The Mortal Fringe (15 page)

She smiles, and holds my hand
harder.

"Not a chance."

She then pushes us both from the
building. Barcelona disappears as I close my eyes, I know we are
gaining speed because I feel the air hitting me harder every waking
second. I don't bare to open my eyes, my whole body shivers as the
noise from the streets gets closer and closer. If I am about to hit
the ground, I don't want to be staring at it when it happens. Then
everything is calm again, and when I open my eyes, I am in a place
I have never seen before.

"
Our Paradise
" she thinks for us both.

CHAPTER 21

Not even the brightest mind in the
world could have envisioned the mesmerizing structure I have in
front of me. My body is still recovering from the colossal jump and
my eyes can't make out all the beauty in front of me. Barcelona is
gone, and everything I'm staring at is new to my eyes.

"Where are we?" I ask in the shiest
tone.

"This is The Atlas. This is where Gods
live."

She tells me about this place as we
walk through it. In a matter of minutes I know that we are actually
underneath the surface. Barcelona is right above our heads and this
ancient white and golden city has been under it for as much time as
one could think of, but it's not just under the city above, it goes
all around the world.

The stone pavement shines as silver
and the white paint on the walls of the little buildings reflects a
sun-like warming light to my body. The feeling I have while walking
through here is quietness, all my worries and nightmares stayed on
that high roof from which I used to watch the Olympic city. There
is no natural light, of course, but the high ceiling reflects the
light from the surface, or that of the stars in the sky as they
would look without all the pollution of my world. I don't
particularly use what I consider to be corny adjectives to describe
things, but this truly is the most beautiful thing I have ever
seen. Maybe not the most beautiful one, that one is walking in
front of me.

Elizabeth walks as freely as an animal
in the middle of the forest. It seems as if she was trapped in the
city, and now she is home. Home, I think, will I ever see what I
consider to be my home again? The thought disappears as quickly as
it came to me. I don't want to trouble my mind with this matter,
not now. If I am to never go back, I will at least make the most of
what I have right now, and what I have, seems priceless.

Suddenly the idea hits me. «This is
where Gods live» she said. What about me? Am I in trouble now? I
realize that my connection with her is growing every waking minute,
because she stops walking and I can feel how she is listening to my
thoughts. Her mind travels through mine, and I feel everything she
feels as she moves like the flow of the river through my deepest
self.

"Only Gods live here, of course" she
is waiting for me under some marble sculpture. "Those who are not
yet Gods are not well received, we are foreigners. But don't worry,
the only ones in trouble are the Tartars, their entrance is
strictly forbidden."

I smile, there's no need to say
anything, she knows that I am worried, and I can't do anything
about it. However, I have yet to see anyone walking by, is everyone
hiding or something? This city of Gods is just empty, and no matter
how beautiful it is, it seems abandoned, punished by time itself to
exist without life.

"There's an explanation for that too,
you know?"

"I will have to get used to you
listening to all my thoughts" I say in a friendly voice.

"You should indeed" she grabs my arm
and starts walking right by my side.

It feels so good to be with her, just
the two of us. Time could stop right now, I'd rather be a frame in
my own life than having to live the end of it.

Suddenly, a bad feeling. There's a
hand in my shoulder and before I can turn to see what's going on, a
new voice speaks, and I am terrified.

"What do you think you are doing
here?" Says the young man staring at me with a dislike look on his
pale face.

"Tristan!" Elizabeth drops my arm and
jumps on the man in front of us, he is not much older than me, at
least on appearance. "I thought I would never see you
again!

"Hello Elizabeth, my dear
sister."

Sister? The words come as an
impossible surprise, I need to make myself remember that their
world works not in the same way as mine.

Elizabeth steps aside and smiles at
me, then looks at Tristan and does the same.

"Tristan this is Alex" She waits for
any of us to do something, but it's useless. I am too intimidated
by the figure in front of me, and he is obviously not willing to
welcome me here "Alex this is Tristan, Constance was his Leader
too. He became a god about a decade ago."

"Which is why I can be here and you
can't, specially your mortal fringe."

"Oh come on, don't be so
boring."

He is too serious to be ignored; he
grabs her by the arm and does the same with me. I am used to
teleportation, so when I appear in a completely different place I
am not at all surprised.

"We are in regency year Elizabeth, you
are not supposed to be here."

"I know, I know, Constance is all over
the place with it. Shadows, Shadows, Shadows, that's all I get when
she's around."

Elizabeth doesn't say much more. I
know she won't talk about it, which means that it is something
important, and none of my business. If I have learned anything
about all this is that we mortals are not always welcome in the
Immortal matters.

"Where did you take us?" She asks
while checking out everything.

"My chamber, I haven't been out of
here for the last three years."

"Three years? Why on earth would you
do that?"

Tristan takes his time to answer, and
while he walks around, looking for the right words to speak, he
keeps looking at me like if I was some trophy. I remain silent,
trying not to move an inch, too scared to even form a thought, even
if it is just for me and her. His presence is like that of mist,
too think to see what lies within him.

"I don't know what Constance hast been
telling you, but things down here are not as she wanted us to
believe. Every single day, Gods, and particularly Goddesses, leave
to find the Shadows. It's a lie that there is no ruler in this
land. Gods are on the move, you should know more than any other.
"

"My family?"

