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Sock-covered feet padding on the dusty mosaic floor, the boy stepped towards the ancient sage, his heart working in double-time. Rayne extended a hand, veiled in light. Gingerly, cautiously, the boy reached out and took her hand. It was corporeal, and warm to the touch. A soft gasp escaped from Janus's throat, as his distant ancestor stepped forward and wrapped him in a robed embrace. "I am sorry, my child." "For what?" "We have made a terrible mistake, and I am counting on you to right it." Rayne released Janus from the embrace, and strode over to the bookshelf along the wall. Running a ghostly finger along the spines of old and dusty tomes, she searched for something, mumbling titles under her breath. Taking a pace down the shelf, the old sage settled on a book with a bright red spine and black lettering. She removed the book from the shelf, and blew the dust off the cover. Janus noticed that there were many loose sheets hanging out of the book at various pages. Ghostly fingers flipped through the book, stopping at loose sheets here and there. Rayne stopped at a page near the end, removed the loose sheet of paper between the folds, and closed the book. She read it for a moment, and then rolled it up and presented it to Janus. "Take this and keep it safe, Janus. It is a copy of the original Pact of Seris." "But I've already read this. Part of it is engraved on the stone near the school." "Yes, but that is not the original Pact. The original was lost several hundred years ago. Scholars recreated what we have now from documents and memory, most of it inaccurate. The two are completely different." "They made it up?" "When you do not have the right paints to work with, how can you draw the picture as it really is?" "But why are you giving this to me?" "I will explain to you another time, dear one. It is getting late now, and you should be off to bed. Go on, you have school tomorrow." Janus turned and obeyed. After a few paces across the mosaic, he turned. "Rayne," Janus said, his voice small, "will I ever see you again?" "You will know when it is time to come back, Janus. Now, off to sleep with you." Janus paused. The top of the Pact was visible in the roll, and read "We, the people of the sky-cities, and we, the people that have chosen to remain earthbound, mutually agree to" and continued inside the roll. Janus searched his memory for the words of the Pact as he had read it on the stone. It began with "We, the enlightened people of the mighty skycities, in our benevolence and wisdom, accord the lands below to our distant cousins, the tribal savages that something something..." A hand rested itself on the boy's shoulder, and he found Rayne standing beside him. "Janus, you will have ample time to read that tomorrow, and to think about what it means. Now, you need rest." Janus yawned, and climbed up the stairs back into the Library proper. Only as he laboured to put one plodding foot after another to leave did he realize how tired he really was. Clutching the document in his hand, he crept out of the Library and into the night. Sneaking back into his room, weariness overcame him. He put the Pact into his box of treasures, and locked the case tightly. He was sleeping soundly before the moon had a chance to move in the sky. "Now, I asked all of you to read Keer's essay on the failings of the ground people. Did everyone read it?" Abul strode in the front of the classroom, his feet padding on the whitestone floor. Almost everything in the classroom was white. The floor was a milky white stone. The walls and ceiling were made of the same mineral. The pupils' desks were sculpted whitestone seats and working tables, with colourful cushions on the seats and small indentations in the desk surface for writing instruments. Small windows in the outside wall let sunshine in, bright in the monochrome room. The uniformity of colour annoyed Janus. "Yes!" the class chorused. Janus didn't answer, as he was half-asleep, head resting on his desk. He had read Keer's essay, and it was essentially twenty different ways to say "They are stupid." "Janus, did you read Keer's essay?" Abul strode over and leaned over Janus's desk. Janus noted, resting on his desk, that Abul's fingernails were dirty on his right hand. "Yes," Janus mumbled. "And?" Janus didn't answer. Abul bothered him endlessly, especially when he didn't participate in class. "Well, perhaps you'd find something else more interesting then." Janus sat up in his desk as if shocked, and before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "How about the Pact of Seris?" Abul was stunned, shocked by his student's sudden interest and choice of reading material. The rest of the class was staring in silence, confused. Clearing his throat, Abul hid his hands in his wide sleeves and regained his composure. "I suppose I could get copies of that. Why you'd want to read it, Janus, is beyond me. All it says is that we're not supposed to interfere with the barbaric tribes on land, and a whole bunch of meaningless babble about Estralite machines." The rest of the class stared at Janus, burning holes into his head. How dare he give them something even more boring than Keer's essay? Abul turned on his heel, and marched smartly back to the front of the class. "Right. Next week we will talk about the Pact of Seris and discuss the importance of Estralite maintenance. Now, can anyone tell me Keer's thesis?" Several hands shot up into the air. Janus laid his head back down on his desk. He would have to read the Pact tonight. This morning, Elix didn't say anything about his late-night "walk." Instead, she encouraged him to get up by jumping on his bed as soon as she woke up. As the girl two desks behind him explained Keer's thesis, Janus looked out the window, out into the endless sea of clouds. |
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Spirits of Blue and all characters contained within are © 2002, Simon Knowles. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. Email me if you want to reproduce this somewhere for any reason. It's mine, mine, all mine! |