Like the Book

1010 A.D.
The Realm of Wyn Avuqua

Edwin waves at the gatekeeper in his stone house beside the gigantic cog and wheel machines. The keeper waves back. Slacked heavy chains bow to the high parapets, to the massive doors and back down into funneled wheels beside the entry. Ahead, a mossy green cobblestone road starts a gentle climb into a dozen or so cedar trees. It feels to Loche that he is not entering a city, but rather another forest, a forest glittering with tiny torches.

“Tomorrow,” Vincale says, “if the Lady allows, you shall wander the City under the light of day. But even as Dellithion visits Endale elsewhere, you are blessed to enter Wyn Avuqua at night. For in darkness her embrace can be evermore alluring…”

A gentle rain begins as the last of the grey light fails. A rushing stream somewhere distant threads through the pines. They pass high gabled buildings and networks of pathways that lead into clusters of distant houses. They pass other travelers on horseback, people on foot and an occasional wagon with glowing yellow lanterns. They are greeted with smiles, and galinna and adnyet. But the greetings are quickly stifled by the realization that a god travels within the party. Their smiles fade to dark wonderment.

Vincale’s warm voice from ahead keeps the train heartened. “All is well,” he says. “Follow and do not be troubled.”

Every so often they cross below pinnacled stone arches. Icons are embossed at each apex. Loche squints, trying to make out the image.

“The talons of a heron, Loche Newirth,” Vincale assists. “We are now passing through Shartiris.”

Corey to his old friend, “Shartiris. William Hubert Greenhame… we are riding through Shartiris.” Then whispering to himself in disbelief, “We are riding through Shartiris.”

“A wonder!” William replies. To Leonaie he says, “Those of the House of Talons are the warriors of the City, though, I dare say, all are trained in the art.”

“That is indeed so,” Vincale says.

William, his voice lighthearted and at ease, “See there… Leonaie, these must be the spires and chimneys of the lower Armory”

“Right again, William Greenhame,” Vincale replies.

Leonaie’s looks to the passing sights and to where William points, but Loche notices her focus often returning to him. She wears an expression he cannot yet read. Back at the gate Leonaie had leaned into his ear and whispered, “We must speak privately—as soon as it can be managed.”

High above the tree-line jut three brick chimneys. Orange sparks and feathery plumes of smoke rise from their tops like freshly extinguished candles. The structure below appears to be conical. Through the thick dark an overlarge open door hurls an incandescent heat into the night. On the air is the tink, tink, tink of many hammers, and the breathing of bellows as if within the forge a dragon sleeps.

Blinking, Loche sees the black and white grid of text behind his lids. William is suddenly at his side. He asks quietly, “Is it anything like you imagined? Is this what you saw when you wrote of it?”

Loche tries to recall. He thinks of the key hanging around Julia’s neck. The key that will open the door to his circular office tower—the key to the cabinets containing his journals, notes and poetry. There, outside his round office window, he would watch the trees fill with purple dusk, and the forest glade just down the hill from his driveway would suddenly reveal a stone cabin, or a circular citadel with five spear-like towers, or a tavern smelling of yeast, crisp woodsmoke and spilled ale—bright candles in the windows, and yes, a conical armory would sometimes appear with three high chimneys and he could almost hear the ring of hammers pinging on anvils. Yet, those images and sounds and flavors were fleeting. Just as they would form in the architecture of his imagination—just as he would enter, explore and struggle to explain his discoveries onto paper, his visions could very easily vanish—crumble—die. His imagined ocular citadel, Tiris Avu, its monumental foundation rivaling that of the Pantheon, or the weighty core of the Pyramids of Giza, or the sure, modern footing of the Empire State Building, was no match for the destructive force of reality: a bothersome phone call, Helen’s voice from the kitchen below beckoning for some mindless chore, his worry over a hurting client, the occasional tussle with existential dread. And so, too, the delight of his six-year-old son knocking on the office door with two wooden swords and a challenge—or the little boy’s thudding footfalls across the floor into Loche’s lap with a thousand questions about stars, bees, donuts, video games and how to build jet boots could, and often did, nudge aside the best laid megalithic plans. During those moments he felt like the metal between the hammer and the anvil. He was at the pressure point between fiction and reality. A casualty from the collision of colossal forces. Loche can hear Edwin’s voice, When is your book done, Dad? Are we still writing the good stories?

Loche gazes up to another series of arches and notes two more icons carved into the stone signage: a heart and a set of wings. The company enters into a lantern-lit maze of bridges and canals. Just beyond, Wyn Avuqua’s center fortress, its circular ward and five towers, Tiris Avu, rises out of the landscape. It is familiar and terrifying all at once, like a dream coming true. Had he seen it from here before? Did he know this was going to happen?

Had he conceived of the gatekeeper? The warrior class of Shartiris? The way the City’s lamplight flickers across the valley like moonlit water? The eye-shaped kingdom of immortals with its towers, high battlements, armories, libraries, temples, music houses, sculptures and simple homes—fires in their hearths, bread on their boards?

Yes. Yes it was like what he had seen in his mind’s eye. It was what he had written. It was the dreamscape of his poetry.

“Son,” William asks again, “is it as you wrote it?”

“No,” Loche answers. A sharp chill searches beneath his jacket. “It is now real and I can do nothing to control it.”

“I do not agree with you, Son,” William says. There is a quiet terror in his words. “But I fear that when you learn to control it, and control it you will, Death will be your teacher.”