The three women carefully studied the engravings. They too must have seen the winged creatures that wreaked havoc, destroying and killing the people beneath them. "Are those..." Roslyn muttered. "Are those Angels?" Roslyn's voice had gone thin. She stepped closer to the wall, perhaps to make sure that she had not seen wrong. The wings, the scales, the grotesque faces she had felt inclined to kneel before in the Cathedral not four hours ago. "That's... those are wings. Those are our–"
"Yes," Kanrel said.
"The Atheians were given an ultimatum by the Angels... It was simple: do not enslave your people, or there will be consequences... They did not comply, so the Angels eradicated them."
"But... that makes no sense! It is far too disproportionate!" Yviev said.
"Hundreds of millions," Oidus said slowly, "for a law they broke? That is not punishment; it is not even war. It is just... senseless." She had begun pacing the length of the wall, her eyes running along the carvings. "No... There must be another reason; otherwise it would just be..."
"They wouldn't," Roslyn said, her voice flat with certainty she barely believed in herself. "They wouldn't. The Book of the Heralds says they came to shepherd us. They gave us magic. They gave us the Heralds. They wouldn't slaughter a whole people over—over a law."
Kanrel looked at her. Her face had turned slightly red. And deep within, he knew that he would regret what he would tell them. He would regret all of it.
"Indeed," he said at last, "but then again, it wasn't really that simple. It was the... official reason given to the Atheians... but there is one that is more pressing to the moment."
"Official," Oidus repeated, and stopped pacing. "So there was another. Did they perhaps... begin a war against the Angels?"
Kanrel shook his head. "Among the visions shown to me by the Warden, or rather by the creature whom I found to be Ignar, the Angel of War and Peace, was one regarding the doom of the Atheians and the Empire..."
"The Nine Magi, or the Nine Angels of which eight are considered to be our gods, held a meeting and vote regarding the issue of the Atheians..."
"A vote," Roslyn said. "They—they voted on genocide?"
"They did."
"Like a council. Like—like the mayor and his men arguing over a grazing meadow." She laughed, her joyless laugh. "They voted..."
"One thing they discussed was indeed their disobedience regarding the matter of slavery, but there was something else, another reason altogether for their demise..."
"Firstly, one of them, known as the Sharan of Time, prophesied something we've all heard many times by now..."
Oidus massaged her temples. "Which prophecy might this be? There must be at least a hundred of them within that book, and a hundred more which one could argue to be prophecies..."
"Locked, imprisoned, those you know as the other," Roslyn suddenly recited. She didn't even have to think about it. She had written that line more times than she could count, in a cold room in Jersten, at the instruction of the man standing beside her.
"Waiting for the lock to open," Yviev continued. "Waiting for the ascension–"
"Yes, that one. I fear we all know it too well, and I fear that I've heard it recited more often than is necessary... Just get to the point instead," Oidus sighed. She did not try to hide her disdain.
Kanrel shook his head. "Back then," he said, "the Sharan of Time claimed that what she had seen was a future in which the Atheians would defeat the Sharan. That is how it has always been read." He paused. "It is the wrong reading."
Oidus's brow furrowed. "Then who–"
But it was Yviev who understood first. She had gone entirely still. "Repeat the first line again," she said.
Roslyn blinked at her. "Locked, imprisoned, those you know as the other–"
"He was locked." Yviev's voice was faint against the backdrop of their steps echoing in the hallway. "You said it not long ago. They locked him beneath the earth... And they... What? Made him the lock?"
"Yes," Kanrel said.
"Waiting for the lock to open," Roslyn muttered. "Waiting for the ascension. To breach the surface–"
"–to usurp those above," Yviev said. "Above!" She gestured vaguely at the ceiling. "Not us, but Them... The Angels."
"Punished for betrayal," Oidus spat. "He defied their ruling; he saved a remnant. It was he who was betrayed."
Kanrel nodded. "Conquered and then enslaved by the shadows," he said. "By what he met down there in the dark."
For a long moment none of them said anything. Roslyn's lips moved, silently, repeating the very words she must have written, heard, and pronounced more than she could ever count.
"It was never about them," she said at last. "It was never about the Otherkind at all."
"No," said Kanrel. "It never was." He sighed. "But in the end, this was just a ploy the Sharan of Time had used to direct the Angel of War and Peace as their sword to destroy the Atheians and bait him into going against their decision."
Yviev turned toward him. "She engineered it; she manufactured everything to reach such an outcome." Her voice had risen for the first time since the descent began. "She saw a future she did not want, and she... she arranged the thing that would prevent it? She used him. She used the lives of another race of beings as a tool."
"Yes."
"Then she did not prophesy anything." Yviev's hands had curled at her sides. "She caused it. The prophecy was never a warning. It is a record of her own doing, as well as the forthcoming outcome of her actions."
Kanrel nodded. "It was the Angel of War and Peace who carried it out," he said, gesturing at the walls. "He destroyed the Atheians and their Empire, killing hundreds of millions of innocent people... But he could not bear to kill them all, so he gave a command for all Atheians... those who reach the north might survive. The rest he would kill."
"And for those who had survived, he opened a way and constructed a stairway so that the rest of the Atheians might descend into the depths of the earth. In doing so, he had already gone against the word of the Angels, and this, they used, to lock him beneath the earth as well, making him the lock of the prison which for thousands of years held the Atheians and their new empire."
"And now, the Angel of War and Peace roams free. He who had imprisoned the Atheians; who had waited for the lock to open, who had awaited his ascension, his chance to breach the surface and usurp those above. Who had been punished for betrayal, who had been conquered and enslaved by the shadows... and now he is the one who will bring forth unimaginable bloodshed, famine... an ending from and for below."
