literature

The City of Angels part II

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The Heart of the City of Angels was a boulder of some translucent crystal; it was rough, unaltered by human hands, and it shone from within with a dazzling red luminescence. On gazing into its depths for a time, you could percieve a slight shifting, pulsing, that could remind you of the glowing embers at the core of a fire, only it had a regularity to it that felt... alive.

And all around the chamber were strange hanging growths that appeared to be vegetation on first sight, all clustering around the Heart's light; yet looking closer, the leaves or outermost fronds of the vines sparkled as they swayed in the breeze, and seemed to be formed of a similar translucent crystal, giving off a lesser light of their own.

The heart below and the plant-like mass above, one blazing like fire and the other giving off a soft glow in return. One pulsing slowly, the other gently rippling in light and dark. It had a trancelike serenity to it.

"This is... the Heart?" whispered Luke in awe.

The djinni smiled. "The Master was not specific as to where in the City I should take him, so I brought him to the centre. This is a safe place, and he can eaily get to wherever he would want to go from here."

Luke sighed and stared up at the magnificent sight again. Then he looked down at Marie, whose comatose head he was resting for the moment in his lap. She looked so peaceful now. He didn't really want to have to end that.

"Hey, wake up," Luke said, giving her a gentle shake. "We're safe now. Wake up."

After a few moments of drowsiness, rememberence returned to her features and opened her mouth to scream and then -- looked up in amazement. "Is this a dream.., or heaven or hell or... what?"

"This is the Heart of the City of Angels," said Luke. "Mr..." he prompted the djinni, who smiled and said, "a servant has no name."

"Well," continued Luke, "This djinni saved our lives."

"My Lord," said the djinni, bowing his head, "would you thank the sword for slaying an attacker or the one who wielded it?"

Luke blushed. "Yes, alright," he said.

Marie looked up at him with doe eyes and met his lips half way. "My knight," she said afterwards, half in jest, but with much feeling.


*


The passages that led away from the heart were cavernlike in form and were coated in pulsing veins of that crystalline substence, drawing whatever vital energy they held out to the City's extremities. The walk was a long one, and monotonous, so as Marie recovered she began to interrogate the djinni, who was courteous but formal in his replies, and then talked to Luke, who was more glad to have something to distract him.

"Tell me about your past life again," she said. "I don't really understand it all."

"Well, neither do I," he said. "It feels like a dream which fades in the morning. Every day my memories of it get hazier, and I'm sure I would have forgotten it all already if I hadn't written it down as soon as possible. When I was born I knew how to read and write and do warpcraft and all of that, but I started to forget it almost immediately, and now I have to learn it all again almost from scratch."

"But your warpcraft is as good as anyone who has been doing it their whole life!" Marie cried. "That's what they told me."

"In my past life I was one of the best in the world," Luke said. "And there's a big difference."

"Wow," Marie said. "You're so amazing," she giggled.

"No," Luke sighed, "I'm not. I'm not him, you get it?" And silently Luke recalled how brave and confident his old self had been. "I have some of his skill, probably all of his talent, but I don't identify with him, I don't know him. That man is dead."
Long deviations seem to turn people off, so I think I'm sticking with this "bite-sized" format for this story, however much I wanted to make it longer. Tell me what you think.
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