From Night On: Magdalene

Chapters 17-18

Chapter 17:

Beyond the Pages

With all of their knowledge of the world put into question, there was no doubt that, if all the old gods were real, all of the monsters and evil spirits would be, as well. Mathew was unaware of what dangers lurked between the pages and breaths of the old legends from the ancient Persians, Meira was somewhat familiar with the folktales she had heard in Dimasq, but Thomas, on the other hand, seemed to be prepared.

He tapped his nose as he read back over the entry with the beasts attacking during the sand storm. "Could the beasts be the khrafstra?" he asked of Prince Pacorus and Quaden.

It had been so long since any person had reported an encounter with the malicious spirits that the two couldn't fathom these creatures returning. "No, they shouldn't be here. They and the Djinn were all locked away with the old gods," Quaden explained. "Think of how much havoc they would reap if they had nobody to keep them subdued."

"The same goes for all the other godly and demonic creatures of the world," Prince Pacorus added. "Peri, manticore, al, simurgh, dragons," he ran through a short, incomplete list, "anything that held powers beyond what humans could fight was locked away in the spirit world."

"That brings me to my next question," Thomas continued, "could the woman, the one seeking truth, could she be Daena?"

The prince narrowed his eyes and took a long look at Thomas. "Who are you, again?" he asked, his gaze scanning the man for any clue as to his origins.

"He drinks and knows things," Quaden shrugged, answering his friend's curiosity only slightly. "Don't bother asking any further. What he tells me is that he simply drinks and listens to the stories of the people around him." Unnoticeable to the others, the two shared a small message in that brief moment. Being in a constant search for knowledge and an even greater ceaseless lookout for other ancient gods, be they allies or foes, neither were very familiar with the idea of ending a curiosity so quickly. No, what Atlas was saying to Gibil in that moment was, "I'm hearing what you're hearing, but he won't tell you anymore."

Receiving Atlas' message, Prince Pacorus' eyelid twitched in annoyance before he returned to the question at hand. "Why would you ask about Daena?" he asked. "She is one of the Lords of Death: an usher between this world and the next. Since that passage way was more sealed off by Atlas and Pleione's sacrifice, the duty of the Lords of Death is to briefly open a way for the spirits of the dying to pass through."

"So," Meira tilted her head, "the gods are not truly locked away?"

"What do you mean?" Quaden asked in all seriousness.

"If there are gods that can open a pathway," she explained, "between this world and the next, then they are not completely locked away, am I right?"

Prince Pacorus leaned back in relief. "I see where the confusion is," he said with a gentle sigh. "You made me very concerned for a moment.There is a thin place of existence between this world and the spirit world where souls can sometimes be lost if there is no one there to bring them through. If a soul should become lost in that between space, they would wander through this world, seeing everything before them, but not being able to interact. Many souls of lovers, family ancestors, lost children, and the wrongfully killed wander that space for sometimes centuries before they find the strength to let go and move on to the next world."

"What if a god were to be there?" Mathew asked.

"Like Daena," Thomas added, "who is known for showing a person's conscious before crossing the Chinvat Bridge? Could there be a place where the veil between the two worlds, this space between this world and the next, has weakened? A place where men could unknowingly wander in and out of this between space and where some creatures from the spirit world have accidentally wandered into, as well?"