At times, he thought he could still feel Caemelia's scales just against his arm. It was a smoothness that was comforting, only slightly ticklish, as her serpent body twined around his hand, needing his warmth. She had done so plenty when in that world of fumes and bright lights, for though there were snakes, there were no daemons. He could've perhaps passed her on as a devoted pet, but she had not wanted to be degraded to such a thing.
She had always been very proud, and sometimes he would smile at the thought of her. But she was not here, and Carlo Boreal knew this. Still he would hug his arms, feeling nothing, not even of himself, and just stare blankly at the other rows of the dead. All listless, all detached, and all alone despite their close proximity to each other. He knew, despite the remembered sharp pain of him choking, of seeing her falling limp and flung to one side out of the corner of his vision, that it was probably better that she was not here. For if Caemelia had hung onto him, she would have surely died anyway. He no longer had a body to keep her warm.
Like the others, he did nothing, learning to cower when the harpies shrieked at them, listing out their shame. They had done to same to him. One could not be a lord as powerful as he was without leaving a few ugly hurdles in their wake, but they had been necessary acts to retain his hold, as Caemelia would say to him. Still they had screamed at him a list of names- children's names, he realized, of those who had been taken away. "Cut! Severed! A murderer of children!"
But that was not his own doing, no! Marisa had concocted it all. She had been the one to come up with the concept of intercision, and all he had done was lend her his influence. Didn't these creatures realize that someone like her could not be denied? That even he with his power could only wilt under her eyes? And his Caemelia, so proud and regal with her dark eyes, could not withstand it either. It was the image of her wrapped up in the monkey's arms, to be stroked and comforted, and then to be thrown away. She had wriggled up to him in the end, trying to touch his hand, but then she simply faded off, her beautiful form dissolving in the air.
The harpies would then sting him with an even worse insult. "Weak-willed fool! Coward!" Once a powerful man, he bowed before them, and never again tried to fight. He had learned to keep low, to hide with the rocks, plucking at the sleeve that he could not feel. There was no emerald head, no soft hiss. Just the memory of floating particles carried by the wind.
He might've not noticed a few of the other ghosts wandering, for where could they go in this bleak field? But as more and more of the gray masses moved, he could no longer keep away his attention. He stood up, finally hearing the whispers that traveled from one dead mouth to the next. "The girl named Lyra will free us. Hurry! Lyra says she found a way!"
In his time here, he had lost parts of his memory and the faces he knew- except for the venomous Mrs. Coulter and his beloved Caemelia. But he recognized this one. Lyra. He pictured a young girl standing before skulls in a glass box, a golden device in her hands.
He held onto that memory, recalling how his daemon had slid up his coat, to flick her black tongue at his ear to speak. "See what she has - that should not belong to her." It was the sound of her voice, low and enveloping, that he missed, more than the actual words themselves.
All the ghosts were traveling one way, desperate for freedom, for a change from the suffocating despair. He followed, all the while plucking at his sleeve.
"You realize what we must do, don't you, Eula? We have only known sin for too long. Now that we have the means to end it all here, how much of a crime would it be to not use it?!"
"It was not supposed to be us," she had said, pressing into his hands. He felt the sharp spines on her back prick against his skin, the frantic grip of her claws. "It was to have been that woman…"
"A trial for us to overcome. We must prove our faith to God. That we will sacrifice it all for his glory. Eula, please. You know we must do this. Be strong."
"Not us, Hugh! I cannot bear-!…"
But he had shoved her into that cage mesh, and she had screeched, her lizard body bashing against the barrier. There was already so much intense pain from leaving her, yet he trudged on, going to his own place opposite her, shoving away those that would prevent him, passing under the magnesium blade that was held high overhead…
"I was to be a martyr," Hugh MacPhail said, looking out over the dark water, hearing the oars splash in even rhythm. "It should not be this way."
"What should be and what is," spoke the boatman, his pale, wrinkled hands standing out against the dark wooden handles. "These are things no one can agree upon. The kings believed they should be borne on chariots of clouds towards heaven, the warriors believed they were to be greeted from the legendary heroes of their lore. And what you believed…"
"No, enough! I was to be by God's side!" Hugh clenched his fists. He had been a strong man in life, never neglecting his body, just as he didn't neglect his spirit. If he were a wicked soul, he could break this boatman in half easily. But perhaps this man was an agent of the devil in disguise, and God was once again testing him, to see if he was worthy to dwell within heavenly paradise.
