Only the Gods Know

The second act of the Parting Ceremony involved the Emperor and his immediate family transporting the coffin to the burial site. Seeker Len informed me that there was a cemetery in the lower level of one of the towers that housed the entire Imai bloodline going back at least three centuries. I was pleased to hear that the area was forbidden to anyone not of the Imai family.

The crowd dispersed until there were only a handful of servants left to collect the table, retrieve the empty frame, and take down the raised platform. Seeker Len and I remained in the yard, mostly because he looked a bit unwell and I didn’t want him to collapse. We were, after all, in the middle of negotiations.

“Do I need to find a doctor?” I asked, frowning at how pale he’d become.

He waved me away, but did sit down on the edge of the nearby raised flower beds. The beds were surrounded by grey bricks, all neatly hemming in flowers and bushes within their circles. We didn’t speak for a moment, and stood in silence in the shade of a maple tree. The sun was much lower now, so it had to be late afternoon, drawing closer to evening.

“You asked for proof of The End of Days,” Seeker Len said. Colour had come back into his face and he seemed a bit steadier. “The best I can provide are records from previous Seers, ones long gone. There, they wrote down their contracts with the gods and kept notes from their time here. Some were more diligent than others, of course, but I would hope the volume and variety of sources will convince you that this is no ruse.”

“I will accept that,” I said, relieved to be making some headway. A spark of a thought spurred me to ask, “Has any Seer ever been sent back to Earth?”

With a groan, Seeker Len stood. He began to shuffle back into the palace with me trailing behind. “As far as I know, there have been two instances where a Seer was sent back to their own world, both quite some time ago. The method is lost to us, written nowhere that can be found. I assure you, we’ve looked. Otherwise, the other Seers have remained here for the rest of their lives.”

The weight on my shoulders eased. It was possible then, there was evidence it had been done even if no one remembered how. We passed through numerous halls, now back to their usual hustle and bustle. The innards of the palace were a maze, with one corridor looking much like the next. I both wanted to be able to memorize it all and wanted to never have to set foot here again.

“The records are stored in the Royal Archive,” Seeker Len said as we approached another tower. In my mind they had become Seeker Len’s Tower, the Cemetery Tower, and now the Archival Tower.

“Is there a map to this place?” I asked as Seeker Len presented his token to the guards at the tower’s base. Even Seeker Len needed to prove himself, I noted.

“No. Any architectural drawing or floor plan of the palace was destroyed shortly after its construction to prevent those with ill intent from traveling through the palace with impunity. Only the gods know all the intricacies of the Palace of Gratitude."

As we ascended the steps to the archive, my mind returned to my first night here, wandering down caves only to come out into my room. If there were tunnels leading to Sparrow Hall, there must have been dozens of tunnels or secret passages leading from one part of the palace to another. Then I felt cold. My room was on the third floor. How the hell did we end up on the third floor from what seemed to be an underground cave system?

I was about to demand answers from Seeker Len when he said, “Here is the Royal Archive.”

The archive consisted mostly of shelves from floor to ceiling filled with scrolls. The shelves stretched off to the left and right before winding around out of sight. The tower was either a square or a rectangle, so the archives must have shelves going around the entire inside edge of the structure. There were half a dozen tables, the majority of which were covered in dust. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop and the lighting was fairly dim as there were no windows, only lanterns. The air was stuffy and warm, though not quite as warm as Seeker Len’s chambers.

“Where are the archivists?” Despite my best efforts, I never ran out of questions to ask.

Seeker Len wandered over to a shelf and squinted at the metal plaques nailed to the right of each set of scrolls. “There aren’t many to begin with, only two master archivists and one apprentice. They’re all away at the moment, some sort of meeting at the Central Library. That’s in the town of Ghoru, a four day ride from here. We won’t need the archivists, however. I know precisely where the records are and, since I have been given permission to access the entire archive, I will simply access them.”

The plaques reminded me of my newly acquired illiteracy. “But will I be able to read them?”

Seeker Len moved on to a new shelf. “Fret not, they are all–what do you call it? In Eeglish.”

“English,” I corrected. “Can you read English, then?”

“Ha! Would that I could. No, the Seers were taught how to read and write in Surei the way a child is and thus they made translations of their work. Even years after learning, most found it easier to write in English than Surei.”

“Did any Seer ever teach English to someone?” My voice was calm, hiding my growing excitement at the possibility of using Seeker Len’s desire to learn English as a bargaining chip.

Seeker Len paused at my words before moving on to the next shelf. “It isn’t possible. When a Seer writes in English, what we see are shifting symbols, constantly fluttering like humming bird wings. And by giving the Seer the gift of speaking Surei, they can no longer speak in English even if it feels as though they are.”

A new fear took root in a corner of my mind. Once I get home, will I be able to speak in English? Or will I be stuck speaking a language no one can understand? At least I would be able to read and write. I pushed the fear aside. The problem at hand was getting home, the rest would be dealt with later.