"Along with the Council. Whoever gets
to the shadows first will be in charge of everything until the next
regency. "

"You are wrong" she says, frowning her
forehead.

"Everyone wants power Elizabeth, it's
just they have been hiding the thrust for it for much too
long."

"Don't ask
" she thinks when I move, but
she isn't talking to herself, she is talking to me.

"But I don't understand, you
said…"

"I know, I don't understand it
either."

"Well, maybe his is just playing
you."

"Tristan would never lie to me, I
know him. If he says that there's something going on, he means
it."

"Those from above believe that here we
live in paradise, and the ones that really live here are divided
between the ones who want to believe that paradise exist, and the
ones that want to become part of history."

"In which group are you?" Elizabeth
seems to be worried.

"I belong to those who want to keep on
living" Tristan's voice is full of anger and fury "I owe
that."

"I understand" Elizabeth's hand is on
Tristan's shoulder, showing him her support, like any friend would
do "We will leave right now."

"Wait. You need to make sure that no
one notices you are here, you just crossed over, it will take a
couple of hours until its safe for you to go back."

Elizabeth knows that I need
some information as I am starting to worry. She moves her thoughts
to my own mind so I can understand that the division between my
world and this one is pictured as a line, a line that once crossed
leaves a trace until it is still again. "
That line is not yet ready for us to
cross
" She
says, "
and
we can't go back with no one noticing."

So it appears that not only I am
somewhere I should not be, I am here at the wrong time and won't be
able to leave for a couple of hours.

"You will be safe here."

Tristan and Elizabeth are talking in a
corner, and I am walking around the amazing room that Tristan lives
in, I wonder if all Gods own one of this chambers, I wouldn't mind
having one for myself. Even the idea of it makes me smile. There's
everything one could need, and I am honestly quite happy to see
that there's electricity and pipes. Gods, after all, need some
commodities, mortal commodities.

Everything is as smooth and pale as
the God living in here. There is no color, and that slowly makes
the few traces of happiness in me vanish to another place, to
another world, a much darker corner of myself. Nothing I could feel
right now in these walls could make any difference to me. The
lifeless room has put all joy to rest.

Something catches my attention. In the
middle of the chamber there's a wooden pedestal with strange signs
carved on it. At the top, an oak made box with something that
shines as sea water, a round drop of silver beauty.

"That's my soul" Tristan's voice makes
me step aside as quickly as I can.

"Your soul?" I ask, with my trembling
voice, wondering if mine will soon be in a wooden box as
well.

"Mine, and the one belonging to my
mortal fringe" He puts both hands on the wooden piece and closes
his eyes, and for a moment I can see the pain of regret, memory and
loss.

"
That's what keeps us alive. There's a drop
of Tristan's blood within the soul. Immortal blood keeps things
alive, so, as long as this tiny drop is still alive, so will
Tristan."

"So you can
die?"

"Only if my soul is killed
or my body utterly damaged.”

For a moment, I try to picture her
soul, and my only thought is to keep it safe, forever.

"
What if someone finds it?

"No one knows where a God's
Chamber is, except for him and his leader. That's why he took a
risk when he brought us here."

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to touch it"
That's the only thing I can say given the circumstances. My eyes
are fixed on his, and the sorrow they shed makes me shiver. He
might be a God, but he is as fragile as anybody else. I wonder what
happened to him.

He looks at me and draws a shy smile
on his face.

"It's quite alright" He brings one of
his pale hands to his dark hair and goes back to the corner where
he had been talking to Elizabeth.

"It's alright, he likes
you."

"Good, I don't have to worry about
him warning Constance about all this then."

"He would never do that,
Alex!"

"It's called joking, Elizabeth. You
do it all the time."

"
Touché
” She smiles at me, and then stands up.
"It's time for us to leave, thank you Tristan, and you don't need
to worry about the Chamber, I won't tell anyone how to get
here."

"Thank you."

Elizabeth comes straight at me and
grabs both my hands.

"Wait" Tristan says before we leave
"Watch out girl, you don't want to lose him. Hard times are coming,
and being a God will be a reward many will kill for."

Elizabeth looks at him, she is worried
but for the look in her face I know she appreciated the piece of
advice.

"Ready?" and we are gone.

We land somewhere in the old city of
Barcelona, I know it because of the narrow streets surrounding us
and the time lapse I feel every time I come to this old
place.

"What was all that about? What he just
said."

"Remember Jay told you that you had to
stick with us?"

"Yes."

"Other Immortals are looking for
catalysts. If they become Gods during this year… finding the
shadows would be much easier to them."

"I don't understand."

"You are a catalyst" she says
calmly.

"Yours."

"No, anyone's. All they need is a
bounded soul, and that you own."

I remain silent for a couple of
minutes, she has placed her hand on my chest, as if she wanted to
touch my soul with it.

"She mustn't know we went down" her
voice trembles.

"I…I was not going to tell her" I only
need to look at her eyes to know that she is talking about
Constance.

"Good, because I have a feeling that I
won't be telling her much from now on."

Elizabeth's look is half suspicious,
half ashamed. I don't understand why she said that.