A Souvenir From Sanctum

“...I’d like to show you something,” the man said, an offer not often made by his kind. “I hope you wouldn’t mind a night in a graveyard.”

“After you.”

Fifteen minutes ago...

“Excuse me,” I said. “May I sit here?”

The man looked at me, the steam from his cup disappearing into the air. I had caught him just as he was about to have a sip. An overcoat lay folded on the backrest of the chair and a hat hung from its ear. It isn’t my specialty, but I could see sparks going off around him.

“Yeah, sure,” he said and returned to his work. I took a look around the cafe while accessorizing my chair the same as his. A couple, on one of their dates perhaps, laughed in a corner booth. He did not seem to care, though, and continued to scribble in his notebook.

My body still ached from the last trip: strolling through the rainforest had turned out to be more exhaustive than expected, more so than a hot shower could ever fix. There were rumors of a special kind of herb, lost to time, found in the inner sections of the Selvas. A few other scholars and I had spent weeks on the expedition. A small fortune invested in security and guides, hours dedicated to Selvan botany, charts drawn up to determine the exact moment of our arrival: all of it, only to return empty-handed. In retrospect, I should have continued on my own, but when you have time, even the most passionate of projects can be left for tomorrow.

A waiter came and set down my order. Toast and butter, simple yet enough to ground me, bring up a memory of home. I took a bite and sighed. The crisp and juicy flavor coursed bliss through my veins. Like a dull cold morning injected with warmth and love, being sun-kissed after struggling in a snowstorm. I might have melted in that chair were it not for the people in the cafe.

“That good, huh?”

“What?” I opened my eyes, the expression uttered through a mouthful of bread.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle,” my tablemate continued. “I rarely see people enjoy their food.”

I reached for some water. “It’s been a while.”

“Long journey?” he said and set aside his pen. 

“You can say that, yes. Jordan,” I said and extended my left hand. He considered it for a moment, noticing the absence of crumbs, and shook it. “Osiris, a pleasure to meet you.”

Osiris. The Egyptian god of fertility, death, and resurrection. An interesting choice for a name.

"Likewise." I nodded in response. "So, Osiris, are you a regular here?"

"Oh, I wish. I am just passing by. I guess it's the same with you?"

"A fellow traveler, indeed."

The back and forth revealed parts of our life. I told him about the expedition, he expressed how sorry he was to hear that. He was a scribe, employed by the scholars in Fanaa --- a nation northeast from here. The Sultan was famous for his patronage; he explained how it was a privilege to work for royalty. The conversation eventually led to the stationery he was using --- the very finest, of course, imported from the Eastern Islands.

“That is an expensive pen,” I pointed at the exquisite piece of work. A bottle of ink lay beside the dip pen. The pen itself was ivory, decorated with traces of gold. The shank of the nib didn’t protrude in a straight line, but twisted to the left, giving the pen a distinct structure.

“I wouldn’t know. It’s a family heirloom.”

I heard him clearly, and although the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, I was still looking at it. There was a text inscribed in the ivory, a faint memory itching in the back of my mind. Almost absent-mindedly, I asked, “What are you working on?”

“Oh, this,” he started, tearing away my gaze from the pen, turning the notebook so that I could see it, and continued, “this is for marine navigation. Nothing too interesting. Apparently, constellations are way too important....” 

He said more, I am sure of it. I just didn’t pay attention. The sheets he was copying down from were covered in celestial patterns, dates, timestamps --- all littered on his side of the table. To untrained eyes, these were pretty images with gibberish numbers, written in a script lost to time and remembered by few. But to me, it was a literal blueprint of the cosmos. The aether captured on paper. These were no mere navigation routes, these were the pages of divinity thrown open in front of me.

Had I been a hundred percent sure, I would have snatched those pages, worn out and fraying at the edges, without a second thought.

“More coffee?” a waiter interrupted my thoughts. I looked at him, his face hurting from smiling all throughout the day, and shook my head. I hadn’t meant to say no, I didn’t even know if I wanted to say no, but I was too unfocused to retract my answer. 

“I’ll take some,” Osiris answered. The waiter proceeded to pour some from his kettle. I reached for the glass of water. Oh right, I hadn’t ordered coffee in the first place.

