11 - Luce, continued

       My attention is snatched away from the boy by a silent scream in my mind, a yanking of my heart against my ribs. I look up quickly, my eyes turned accusingly toward the ceiling, but there is nothing there to explain the feeling. I scan the room, but see nothing...
       Azal. He has not yet returned, but I see the girl he was with, circulating the room with a tray of drinks, returned to her duties. Where is Azal? It has been too long, and there is something in the air that is not right.
       “You must excuse me. There is something that I must attend to.”
       Claude looks bewildered and embarrassed, but I care nothing for his comforts, there are larger things at stake, if my suspicions are correct. I slip through the crowd, showing myself unhurried, but stopping for no conversation, my gaze focused on the nearest exit from the room.
       I pass through the shimmering gauze curtains, and stand a moment in the dim corridor, lit by few lamps. The lamps have been given shades of dark blue and violet, but the eerie effect only adds to my discomfiture. Before I have decided which direction to move in, I am joined by Meres. Our eyes meet a moment, and I know that he felt it as well. Mephisto was likely too distracted, Veri too exhausted; Adir, Carey, Nila... I doubt if this was a call they could even hear any more, so prosaic have their consciousnesses become in this late years.
       We move quickly through the shadowed halls, guided solely by instinct, by a yearning of the breast toward our brother in pain. Pain... there is so much pain, that a part of me demands to know why I'm rushing so determinedly toward it. It can have no possible good for myself. But I cannot argue away this imperative, though no more can I explain it. Corner after corner, we turn round, hall after narrowing hall, we pass through, until at last we come to a closed door, which seems almost to burn in flame, such intensity does it strike our eyes with.
       I put a hand to the knob – it is locked, but it is only a moment before I have remedied this. Men's minds grow more difficult to move, but scraps of cold metal are easy enough still. “Azal?” I call quietly as I push open the door, Meres and I slipping inside and locking it quickly and silently behind us. The room is dimly lit, awash in dark sapphire and violet, the shadows merging into strange forms...
       But not all the strangeness lies in the shadows.
       There is a form splayed out on the circular bed, rising and falling as though on ocean waves, but the angles are all wrong... it is as the mutilated form of a shattered corpse, motionless, the bones broken.
       “Azal...” Meres breathes, then rushes to his side, the bed sloshing wildly at the sudden impact. “Azal! Come back, Azal, come back to us... there is nowhere else for you to go, you know this, Azal, do not subject yourself to such torment again!” He moves his hands quickly over the unresponsive frame, and I see his skin darken before he draws sharply back – blood, and something darker, ink I suspect.
       I move toward the bed as well, and my eyes resolve the dark mass into better detail. Azal lies face down on the bed, and his back is covered in an unreadable mass of blood, ink, and torn flesh. The tattoos he acquired centuries ago, hoping by magical means to regain his wings, are barely visible in the mess. I cannot tell what ink is new and what old, for the tattoo seems fresh again, and the old blood flows alongside the new, the old scars are torn fresh alongside new incision. I sit carefully opposite Meres, who is peering closely at the destruction.
       “Oh, Azal... why put yourself through this again? Do not let the pain overtake you like this...” He sighs, and turns Azal's head to the side, that he might look at the face. There is no motion of breath, but Meres lifts the closed eyelids, and seems to consider for a moment. He slides his hand under Azal's chest, pressing it tight over his heart for a long moment. His brows furrows, but at last he nods, and seems to relax a little. “He is returning. His heart beat is increasing, though it is yet faint.”
       My own heart seems to have slowed as well – certainly my breathing has, for I feel the pressure of my lungs demanding more air. I take a deep breath, and gaze pityingly at Azal's back. So foolish. How many times must he attempt the same hopeless task? I take another deep breath – and realize that though I am breathing, my lungs are still unsatisfied, there is something odd in the air they take in. “Meres... the air. Is it strange to you?”
       He pauses in his survey of Azal for a moment to consider. “It is. It is far, far too heavy, even for such a small enclosed space as this.”
