Revolving Door: Volume 3
Cords and Chains - I
Standing on the warm stones of the temple in the morning sun, Liss grinned at Pala. The sky was clear and boundless today. A good day for fishing.
In Pala’s body, Liss saw a loophole in the universe, a window to a million futures. But among those possibilities and potentialities, only one of them mattered. All other worlds, all other things, were secondary to this.
Somewhere, in some world she hadn’t yet seen, there lived a singular individual of monolithic power condensed in one body—the power of the universes revolving. Some called them the Axle, others, the World Tree—the one whose consciousness held all universes together.
All that potential wound up inside a single body—yet alone they could do nothing with it. A key without a lock. A chisel without a hammer.
There wasn’t a road to the destiny she saw, so brilliant like the sun on a spotless horizon. A road denoted a marked and trodden path. No, there was a route: a lengthy plan, to be executed in countless steps—one that a lesser individual would write off as impossible.
But here stood Liss, with a Traveller in her thrall, and she was already closer than anyone else in the universe could ever dream to be.
“Pala,” she said. She took the girl's arm as gently as she could. Together, they strolled in the sun to the feet of the obsidian sculpture.
The sculpture was a shadow of its old self—defaced with someone’s dinner and a string of offal, stinking of urine and rot. While Pala considered it from head to foot, Liss laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Let me tell you a story. The story of my homeland, Henkor. Once upon a time, the people of Henkor, my people, lived full and happy lives. We had fishers who brought catch from the sea, and farmlands that we cycled year to year. We had miners who mined black rock from the volcanic mountainside—my best friend Noma was born of their family. And we lived from the land and water, and the water gave us all we needed.
“But then, this man, Emperor Milaston—this man came from across the ocean, and tore it all apart. He seized our towns and farmlands, and turned them into aroca plantations to fuel his conquest. He captured this city, the city on whose soil we stand, and turned it into a factory of ships and sailors.
“He has wrought more death and pain than you could possibly begin to fathom. Million slaughtered across the world. Bloodlines extinguished. Nations brought to their knees. All because he wanted to own the world, to elevate his people as its rulers.”
Pala nodded slowly. “There are empires like that in my world, too.”
Liss turned. “Then you must understand. You come from an island too, don’t you?”
“It has a volcano too.”
Liss nodded. “Yes. The volcano gave us life. Then he came along,” she jabbed a finger at Milaston’s statue, “and turned my island into a link in his web. And now, I am going to rid the world of his control.” She turned to Pala. “And you, Pala, are going to be one of the most important parts of that plan.”
Pala blinked back, the blithe nonchalance replaced suddenly by a shrinking-away. “Are you sure? Can I do all that? Just by…Travelling?”
“Oh, Pala,” Liss sighed, shaking her head. “You don't yet understand just how much you are capable of. But that’s no matter.” She smiled. “I know what you can do. You're a little rough around the edges, but I will guide you. I am a god in the making. I will show you your own power. And we will scour this empire from the face of the world.”
A moment's terror flashed through Pala’s eyes, then she bowed her head. “If you will show me how…I will do my best.”
Liss turned to look at Milaston’s sculpture again, and observing this, Pala followed suit. Liss lifted a hand and pointed it at his head.
With an ear-rending boom, the head exploded into a million shards, the stones shaking beneath them. Shrieking, Pala leapt behind Liss and cowered away till the shards had finished raining onto the square.
Liss turned to Pala. “Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said. “You’ll show everyone what you can do. We both will.”
Pala whisked the trio back to the temple with its ring-shaped platform, seeing the image of a long beach on the insides of their eyelids, to be replaced by the temple garden in its muted greens once more.
Liss led them through the arching doorway, waving at the guard on duty, then along the curved corridors around the circumference of the sandstone edifice. On the inner wall, doors stood at even intervals, now and then opening into a passageway into the heart of the ring. On the outer wall, arched windows gazed out onto the treetops and the glimmering sea beyond.
“Behold,” Liss declared as they came to a halt an unnameable distance along the corridor, in front of a dormitory door. “These rooms will be your base of operations. Room twenty-five for you, Pala, and twenty-six for Fen.”
It hadn’t occurred to Pala until now to find it strange that Liss could communicate seamlessly in English, until she pointed at each of these doors in turn, and Pala realised that the symbols carved on their plaques must be numerals.
But before she could give voice to her questions, Liss had turned to leave with no more than a grin and a wave.
