Part Two: Painting of a City

Young Jacque is sent to an old Venice, where he finds God and the devil in an unlikely place... a young boy's painting.

No one ever explained to me how the winds blew through the valleys, or how camels would adopt other camel offspring as their own, or why the oceans were so expansive that it consumed the globe. No one explained to me why men killed other men, or why we needed to suffer through this life and fear giving ourselves to the devil. No one dared explain to me why the devil was to be feared as a quintessential being, whereas God was to be loved, or why he loved us unconditionally. My beliefs were chastened by out most base functions of right and wrong, and whilst the latter still clings to society, my ways could not be changed. As a boy, the writings of the Bible held minor ennui to me and I meaninglessly gave away the wealth of my family to impecunious characters, if not only to model the tithings. The bribery of the Lord. It was esoteric"an ultimately meticulous form of bribery. Yet, despite my many shortcomings as a boy, I was still a jewel to my mother and an heir to my father.

No one ever explained to me about death, not only when this boy had hardly understood life, and when Gosh explained to me the meretricious outcomes of death, the propinquity of my new form bloomed.

Meh-ven was unnecessarily morose, but having been the utopian wasteland for unwanted souls, it only seemed fitting that souls congregate and divulge their somber woes in such a place, for heaven would not have them. Nor would they have me, a boy of six winters, pass seamlessly through heaven’s gates and loom sequestered behind that veil.

Gosh, I said, Gosh, when do souls get into heaven? Mama got into heaven, right?

“Young Jacque,” he would say in a polemical tone, “I’ve never been to heaven, how should I know? Worry about such things not, for I am sure your mother had a great design for her. Now, now, come, you’ve more paeans to memorize, we can’t have you sounding like a goose for the other souls, ye’ hear?”

He fastened the lace around my neck, just as the small frock fit my petite form snug.

I worked endlessly each day, or night, I could not tell which for I ceased to rest. I ceased to eat or drink, or perform bodily functions as was once required by a warm body with recidivist ways. I memorized paeans and songs of guilt, poems written by angels and ballads written by nephalem. I heard the screams of the devils in purgatory and the singing of the lambs in heaven. I experienced the clouds that raise the kingdom of God into the sky, and tasted the tangential fire that shaped hell. Gosh explained to me that Meh-ven was the realm between realms, just as he was the phantom between angels and demons. Our realm was insignificant compared to heaven or hell, and often times God had forgotten about it altogether.

“It’s not exquisite and it’s not resplendent, but it certainly isn’t all fire and pain. No, it’s just… adequate. It’s tolerable. It’s… meh.”

Gosh taught me about why ghosts were prohibited from ascending to heaven, or why certain malevolent souls were not pulled down into hell. He explained to me why the sun continues to burn forever in the sky, and why the stars do not tell the truth; they have burnt out long ago. They are mere images of their once great power. Much like the ghosts that remain in Meh-ven, these dreamless souls are locked in an arrest that transcends life and death altogether. It is they that have become creatures of the dark, and as Gosh claims it, “A grand success for the regiments of God, sharpening these souls for the entrance into heaven.”

Was I a soul that was to be sharpened for heaven? Was I a weapon? And the disciples of Gosh, these subservient creatures without dreams, had they been released into paradise once their service completed?

“Of course, all souls are granted access into their paradise once they complete service to me, but always are the pitfalls of madness.”

“Madness?”

“Obsession for the unknown, perversion of their essences, a lack of forgiveness, or otherwise dominating sense of jealousy or rage. These are the pitfalls of all souls, and many dwell so deep in these resonant emotions that it bends the mortal plane altogether. Some emanate these emotions so much that souls do not desire to leave Meh-ven. Some desist and fade into the nether without a name, forgotten and alone. Others choose to stay in order to provide consolation for their loved ones, or forever haunt a bloodline that was once troubling in life. Some forget themselves, and instead choose to embody these emotions so exclusively that they no longer listen to reason; and certainly do not listen to my words. Thus, they are not fit for either heaven or hell, and they remain here forever with unfinished business… trapped in their callow ways like fish caught in a net.

“What is it like for these souls whose existence provides no parlay for further ascendence? What is it like for these souls whose very accord is reflective of their stance on life? Where do these souls linger after their pitfall has enveloped them? There is no plain answer for this. Look around you. Do you see that soul there? It has been searching for its family for three-thousand mortal years, no easy feat. It has grown in obsession, and even as you speak to it, it shall no heed reason nor honor. It will forever search in this plane for relatives long forgotten. It is… as God calls them… ‘The Distant’, and they are plaguing our mediocre plane with their constant moping around.