Eula would be there, waiting for him. He could not disappoint her by making this risk, not when he had made one with her already. Soon I will find her and be forgiven. We did this for humanity - for us!
"I hope you will find your place then," said the boatman as he grabbed the iron ring on the docks. Hugh said nothing, meekly getting off.
The shore was a gray mass beneath his feet, as if any color that had once existed had been sucked dry. He stepped through stiff-black marshes, the water lapping at his heels, feeling none of it. The road to paradise was always fraught with peril, and when he saw the great wall before him, with the sole door, he believed that here was where heaven lied, cut off from the wickedness of humanity. The bleak sky, the oily film over the water that he had just crossed; those were just reminders of how corruptive sin was. Here he would fine eternal paradise. Here he would finally hold Eula in his arms again.
"You cast her out of your arms!" a voice cried from above. Like a banshee, or some other terrible demon. He looked up to find wings overhead; black and smelling of rot, knowing her scent despite losing all that had once made him living. He thought first of angels, but no angel would be this repulsive. They swooped around his head, and to his shame, he ducked from their claws, rushing to the door. "You are nothing but a betrayer!"
He was indignant at the accusation, and even dared to try to grab one of the beasts by their crooked feet. A black claw sunk into his dead hand, and though he felt no physical pain, there was an intense coldness, of something wrong sinking inside his chest. It was the same feeling he experienced when he locked Eula in that mesh cage, hearing her scream his name, even through the storm. I didn't betray her, I… I saved her, I saved everyone…
Feeling he would retch, knowing there was nothing inside him to even bring forth, he rushed through that door. But doors and walls didn't shut out those with wings, and already he heard flapping above him, with each downward motion bringing him a wave of putrid stink. What was even worse was that the horrid scent was familiar, and that he knew part of it was from his very heart, which he had cast away so carelessly in that cage.
He put his back to the door, hoping the ledge above would keep him hidden. He had already looked ahead, seeing nothing but the same gray bleakness as it had been outside, populated by the shades of so many people, apathetic of their surroundings. Another trial for him to overcome… Instead, he remained standing there, feeling the tear inside his chest, one of his own making.
Still, he couldn't help but notice that the screams had stopped just as suddenly as they appeared. He looked around, watching the ghosts who had before just stood there, walk away from him, past the tall trees, toward a steep mountain face.
Is paradise there? he wondered, following along. He couldn't keep Eula waiting any longer.
"My Death brought me here," the woman told Father Gomez, indicating the man walking ahead of them, his skull-face terrifying. "Our village was attacked. I remembered a man coming at me with a sword. Before it even hit me, I felt my Death tug my hand and whisper to me, 'Come along, Meera. It's time to go.' I blinked and suddenly found myself in this place."
She turned her head around, her face a mask of confusion. "What about yours? Where is your Death?"
Father Gomez had to swallow. They were all traveling in a group, these shades of past lives, along an embankment that had little life except for patches of shrubs and reeds that poked out of the soil. "Death is not to be revered… The only ones that follow us are our daemons-" And he had to stop, feeling his throat choke as he remembered brilliant green wings.
The woman's confusion didn't ebb away. "We don't worship our Deaths. They are our friends. From the beginning, they keep us company throughout our lives, then take us away when our time comes. No one else knows me better than my dear Death." And she smiled at the man before them, who looked back with a matching grin, making Gomez shudder. "Didn't yours come for you when you died?"
No. All he had was his beloved daemon, Kaios. It was already rare for a man to have a male daemon, but it did not diminish the love and connection that they both shared. And he felt that love squeeze his heart tight as the invisible angel took Kaios away from him. Like his daemon, they had both struggled, both in vain trying to find some way to stop all of this. For a wonderful moment, his beetle daemon had been freed, and was flying up in the air, his fragile wings shimmering from the sun. But Gomez had grown much too reckless, and after his attempt at pinning the angel down, he had been in the river, taking in water, unable to lift into the air where his daemon had fluttered, both of them frantically trying to survive.
He woke to find his own dead body before him, to find the world sucked of all vibrant color. Kaios had not been with him.
"I don't have a Death," he told the woman. "I'm sorry," and moved a distance away before she could ask him any more questions.
He barely knew how he even got here- only this strange pulling that led him past the black roads on the plains, past the impossibly tall trees and the wide ocean beside him. He noticed that as he walked, the world behind him dissolved, floating away into the dark. It had been frightening, but it did not quicken his pace. There was only that need for moving forward, and that hope of hearing the familiar trill of wings.