The pair looked at each other. “At least we aren’t tied up this time, I guess,” he murmured.
*
It quickly became apparent that the lodgings were not equal: Liss had set aside a well-furnished bedroom for Pala, and a storeroom with a bedroll for Fen, each stocked with clothes in the local style.
Down the hall were more facilities, which they shared with devotees: a tub of water filled by rain for bathing, rooms of locker boxes, and a sunlit sitting room where they often found training priests reading. Despite their efforts, the lack of a common language meant they could only ever converse in timid gestures and pointing.
For the next two days, Pala and Fen took to the space as best they could. It was like a school camp, with odd rooms and rough but serviceable beds, and no such luxuries as computers. Without a charging point, their phones ran down, and both found themselves making good use of their pencils and notebooks. Sometimes they met in Pala’s room to talk and to draw. At other times they peered out the windows or ventured through the halls. They discovered the dining room well before their very first meal there.
Fen did not think much of his storeroom furnishings. But no one came to check on them in their slumber, as far as they could tell, so the pair switched rooms, sometimes sharing from the same pool of clothing and supplies.
Now and then, when Pala closed her eyes under the woven covers, she could imagine that this new life might not be so terrible. But always she felt the cord clinging to her wrist, and began to notice the unease creeping beneath her skin—the tiny drops of comfort quickly dissolving in the oceanic dread that slept beneath.
The morning after their return to the temple, Liss saw not one inch of Noma at breakfast. No one took the seat beside her—everyone knew who that space was reserved for—and its usual occupant did not show her face.
As Liss ate with the eyes of the priests upon her, she could not shake off the unease of Noma's absence. Lacar, one seat away, seemed to glance across the gap inordinately often, and when their eyes met, he finally said, “You should talk to her.”
“What?” Liss breathed. “What do you know about this?”
“She’ll tell you. If she’s brave enough.” Then he stretched his arms over his head and yawned, and she recognised that he meant to say nothing else.
In the middle of eating her flatbread with lentil butter, however, Liss became aware of a person casting a shadow in the southern exit of the dining hall. Curly hair up to the shoulders, she could not mistake the silhouette for anyone else.
Once she had noticed, she began to eat faster, cramming the bread in her mouth.
Then she wiped her mouth on the napkin, slammed her cutlery into her plate, and rose from her chair. Without a goodbye to Lacar, she sprinted across the hall, towards the shadow.
Noma shrieked when Liss flew through the exit and snatched her shoulders. “Noma! Why didn’t you join us? What’s wrong?” she said, but Noma only glanced quietly away.
Liss drew back and watched, and waited. Though her friend looked anguished, she did not budge, either.
“Noma,” Liss started again, spreading her arms in a gesture of surrender. “I must have done something to upset you. I don’t know what. But whatever it was…I’m sorry.”
Noma considered her, her breathing the only sound she made. Then she began to walk away—but three steps off, she glanced over her shoulder, as if to check if her friend was following.
Liss only started walking then. She followed Noma quietly up the stairs to the foyer, then along the northwestern arc of the ground floor terrace, on and on till they were almost at the northern portal. They passed windows through which lacy fern fronds waved. She could see the wild gardens rustling, the Isle of Sand bathing in sunlight, visible through cascades of leaves. The halls were empty for breakfast; they were the only ones here.
Noma stopped beside the northern portal. The foliage was denser here, an ocean of leaves shading the garden bed. She peered down at the fluttering shadows on the stone path, before descending, sunlight scattering on her hair. She took a deep breath, like the tide drawing away from the shore.
At some point along those silent hallways, Liss had stopped wondering where this was going. But now, as Noma leaned against the sandstone wall and glanced up at her, the question returned.
“I usually come here to run away from my problems,” Noma murmured while Liss leapt off the second last step to land on the grass. “I always have a spot. In Henkor it was…” She shook her head, wincing. “The top of the waterfall.”
Liss’ heart ached; her eyes unfocused on the horizon. Only the retaining wall peeked through the trees, built of the same golden rock.
“Which problem are you running from, now?”
“She followed me here,” Noma answered.
Liss frowned. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, even though she hadn’t a clue what she was apologising for. She picked her way through the scraggly grass, to join her companion at the wall. “What did I do to upset you? Was it that I went off to a different world without you? Was it recruiting Pala?”
At this, Noma cringed. “You tied the knot with her. Right?”
