Idesvied DefiedCharlie Winter
3400 words No eyes were trusted in the Royal Palace of Idesvied, a labyrinthian castle of ten thousand rooms. To gaze upon the king, blasphemy; to know the way through his domain, heresy. All who walked within the castle’s walls first had to give their sight to the glory of Idesvied. This enforced blindness, it was said, was the key to Idesvied’s greatness: because of this rule, no one in Idesvied ever sickened, aged, or died. The current Royal Sculptors had been allowed to keep their eyes, but only because they weren’t of this land and therefore wouldn’t share in its glory. No one—not even the proud Idesviedians—believed that immortal artists could create anything in dark halls already cluttered by lifetimes’ worth of hoarded imagination. Creation was the realm of mortals. To the Idesviedians, the foreign artists were an ephemeral presence. Human-shaped fireflies briefly lighting up the dark, sealed away deep within the castle where they could create anything they dreamed of without risking intact eyes straying. They were a speck of whimsy in the dark eons of infinity. In return for the limited time those mortal artists spent entertaining the Idesviedian’s curiosity, when the artists’ tenures ended, they would take riches with them as well as tales of the glory of Idesvied. Gamble and Fleet had come to Idesvied exactly one thousand sunless days ago, which was the furthest from home either had ever been. They had come intending to create fine, beautiful things, it was true, and had created plenty of both since arriving. But that wasn’t all the two of them sought: the tales told that those ten thousand rooms had been built to hide the Heart of Idesvied, the secret to true immortality. Neither Gamble nor Fleet knew if the Heart was a spell or a jewel or a mass of coins. But it didn’t matter. All the Heart had to be to suit their plans was portable. For everything else, artists as they were, they could improvise. *** Gamble and Fleet spent their one thousand days, carving through hundreds of empty rooms to reach the labyrinth of Idesvied and carefully hiding the debris in the statues they’d crafted to present to their blind masters above. The statues were made to mimic marble to the touch, the heft of them artificially increased by leftover rubble. Someone with clear eyes would never miss the deception. But no one here saw clearly. Fleet wasn’t even sure that he and Gamble were immune from that statement, anymore. ‘Is it worth it?’ he signed to her as she watched him work. His brown body, lit only by the torches set around their immediate workspace, was faded from so long in the dark. At the flicker of his hands, Gamble set down her own tools. She thought about the question, looking him up and down, his body no longer lithe but eminently more gorgeous to the eyes she’d loved him with for decades. His plaster-dusted hand came to her cheek so that his fingertips kissed her skin. His expression was as soft as it had ever been. Softer, perhaps, now that age had gentled him down to his kindest expressions. She signed, ‘It’s not enough.’ They were greedy, Gamble and Fleet. They’d had their midnight summers and midday winters. They’d had their sunsets of gold and sunrises of every colour but. They’d had their lands that loved all that was beautiful, and their people who’d found beauty in everything. They’d had seconds and minutes and months and years and decades. But when the potential for it all to end had confronted them, they’d realised none of it had been enough. So now they were here. And they’d spent a thousand days pursuing more of what they yearned for. ‘Is this the solution?’ he wondered with her fingers. Instead of answering, she kissed him. Plaster dust on her lips now on his too. They were careful not to make a sound. It would draw the guards’ attention right when they were finally close to breaking through. In isolation, they shared each other’s lonely breaths. When they were done, he signed, ‘Whatever you want, I’m with you.’ So he was, she knew. So he always would be. But it didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t said that this, too, was what he wanted. And she wondered if she knew him as well as he seemed to know her. She’d wanted more, yes; wanted it with a fire that might yet be the end of her. But Fleet? He’d always spoken better with his body than he had with his words. And there was no dancing permitted in the blinded castle of Idesvied. Two hours later, they broke through. Together, they looked through the hole they’d carved out of Idesvied, staring straight through the dust motes dancing between them and the murky dark ahead. Anything could lie waiting in the old air. Fleet was afraid of the swallowing dark. He’d never wanted to come here, to this stale, dying place. He knew that art could be made in a moment and lost in a breath; he didn’t believe they needed immortality to be. But then Fleet looked at Gamble, and he saw the aching hope in her eyes, and he knew they’d come too far now to turn back. He saw how she looked at him as though he was already becoming dust that her fingers couldn’t hold; how afraid she was of the wrinkles that painted their faces and the dashes of grey through their hair. How afraid she was of the uneven beat of his mortal heart. It wasn’t death that scared Gamble. It was being left behind. Fleet would live forever, if she needed him to. Though he didn’t know what he’d do with all that time. ‘Shall we?’ asked Gamble with her fingers. Fleet answered, ‘We shall.’ *** The sculptors walked into the dark. They held hands like they always had. At first, their passage took them through a narrowing hallway, the darkness so complete they only knew it was so because the walls began to scrape upon their shoulders. But, ahead, a light. When their eyes adjusted, they found a fork in the passage. Two rooms stood before them, visible through open arches. Gamble near fell from the shock of what she saw when she looked through the left archway and saw a meadow from long-ago. Gamble had met Fleet on the cusp of her twenty-first midnight summer. He’d been a sculptor then as he was now, except then he’d worked with his entire body instead of just his hands. She remembered a dancer, lithe and canny, dancing to music only he could hear, a half-smile on his wide lips as he’d seen her watching; remembered how he’d created verse with the lines of his body, how he’d danced naked with the natural irreverence of the born witch. As the hot dark of three months of midnight had settled upon them, they’d lashed their young, brilliant selves together in the rising grasses, the breathless moonlight; they were lashed together still. Through the arch, a light wind blew sweet grass air upon the sculptors. Gamble drew towards that arch, staring upon their twenty-one-year-old selves dancing under the hanging sky. As Gamble watched them dance, she felt the memories stir warm and alive within her, as though the girl she was watching was still inside, perhaps wrapped around her bones, perhaps napping within her heart. And Fleet… She looked at him younger and knew she’d crack open at the sight. It would be five more steps through the arch, ten more beyond that, and then she’d be in the meadow beside him. Forty more years beyond them, and more beyond that if they came here again, paid with another thousand days-- Fleet, too, looked through the left arch. He looked at the vibrant, brash youth of Gamble and saw how it had become the certain wisdom of now. He examined his own young body, which he’d hated, and felt gentler now for all the parts of it he’d taught himself to sculpt away: the breasts which had grown despite him, the gap between his legs, the rounded cast to his youthful face. He wished he could tell the near-child dancing there that life was good then and it would be better yet soon, even for the Gambles who weren’t being given all they deserved, and even for the Fleets, who were trapped in bodies that didn’t fit them. He signed, ‘You always saw me so clearly’ but Gamble was watching their pasts dance, and so missed the blink of his fingers speaking. There was no movement beyond the right archway. It was a quiet scene. A block of untouched marble. A chisel upon the floor. Infinite potential, Fleet thought, and felt pleasure at the thought. He’d always been a sculptor. The two of them stood at the first choice. A life lived over. Or an invitation to art. Fleet waited for Gamble to decide, as he always had. But she didn’t move. She only stood there, staring, her breath coming quick and her wisdom given way to frozen indecision. The weight of what she wanted pinned her there within the dark. So he took her hand. And he led her forward to the only immortality he knew, which wasn’t in the past in the glow of new lovers. Youth wasn’t eternity. But creation would live beyond them all. They passed through the right arch, Fleet touching the tips of his fingers to the cool side of marble and Gamble taking a moment to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then they walked on. Leaving the meadow, themselves, behind. The passage narrowed around them. Two more arches ahead. This time, the rooms offered them their little hut to the left, a scene of them lounging together in the nest of blankets they’d spent a lifetime in. They seemed to be dozing, half-awake, almost asleep, turned together with their fingers entwined. Gamble wanted to go to bed with her husband and lie there forever with him beside her, holding her well beyond the end of everything else. She’d been afraid of either of them stopping for so long. But here they could stop and be, forever. She took a step forward. Fleet looked to the left. A wooden desk with nothing upon it but a book, nothing