Day Six

The day was fresh and brassy, the waves of cheering and thousands of ringing bells chasing the clouds from the brilliant blue sky. Plump marble minarets lined the road that ran from Bala's tower to the great harbor of Isla two hundred miles to the west. The paving stones were smooth, diamond-hard, fitted expertly together without the need for mortar and cut into fantastical shapes that, up close, looked like cavorting angels and demons that shimmered iridescent in the sunlight. From a great distance, the stones formed letters in Betaine's original language, now called proto-Indostani. Less than two hundred people living in the Universe currently were capable of reading the prayer, the prayer that unlocked Bala's divinity as she laid and wept next to her husband's make-shift grave over seventy centuries ago. It had been translated into Standard, carved into a small, unassuming oranium plaque located at the center of the goddess' water gardens.

'I, who have stepped softly to avoid the notice of Death, who have suppressed a thousand thousand words of love and hatred, who have covered my face from the sun lest the gods despise me, know now that I have been wrong, that it was only my cowardice that made me walk through my life as a sleeper still in a dream. Never again will I quiet the beating of my heart or feel shame at the rage that courses through me. Let the gods come that would curse me for I will no longer sit at their feet like a child. There was never a thorn not worth grasping for the beauty of the rose.'

Betaine had stumbled upon the plaque several weeks ago while wandering the gardens, pretending to ignore the damp, watched the monstrous loan swim lazily through the gently curving canals. They were a favourite of Bala's, their scales a shocking blue-green, fins of a gauzy and ephemeral crimson. Semi-intelligent, they recognized Betaine as someone who never carried bread crumbs or stopped to scratch their slick, rubbery underbellies and ignored him. The presence of their mistress or the head gardener made them tousle like puppies for attention. It had taken several hours of coaxing on his part to get Bala to admit she had once been human, had possessed no supernatural abilities until the grief had overcome her.

Betaine then spent several days in the mundane sections of the library, crouched over huge, restored tomes of leather, carbon-weave paper, human skin, pressed flowers, his eyes and nose watering from the over-powering smell of the preservative used on the books. Arguments happened frequently over dinner, in the conservatory, on processions through the holy city much like the one today, about the nature of Bala's purpose, the arguments Feynerman's contemporaries had posed to him that the circumstances under which the awakening occurred usually determined the purpose itself, that the perpetual cellular re-growth characteristic of those who'd found their place in the Universe was not stimulated until the proper state of awareness was reached, brought upon by a crisis that allowed the blossoming of their innate personality.

Bala had begrudgingly agreed to assist with this particular train of thought at his insistence that, lacking purpose himself, and her being one of the few that possessed a longevity that nearly rivaled Planet's, studying the peculiar events of her ascension to godhood might help him understand the unique perspective her kind developed over the millennia. She had become increasing obstinate the further he attempted to dig, however, until one night at dinner when she set his pant leg on fire for asking about her parents.

"There aren't many secrets I keep," she had told him, her perfect lips, red as guilt, pursed angrily, "but the ones I want to, I will, and no brat academian will think he can steal them from me."

Betaine had dropped the discussion, but continued his private research when he wasn't filling his head with sessions of Planet's. It was true that while some godlings had impressive and sometimes bizarre new forms thrust upon them, Bala had changed very little, although as he sat next her on a heavily embroidered divan, or rather, he sat and rocked awkwardly with the motion of the procession as forty curvaceous, joyful courtesans of the goddess surrounded him on the cushions and waved censors to which great bunches of colourful ribbon were tied while Bala floated in a lotus position above him, her gauzy robes trimmed in amethyst mingling with the sweet-smelling smoke, perhaps her evolution was merely a more subtle one. She cast blessings on the crowds that lined the road, which was so wide that a hundred elephants could walk abreast, and red lights sparkled on the filigreed caps that adorned her fingers and toes as they moved sedately towards the distant harbor.

He squinted up at Bala, as power flowed from her like the tide, was returned fourfold by the adoring worshipers that clustered thickly along both sides, their mouths opening and closing as their goddess passed, the sound almost deafening. Betaine compared her unbelievable presence with the subdued sepia illustrations that were all the remained of her as a human. She had possessed an unearthly beauty even then, but now seemed as distant and unreachable as the heart of the sun that now painted the city with a golden brush.

Betaine had awoken that morning with an itch in his palms, the speed of his thoughts causing a roaring in his ears. He washed quickly, scarcely noticed he had failed to request the water warm. Dressed in flowing dove gray slacks and a trim black jacket, his hair slicked back out of his eyes, he ignored the rumblings of his stomach and padded in soft, low-heeled sandals to the Archives, swore when he noticed both Vermilli and Rubyat missing. An almost identical wrinkled coot in a tattered white robe was stretched out on the floor of the pit, eyes closed and let out a hilariously fake snore when he saw it was Betaine that had showed up.