When he came upon the docks, he could not go on the boat, not right away. He let others pass ahead of him, including the woman named Meera. Her death had continued walking, smiling back at her, disappearing into the fog. She had widened her eyes at his sudden departure. Gomez saw the way she gripped onto the side of the boat, seated along with five other ghosts. It was that look of sudden abandonment, one full of denial. Gomez recognized it, and suddenly felt an intense guilt, wondering if he should have talked with her more. But the boatman, old in his robes, had shoved off, rowing away into the deeply-packed mist.
He stood there on the shore, hugging his arms, feeling a chill that did not come from the wind that was non-existent here. What if Kaios was still back there, in the world they had been in? He could still be flying through the skies, searching for him. But that world had faded away with his passing, and he could not bear having to think that Kaios faded along with it, that he had become nothing because of his own actions.
"My mission was true, like an arrow I was supposed to strike the child down." But he had missed his mark, hitting instead a target that had threatened his very soul, and that had taken away his life instead. Because of his failure, he would meet the punishment of the eternal fires. His daemon was to blame surely, the embodiment of Sin, tempting him away from the righteous path. But strangely, he could not keep that train of thought for long, just a longing for the one who was lost to him.
He did not remember getting on the boat, but instead sensed the wayside movement on the water, and the mutterings of others beside him, some wondering aloud if this was truly the right way to go. The boatman spoke in a deep baritone, with a deep resignation, as one who had been asked the same question numerous times. "All come this way, no matter your station in life."
In the end, we are all mortal, Father Gomez thought, black despair surrounding him. Surely this must be a way to Hell.
When he made it to the shore, he was certain this was so. The walls before him, despite their cracks and the stone crumbling to ruin, still stood steadfast, sturdy enough to withstand another millennia. Like prisoners, the ghosts walked in a line to the only door, bleakly accepting their fate. With a bitter irony, Gomez wondered if the tormenting fires would warm him, because the chill inside him was close to numbness.
But instead, he saw that inside the walls there was only the same repeating landscape, a monochromatic world of gray and black. The wide area in front of him was empty. He and the other ghosts he traveled with looked around in bewilderment.
Purgatory? He wondered, then saw the shape of a winged form appear in front of him. It was a creature with the head and torso of a woman, but with the wings and feet of some dreaded vulture. Blackness dripped from her eyes, her breasts sagged to her stomach, as cracked as the rest of her human flesh. Dark feathers flitted in the air with her motions, and he stepped back, suddenly not wanting anything of her being to touch him.
When she opened his mouth, he expected shrieks of fury, knowing full-well, though he didn't know how, of her lust for the worst of his failings. A man of God, who could not fulfill the sacred duty he had been given, who could not, in the end, save Kaios.
Instead, when she spoke to him, she said, "Tell me your stories, true and only true."
Carlo Boreal looked up the flying creature, mindfully taking a few steps back. "You want… my stories?"
"It is the agreement we have made with the child, Lyra." Again the name and that image it brought. But it was fast becoming less vivid. "You must all tell us stories of your life - only of truth! No lies. None of your deceit."
The harpy hovered just beside him, careful to not hit into any rock obstructions that stuck out in the cavern. Boreal himself had to be mindful of where he stepped, for the floor was beginning to slant.
"Why must I tell you anything?" he muttered. The pain of their jeers and insults still stuck with him. "You have already taken so much from me."
"If you do not tell us, then you cannot pass through the window." She hissed at him, resentful at his tone. "You will remain here instead. We only give passage to those who tell us of sun and wind, for they are nourishing to us, much more so than your wicked nature, your failures and regrets."
Sun and wind. Did he really remember such a thing? And the moment he thought that, he knew he did. It was one of the sensations he remembered the most, from his short, simple walks through the streets, with Caemelia in tow.
Caemelia would always lie in the sun, basking in the light. She would make pleasant hisses as to how it warmed her blood.
"Only true stories?" he asked once more. When the harpy nodded, he shrugged, trying to restrain his plucking fingers.
Hugh MacPhail had difficulty starting. He was a master in public speaking, developing his oratory skills since he was a teenager. It was a major reason as to how he obtained the Presidency at the Consistorial Board of Discipline, for one needed a way with words to sway opinion to his side.
But he was not trying to spin parables, speaking to a room full of people as he denounced the very repulsive nature of Dust. There was only this harpy, hideous as it was, yearning for stories of his own life as they entered the long, sinuous caverns.
