Chosen Ch. 07 (Conclusion)

She swallowed more juice.

"Oh. I can see my world from Adriana's perspective. She is a little horrified. There's no honor left. So much freedom and wealth, but no honor. Why did respect die? Why are all the leaders weak, and the church so voiceless and colorless? Have people forgotten how to fight, how to improve their station? If everyone is equal, who do you trust to lead?"

She shook her head, suddenly, like she was waking from a dream. "...I'm so sorry. It's a little confusing, the... integrating. She's so much like me, but she was more grown up, and knew more about her world than I've ever understood about mine. That's a huge difference -- people in her world all knew who they were, in relation to everyone else. Today no one knows who they are supposed to be, what they are supposed to do, who anyone else is. Everything is so vague and colorless, like being in fog. Mere anarchy..."

She shook her head again. "I really am sorry. I need to be Adrienne right now, but Adriana is like the me I never let myself become -- adventuresome, risk-taking, brave, worldly-wise, and so very willing to love and be loved. She glitters and sparks where I only glow. I'm learning to be like her, moment by moment, second by second, but it's so intense... I can see now I settled all my life -- jobs I did not like, men who didn't impress me. I'll never be that easy and foolish again."

She looked at us, eyes bright and determined. "I want what she had, the fire, the spirit... and the man. We must find Lucio."

+++

"But how?" I said, after a long pause. "We need a map."

Jose smiled. "We have it. You don't see it?"

"See what?"

"How things fit together? We have the map."

"We don't. We have a fragment. Something about the abandoned, whatever that mean - the orphanage!"

"Yes. Part of the map, left there. A narrow strip of it, on something that wouldn't get lost..."

"The sword! The scratches on the sword!"

"You see the problem Cruz had to solve. He doesn't want this note of his to get investigated at the wrong time, before miss Smith lived. So it writes very vaguely. We know about a book, a pale-haired woman, and a place with abandoned children. So we can make sense of this note. People investigating before us wouldn't. I didn't see it myself because I thought the abandoned might refer to the Moors, or to people on the wrong side of the church schism... I was thinking too grandly, not enough grimly. War makes a lot of children into abandoned property; there is nothing sadder."

He pulled his camera out, and pulled up the picture of the sword. "But it's hard to make out the scratches. We may have to go back for the sword itself."

"What is this about a map?" Adrienne asked.

"We have what might be pieces of a map, in pictures on Jose's camera. If we can put it together-"

"Show me."

Jose copied the pictures to her laptop, while be briefly described about the sword and priest's note.

She opened them. "I see now. So these two images should fit if scaled and overlaid, but first we have to get the scratches on the sword to show up... maybe a Canny filter... no, ok, play with the contrast first..."

"You understand image processing?"

"Blonde doesn't mean stupid. I was an art major, for a time, I did photography... I'm no expert but filters are something I can understand. Maybe a Sorbel... ok, yes, look. There are your scratches, some of that is noise, but..."

She rotated and scaled and slid images together. With a few tweaks, the edges matched and the lines became nearly continuous.

Jose lost no time pulling up maps of Spain -- roads, topological, rivers. We started hunting.

Even suspecting we were looking for something near Andújar, it took a surprising amount of time, but in the end we found it. One of the rivers had shifted, and a line intended to represent a road didn't exactly follow the track of a modern highway, but even with that, the small cross on our map could be placed at a location in hills northwest of the town. It was in a nature park, surrounded by abandoned farms.

"Can we go there tomorrow?" she asked.

Jose smiled. "Whenever you wish. We are very much at your service."

"And it seems we always have been," I said. I was having trouble hiding a profound sense of awe.

+++

And so the three of us, carrying three items, were hiking across an abandoned olive farm up in the hills, with the GPS on my phone guiding us... Despite the awkwardness of the climb, I kept the candle burning, in a little glass lantern.

And then, after some searching around, we stood at the rough stone door. It was set deep into the stone outcrop, less than six feet high and little over two feet wide, and overgrown with vines. You could have walked by ten feet away and missed it. We did, twice.

The stone outcrop was weathered and deeply cracked. Lichens were everywhere, and the stone was crumbling at points, with moss in the deepest cracks. A few birds overhead were the only signs of life.

"Not much of a tomb," Jose said, kneeling to cut at the vines.

"He was a thief," I said, pulling at what he was cutting. "He was lucky to have gotten a tomb at all."

It was fifteen minutes before we got the vines cut away enough to try prying the door open. Adrienne watched silently.

"It won't budge," I grunted. "Crowbar time."

"That won't work," said a voice, above us, in oddly accented English.

It says a lot about how this business had affected us, that Jose's response was to draw his gun and point it upward, and I found I'd picked up the crowbar in a throwing grip. Adrienne just gasped.

Only ten feet above us, nestled in a hollow of the rock and well hidden among the vines and lichens, was a man, dressed in dirty grey and dark green. He blended in well, but the hairs on the back of my neck told me he hadn't been there just a few moments ago.

"And why is that, sir?" Jose said steadily, training his gun on the man's face.

