While asleep in the canopy I realized that I was having a dream. No, it was more like a memory surfacing to the top of the roiling broth of weariness, anger, and frustration inside my head. This was a memory from a time I was beginning to forget, in a world whose details were beginning to escape me.
I remembered an auditorium. A dark and mostly empty space. The professor was tinkering with a projector. There were a few people in the seats behind me. Sam was sitting next to me, trying to tell me something about the movie, but I wasn't interested. In fact, I remembered rolling my eyes at her, having long since resigned myself to hearing Sam gushing about this class even though I had only taken it because of her pestering. Take a film studies class with me, she'd said. She'd promised it would be fun, but so far, we'd only watched a bunch of really old black and white films that had made no sense and never caught my imagination. I could appreciate the art and the history, but it wasn't exactly riveting stuff. It didn't help that my other classes were really tough and I was usually too tired to focus when the lights were off. Sometimes, I'd even sneak in a little nap before Sam would notice and wake me up again.
I remember not getting enough sleep the night before. I didn't even have time to do my readings for the class, so I was coming in completely blind, but that was okay. The professor never asked us about those readings anyway. I couldn't even remember what movie we were supposed to be watching. Perhaps I should have asked her, because I couldn't remember its name in my dream either. The professor smacked the projector and the movie began. Sam sat at the edge of her seat and said something in Japanese.
I remember being confused. And I remember my confusion kept me awake. It was a strange feeling, not being able to follow what was going on but still feeling as if I should be able to do so. As if there was so much information being thrown at me that I couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't. I could tell this confusion was intentional. The director was trying to confuse me on purpose. There was misdirection and an unreliable narrator. Red-herrings all over the place. The story was about a murder in pre-industrial Japan.
I suspected the reason this movie was coming to mind was because of its themes. Themes about memory and perspective, truth and untruth. Memory, can it be trusted? How does perspective change the way we perceive and remember things? And what is the truth, if it can only be interpreted by imperfect beings with imperfect memories and subjective perspectives?
Right, right, I remembered the name now. Of course, there was no point in remembering it now that I had established that memory was fickle and illusory. As was truth. Funny, I chuckled inside my dream as I thought about the way the magic in this new world gave such rigid form to things that were always intangible and hard to define. Like truth, knowledge, and wisdom.
What did Noel say again? The Immortals are abstract concepts and experiences. They are personifications of knowledge and wisdom. How did that make any sense? Were there not conflicting concepts of the moon? Conceptions that are bounded and molded by perspective and experience? On my Earth, there were still people who believed the moon was a flat disc hanging in the heavens. In ancient times, the moon was considered a kind of heaven, far greater and larger than the stars that seemed so distant and small. If the Immortal of Madness encompassed even those conceptions, if he covered both the scientific consensus of the moon as a large piece of rock orbiting around a planet, and the children's story where the moon is made of cheese and inhabited by giant mice, then would the Immortal of Madness not be a complete mess? Is that why he was insane? Was that why all three of them were so unfathomably crazy?
And even if we did not give weight to absurd conceptions like the moon being made of cheese, did we not have to contend with differences of perspective? Was the Immortal of Madness both the concept of the moon as a celestial object, and as something we can see from down below? Does he both reflect sunlight while having a name for its own kind of light—moonlight?
I woke up. I frowned while smiling. I felt as if I was on the verge of something big, a breakthrough that I sorely needed. The sun was already up. My body was still aching because of all the fighting, but my mind was clear. Clearer than it had been in a long time. I jumped down from the trees and began racing back to the city.
---
Repairing the city didn't take long. The others had already fixed up most of the walls, and there hadn't been a lot of damage inside. At least not this time. I doubted the fairies and spirits would have been as nonchalant about everything if the Immortal of Desire hadn't turned back time. Our first battle against the Ikons had not been as kind to the people of this city as our second battle had been.
"I told you, I'm not fixing the face," I said.
"Please, great elf, it is an important artifact. Our ancestors have written many poems about the great Senatorial Mural," said Taoc as she hovered in front of me.
I was sitting in the renovated Senate with all of the spirits of the Senate hovering above their seats around the table. I thought about asking them why they needed seats if they were just going to be hovering all the time anyway, but figured it wasn't worth the trouble of getting these guys to open their mouths. They never shut them up after, in my experience.
"Can we talk about fixing murals and walls later, Cas," said Kelser as he stepped up to me. "Aren't there more important things for us to do right now, like following the Ikons and getting back that book?"
I looked at Kelser for a while without speaking. Then, I nodded. "You want the book too?"
"No, but they're clearly up to no good, we have to stop them," said Kelser.
"Yes, very convincing," I said, "very convincing indeed. Alright, Kelser, how about you take the humans and demons back to the Izlandi Kingdom for now. I have a feeling the spell around the capital won't be there any longer. Kol can help you gather up a demon army, but Elder Kezler, you and the other elders should head back to the other side of the mountains, your families will be worried about you."
"But what about you?" asked Kelser.
"I'll meet you on the battlefield," I said.
"The battlefield? What battlefield?" asked Kelser.
I looked around the room. There were representatives from three nations here, although perhaps there weren't enough humans in this world for them to qualify as a nation. The spirits and fairies had just gone through a traumatic ordeal, but if Noel wasn't lying, the other fairies and spirits should be reappearing soon. And once Bain Rusta returned to Kol, the demons should be able to field an army too. And of course, the humans hadn't lost anyone in the fighting at all. In fact, after all the cleanup was done, it didn't feel like we'd had a war at all. As if none of these other foot soldiers mattered and all the real fighting was always going to be between a few powerful people.
"I know you have no obligation to help me," I said, raising my voice a little. "But I think all of you share Kelser's misgivings about the situation. I know that you feel as if that book is dangerous. Like you can't let the Ikons do what they want with it. I know that all of you feel that way, right?"
Nods all around. I nodded slowly as well.
"Good," I said, "then if you would like to join this fight, you must begin your preparations. We must muster every ounce of our strength and prepare to march East." I looked out through the open door. The moon was rising on the horizon. "Let's follow our feelings, and march towards Annihilation."