beside it but a quill and inkpot. Glancing back, Gamble saw him staring. She too saw the book sitting there. They turned as one to the book, which Fleet opened. Empty pages spilled before him. He wondered what he’d write. There were so many pages still to fill. Onwards. They passed certain scenes from their past set aside uncertain whispers of creation. Always, Fleet led Gamble away from the room containing themselves, even though Gamble worried that there seemed no reason why he kept choosing the empty book, the uncut marble—what if they died before anything more could be sculpted or written? What if he was choosing a future they had no time left for? Marble would erode and pages decay. She was terrified he was picking a future liable to rot. But Fleet never faltered. He didn’t know if there was time in the path he was taking, but what he did know is that it continued. In each of these rooms there was a way forward. He liked who they were now with all that time they’d spent together shaping the wood and marble of their lives. And he wanted to keep growing for as long as he was allowed. Suddenly, when it seemed the passage was so tight around their shoulders that they’d have to let go of each other to continue, the dark fell away. And so did the walls. They found themselves walking in the light towards a great hall with a thousand branching hallways spilling off in every direction—so many that it would be impossible to make a conscious, measured decision of which way to go. Gamble fell to her knees, terrified. She saw all those paths spilling about her, but none of them had scenes of their past within them, nor oblique images of fantastic things; all seemed foggy and indistinct in the nature of things that must be approached to become clear. But to approach would be to accept that through some of those arches she might be alone. That they might take her back to the day when she’d found Fleet upon the ground, his lips turning blue and his heart trying to leave her. That day had never left her. She’d rather stop moving than risk that again. Fleet crouched beside her. He kissed her wet cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. Then he took his wife in his arms and held her. They stayed like that for some time. They’d have stayed like it longer yet. But he knew they couldn’t wait. Perhaps they wouldn’t find immortality down here. Perhaps they’d wasted one thousand days on something they’d never have. But they still had each other. And he didn’t want to spend another day on eternity when she was already in his arms today. Less easily than he might have once, he lifted her into his arms, and he walked onwards. One passage was unfogged, though it seemed empty and cold, so he chose that one. Glimpses of other rooms flickered as he passed. Fleet peeked as he passed them by and smiled at what lay hidden within. He saw himself at the head of a room filled with young children, all of them following along as he taught them how to dance. He saw Gamble’s art bursting through the eyes and hands and minds of thousands, spilling inspiration as it went. He saw the ripples they were leaving as they swam through life. At last, all the arches went away. There was only one passage left. And a single door at the end. The Heart of Idesvied. They’d found it. *** For a long time, the sculptors stood together at the door. There were no more futures to be seen. The past lay behind them. All they’d brought with them was each other, and the narrowing dark that sat quietly on their shoulders waiting for them to make a decision. Gamble stood on her own two feet, just as Fleet did; both of them leaned on each other. The door had no handle. Only a bolt that closed it firm from the outside. It was Fleet who reached for that bolt, though Gamble stalled his hand. She signed, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘You want this,’ he replied. ‘I want you.’ It was the truest thing she’d ever said. And it had been, would be, true forever. An unshakable reality. If he died first, she’d yearn for him for the rest of her living days; if it were her who left him, then she’d need from beyond the veil. The horror of that once again assaulted her, before receding. She thought, for the first time, that everything they’d done for each other, all those minutes they’d spent, those hours in the bed and days wrapped together—would they have still been gifts to give, if there was no scarcity of them? ‘You have me,’ he signed. ‘I’m right here.’ That, she knew, was true too. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘would we be here at all, if we weren’t curious?’ His smile was resplendent, and she smiled in turn. Neither was sure who reached for the bolt first after that. Only that their hands touched it at the same time. And they drew it together. The great door slowly opened. A great scattered dark sat beyond, so dark that it seemed to blink and twist before their eyes, making patterns in itself. But that scattering darkness slowly still. It became shapes in the void. Then a single shape. A boy sat in the dark, staring up at them as though they were the most startling sight he’d ever seen. He was small, under ten, with features too big for a narrow-boned face and eyes that were dull as though everything inside him had been stolen. He was dressed in nothing but a cloak of velvet made for a grown man. Kittens peeked out from the folds of the cloak that they, and the boy, were swimming in, peeping at each other with surprise as they saw the open door. It had been so long since either had spoken that it took near thirty seconds for Gamble to find her voice. But when she did, she asked, “Who are you?” Hesitant, the boy croaked, “I’m King.” A long pause. Then, “I think?” “I don’t—” began Gamble. “Shh,” said the boy. “Let me listen.” There came no sound, except for Fleet’s quick breathing. “Oh,” said the boy. “I’m the king. Did you come from Outside?” Gamble nodded, as did Fleet, who stepped forward with a great ache in his heart as he took in the windowless, airless, toyless darkness this boy had been kept in with nothing but kittens for company. The dark that lingered pulled away as Fleet approached. It whispered as it went. As it went, those motes of shadow scattered into the empty shapes of broken arches stretching far above them. Futures eaten by darkness. The boy said, “The other kings in my head say you’ve come to steal the Heart. Have you?” “Maybe,” said Gamble. “Do you have it?” The boy pointed to his chest. “Ah,” said Gamble. “How many kings are in your head?” The boy frowned. His tongue jabbed at his lip as he tried to count, briefly showing gaps in his teeth where some had fallen out. Fleet ached more. “All of them,” he said finally, uncertainly. “I’m every king. And none of them.” “How long have you been down here?” asked Gamble. Her ambivalent disdain for Idesvied was becoming rancorous. “How do you get out?” “I’ve always been here,” said the boy. “There is no out. Only in. Do you want my Heart or not? I’m tired of it. It beats too loud in here. All I can hear is it echoing.” “We’re not taking your heart,” said Fleet. He looked one last time at all those blackened, stolen futures. Nothing like those they’d walked through to get here. And he knew what they needed to do. “But we’re not leaving you here, either. Are we, Gamble?” Her answer was a glance at him that was adoring, and a firmly stated shake of her head. “The other kings say Idesvied will fall if I leave this room,” said the boy, looking above him as though his past lives were hanging overhead, blocking the sun. “They say Idesvied is the world and it’s my potential futures that feed it. It will starve if I take those futures back—that starving it would be greedy of me, taking the world for myself and leaving nothing for my people. Is that true?” “No,” said the sculptors as one, who were sick of making beautiful things for a blind castle. Gamble continued: “Your futures only belong to you. You’re the only one who gets to live them. But you can’t do that in here.” The boy was silent for a long, long, long moment. The kittens played kitten games around him. Finally, he whispered, “But I don’t know how to leave. It’s a labyrinth out there. What if I go the wrong way?” Gamble held out her hand. It was wiry and thin and there was plaster dust caked into the lines of it. “We’ll show you the way,” she told him. “And we’ll teach you how to choose. But you’ll have to be brave.” The boy thought about that. Until, when his thinking was done, he stood on pale legs and took Gamble’s old, clever hand with his young one. At the touch, the darkness broke. The dark made of stolen futures broke, letting through the light; and for a brief moment the room exploded with the light of the boy’s returned potential—and then it was gone, vanished into a blink to the gleam in the boy’s living eyes. But Gamble had seen those futures, seen her and Fleet living beyond themselves in the hearts of others. Finally, she understood why Fleet had chosen as he had. Loving each other had always meant that one of them would one day be alone. That was the price of a life together. But there was so much they could do while still here. “Bring your cats,” she told the boy. “And a hat,” added Fleet. “It’s brighter out there than you can possibly imagine.” |
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Charlie Winter
Based in Australia, Charlie Winter is an academic by day and, by night, still an academic but much more distractible about it. When not performing the inexplicable rituals of academia, he writes fantasy fiction celebrating everyday magic, eco-optimism, and queer identities. He has three short fiction publications, with two upcoming.
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