“What about the souls that are so inhibited by rage and jealousy that their essences radiate black energy? See those four souls over there? Believe me, they are not cuddling, and their words are as gruesome as they are. They are trying to absorb the other, for negatives here attract other negatives, and once negatives migrate to one another, their essences intermingle until they create a devastating mass of unresolved effect. These souls are soldiers in wars, jealous husbands and wives, dissatisfied peons and guiltless murderers. They are the very binding of Meh-ven, and they are not without the disciples of Gosh, for someone must keep them in check.”

Souls darted from one end of the plane to the other, and some congregated with others while some walked through small ones. A few assumed shapes of humans, and others walked as beasts did with arms fat and nebulous, with eyes glowing fire and teeth yellowed and sharp.

And those that murdered and raped and burned? What about the destroyers of worlds and the eaters of children? Do these rough souls, brazen and immaculate, also gain access into paradise once they pledge their afterlife to you?

“… Some do, little Jacque. Some pledge their entire universe to me, if not only to gain access into a paradise far beyond their imagination.”

He took me around Meh-ven, showed me the waterfalls that fell so slowly that it left me yawning. He revealed the burning peaks of the fire mountains, and their fires lit subtly atop great piles of ash. It was as if a stove failed to ignite and the wick sat lifeless and asleep. I yawned again. Then there were islands of sand, crumbled cities of dust, plants that were thin and brittle, and ugly creatures the size of my thumbnail. This was the spirit world of Meh-ven, the mediocrity and plain imagery of the entire adventure was sharp enough to cut you in half. Of all the powers of God and the devil, could this truly be the extent of their power? Or, as Gosh had mentioned before, had this plane fallen beyond the gaze of the higher powers altogether?

He then took my hand and sampled down the halls into a long arcade of light, much like the one I had been flung, and we stood in a shabby room of old books and parchments. The candles lit subtly on the wall and the fireplace glowed with the dying embers of a prior evening. It was early morning in this space and the cabinets resonated the descending light of the moon as it gleamed in from the adjacent open window. Chairs were overturned and cutlery littered the floor, indicating a violent struggle.

I immediately recognized the room, and I recognized the torn love seat that was arched against the wall next to the vacant fireplace. This was my home. This was my place of birth, and the place of my death. Yet, everything seemed so foreign. It was so distant, even to my childish senses.

“Welcome home, young Jacque. This is your first task, so do try and learn well. Are you excited? I sure am. Can’t you see the excitement rolling off of my sleeves?” he asked me as he towered above me, crouching low to avoid the ceiling. Still, he seemed the mammoth to me, and still I seemed the waif to him.

“Am I going home, sir?”

He propped his shoulders and glared at me, chuckling under his breath, as he always did.

“Just a momentary visit, young Jacque. There will never be a return for you, not in the sense that you ask. Think of this as a mere glimpse of what you’ll never have again… Heck, I don’t see why you’re ever want to return anyway. Even this place is too… mediocre.”

I walked to far end of the room, stared at the fire that danced on the dying wick of the candle. It seemed so much more alien to me now that I was dead. It seemed like the brightness had only faded, as if I stared at it from behind the panes of stained church glass. Similarly, the darkness only grew more familiar to me, and it was the corners of the rooms that resisted the light that I was most attracted to. Was this what it meant to be dead? How long has it been since I died? Two year, four? Time was irrelevant to us now in this existence, and Gosh reassured me that I would never change. I was to forever been this little boy that died in his mother’s arms, even as my mind and recognition of the world changed.

I stepped to the far side, where my mother once stroked my head and told me stories. I sequestered myself for long moments against the wall overlooking the stairwell into the foundries of the building. There were places that I’d go without dispute, if I were alive, but now it seemed as if I were in someone else’s home. A vacant, cold, and dreary home that seemed to breathe silently. No patrons crowded the lower halls, and no other ghosts meandered the stairs, or reenacted their deaths by flinging themselves from the top. There was only Gosh and I, and the unfortunate waning of the wind as it whistled through the cracks in the foundations.

Gosh came beside me in a crawl through the small space of the upper level home. His cowled face poked over my shoulder and began whispering into my ear like he often did.

“What is the matter? Aren’t you thrilled to be home again?”