Liss lifted her wrist and glanced down at the loop of rope. “I did, but I had to,” she said. “It was the only way to be sure I could find her again. I don’t think its ceremonial meaning makes it any less useful.”
The dappled light brushed Noma’s face, softened by a sorrow that made Liss’ heart hurt in ways she hadn’t known it could. Her skin was dark as mahogany, set aglow wherever the petals of sunlight fell on it, and her hair hung in curls around her face—always inexplicably well-kept, even when they were living in forests and aboard ships.
The physician’s tattoo sat under her left eye—Liss had seen tears rolling over it before. But there were no tears today, even as her face contorted. “Why did you use a marriage knot, of all things?” she burst out. “Didn't it mean anything?”
“Because it can be used with the axis machine to jump to her in any plane—do you think I actually wanted to marry her?” Noma’s trembling silence gave her the answer. “I have no interest in Pala as a partner. I just didn't know it concerned you so much.”
As she spoke, Liss’ mind raced to lay the facts side by side, every possible path and eventuality unfolding before her like it did when she was orchestrating a mission. But this time, she began to realise that the trail of clues ran backwards, on and on through the years.
Something she had never understood was how Noma always looked at her, somewhere between mourning and awe. No one else looked at Liss like that. All at once, suspended in this flicker of time, she wondered…
“I’m sorry,” Noma sputtered. “You’ve already explained yourself, and I understand, though I don’t really—I know it was the best way to get this done. And I don’t want to get in the way of your plans. I just…don’t know how to say this…”
“Noma,” Liss said, “how do you see me?”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “I think you’re…” She closed her mouth, opened it again. “Let me—think.”
Noma lowered her gaze again, frowning. Liss waited silently, closing her eyes, feeling the warm stone against her back. Another five minutes passed. Speckles of sunlight danced over them, and the leaves and fronds rushed, casting their whispers into the silence.
“I think,” Noma finally croaked, fingers curled, “you’re like a sunburst. Like the light that comes through clouds, in beams, on the sea. The sight still takes my breath away, however many times I‘ve seen it—so far away and grand. It reminds me of how big the world is. And I keep trying to watch, to take in every last detail. But when the sun pierces through and hits my eyes, it hurts too much, and I have to look away.” She shuffled her feet. “That’s what I think of you.”
The effect of these words was instantaneous, and incomprehensible. Liss’ heart raced, as if she were readying to leap across a mile-deep ravine, and she was sweating. It was like she had felt this a thousand times before, without noticing, but it was sharpened now by hearing Noma speak.
And she wanted to feel it again.
Liss snatched Noma’s wrist, with perhaps a little too much force, because it drew a gasp. “Noma!” she laughed. “If you want me for yourself then you only have to ask.”
Noma’s despondence evaporated from her body, and she jolted away. “What?”
“Just ask. And I could not say no. Because it’s you.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Yes! The only good person in this world. The only one I could want beside me forever."
"Stop, stop, stop!"
By now, Noma had grown so hot that Liss could feel the fever through her fingers, like one of her coins, about to explode. "You don't like that?"
Noma snatched her hand away. "Yes, I do! I like it too much. Don't tease me like this!"
“I'm not teasing you! How come you can say nice things about me, but I can’t say them back?”
“Because it’s getting my hopes up, and I don’t want—”
Liss grabbed the escaped hand and lifted it. Even while Noma watched, ear tips reddening, she bowed her head and pressed her lips to the girl’s fingers. Then she met her eyes. “The reason I didn't care what the marriage knot meant was because I couldn't picture tying the knot for real. Because it wasn't ever going to happen. No one could ever like me that much.”
“That isn't true,” muttered Noma.
“It was true for a long time. And I thought I couldn't love anyone, either. Not my mother, not my neighbours, not the people I worked with…” Liss glanced up at the leaves rippling above their heads. “But…there was this girl in the mining village. I always ran to see her first thing after my classes. She was the only person I could ever bring myself to care about, and I cared about her so much. I wanted to protect her from everything she feared—which was a lot of things. And I'm so glad she ran away with me, even so, or else I would never have gotten to tell her how much I’ve needed and admired her…” She sighed heavily. “Come on, let's go somewhere comfier.”
“I, ye—yes.” By now, Noma was all but a hot, blubbering mess. Still grasping her hand, Liss led her down into the shadows of the sprawling tree, where the grass was short but dense. She sank into the soft verdure, and Noma followed cautiously. She tried to remember what couples on Henkor did, but she hadn’t been paying enough attention.