"I was but a child when God granted me a vision," he finally said. "I had just woken up, and immediately told my mother of this. Word soon spread to the Church where I was given audience to the previous President-"
A horrifying screech, accompanied by the harpy's claw swiping at his arm. He had dodged it quickly, his reflexes staying with him, even in death. He glared at her. "What are you doing?!"
"Only truth!" the harpy yelled at him, her breath vile. "I have feasted enough on lies and treachery. If you will not tell me true stories, then you will not be allowed passage."
If he still had his strength, he would have gladly wrenched off the harpy's neck, and torn off her black-as-tar hair by the roots. But despite her ability to touch him, he knew his own hands would only reach through her. So he tempered down his anger, keeping his pace even with her hovering. "But what I said was true. As a man of God, I always speak with honesty, so as not to blemish the soul-"
The harpy vigorously shook her head, as if he dripped pitch into her ears. "Enough! I only want truth! I wish to hear your stories of the life you once had, of rain and storm, of love and despair."
Such vague, unclear terms. He would have almost denied giving this she-monster any nourishment at all, even at the cost at remaining in this unchanging world for all of eternity. But something in the words she said set off a reaction, a chain of images that he could not help but recall. Rain and storm. Eula's cries.
He did not speak to her for a long while. She flapped her wings harder to show off her impatience. "If you will not tell me, then you shall be left behind."
Hugh watched her start to ascend, and a terrible chain twisted at his heart. If she did not take him, he would lose something very dear for certain, and that an eternity would not dull away the pain. "No, wait, please," he called out to her, cringing at the desperation in his voice. As a former President of the Board, he had never begged, never sought supplication unless it was from God, and even then, such moments always gave him the expectation of getting what he wanted, and what he rightly deserved.
If she had flown away from him, he would know he had no reason to blame her. For the wicked were given just punishment, and only the wicked would betray those closest to them, as God's divine wrath rained down on them.
The harpy hovered back to him, her eyes giving him a warning. They pierced through him, already knowing all the terrible crimes he had committed. She saw the rain, but she did not see the sun.
"When I was seven, me and Eula found a rock cliff near our home." He kept his eyes straight ahead, at the path they treaded, watching the other ghosts before him walk on with silent footsteps. "We lived in a rural area, near a forest. It was a humble place. To get anywhere, one must walk hours at a time. I did many such errands for my mother, but I was lucky, for on most days the sky was clear. The sun warmed the soil, making my walks much easier and pleasant. And Eula - that was my daemon - would run along beside me.
"On one of those walks, we found that rock cliff after going off the path in a game of tag. It wasn't very high, but it was covered in cracks and ledges, and Eula told me, 'It would be easy to climb this, don't you think?' It was her way of challenging me, you see, and I always had to take those on, and she knew it. Everyday, she would goad me to climb on it, to see how far I would get. She hadn't settled on her form back then. So, whenever I set my hand and foot on a ledge, I would see her above me, sometimes in the form of a wren, or a squirrel as she darted around my hands. It was confusing to watch because my arms would ache from the climb, or I would feel that strange sense of vertigo. But I trusted her- she wouldn't let me fall, and the climb was never very high."
And she trusted me, he thought, but wrenched that feeling back in. That memory was already fresh enough. The sun, he needed the sun.
He continued his story of simplicity and childhood thrills, never noticing the softness of the harpy's eyes, or how her dark feathers molted, falling forgotten to the floor, with stalks of soft blue taking their place.
As a young man, Luis Gomez felt the urge to do something greater, beyond his own self and worth. Kaios understood this, as he always did, and would comfort him as best as he could.
"He used to like taking the shape of a cat," Gomez told his sole audience, smiling a little at the memory. "It was a rather useful shape to have on cold nights definitely. He hadn't settled yet, which disturbed others a little. Most daemons found their shape when one reaches puberty, but… I was already 23, and still there was Kaios, switching from a cat to a butterfly so easily. I wondered what that said about me."
Gomez clasped his arms tightly around himself. He could not feel cold, or any kind of warmth, but the action felt reassuring. The memory of such a feeling had not been forgotten yet, and he could imagine that the cavern he had just entered was probably very cold and damp, that the water that dripped from the stalactites would have drizzled his hair, or soaked his jacket to his back. As it were, the drops simply fell past him, all the way to his feet.