Kanrel went silent, his gaze set ahead, at the walls where there were no more depictions of the Atheians or their empire, nor their demise, but instead... just pristine walls, devoid of any history at all, anything that might come after it.
It was Oidus who noticed. She had been walking with her eyes on the carvings; she had not stopped reading them since they entered. And she slowed, and then stopped altogether. "It ends," she said. "The wall. It just... ends."
"There was no one left to carve the rest," Kanrel said.
The three could only stare at him. "Are you certain?" Yviev asked after considerable silence.
Kanrel nodded. "I have... seen it for myself... I have met the one who now calls himself the Betrayed... He is... his powers are immense..."
"There is nothing after."
Yviev suddenly pulled him around, so that she might look him in the eyes. "But what about the Angels? There are eight of them, according to you, and only one of him!"
Kanrel shook his head. "Ignar is the most powerful of them. He was the one who received the most, for he is not only the one who is claimed to have killed god, or rather Kalma... but he is also the one who was crowned the son of god, by that very being, who was even more powerful than what the Nine Magi are now."
"And I suspect that the genocides for which Ignar served as the executioner were ways for the Angels to collect magic, first from their own people, and then from the Atheians... So as to prolong their own lives further; so as to become more powerful than they were before..."
"Harvested," Oidus said before he could. The already pale woman had turned a shade whiter. "That is what you said in the corridor. That the Angels can take magic from the dead." Her hand slowly swept over the baldness of her head. "Then the reason underneath the reason was hunger. They needed more. And a people who had broken a law were a convenient place to get it, while at the same time being rid of another they considered to be an enemy."
"That is what I suspect," Kanrel said.
"Suspect." She snorted. "And I would then, with reasonable suspicion, suggest that the magic which we have is a remnant of their horrors as well... How many had to die for a fraction of divinity bestowed upon me... or upon you, or upon all the priests who have ever lived?"
"And the Veil... he has the Veil... It is... worse than even Ignar..." Kanrel added.
Yviev's eyes trembled, and she let go of him. She stared ahead and said nothing.
"What about that fire of yours?" Oidus asked. Her expression had shifted throughout the conversation. She had gone through curiosity, then horror, and only now reached a point where her brows were furrowed as she thought about, perhaps, the survival of their species.
Kanrel shook his head. "I doubt that there'd be enough priests to go around... The Veil is immense; it is large enough to cover even the sun, all of the heavens... and it grows by the day, as it collects more souls into its being..."
"What is the Veil, exactly?" Oidus pressed.
"It is the greatest of Kalma's crimes... It is the collective torment and memory of billions of people, of Sharan and of species that Kalma himself brought to extinction..."
Oidus shook her head slightly. "Just how much have you seen? How many thousands of years of history are you trying to explain to us in just a few words?"
"It is just too much... how is it possible that it all might relate to this moment?" she said.
"Indeed... But what can we do? We are, after all, nothing more than fools of limited time, dealing with creatures that have reached immortality," Kanrel said and turned around, facing again the pristine walls that were ahead of him. He walked forward and stopped only when he realized that none of the three had followed. He turned to look at them, more carefully this time.
Roslyn had sat down. She stared at the floor and dared not look at the things around her. Perhaps she had now learned too much.
Oidus remained deep in her thoughts. Even when she gently patted her head, fighting against the emergence of a headache, she still tried to think of ways that might give humanity a chance of redemption.
Yviev... on the other hand... She had collapsed against the wall, her gaze locked on the wall across from her, staring at an Angel striking down a building and cutting it in half, leaving nothing but rubble in his wake. Her despair was visible. And after each moment, she sank deeper into it. Her hands had found the necklace she had worn since their Academy days... The one she had gotten from Jeso, of all people. Her fiancé, who had long since passed.
As Kanrel studied their faces, their postures, their despair, their horror, and their lack of hope... his own crimes started to set in. It ran through him like words spoken as a breath... 'Ah, this is what I've done. This is what I've caused.'
His brows quivered, and he could not control them. His eyes trembled, and he could not fight it. His body shook, and he could only turn around, for he could not bear to look at them. He could not bear to know of the despair that he had caused. The deaths that he would be responsible for. The nothing that would become their everything, just because he had been too foolish, too naive, too selfish in his actions, in his desires... He had let it all happen.
He swallowed... For he had planned to tell it all. It wouldn't take much, would it? Just a few more words... Would it break them? Would it drive them mad? Would they slay him here? Would they? He knew there'd be no forgiveness, not after the turmoil he had brought them all. Not after what he had just shared with them...
So instead, he gathered his voice, the rest of it. And he lied: "But Ignar's vengeance is not placed upon us... Even if many of us might die." Roslyn lifted her gaze from the floor and directed it at Kanrel. "For he has vowed to destroy the Angels... His revenge is against our gods, not us..." Yviev turned her head toward Kanrel and listened. "And we might be able to bargain with him, if we do come across him... and we might even fight him and the Veil if we must, with the little magic that we do have..." At last Oidus stared at Kanrel as well.
"We mustn't lose hope," he whispered; his voice coarse and barely there, just audible enough for others to cling to it. He stepped forward and kept walking down the seemingly endless corridor, around him, even emptier walls. His hands had curled into fists, and he fought each step that he took; he fought against tears of shame that wanted to erupt. He had always been a fool, and he had not long ago become a murderer... and now, he'd even lie... To give such false hope... much like the smile he had given Uanna, when he had claimed that things would get better.
The three women followed the liar into the depths of the never-ending hallway, toward the chamber that would lie deep within. And onto the pristine walls around them, perhaps, they might've imagined a history beyond the darkness that had veiled them.