philosophica majestus – chapter eight

time is perspective.

adele’s eyes were still closed, and her face was flushed in the dim light of the alcove.

the man in black paused mid-stride, his eyes narrowed and mouth half-open in surprise.

i stepped out to meet him.

“you have frozen time,” he said, obviously impressed.

i shrugged. “no big thing, once you know the trick.”

“few on this world know the trick. who taught you?”

“some guy.”

the man in black smiled, a lopsided smile which never quite mirrored the fear in his eyes. i hated seeing fear, but i respected the need for invoking it.

the world was silent around us. rain hung in beaded droplets, waiting with infinite patience to complete their fall.

the man in black stared hard at a single drop. “it is not moving at all,” he said. “many slow time, but few can freeze it so utterly. i think you are a being to fear.”

“i’m just a lawyer. well. a sort-of lawyer.”

the man in black smiled. “oh, i don’t think so, sir. you are more than a lawyer,” he swayed gently on his feet, eyes darting this way and that. he seemed nervously seeking something. i let him seek. “in fact, i would hazard a guess that you are no longer an apprentice.”

“good guess.”

he rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand, sighed, and made his move.

his fingers moved with precision, outlining blue fire in the air between us, and he mumbled the words of his spell.

i traced a single line, divided with a snakelike power rune, and waited for him to finish his spell. he noticed my pausing, and frowned. he glanced at my rune, and frowned even more.

he did not recognise it.

which, as he released his spell, was good for me, and bad for him.

i whispered a word, and mine exploded into a mass of tangled arms, each bright as white fire, whipping outward, siezing the symbol from the air in front of him and tearing it to shreds even as its magical energy was poised to release.

timing had always been important to the unravelling of another’s spells.

he watched, frantic to repair the damage before realising what had happened.

he looked up at me, eyes rimmed with terror. “it cannot be,” he had time to mutter before his magical energies, blunted by the destruction of their focal point, distintegrated, taking him with it.

the ripples of his destruction threw me backward, and i hit the wall behind me. sliding to the footpath, i put my hand on my head and felt wetness which wasn’t rain.

“damn.”

my ribs hurt.

i touched the area.

no splintered bone.

no shrapnel.

no breaks.

just bruises.

i looked up at adele, still with her eyes closed, facing where i had been.

the cool calm void of immobile space was like a moment of enlightenment. i wondered if this was how the buddhas felt just before they turned to light and were carried to the shining cities of heaven.

or wherever they went to.

starlight, star bright, first star i see tonight.

my shoulder ached.

my head ached.

i took out a tissue and put it against the wound.

“damn.”

du’caramas may have felt something. i had heard many rumours about him. i only hoped he did not know this trick. if he did, he would have been as immune to it as the man in black. he might even be on his way to the centre of it.

surely he would feel it.

so, i waited.

waiting and bleeding.

if he came, he would no doubt be able to finish me. i hadn’t counted on hitting my head, and the resulting explosion of pain was making it hard to concentrate.

for some reason, i found myself thinking of apuleius, and his dreams.

he related one to me, once.

he told me he had dreamt of me standing beside a river, with my face in my hands.

“you were wearing someone else’s,” he said. “so you could do nothing else with your own but hold it, half-shredded and rotting, in your fists. i wonder, levi, whether the mask you wear is now your true face?”

“people don’t like our kind, apuleius. they suspect us. and no matter how powerful we are, we cannot hold back a tide of millions, should they decide to rend us limb from limb.”

apeleius laughed. “there will come a time, my friend, when that will happen! they shall rise up and burn us all on their primitive fires. fires which they only know the making of because of our kind! we took them from their caves, their grass huts, and their filthy mud-beds, and we gave them language, the greatest magic of them all. for that, we will pay with our own blood.”

“this, you foretell?”

he shrugged, and spat out a cherry seed. popping another of the fruits into his mouth, he said, “there is no need to foretell when it is only too clear what the future holds for us. they fear us, levi, it is true. and someday, long after we have perished in their flames, our kind will return this favour to them. their empires will be burned, their language altered. they will die by the millions for their sins of contempt and ignorance. yet, though we might battle, their kind and ours, is it right you think to burrow away in holes only a mole would enjoy, wearing masks to disguise our true selves?”