       “...how far do you suppose that he went?” My voice is low, for though we are alone, we can take no risk of anyone catching the merest suggestion of this.
       Meres sighs heavily, stroking Azal's long hair, which is caked in places with blood that refuses to clot correctly. “I don't know... but certainly something went quite wrong. I know very little of these arts, but...” He traces the air over a particularly deep rend in Azal's flesh, to the left of the spine, above where his heart would be. He seems unusually hesitant to actually touch the patterns of blood and torn skin – he was never so before. “This pattern here, I recall it from something, and this one here...” He sighs again, biting at his lip. “Luce... it was not heaven he was calling toward, in demanding this gift.”
       I nod solemnly. “I suspected as much. The air is too thick, too acrid. Was it his wings, again?”
       “I can't be certain... there are new symbols here, that I do not recognize from before. But he crafts new ones every time, so it's possible this is a different path to his same goal.”
       I turn my glance to take in the room, and notice several things that I had not before. “There were circles laid on the floor – they must have been sand, or something similar, for it seems we broke them as we entered.”
       Meres looks around as well, frowning. “And the lamps – I did not intend to have them burn green in such a manner. The smell it creates is too unpleasant. Nor is that glitter on the floor there by design, it is shattered glass, not crystals or foil.”
       There are heavy stains on the furniture and carpets, I cannot tell at this distance if they are wine or blood, though I suspect it is a mixture of both, for the tang of alcohol hangs in the air, almost hidden by the acrid bitterness of the chemicals causing the green flames, and the musty, cloying atmosphere that leaked out into this realm from that other one.
       There is a low sound from the bed, and I turn my attention back to Azal's shattered form.
       “Azal?” Meres leans close, and we both see the subtle motion as his lungs struggle to gain purchase again on this plane. “Azal... we are here with you. I know the pain is great, but you need not survive it alone.”
       I move around beside Meres, sitting as lightly as I can on the side of the bed, reaching a hand over to stroke Azal's hair. “Shall we have something brought for you, to ease the pain?”
       Azal groans, closing his eyes. “No... deserve it... must go through...”
       Meres sighs, and uses a corner of silk sheet to wipe the smears of blood from Azal's face. “You do not have to go through it. You have paid price enough already, the spirits have gone. We have the means to numb your physical pains, at least, there is no reason not to do so.”
       Azal seems hesitant, but at last manages something of a nod. Meres stands, and crosses the room to the bell pull, and rings for a servant. He steps outside the room, that the servant might see nothing of what lies within it.
       I comb my fingers through Azal's hair still, pausing at each tangle, carefully working them loose. “Azal, you fool... why must you repeat this scene, over and again?”
       He groans, sighing painfully. “Luce... air so thick. Do you not miss the skies?”
       I smile wryly. “They are filled with such smoke and ash, over cities as this – it would hardly be the relief you believe it.”
       He coughs, and it may be something of a laugh. “Luce... have to try. Thought this time, that I had something, I thought...”
       “Azal. Please. It is wearisome to hear you speak of such things, you know I do not understand the languages of these circumscribed spheres. Do you realize what a mess you make of things, when you do these things? It will be months before we can patch your skin back together entirely.”
       “I know... I am sorry for the trouble it causes you. Selfish.”
       I laugh at this. “We are all selfish! But at least we can keep from being altogether stupid. Stop these frivolous quests. If some entirely new art is found, then by all means, we shall try to regain what we can, but... Azal, you have tread this path a hundred times. It leads nowhere.”
       He sighs, chokes a moment, then clears his throat. He lifts a hand weakly, and I take it in mine. His skin is so much darker than mine, though it is yet paler than any of those he has lived among in the deserts all these years. The blood stains it dark, and spills a wine-tinged residue onto my flesh, as I clasp his hand. There is no warmth in the contact, our flesh ever-cold, but his breathing seems easier now. Azal... I know you will not stop in your futile questing. It is intrinsic to you, this unshakable faith in the arts you created. The yearning you succumb to is one that we all feel, though we... though I... have long since given up hope of absolving it.
       Hope.
       ...is that what it is, that you yet have?