I stirred at my feet, staring off into the distance where the stairs descended further into the madness of darkness.

“My home is Meh-ven, as a disciple of Gosh.” I said innocently. Although I possessed the mind of adolescence, my voice still carried the whimsical tone of youth, and so there I learned to wield it as any weapon-master would.

“Oh? And what of those that slew your mother and stole your family name? Don’t you simply yearn for them, just as they yearned for your title and your flesh?” he coaxed.

“I feel nothing.”

“Oh, but you must! It is impossible to feel nothing! You had such a long life ahead of you. Uncle Rumpus, no, Rufus! He did it! Do you not feel something for him? Is there no glimpse into your anger, your malice, your lust?”

“I feel nothing, sir. Only the sweet abandonment that often comes with death.”

The sweet abandonment, and these words rang bitter in my head even as I said them in my ghostly voice. I could feel Gosh churning behind me, and I could hear his claws scrape at the wooden flooring like a pining dog against a door. I knew he found it harder to read me now; my thoughts were concealed, and it infuriated him all the more.

“Jacque, do you know why souls depart Meh-ven?”

I do not.

“Jacque, do you know why souls come to me for revival? Do you know why they come to me to become a disciple? To cleanse their souls and bloom as a flower does in the spring?”

Because you are Gosh.

“Yes, because I am Gosh, and I am the ruler of this realm. I own your soul. But not only that. Nay, I choose to give souls a new meaning to their apparent death, and I teach them to be as a flower is to be; blooming. I teach them to bloom in the winter. I teach them to do as God would not have them do: control their existence. I teach them to say things that mortals would not normally say. And to this, I have become the third kind. I have become the ruler in-between, and even the devil has no precedence over the workings of my realm.

“That is why you, young Jacque, must understand that souls depart from me in sorrow. They grieve when they must leave for heaven, or are pulled into the gulch of hell. They pray for God and they pray for the stars. But they know that the light of the stars are fake and project a false truth. They know, as all souls come to question in their stay here, that the heavens project a false light. And you think the temptations of hell are any different! Fire only burns for a limited time, and hell’s will extinguish and ignite invariably, and souls shall never find solace in their thoughts due to the transience of Its realm. That is why you must also understand your luck. Come, let us go elsewhere. There is much for you to see.”

He grabbed a hold of my arm and I was flung backwards against my will. The colors swirled around me until I again stood upon my feet. Buildings clamored around me, and I knew I was in the land of my childhood. It was Venice. The sky was riveting with superlative colors that only dwarfed the austere light of Meh-ven, and the terrible stench of human refuse wafting in from the distance mixed with the smell of bread and excited pollen. People from all types meandered in from the sides of the realm to congregate with one another and commit deeds that both displeased and fascinated me. I knew I was once again in the realm of mortals, returned from death and into the arms of grace as Gosh endowed my senses with the experience that I had been without sense birth.

It was Venice.

Amazement and awe for this world filled me, and after a few minutes of roaming the wide streets of the bustling city, it was the painters that attracted my attention as they shifted their brushes against their pastels and dived into their canvases. I scoped the edge of the river when I saw the sparkles of the water from my perch at the base of the stairs. The rays of the sun through the clouds above pierced that water surely, and it was blinding. The glittering strokes of color that serrated the sky were duplicated on canvas in beautiful swaths. Among those that I saw trying to capture the reticence, was a lone boy, possibly no more older than I was at the time of my death. His pants were a thin tan and he wore a cap that kept his short auburn hair from waving in the breeze. He sat on a small, oaken stool, one leg on the floor and the other resting on the stool arm. A paint board, the first that I had ever seen, hung around his left hand, with his small and nimble fingers grasping at a long brush as it made its way across the surface of a canvas. Unlike those other painters that lined the river front flanking him, whose arms were gilded by admiring women and opportunist suitors alike, this boy sat over the river alone. He was clearly lost in thought and heeded little to the happenings around him beyond a small avenue from which his subjects dwelled. Light burnt from within the turbulent depths of that river, like liquid fire, and as the morning fell away into the beginnings of noon, the sun had pulled away the clouds subtly until it matched the paleness of the boy’s beautiful face. And his painting, the glorious delineation of that pulchritude, a grand mise en scène, was reflected in his fretful strokes! It was all ingeniously recorded; the light as it beaded upon the water, the waves as they buckled and enveloped over the other, the small boats as they rowed their way down the currents, and the birds and their fluttering harmony above the city. Even the tip of the steeple as it struck the heavens; it had all been nurtured so conspicuously well.

