Complicity

"O friend, I beg you,

With all my strength, with all my mind

Do not leave me

Do not betray me

I, a cursed man, am yours

O friend, I implore you

With all my strength, with all my mind

Do not reject her

Do not abandon it

This complicity which is ours "

"Complaint, Chronicle of Lost Time, Oracle of the Temple of Maâry

***

A feeling of dizziness rang in Caleb's ears and then he calmed down and matched the angel's breathing. The eyes opened and tears pointing at the ends, the young man forced himself to close them. Absorbed in his thoughts, he only regained consciousness a few minutes later when Doloriel had already landed on solid ground.

Embarrassed he released the top of the angel and looked around. There was a large opening decorated with fine diamond-shaped carvings and above it a single phrase carved in one of the most beautiful scripts, "Order and Chaos leads to Destruction and Creation," the voice had translated.

All around the structure was a large terrace of gray stone and arches of the same blue as the tower, extending from it to the edge of the gazebo.

Caleb continued to walk beside Doloriel amidst murmurs and snatches of mocking words betraying haughty attitudes toward his human nature. The interior of the building was built high up so that the vast space remained luminous, revealing an elaborate hall. The famous windows that could be seen on the icy structure were adorned with colored stained glass windows representing flowers and plants. The walls were carved in the shape of sinuous plants reaching the domed ceiling of the vestibule, etched with lacy flowers and beads. Behind the plant carvings were painted large, colorful birds.

- How old is this tower? he asked in his mind.

- The building itself is more than fifteen hundred years old but the construction...

- The construction is not finished. Why not?

The old man's voice in his head was abruptly stopped by Doloriel who ordered him to stop daydreaming and to speed up. Caleb hurried to join him when his guide stopped dead in front of a wooden elevator door embroidered with crosshairs of light.

The spacious interior with its waxed floor could accommodate more than five people. On the walls of the space were black benches and small rectangular mirrors reflecting flakes of various sizes. Doloriel, who had found a new topic of conversation, continued to lecture him as one would with a recalcitrant child, but he had fallen asleep.

"A young boy with wavy brown hair was running after another, shouting and flapping his arms. The second black-haired boy sped up when he caught his feet in a clump of dirt and fell head first into the soft grass. The figure caught up with him and dropped to his side. The child's soft voice called out to his companion plaintively:

- Caleb talk to me, okay?

Young Caleb's shoulders had begun to shake and then he began to sob. In a heartbreaking voice, he asked her:

- Why doesn't anyone love me? I don't understand. Is it because... I'm a monster? Tell me... Aki... Tell me. Am I worth living for? Do I have the right ?

Aki answered him with tears in his eyes:

- Of course you have the right! You are a human being like me, like us, like the whole world! You have the right to live, to laugh, to cry... Because I need you and so does my mother...

The child faced with the distress of his friend got up, took him in his arms and rocked him slowly while starting a soft melody of his composition then answered him with a very small voice:

- Okay, don't cry. I'm sorry, don't cry. Look, I've stopped crying, right? So don't cry. Please don't cry. I'm sorry, so don't...

- It's okay, it's okay, answered Aki with a little smile on his lips.

Then this one contemplated him, took his tender cheeks in cup and kissed him tenderly the forehead. Seeing the eyes of his friend still fogged with glittering tears he said to him in a soothing way:

- You have the most beautiful eyes in the world. They look like bright and beautiful pearls from the land above the seas! They are treasures. So don't die, okay?

The little Caleb suddenly threw himself on his friend and exclaimed with a resplendent smile on his face:

- Aki I love you!

Both of them fell on the ground and laughter of joy could be heard. The picture was very cute, two boys positioned on their backs holding hands laughing and around them green leafed trees (plum trees to be exact) swaying in the wind on the edges of a field with green grass and resplendent sunlight."

With tears in his eyes Caleb woke up with a start before Doloriel's deep voice reached him. He was an inquisitor who kept asking him this question and that question so that Caleb could not take it anymore:

- No, I wasn't listening. Yes, I fell asleep, you should have seen him. Oh yes, I forgot, you won't listen to me. Besides, do you want my advice? Seriously, listen to people first if you want them to answer you.

Without voice by the scathing retort of the young man, the angel raised the eyebrows. His reaction made Caleb let out a caustic little laugh when a kinetic voice indicated the arrival of the elevator. Recomposing quickly his face Doloriel left the elevator grumbling some insults all more coloured the ones than the others. After a while, he suddenly stopped in front of a massive wooden door guarded by two black-clad angels.

The guards removed their halberds and opened the door, which closed on them. Intrigued Caleb admired the room. It was large enough to hold at least two hundred people for a reception or a salon. The floor was made of a strange mixture of wood and stone. Large colorful taffeta drapes lined the walls as if to warm them. Here and there, on wooden furniture of venetrier, big antique vases in terra cotta. Small portraits rested on four wire mesh partitions near the tapestries giving a sense of opulence to the room. In the middle of the room, spaced out to an acceptable width, were a few carved columns almost twisted on both sides forming an alley leading to stairs protected by a velvet cloth laid like a small coat. At the end was a quilted throne in emerald green velvet. A light laugh tore Caleb from his contemplation, breaking the silence that had settled in the large space.