AS THE GRIFFIN turned upside down the moment they were farther from the Towers, a sharp 'bzzt' sound resonated, and the world seemed to be downside up once more without the beast shifting its normal position of flight. The sun was just barely peeking, and as Maze looked behind, he could behold the behemoth tower, not three this time, but four towers in all four sides surrounding a central pillar. In the light, they became silhouettes obscured by the thickening fog, appearing as a mere diorama in the eyes of Maze, drifting farther and farther away.
The logic of above and below . . .
How curious and wild was that?
So it truly means that the Towers Below exist underneath, Maze thought, averting his direction toward the back of Vaelstrom.
The senior was guiding the griffin to fly much higher now, until the clouds were almost within their reach.
"There is a view up there on the clouds," Vaelstrom remarked, taking a glance at Maze's frame. "You will like it."
His senior had taken a peculiar liking to it, and Maze entertained the quiet notion that Vaelstrom, in his weariness, sought diversion in such trifles.
For Maze, it would not be amiss to savor the scenery. Perhaps even Miss Olivia would wish him to witness such beauty. He was no longer young, and few things stirred his desire anymore. Perhaps this simple delight, these fleeting, gentle wonders unworthy of deep thought yet worthy of quiet admiration, would suffice before the Camp.
Suddenly, as they ascended, Maze saw that the griffin was heading directly toward the clouds. He had no complaints, yet he wondered of something else: were the clouds made of cotton, and were they soft? He had never truly known their composition, and since his childhood, he had always wondered if they were tangible.
The moment they penetrated the veil, however, the cloud felt neither soft nor rough, neither cotton nor rock. As if the cloud were a ghost, it chilled his skin and left him a damp kiss. It turned out he had been wrong all along!
Why would he even believe such things back then?
He could only shake his head as they went past the clouds . . .
Maze's lips twitched.
From up there, the wind felt like a storm, but perhaps a storm that was calm, if a storm were a person, after all.
The marmalade sky, a vast expanse of clouds bathed in the sun's marmalade glow beneath their flight, was a sight Maze would not have wished to leave, had he been alone.
Yet such longing was mere sentiment, unworthy of one bound to duty.
"What do you think?" Even Vaelstrom had a shade of marmalade light upon his frame, his spiky and messy hair now being further disheveled by the gust.
Maze could only smile inwardly. "These are all good, to be honest. It might be lame to eventually indulge in these feelings, but when I was a shepherd, I enjoyed the sunrise a lot, and had always thought what it felt like from up here. I never knew some time in the future, I would get to experience it."
It is kind of embarrassing to say it. We are both man, after all. Maze scratched his nape due to the awkwardness. He was like this every time he spoke with Mr. Ivory. Yet . . . I wonder if Mr. Ivory felt a chill whenever I spoke sentimentally to him. Am I this weird?
"I get easily bored, Maze, but that does not mean that when we are not kids anymore, we should not indulge in such." Vaelstrom yawned and saddled the griffin as if it were a ship creating waves as it sailed upon the sea, and not that the clouds were indeed a sea. "The Camp will be a burden to you. Unlike any of us who had a pair or a group, you have none. No one will be there to stand by you, and . . . things will be rough. You can only strive to understand those children."
Maze was reminded of the timeless discrimination that the Orphans had faced. He had no inkling of what exactly happened during those times, and it was not that he was afraid to ask; rather, it would only cause him unnecessary trouble. As Vaelstrom said, they were children . . . youth much younger than him, not yet in their twenties.
"I believe there were supposedly two of you, but the other one was taken away to Yonder."
"Is that possible?"
Vaelstrom nodded. "They cleanse their awakening and forcibly make them drink from the cup. But that does not change the fact that those who awakened and are forcibly taken to Yonder are not a part of the Selection, but a scheme to deliberately provoke Below and cause an additional rift."
"Why . . . are you telling me this now?" Maze was shocked that those from the Towers Yonder could do such deeds.