“Go to him!” I heard in my ear, the booming voice of Gosh as he herded me toward my first inclination.

Legs moved under me and I was beside him then, unsure of what I intended to do, unsure of what the boy might perceive. Energy inside my bosom incited my body to move toward the source of that painting, and I yearned to be a part of it and to leap inside of it like a window into a glorious new world. Like the fawning women of the painters that flanked his colleagues near to him, I came close to admire his skill. Was he a soul? Was this what Gosh wanted me to see? I also searched for Gosh, searched for his tall frame in the bustling mixtures of people. I could not find him, and instead I worried that others might see me. Had I been invisible to these mortals, whose lives seemed undisturbed by my presence? He seemed unresponsive, like lost in the colors of life as he carefully outlined the clouds of the sky with the tip of his brush.

I dared come closer yet.

Several sides of the painting were unfinished. Men waved their hands frantically in the corner without half their skull. The water was red, and a lone head floated on the surface without a corporeal form. Women and children without eyes played above the canal of the adjacent river front, and the windows of the cherry-colored homes were without glass panes and loomed mysteriously open and dark. Birds flew without bodies and some perched themselves on rooftops with wings outspread as if on the inklings of flight.

It all seemed strange to me. Not because it was painted by a boy that seemed no more mature than I, but because every depiction and contour was incomplete and I fought to understand it. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t logical. Everything about it seemed so cruel!

And then it happened. His eyes were upon me, I was sure of it, and he grunted softly as his brush left the surface of the panel. He looked on me with his deep and blue eyes with a warm smile. He nodded slightly with his neck, and I knew he meant to take the cap and shoulder it in polite pardon, as was customary with westerners, but his hands were tangled with the mucky paint. His eyes risked looking into mine as if asking for forgiveness, and he again set into his work.

Surely, he was a ghost, but with such tangible substance, he was as if living. He was breathing, coughing, doing all things fleshy mammals do, and his heart continued to beat within his chest.

What is this? Why show me this boy, Gosh? What ploy was this to help me closer to God? What did this have anything to do with the work of being your disciple?

His painting bloomed until a boy had an arm, then a leg, but only one of each, and he moved to work on the homes across the river. Nothing was painted in chronological order. Nothing was set permanently. It was as if all images were subject to change and the world was populated by ghosts. How strange, I thought, a painter’s mind was! But even stranger yet was the truth of the former; this truly was a world populated by ghosts. Yet, even when the world seemed clearer, it was filled with intricacies and variables that I could not understand.

“It’s terrible, really,” he remarked suddenly, shaking his small head from side-to-side, “the sun is far too bright. It dims the other portions of the work. I don’t like the sun. It’s always too bright and always appears so roguish in the sky. And here, do you see? I absolutely despise this man, here, do you see him?” His finger found a small sheepish form of a man dressed in a long, blackened cloak. He appeared to be drawn with charcoal instead of paint. Its collar shielded his neck, and he had long and blonde hair that was clearly polished and brushed. He stood over the children playing at the riverfront. He looked them over, almost broodingly, behind the corner of the nearby thatch building, one hand over the corner and the other hand outreaching toward the painter boy. I could not hide a bit of surprise, for I did not see this man in his painting the first time. Like the others, he was vague and absent in expression with only two blue eyes that twinkled, just as the water twinkled against the sun.

When I peered over at the other side of that strong riverfront, to find that man whose eyes twinkled most vibrantly, I saw the few children playing amongst themselves in his absence.

A strong and indefinite feeling filled me.

Most Venetian men wore these sort of platitude garments, of that I was certain. However, it wasn’t his garments that struct me as odd. He seemed to look over the children, resting in the garden with the small forms of the white chickens as their pecked their way across the moor. How peculiar.

Who is that man, I do not see anyone.

“He’s an actor. A deceiver. He is off, he is the strayed. Yet, I do not dare speak his name whilst in the presence of the Lord.”

An actor? Presence of the Lord?

“The Lord surrounds us here on this plane. He is always here. He radiates the warmth from the sun, just as the Egyptians called him Amon-Ra. He boils the water under the earth, just as the Babylonians called him Gaelug. He knew women and he knew men, much like these Venetians, Allah. The Lord is called many things, and many fight over his existence, but when it is certain that he will always be there watching over me, I know that my tongue cannot speak freely. To give notice to the fallen is to acknowledge their existence. It is to give them meaning. To justify their evil.”