I grew uneasy in my chair. Something was wrong. I closed my eyes to tune out the sensory overload. I needed a moment to think.

I flicked a finger in the air.

I heard the patrons go silent. A laugh was cut short. The humming of the lights, which I had not even registered, came to an abrupt halt. The sloshing of liquids and clanking of forks --- all were frozen in a timeless vacuum.

At this point, I’d have taken a breath to gather my thoughts. I began but couldn’t continue.

“So you are him.” A single voice cut through the silence. It was Osiris.

Of course. The sparks made so much sense now.

A nasty feeling of uncertainty settled in my stomach. I shifted in my chair, unsure of what posture I should acquire in front of a godling. I never cared for the gods, did not even consider anyone to be one, but there are customs and traditions one has to follow to ensure a peaceful conversation.

The waiter still stood beside us, the stream of coffee suspended in mid-air. Osiris reached for the kettle and the stream resumed its flow, then stopped again when he let go of it. He took a sip and leaned back in his chair, one leg propped onto the other.

“How have you been, Prometheus?”

That was --- is --- my name, an epithet earned centuries ago. “Well enough.”

He nodded sincerely. I continued, “I haven’t met you before. Not this you. You took the Egyptian name. So, which incarnation are you?”

“The seventy-eighth, not that it should be any of your concern.” There was no contempt in his voice, just a simple fact. Mortals weren’t given the ability to distinguish between successors of a god, hence the concept of an immortal everlasting celestial being --- watching over us, measuring our every action on the scale of good and evil --- or incarnations of the same if you chose to believe so. “But then again, you are accursed. No harm in telling you my secret.”

“So this,” I gestured to the strewn sheets of paper, “all this, to pique my interest?”

“All this to prepare you for your journey,” he smiled, a kind smile I had come to associate with pity. “But first, I’d like to show you something. I hope you wouldn’t mind a night in a graveyard.”

“Afer you.”

He placed the cup right below the coffee stream. He took his coat and stood up. I followed suit. Unlike me, he didn’t have to focus or flick a finger. He just wished it, and we were standing there. Headstones marking the resting place of the deceased. Trees, silent and heavy, shading their resting place. In the moonless sky, it was difficult to read any names, but I was sure some of them had faded with time.

“What now?” I asked. 

He fished for something from the overcoat's pockets and retrieved a sphere. A container used to store abilities like ours. To control time and to bring back the dead, even if for a moment. You could assimilate them into your body if you were compatible. Different abilities cast different markings on these spheres and once assimilated, left a mark on your skin. Since these abilities were limited to a single person in question, you needed a sphere for a public demonstration.

He pressed it between his palms, whispered something, and blew into it. The sphere turned to dust and slipped away before my eyes. 

From the sounds of it, it was a Mayan incantation --- gods are not bound by language or place or world, even --- an incantation I knew little about. So I stood there, my eyes darting from the stars to the leaves to the gravestones, expecting something to happen. A few moments passed by but nothing did. I was about to open my mouth, make a remark, or ask a question when he whispered, “And here we go.”

I don’t know if I blinked or looked away for a second, but the next moment, the silent, morbid graveyard was abuzz with life. Where there was nothing but stone and death, materialized living, breathing proof of existence.

Children ran around, frolicking in the snow. Parents --- who had to let go of their children --- watched them with deep satisfaction and unbridled happiness. A bout of laughter erupted in a corner. A group of friends, which must have faded slowly and surely, now gathered again to continue where they left off. 

Birds sang on dead trees, which were not dead anymore but joined the company of their verdant brethren, their undecipherable words dissolving joy in the stale air. Someone plucked their guitar strings, soft and resonating, giving mechanical company to nature’s melody. 

Lovers lounged under the branches and lay on benches, recounting tales from their lives and laughing and kissing, lives that had not ended even after death, the morbid aspect of a marriage’s promise --- till death do us part --- no longer separating them.

Pets that once lived with their humans: cats and dogs and parrots and you name it, snuggled once more with their parents. The cold didn’t seem to bother them as they played fetch and ran together in companionship, reliving their life from before. Now, there was no underlying fear of separation, of bringing their friends to a clinic after years worth of unforgettable memories, only to discover that they have to be put down. There was only the pleasure of the present, unaffected and constant.

