides not to say anything. At least this explains why she caught what he was doing so quickly: he might not be overwhelmingly obvious to a normal person, but to another Theurgist… he can accept that.
“So you never really did say,” she says, as if nothing happened, “if you think that what you might get from learning law is the kind of power you want, or the kind you don’t. That distinction really does matter, you know.”
“I haven’t done it yet,” he says.
“I know. But you can still make informed predictions. That’s often what separates the wise from, you know… the other people.”
“Well,” Yenatru says, “even though I think your advice is good, I also can’t see a way in which learning law could hurt me. It’s not like Theurgy; it doesn’t have to just stay part of me if I don’t want it.”
“But if you go all the way and actually get that certificate that says you’ve completed the program and can do law, it might be more like that than you think. At least to some people! Although maybe those aren’t the people you’d like to hang around, I don’t know, it’s not like I know you. But to some folk, they’ll probably think of you as Someone Who Can Practice Law, and that makes a difference. Even if you don’t want it to.”
Yenatru nods slowly. “I… guess.”
“Unless you lie about it, of course,” she continues. “But you don’t seem the type to do that… for all that you’re keeping your Theurgy secret.”
“It’s not secret,” Yenatru complains.
“Isn’t it?” the woman says, an expression disturbingly close to pity on her face. “You’re trying to hide it, for some reason.”
“It’s personal,” he says.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to hide it. I mean, you’ve seen the morning star, for example.”
“Well, that took years for Lucifer to make.”
“Closer to centuries.”
“Right. A longer time than I have.”
“That doesn’t really influence how visible it is, though,” she says. “One could have just as easily had something that big, you know, not orbit the planet. Put it in a cave or something. Not be visible every single day to the whole of Šehhinah, weather permitting.”
“Well, I’m not Lucifer,” Yenatru says.
“No, you’re not,” she says with a wry-looking smile. “But what does that have to do with anything? In terms of secrecy.”
“Again, I’m not actually keeping it secret.”
“You got friends?”
“Yeah.” At least one. At least, kind of.
“Do they know?”
“…No,” he admits.
“Then, see!” she says, gesturing. “It’s secret.”
Yenatru can’t help but look, again, at the floor.
“You don’t want it to be, and yet, you make these decisions. That sounds… unpleasant. For you. Wanna try to change it?”
“Wh-what?”
“Or wait, am I getting ahead of myself?” she asks. “I’m acting like you care about my opinion, but you don’t know me. And although I’d be willing to offer my services as a Theurgic mentor… this is kind of early in a conversation for that, isn’t it?”
Yenatru blinks, hoping his heart isn’t about to pound right out of his chest. Theurgists often take mentors, he knows that, but he never expected there was any chance of that happening to him.
Of anyone knowing, or wanting to know…
He’s blushing, isn’t he?
“So?” the woman asks. “What do you think?”
“I… don’t even know your name,” he manages.
“Shit,” she says. “I avoided that bit for too long, huh?”
“Avoided…?”
“There I go, getting ahead of myself again,” she says. “So yes, what is your name?”
“Yenatru.”
“’S a good name.” She nods. “I mean, unless you don’t like it.”
“No, I’m fine with it. And yours?”
“Oh, I hate this part,” she says quickly, as if just to herself. Yenatru sees her take a deep breath—she apparently does not want to tell him this—before she says, “So, I’m Lucifer.”
Yenatru’s first thought is: that’s probably just a name. But she’s not saying anything about it being just a name. And humans can’t make Theurgic manifestations directly as their body, but angels—and the Fallen—can. And: oh flaming God with the eyes all afire. Is actual, literal Lucifer, the first angel to fall, talking to Yenatru?
But she didn’t want to tell him, which means his reaction matters. That makes sense; if you go around being Lucifer for a whole bunch of centuries, people being shocked has got to get annoying after a while. Flame it though, how much has he already been blinking and staring? Say something, Yenatru, say something.
So he says, “I think I can see why you didn’t want to introduce yourself at first.”
She grimaces. “Yeah. People freak out. You freaked out, a little.”
“Sorry,” he says, shoulders slumping. If someone really did approach him here, just for him to hurt them…
“I mean, people have reacted worse,” the woman—Lucifer—says.
“I… yeah.”
“Someone actually thought a reasonable reaction, once, would be to ask me what God was like,” Lucifer says, “so that sets the bar pretty fucking low.”
“Right.” He needs to shift the subject. Now. “So, you like Ēnnuh?”
“I did say something about that, yeah.”
“You’ve been here… probably more than once.”
“That’s true.”
“Right,” he says.
“So, are you too shocked, or intimidated, or whatever, to talk to me like a normal person?” She rests her head on her hand; she looks bored. “I mean, I’d get it, but…”
She doesn’t look very happy, Yenatru notices. Flame it, is she lonely? He kind of would have assumed that Lucifer would spend her time with other Fallen but, obviously, here she is now, not doing that, and since humans die… huh. Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that she’s just looking at him like a person.
“No,” Yenatru says, shaking his head. “I don’t mean to be like that. And I’m really sorry if I was acting too shocked to talk to you normally, which I probably was. Then again, I can’t actually guarantee perfection either, but… flames, look at me, here I am, having someone actually approach me here, for once”—he gives the best hopeful smile he can—“and now I’m just messing it up.”
Lucifer’s grabbing a book and doing something to it; Yenatru isn’t sure what.
“I don’t know what else I can, or should, say,” he continues. “It seems like if I just keep saying what’s on my mind, I’ll just say more stuff that means I’m shocked, and I’m sure that’s not what you want. Again, I’m really sorry that—”
And Lucifer extends her arm out, handing him… a page of a book that’s been folded into the shape of, what is that, a bear?
“Peace offering?” she says.
Yenatru takes it as gently as he can manage; it looks fragile. Then his eyes wander over to the book Lucifer was messing with, which is closed again now, but something tells him it’s also missing a page. “Um, did you rip this page out of a book, out of that book? Because you’re definitely not supposed to do that.”
“Eh, it’s not a very good book. Trust me, I’ve read it.”
Yenatru’s eyes flicker back to the bear… thing. It really is well made, if strange, and incredibly against library rules.
“See,” she says. “it’s nicer that way.”
“It is really cute.”
Briefly, Lucifer grins.
And Yenatru’s heart almost stops, because it just occurred to him that he has no idea what time it is. He glances down at his watch, and—flames.
“Oh visage of God,” Yenatru curses, standing up. “I have class. In seven minutes. On the other side of campus.” He puts the bear in a pouch of his bag where he thinks it might be safe. “I really have to go.”
He looks to Lucifer, who’s blinking a little, but starting to smile.
“If that’s okay?” he asks.
“Pff, of course it’s okay. What kind of person would I be, if I was asking you to skip class? You have a life.”
Yenatru’s already got his bag on his back, almost turning to leave. But he’s hesitating. This is the first person who’s just talked to him in ages, and…
“Yeah, leave, Yenatru,” Lucifer says. “I’m not going anywhere, not while there’s library books to read.”
And with that, he turns and runs.
And he thinks he hears Lucifer shout behind him, “Good luck!”