The harpy was a good listener. She did not interrupt, nor did her attention ever seem to drift. Her eyes were always on him, deftly maneuvering past jutting ledges of rock and crumbling boulders. He heard the gentle movement of her wings, the stench of her very existence no longer so overpowering.
"The day he settled though... I had always been involved with the Church, ever since I was small. By the time I finished my academics, I was ready to be initiated into their society. I had done all the prayers and penance for my own past sins, but the Cardinals and the priests, they saw Kaios in my hands, in his usual form of a cat. He hadn't changed, but they knew that he had not been settled. 'How can you believe yourself ready, when your daemon is clearly not?' I still remember the way they spoke - it was the first time I had ever felt such anger at Kaios. I almost wished I'd drop him right there, and be severed at that moment."
A brief darkness settled over his head, oppressive and guilt-inducing. The harpy's feathers rustled loudly. He suddenly felt frightened.
"It passed though," he said quickly. The weight released him. "It passed... thankfully. Kaios knew what I felt, and he kept apologizing to me when we came back home. It was just… I felt like such a child, more so than before. And it didn't seem right to be feeling that. 'We're meant for more than this,' I told him. It's hard to remember just what shapes he was in exactly, but I felt fur, scales and feathers against my hands as his forms shifted…I wanted to be a part of the church because I just wanted to do something important. That's why when Father MacPhail-"
No, he was getting ahead of himself. He stayed back, focused on his room in his memory, and the daemon in his hands.
"Kaios told me could try settling, if that would make me happy. I thought to myself that it would, but I didn't want to say that to him. He was changing so fast that all those different forms were tickling my fingers. At one point, I was laughing, and… I must have said something like, 'Even if you were an insect, I'd still be happy.'"
In the naphtha light of his room back then, he had suddenly seen green, polished with a luster, tinged with gold. The color had the green nature of emerald instead of grass, reflecting back his surprised face. The horned beetle was a large one, nearly engulfing both his hands. Thin legs skittered across his skin, and then the green he had been staring at folded back, releasing transparent wings. And there was something else in that moment, watching Kaios fly around his head, sticking to the walls, catching scents in the air.
He told the harpy all of this, then said, "He told me he was sorry he could no longer keep me warm," then laughed, until he remembered how to weep.
Lord Boreal's pride kept him from starting his story straight away. Both he and his harpy traveled on in silence, until they were nearly past the gaping abyss. An angry, but quiet little squawk pierced beside him.
"I will not let you pass if you do not speak."
He grasped his own wrist, feeling the absence inside him grow larger, engulfing his very self. "I have very little to tell."
"All lies," the harpy said in distaste, but it was in a subdued tone, as if she pitied him, but that could not be. "Or are you that fooled by your own deception?"
It was not that. Not fully anyway. But by what right did this creature have to be privy to all his memories? Already she and her sisters had shredded away the last moments of his life to bits, mocking him for his foolishness, lighting up Marisa's face as she drew near him, handing over the glass of wine. The game of power and ambition that he had played throughout his adult life, all gone, cast aside to the ground. He had only the sun and warmth for comfort - and even that was taken away from him.
"I did not do much when I was young," he told the harpy. "So there is nothing to tell."
"There is always a story. There is always one to tell."
"I haven't-" He stopped, a shudder going through his form, making him lose substance. "All I ever did when I was young was lie outside. I was not active, and I never needed to work beneath my station. I was born into what I was, never denied anything."
But when he was young, he did not think in such terms yet. All he knew was the sky above him, the act of watching more than enough to set his mind to rest.
The harpy's silence was expecting, patient for him now. The empty space was laid out in front of him, which he could not ignore.
"Caemelia had been settled long before most daemons. I was barely seven when she chose the form of a serpent. I didn't even like snakes and I told her so very clearly. One had sneaked into our family's garden not too long before, and it scared me half to death. Somehow, the memory of it amused her, and she said she chose it just to aggravate me."
His tone was clipped, but it warmed the air around him, allowed him for a moment to freshen his memories. "I had to get used to her. Sometimes when I went to sleep, she would sneak her way into my shirt and make me jump. She always teased me like that. I had to make her sleep on the floor instead so that I could finally rest. But still, it was hard to sleep, and I'd feel her slither back beside me, laughing."
Unlike the other harpies, Boreal's spoke back to him, for he needed prompting and courage. "But she was the sun for you. You could not turn her away."
"No, I couldn't," he replied, natural now, routine. "She always liked to lay out with me in the sun. It was all we really wanted to do. I never played much like the other boys, and I lacked in my studies like the rest. There was no need to worry about that. My place in life was already guaranteed. She'd remind me of that, that sleeping was much more satisfying than anything else.