Haltingly, Liss reached out and looped an arm around Noma’s back. The closer their bodies pressed, the more she found some unexpected habit taking over. She brought her other arm to encircle her. She was too strong for Noma to resist, not that she was resisting at all. She pulled her in, and then a spike of some alien, familiar pang struck her—and they swayed and toppled together into the green, Noma shrieking, while the aroma of broken grass blades tided in.
Liss buried her face in the other girl's hair, the sweet scent of hair oil and soap still fresh from a morning bath. Her lips unexpectedly found her ear, and she gave it a kiss.
Noma let out a squeal. It was half a minute before she could form any words again. “This can't be real. I'm going to wake up soon. In my dorm room. Right?”
Liss grinned. “Then you can say whatever you want, right?”
Noma squirmed. “Maybe.”
“What do you really want?”
She swallowed. “More of this. More of you.”
“Is that so?”
Liss was only teasing, but Noma squeezed her eyes shut and burst out, “Yes! I don’t know how long it has been, but I can't bear it much longer! I think about you when you're not around, and when you are, I can't think about anything else! It made me feel ill thinking you might have married someone else and not me!”
As each sentence barreled into Liss, she felt her heart boom louder. Perhaps there was something that rivalled her hatred, after all.
Laughing, she cupped a hand around Noma’s cheek, nudging her head around till they were facing each other. “I wish you had said that sooner,” she murmured as she stared into those eyes, more familiar than her own heartbeat. “Because it took hearing it from you to realise I'd like it, too—to wear your rope on my hand. To be bound to you. Because it has to be you…you and no one else. But this time, I want to do it properly. And I think we should wait until all of this is done, until we win. So we can be sure we have a world to come back to…”
“I'll wait. If you would too.”
Liss grinned. “Of course I will. How long have we known each other? Eight years? Almost nine years now. And I would have said yes if you had asked me years ago, too. Even when we were children. Even if I wouldn't have understood the meaning back then. I think I understand enough to say it now, though—I'm here to stay.”
Wreathed in the songs of insects and the rustling of leaves, Liss reached past Noma's head to pick a long stalk of grass. She slipped the stalk under Noma’s arm, and began to tie it around the other girl's wrist while she looked away.
Through gaps between the leaves, the sky was too blue after days of rain. It made the scene feel false, like a vision in the mind’s eye from a favourite tale.
And maybe it was. Maybe Liss was the one who was dreaming here. But they basked in each other’s heat, warmer than the sun, and she did not mind if it was all false, if only for the chance to feel it once.
*
Liss and Noma did not leave each other’s side for the rest of the week. They plotted together, and in the course of that plotting, Liss explicated a year's worth of plans and ideas.
Noma always had something useful to say, some new angle on every matter. It didn't make sense to keep Pala on such a tight leash; she would fare much better and be more willing to help if she was held as an equal. Pala and Fen could come and go—the marriage knot did away with the risk of them slipping out of reach.
“Except if they figure out how to remove it,” Noma murmured.
Liss pondered this. “Not likely, but not impossible. We should research it.”
“You've been reading so much,” Noma whispered with a smile. “I never thought you would willingly visit a library.”
“You'd love the books here,” Liss answered with a grin of her own. “I'll see to it that they let you browse, at least the upper floors. They can't deny me—I’ve done more good for them in the time I’ve been here than they’ve done in the past hundred years.”
One blue evening later, as they stood in the southern arc of the second terrace, holding hands while they gazed out at the lights on the lower floors, they heard a throat cleared behind them.
Lacar said, “I see Noma was brave enough.”
“Lacar!” whined Noma. “Did you tell her?”
“I think you did most of the telling,” Liss answered with a nudge.
Lacar laughed. “Ah, young love. Well, don't miss dinner for the stars.”
The rest of the temple wised up soon enough. For Daranth, the oldest priest, it almost seemed a banal revelation, as if it more surprised her that they hadn't already been partners before then. For others, like the trainees closer to their age, it became hallway gossip. Perhaps the young tyrant does hold affections after all.
All at once Noma, usually the one lurking in the corners, was catapulted to the centre of attention. She could have done without it, but she didn't mind that she was now greeted everywhere she went.
The library was for devotees only, but even while telling Liss so, Anessa—who was Doganira like herself—whispered that they could not prevent her from sharing the books once they were borrowed.
And so it was that Liss and Noma delved together into the knowledge kept in those peerless archives, in the hidden rings far beneath the ground.