The wind changed as it moved from pace to pace, turning the weather with it. There was a summer breeze and sand and the smell of the ocean, yet there was a chill in the air since it was winter. The petrichor, from a rain I could not see but feel, was welcoming and indicative of monsoon while leaves fell, pale and orange like it was autumn. Warmth filtered through the haze, without a sun to provide it, moonlight illuminating the graveyard from the heavens. There was a transparency to the figures, of the world beyond, and if you looked closely, you could see an otherworldly glow emanating from the risen.

I would say not what coursed through me for words can’t describe what I felt. Still, if I had to provide a name to the feeling, it would be ‘overwhelming’.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Osiris grinning from ear to ear, proud of the reaction on my face. He had granted me a peek into the world of possibilities, of how things would have turned out if a butterfly had flapped its wing at a different moment, a skill I did not possess yet understood. He was accessing their memories, memories that were made in life, and memories that would have been made had they lived a little bit longer. Memories that were etched in the very fabric of the Aether.

This display of power was well out of his wheelhouse. It had nothing to do with resurrection or fertility. Not even death, not really. We were here in a graveyard because it afforded us privacy.

"This is not one of your faculties."

"No, it isn't."

None of this was meant to impress me, either. It was a presentation, a foreword to another tale that I was meant to play a part in. I knew the next part. 

“What do you want?”

The moment the words escaped my lips, the curtain closed down on me. He now turned to face me, a god to an atheist.

“There is a war brewing, Prometheus. The gods are looking for retribution. You know you can’t hide anymore.”

Not this again. I had grown tired of it all: the constant power struggle between the former masters and the naive settlers. Humanity had gained its independence from the gods ages ago, yet lived in the shadow of its guardians. I used to be one of them until I earned my name.

“Haven’t I been through enough already?”

“You have, which is precisely why I have come to you. You know us. You are the only one alive who is from before..."

"...The Ancient Terrae," I whispered.

"You know our weakness, both the humans’ and the gods’, and our strengths…”

“So do you,” I cut his plea. 

“I can’t cross over for more than a night. If I don’t return to them, I will lose my seat at the table." 

'You're out without permission,' I said in my head. God or not, he wasn't allowed to walk among us without approval. Once he crossed the line, ran out of time, he'd lose his powers. Death and resurrection, like other abilities, could be transferred once you died or let go of them. Once he vacated his position, the Aether would find a sphere or a new being to latch on to. He understood the risks, for he finished with a threat he knew I wouldn't like, "And you know what will happen if they get their hands on it."

That I knew very well. From all the scheming and plotting and usurping the heavenly throne, I had come to expect one thing. The gods never let go of an opportunity to start over. The last thing I needed was to be hunted for betraying them all those years ago, have my efforts be in vain. I had earned my name from a character in a tale. I did not wish to suffer his fate as well.

"There is another. Far more powerful than you. What would happen to him?"

"They are developing a weapon, Prometheus. It wouldn't matter how powerful any of is. Zeus, Jupiter, Indra, whatever you want to call him, is being accosted by other gods. It's only a matter of time until he unleashes his rage."

In the Ancient Terrae, there was a saying that one made a deal with the devil. In the Novae Terrae, there was no difference between god and satan.

"Fine," I said, reluctantly. Every bone in my body warned me against it, but the alternative was much worse. "What journey?"

His face lit up, happy that I had agreed to help. I, however, couldn't help but wonder if he looked at me as an accomplice or a prey. 

"The pages that I had with me in the cafe, take them. Find the sphere, it's the only remaining one gifted with foresight. Find someone willing to share the burden. That someone will know what to do." He turned away to leave for his home.

"Wait! You could have brought it to me. Why..."

I should have expected his reply or the absence of it. Before I could finish my sentence, I found myself sitting back in the cafe. 

All the sounds came back, the humming of the lights and the clanking of forks, laughter from somewhere down the hall. The waiter came to motion and the coffee overflowed from the Osiris' cup. I flicked a finger again. The flow stopped just in time, inches away from destroying the pages.

I gathered my belongings. The coat and the hat. The sheets that lay loose, I filed properly into a briefcase he had left. At last, I took the pen in my hand. It used to belong to me. A souvenir from Sanctum. The last vestiges of my status as their servant.

Who said the gods didn't have a sense of humor.