The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Five (Draft 3) "Supernatural Aid"

"I can still take you back," Morpheus offered.

"No. Don't you see? By aiding you, I have uncovered an older section. There must be sections older yet, and you have discovered the signs to tell new from old. I have much more to learn here."

"And if you put The Beta in Reading Mode, it will probably lead you towards the newest unread works," River suggested.

"Yes. Intuitive, is it not?" Jorge plucked The Beta from the air.

"Be seeing you," said Morpheus.

"Yes...." Jorge was already moving away to explore further shelves.

Morpheus straightened. He clutched his pair of books in his right hand, assured himself that River was on his shoulder, took up his guitar case in his left hand, then teleported to the film and video section.

They spent some time in one of the private viewing rooms watching a selection of movies set in New York City. As a scene from Ghostbusters set in a library played, Morpheus sensed a powerful presence overhead.

Then, it happened again.

"You smell something?" River asked from the arm of the next chair where Hepburn sat costumed as Holly Golightly.

"Archangels," Morpheus said. "More than one."

He called both his Djinn into their bottles, then lifted River onto his shoulder.

Morpheus transported them first to the Heart of the Allegory, which was, again, vacant. An opening in the webs overhead, exposed the shimmering surface of a watery portal.

"Hold on." Morpheus spread his wings and flew upward, passing through the portal and emerging on the other side above a lake.

"Where?" River asked.

Morpheus took a moment to orient himself. He had glimpsed this place of reeds and narcissi before, and he matched it to a name from inherited memory. "Our Glass Lake on the border of Dream and Beauty."

"I see our yellow brick road," River said.

Sleep was before them, with its meadows beyond the Lethe. The wild and manicured gardens of Beauty were to their right side, and on the left was Death.

At the foothills of Nightfall, wound the black river, Cocytus, banks white with crumbling bones of birds and fish, and beyond amber fields of harvest grain, and then a tall, dark house behind an iron fence.

"That must be what I sensed." Morpheus gestured towards Death's mansion.

Three Archons were at Death's door. Morpheus recognized Raphael. The Angel beside him wore the red cloak of The Host and must be Michael. Morpheus didn't know the third, but by process of elimination he was probably Uriel.

Zerachiel came from her house to join the others.

"Last time I saw as many Archangels in formal dress was when Duma fell."

"Fell?"

Morpheus watched as the four Archons took to the sky and flew over Sleep in the direction of Limbo. He began flying towards Sleep, before answering River.

"It happened before I knew you. Duma was an Archon, an Archangel, the head of one of the nine Orders. He did something—I don't know the precise act—and he lost his rank and privileges in the Forbidden City. He's still a Child of Night: Regent of Silence. His seat as head of his Order was—"

Over the Lethe, Morpheus sensed the presence of Angels flying close beneath him, and rose rapidly to avoid Jibril and Beholder, which put him in the path of a powerful presence approaching too rapidly to avoid.