"She didn't lie about that. I'd lay out on the grass and feel her curl up against me, and there was really nothing better. Even when it was so hot, it was just perfect for us." He smiled sincerely, the first genuine expression his face had experienced since his death, since even before that. "She - we did not like it in the cold. But she said I was good enough for her."
I suppose you'll do, she would say to him, flicking her tongue at his ear, her voice warm and rich. Such a very proud serpent she was - he could barely recall her as anything else than that. Because everything else was wrong.
"There are more you have to tell," the harpy invited.
"Yes," he said simply, remembering scales and sun, contentment and humbleness. As he talked, his feet moved, his mind wandered, and the window-
The window was large, extending far enough for ten people to walk abreast. Hugh MacPhail stayed outside of it, unable to believe the stars he saw outside, the grass bending to the elements. It was not something that should have existed in his reality, not anymore.
"Step through," said his harpy.
He looked to the sky, expecting rainfall. There were other ghosts moving past him, other harpies that hovered nearby, encouraging their charges, their gentle words belying the ugliness of their faces. There were trees in the distance, too impossibly tall to truly exist. Even Eula's encouragements would not be enough for him to climb to the very top, but he would try for her, he would try.
"What will happen?" he asked. Once he had been certain that the gates of Heaven would open before him, welcoming him as one of God's chosen. But there was only a world so much like the one he left behind.
"You will be free."
He knew no other words would ever be as sweet as that, nothing except for, "My daemon. I must have my daemon with me."
"The girl-child says they will be out there."
"Girl-child?" Gomez asked. It didn't take long for him to figure out who she meant. The ghosts beside him had whispered about a young girl, promising to lead them out of this land. The name Lyra had been passed around, pushing at his memory to recall the mission he had been given. If he had only succeeded in that, perhaps the angel could have been avoided and…
"We have never seen daemons here, of that I can be certain," spoke his harpy. Her voice was soft now instead of grating, pleasant like bells. "Though you can stay if you wish."
The landscape before him was one that he knew, with the black roads twisting in the fields, and the trees that looked as if they pierced through the sky. It was in this world that he died, drinking in the water that made his lungs stop. In this world, Kaios had fluttered above him, the crying of his voice the last thing that wringed his heart before it stilled.
"He has to be here then." Gomez had walked away from the fields and the river, while leaving Kaios behind, making everything fade into the dark. But if this world still existed, he must also be here, looking for him. "But can he see me? Will he know where I am?"
"I do not know much," spoke the harpy. "But the child spoke of Dust. You are made of such things, are you not? And so is the world through here."
Boreal did not confirm what she said. He stared silently ahead, reminded of the word that the Church had sought to eradicate. But he could no longer recall its importance, or why he would go through such lengths. There was just that image of Caemelia, fading away into particles of light.
"If you are one and the same, then how can she not find you?"
The world, the universe, was so very large. It engulfed his very self, made him feel a smallness that he could not fully understand. A lord in one world, a knight in the other - such titles felt meaningless compared to the great expanse that spread about before his feet. How far would he have to travel to find his daemon again?
He took a step further, just at the edge of the window. Something tugged at his chest, not uncomfortable or threatening. It was a nature that called to his own, promising an embrace that would be fulfilled. He looked to the trees in the distance, seeing small motes of light drift in the breeze. Each particle was different, each one speaking of a different life, or a different form.
"She's already here," he whispered, feeling his heart tighten. He stepped closer to the window, feeling tears on his face, the sensation of it exulting.
Their ghosts stepped through the window, onto a green field, with other dead by their side. The memory of their story-telling was fresh, and it called to the Dust that floated in the sky, to the Dust that was already there, waiting for them patiently. Of sun and rain, of calmness and transformation, it called to the men who could not reject their very own, and their nature could not help but forgive.
Each one looked to the sky, as carefree as the wind that swirled around them, their smiles transforming the very darkness inside them to light. And as easily as reaching out one hand to another, they let go of their forms, allowing themselves to float, to fall, to be moved with the earth's breath. Their atoms traveled, not very far, to find the ones they had been separated by, to become whole once more, to be consumed completely by love and relief.
Back on the ground, just inside the window, the three harpies watched them go. Their faces were clear of sores, their lips no longer dribbled blood. They spread their wings, bringing scents of home, lighting up the cavern with the light of those who had already gone past.