“i value my life,” i told him. “it’s the only one i have.”

“levi!” he laughed, spat out a seed. “that is a coward’s answer. best to live a day as a man, and all of that. personally, i love too much the company of others to accept mere survival.”

“i am content with what i have.”

“yet, you sought me out.”

“i wished to learn what you know.”

“you already know, levi. don’t play the mouse to me. i know you too well. and even had i not two eyes, twin ears and a mind, i have still these dreams which tell me more than i would like to know of you. you will survive the burnings. and you will survive the plague of greed which will cover the world in acid smoke and buildings so high they breed darklings in numbers greater than the world has ever seen. you will survive all of this, levi. and you will see a second, perhaps a third age born. but i wonder if such a trifling thing as survival is truly something you could call life?”

i picked at the cherries, and found one i liked the look of. “apuleius, my old friend, ask me again in a thousand – no, a million years.”

he sat for a while, seemingly basking in the sun with the aura of a true master. then, with a sigh, he turned away, wiping at his eyes. “levi. i would give many things to be able to do so. but i am just a man.”

i slumped against the wall of a building so high it would have made him dizzy. adele, still motionless in an alcove.

if du’caramas had noticed, he would have come. only someone with supreme powers to repress an insatiable curiosity would have stayed away, and i knew he was not such a mage. no, he would have come on wings of fire, searching the streets, his blood-drenched fingers seeking for answers.

i pushed myself up into a standing position.

sensation was returning to my head, and the intense taste of impact had faded, leaving only the taste of blood in my mouth.

i must have bitten my lip.

wiping at my head, i noticed the blood had stopped flowing.

i was always a quick healer.

my side was still swollen, and i felt my ribs shifting into place. it wasn’t too painful, but neither was it comfortable.
i raised my hand and traced green fire, whispered words of magic expelled from my mouth like an organised set of numbers into a random sea of chaos.

the universe spun like a combination lock.

left.

right.

left again.

click.

movement.

adele spun around, her eyes wide. “but you – you were right here! and now . . . mister levi! you are bleeding! how did this happen?”

i sighed, pushing myself back against the wall. “give me a second, adele. i can’t breathe properly just yet. i think i punctured a lung. just give me a second.”

“we were being followed? you have done something. something,” her voice was hushed, almost too soft to be heard above the city’s noise. “magic?”

“it is magic, adele,” i said. “i would hope you didn’t tell anyone, though.”

she took my hand, her eyes filled with wonder. “i swear it! i will tell no one!”

i coughed. spat out a chunk of redness which again reminded me of apuleius’ cherries.

then, rubbing the back of my neck, i slowly pushed myself to my feet. “we should go, adele.”

“you must go to a hospital, mister levi! surely the hearing can wait?”

“it will not wait. if we’re not there when they start, the case will be dismissed. i believe that’s why we were followed.”

“those bastards,” she clenched her fists. unclenched. decided to clench them again. “they have no honour.”

“honour’s an ancient concept, adele. to be honest, though, it has never existed among the masses.”

“mister levi! how dare you say such a thing! why, my family hold very dear to honour. we believe our life is represented solely by that ancient concept, as you so contemptuously put it.”

i chuckled, feeling my ribs slide. “i was not being contemptuous, adele,” i said. “please forgive my cynicsm as merely the ramblings of a bitter fool.”

“i don’t think you’re a fool, mister levi,” she said, helping steady me as i took my first step. “you have saved my life today, i think. at great cost to you, no doubt.”

“i’m fine, adele. there’s no physical damage, really.”

“i was not talking about your shell, mister levi. but you are a man who likes to hide what he is, i think. a private man? don’t argue. my grandfather was like you. he, too, hid what he was. not well enough, i might add. today, you have revealed yourself, i think. i do not take such things lightly. it is part of that ancient concept in me.”

“i tell you what, adele. there’s something you can do which would, in my mind, cancel the debt you believe you owe me.”

“what is that, mister levi?”

“you could call us a rickshaw. i am in no condition to walk.”

Tags: discordian, men in black, philosophica majestus