He said this, all while brushing the color against the canvas to finish the grass at the waterlines, and the last glimmers of the sun off of the river.

Who are you?

“A boy.” He mocked me, I was sure he was mocking me in a typical boyish way. My nose wrinkled and I turned away from him to look over the water, over the children playing, into the distance beyond where the spire reached for the heavens. The sky seemed to open up just enough for the midday sunlight to ebb on the surface of that lance, like a passage or an arcade through the clouds for which chariots could ride. I stood and watched in wonder as those same clouds that hovered over us suddenly closed us off to the blinding sun, and the sparkles of the river stopped their silent songs.

“Xal’Kaen,” he remarked to me, “do you know the song?”

No. I wouldn’t know such a thing.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. It’s an old song from even before this city’s erection. Once it was believed to be forgotten, to be lost. But that was before the wars came about. As the tale goes, the song struck a fancy with a wandering bard named Cletus. Cletus was a Greek, and he traveled the world. You see, when wars were fought in Venice, they said the heavens would rain until the blood was washed away. The days would pass by and everything would eventually turn to ash. It was something everyone believed would set things right in this city. And when the rays shined over and the rains ceased to come, they thought it was a curse. Blood stained the cathedral as much as the ashes blew in the wind. Infamy and famine broke out after the army left. People died in the streets. These same waters flowed crimson instead of blue. The sky arched in sunshine, yet people were dying. It was hell on earth, and nothing knew the truth. It was like the heavens opened up for all these despairing souls to rise. God actually allowed them to go. The gates to heaven were open and the songs and choruses of the gilded were heard, surely. As is the tale is told, anyway.

“Cletus came and sang the song of the Devil as the evils waged across the city. Many feared him. Many believed him to bear the horrific song of the dead. He became known as the Bannerman of the devil.

“The people sang songs to Him. They sang songs of Him and all his angels among the stars, and whilst they sang merrily to him, Cletus found a young and tenacious bard for which to teach the song of Xal’Kaen. He reconstructed Xal’Kaeb until it became a song of the Devil. He lived in the theatre here in the city after it was rebuilt, and he sang on stage in front of those led astray from Him and knew, in their hearts, that the Devil was closer to God than they were. People came from all around to listen to his songs, and he sang on stage with other performers whose names fell into ignominy. Lester, Karna, Rederk, Georgey, Cameron, Leslie"even painters whose work inspires even me, came to paint him on that inferno stage, singing and dancing"Defaut, Tantilus, and even the Lord O’Neal Xavier III from Gall. They respected him for seeing the Devil as a colleague of God, rather than his enemy. He saw into heaven and saw the immaculate art of the celestial ones, whose faces we could not comprehend, and he wrote about them through the eyes of evil.

“Men died that day, when the soldiers came to Venice. They killed everyone… cut them down like goats. Men went to the cathedral to pray, to ask of God a miracle, and the soldiers followed them. They did the things most men do when war comes. They ransacked, killing the children and raping the women. The cathedral, which stood for two-hundred years, maybe more, was torched, along with everyone in it. Those that managed to flee were cut down, or lynched with wiring, or separated under the careening blue sky of their God.

“And this simple bard sang of it! He made it known! He made certain that everyone knew the Devil lived and breathed inside of man. He wanted the people to know that Lucifer lived in music, and music lived inside the hearts of man, and man was only the conduit for which life and death sprung, and the souls leapt into oblivion. He sang of it, using Lucifer’s words; and for that, the people loved him. And so, he spread the song that they call, ‘Xal’Kaen’, the Waif.”

Holding the brush up to the sky, blue and murky brownish paint trickled down his arm, and he sighed deeply. I stood listening intently to his story, amazed at his accurate discourse, and found that the sun opened up again above us. We were drenched in a warm sunlight that seeped through to my bones, and a shiver ran up my spine. I felt uncomfortable. I could not form an answer for him, no more than I could fathom where I was, or who I was, other than a ghost lost in Gosh’s world; a perfect delineation of Venice. Where was I? This was not the mortal world. This was not the land I knew as a breathing, living mortal. My mother and father were dead, weren’t they? Did they go to heaven, too, and was it raining the day that I was given to Meh-ven? I could not remember. A vague sense of terror filled me. Xal’Kaen. It was the song of the devil.

“What was his name, the bard?” I asked.

“Dantilion. He was a Frank.”