"For you not to trust anyone in Yonder." Vaelstrom sighed, the burden heavy upon his shoulders. "We in Below do not wish to create any rifts. Whatever they did to our previous supposed siblings, we do not respond with malice or plots. What we did was to make sure every Day of the Eclipse, we gathered whoever awakened before they could search. There are times they are steps ahead, and times that we are, but either way, we have accepted that we are outcasts, and that they abhor our principles."
Vaelstrom looked up.
"Hey, we are more than lucky enough that we have you or anybody taken to Below. When we do so, we adhere to the saying: repay evil with kindness. They may try to tear us apart, but they won't take away what we have."
It was not only quite shocking that someone was supposed to be taken along with him during the Eclipse. However, 'supposedly' was a word that was unkindly to happen anymore, and such had indeed occurred in the past. Whoever that person was, it was of no use anymore, as that certain someone would now be a Child residing in Yonder.
Maze let the silence settle, his gaze fixed on the endless marmalade clouds.
A Sibling lost to the cup, he thought. The weight of being the only one from the Below this year pressed upon him anew, not merely from the discrimination Mistletoe had warned of, but from the quiet burden of embodying the Orphan's ideals alone, adrift among those who had been cleansed.
"I am supposed to be the one who is quiet, Maze," Vaelstrom scoffed. "Pray tell, would you like to see a much more interesting sight?"
Maze, though feigning indifference, could not help but be drawn in Vaelstrom's rare openness was as curious as it was deliberate, and silence, for once, was no longer tenable.
Maze fixed his position. "What could it possibly be, senior?"
Vaelstrom did not respond to his curiosity. Instead, he led the griffin to fold its wings as if about to dive. They plunged into the clouds, both Orphans bracing themselves against the heavy pressure. As the beast descended and egressed the clasp of the clouds, it flapped its wings once again, steadying its flight just beneath the white veil.
Vaelstrom looked below. "Look at our city."
Maze looked down, and for the first time, he beheld the world from a bird's eye view. Beneath the griffin, the city spread out as a massive stone web, as if designed to funnel all life toward a single point.
Enclosed within a twelve-sided outer wall, the city was divided into distinct sectors. Maze assumed these were the districts, the first six sitting as heavy, four-cornered squares. They were separated by wedges of forest that resembled triangular patches of moss.
Moving inward, the next six sections took on a more suffocating form. Their side walls slanted sharply, creating narrowing corridors that seemed to squeeze the streets as they approached the center. At the very heart of this radial cage sat a six-sided fortress. There, its high walls formed a seemingly protective ring around a tiny, final sanctum, where the five towers loomed.
Maze felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. He had no way of knowing if these were truly the district, one among them being where he had lived, the very sight he beheld before the talons of the griffin carried him to the Below.
This was surely Welfanshelm.
"You once spoke of your origin within the southwest, that entrapped sector of four-cornered walls," Vaelstrom noted, gesturing toward the Fifth District. "That is from whence you came — one of the outerdistricts, much like my own." He pointed toward the southeast, toward the Third District, the lands most distant from the towering heights.
A profound silence settled between them as the journey pressed onward.
The sun ascended until it threatened to scorch their skin, and the hour of noon drew nigh. As they continued their southward course, Maze observed the mists swelling beyond the outer walls of the city, as he surmised that such a realm could not be inhabited by the living.
Below lay a barren land of drought and shadows, devoid of any sign of life. Then . . . where, in such a desolate expanse, could the Camp truly be situated?
Even beneath the midday sun, the griffin hovered miles above a forest of lifeless, black trees. Not a single leaf, not even one withering, clung to the branches. A thick mist blanketed the soil, its chill rising to battle the heat of the noon sky.
It was an endless, uninhabited expanse where darkness loitered despite the light.
Maze wondered if this was the very reason the walls existed.
But why had he remained ignorant?
Why were there no rumors regarding the world beyond their city?
It appeared the world he once knew was not the world at all.