“Dantilion. What ever happened to him? Does he still sing? Where is he? What of Cletus?”

The boy chuckled under his breath, suddenly looking off into the streets somewhere. I grew more and more enthralled by the tale and desired more. Surely, Gosh was close by, I could feel it in my fingertips.

“Dead, I would think. Maybe to go see the Devil that he sung about. I heard that he died on stage, in fact. He was killed by his second lead and people say it was his best performance to name!” Enthusiastic, the boy laughed again. I felt appalled.

“But his plays are still the mainstay of the Theatre. Just look at the posters. They are everywhere, hard to miss.” He turned back to his painting, swiveling on his rear like a wheel, “Did you think the people would forget Dantilion? Do you think they’d lash out at him if they knew the truth of Cletus? That Dantilion slew his master and stole his song? They buried him there, Dantilion, among his things, under the very theatre itself, and that theatre is built in the husk of the Cathedral!”

I gasped. Was this a joke? A tomb under a theatre, disguised as a cathedral. Why was such a beautiful thing harbored in a cathedral, of all places?

He whisked me over to him with a hand, and I came forward closer. His finger found the man with the slender overcoat, a collar that shielded his neck, and blazing blue eyes that looked over the children. His arms were long and outstretched, one hand on the side of the building, and I noticed the claws of his hands. He hadn’t hands, but instead claws that registered beastly and profane. Had it warped?

The boy looked at me hesitantly, then let the somber frown fade away to another smile. He really was charming"flirtatious, even. “Maybe he’s just a shadow that I see from time to time"this city is a sea of shadows after-all. I know, but don’t let me fool you. Knowing is certainly something I’m not good at. You see, I don’t live in definites. Everything has its possibility, but I am not vain enough to admit anything,” pointing to the faceless figures on his paintings, and the swath of red in the sky around the rims of the horizon, “just as people aren’t always born with blue eyes. Or maybe God doesn’t like blue eyes, and he gave her hazel, or even a shade of red. Sometimes people’s faces aren’t really their faces, but a mixture of their mother’s and father’s, and like all men, they are not given guts with which to continue their family. Some die young when they seem strong, and some die old when they’ve always been weak. I don’t know if the sun sets in the east, or whether we forget that we are always led astray by the darkness each evening.

“This man, or creature, I don’t know which"I saw him in a nightmare, and he was acting and singing Xal’Kaen aloud in a thunderous voice that shook the theatre. The entire room was full of blood and soldiers washed over us, and yet he kept singing over the screaming of the innocent. That’s how I know he’s an actor. But he’s dangerous, and I don’t know why, or where he came from, but please, if you go to the theatre, don’t look upon him. Stay away from him! Stay with the shepherds of the Lord.”

A lump sat in my throat. I doubted him. I wanted to doubt him. I wanted him to tell me that it was a cruel joke, and that nothing could be so grotesque and base when everything about it seemed so beautiful; an odious paradox. If I were to see him, and if I were to look upon him, that dark, blue-eyed creature, what would I say? What would happened to me? Was he the Devil? Or was he God? My head swam with questions, and just like Pandora and her mythical box, I was barred. I wanted to open that box and take a glimpse inside. I wanted to be the observer, and be curious.

But after many moments, I found my voice again and said to him then, “Duties call. Thank you for the company.”

I was shocked, but also horrified. Had these many people been here when the soldiers came, all those years ago? Had they all been chased from this place of opportunity, into the home of God, where they dreamt their last, eternal dream? When did the soldiers leave them alone, to die and starve in the streets? How many people faded into the abyss after they died, and how many people still lingered here as husks? Had they found the spirits? Had they became intertwined with destiny, doomed to roam the earth as an entity inhuman and cold? And how many people unknowingly spit on their resting place, or walk over their bones that hid under the soil?

And why was I burdened with this knowledge? I thought to myself. Looking out over the masses under the intense glare of the sun, I looked out into the shrouded streets below. I saw people talking amongst themselves. I saw some singing, some groups of people crying, others bitterly cajoling young girls to commit unspeakable deeds. I thought about the boy’s words, that I was not the same person as I once was. Not the same boy as my mother bred, and certainly not the same since my ordeal with Gosh. Would I pass along into Meh-ven, just as I have, if I were killed by the soldiers? A chill encased me as the wind drew across the hills.

Gosh took my hand.

“It is time. You are ready to become my disciple, young Jacque. Oh, how joyous.”