"The door is locked. There's a mechanism," he replied. "I have to lift and turn a stone handle, here. I'll pour this oil in first, and give it a few taps with my hammer, and then I should be able to work it for you. It will take a few minutes, for the oil to seep."

"Thank you," I replied. "Do you mind telling us who you are, and how you know this?"

"Neither of those questions is very important, Alan St. Laurent. And Doctor Estralla, if you would put the gun away, I would appreciate it."

He began tapping with the hammer.

A few awkward moments passed.

"I thought angels had wings," Adrienne said suddenly.

"Nope," said the man with the hammer.

"You have to be an angel," she said. "I saw you just... appear."

"The light here is tricky, and you may have seen incorrectly," he replied, still tapping. "And I was answering your statement about wings. Angels don't have wings. Those were invented by painters. Symbols of the sublime nature of angels, it was said."

"She's right in her fundamental assumption, though, isn't she," Jose said. He put the gun away, which I was glad to see, because his hands were shaking. "Oro Cruz, I assume?"

"If you were truly assuming it, you would not have stated that as a question," he replied. "I'm not going to answer questions about myself, so it may save time if you do not ask any. I'm not here for small talk."

I started to climb the rock to his position.

"Alan St. Laurent, I don't need assistance. And I'm armed with a hammer. Please stay where you are."

"If you use the hammer on me, Jose will shoot you."

Jose made a non-committal noise. I paused to glare at him.

"Coming up here serves no purpose," Cruz continued.

"I don't believe in angels," I said. "So I want to see what happens if I punch something I don't believe in."

"I don't think the question of believing in angels is what matters," he replied. "You should be asking yourself if you believe in hammers."

"Angels don't hurt people," I said.

"This is a case where your lack of biblical knowledge may be harmful. Ever heard of Passover? And at any rate, it's the hammer that's going to hurt you."

Jose cleared his throat. "Come down, Alan. Whatever he is, he knows our business and names and he's helping us."

"That's why I'm going to punch him. We've been lead on this merry chase, following clues set down in the 1300's. But here is someone who seems to know the whole story. If he'd showed up earlier he'd have saved us quite a lot of time. Maybe I wouldn't be here, risking arrest right now."

Our angelic friend watched my climb, frowning. "It doesn't work that way. I didn't know about you until you showed up here. I can't be everywhere."

"You know our names."

"Sometimes I can know things."

I got my fingers on the ledge he was standing on. He paused to move the hammer over my middle knuckle. "I'd rather not do this," he said.

"You won't." I got my foot into a crevice and pushed upwards.

He bashed the hammer violently into my knuckle. I felt the joint shatter. The pain was sudden and nauseating, and I fell ten feet to the ground, my landing somewhat cushioned by Jose's bulk.

"There's a human who got to wrestle with an angel, once," Cruz called down. "You're not him. None of this is about you, Alan St. Laurent. There is only one person who needs to be here. And she's wise enough to wait and see what happens."

He went back to tapping on stone. I cradled my ruined finger in my other hand and cursed, softly. I'd forgotten how much broken bones hurt.

"Doctor Estrella," he called down. "I'm about to unlock the door. When I do, go in alone. Place the three items on the shelf inside, blow out the candle and exit immediately. Don't stay and watch what happens next. It is not for your kind to see."

"Wait," said Jose. "We are due some answers, I think. You condemn us to mystery and confusion otherwise."

Cruz grunted, lifting and turning a piece of stone. There was a grinding noise. "You knew enough to bring Adriana and the items here. That is sufficient."

"Is there anyone who remembers that my name is Adrienne," Adrienne gritted.

"I demand answers," Jose said.

"By what authority?"

"It is up to the church to bind and loosen, both things on earth and things of heaven. I think loosening your tongue falls fairly under that authority."

Cruz frowned, then nodded. "Ask the right questions, then."

"Why all this? A man and a woman in love, have their love denied. It's sad, but it happens. Why are Adriana and Lucio special?"

"That is my fault," Oro said. "I caused all this. I was... you'd say stationed here, in the era of Adriana and Lucio. I witnessed the attempted excommunication. I didn't cause it to fail -- that happened by the decree of someone more powerful than I. Heaven gets angry sometimes. But in that moment... all I can say is I was enraged. Lucio was spared the shame of excommunication, but he was still going to be slaughtered, and I could not prevent that. Adriana was going to be condemned to a life she did not deserve, by her own father, and I could not even prevent that. The times were horrific... your history books don't begin to describe it. War and infighting and a broken church and injustices you have no understanding of, rampant everywhere. I was tired of the laughter of demons. And creatures like me do have some amount of free will, we can make decisions and enact them... I decreed that Lucio would have his chance someday, that just this once I would see justice done on earth and not wait until heaven. I... it's simplest to say that I exceeded my authority, but my only punishment for that has been to maintain a watch here until my actions came to fruition. So while I broke rules and strayed from my true work-"

"There's a name for angels who stray."

"I didn't stray that far. I'm not perfect, but there is forgiveness for imperfection, you know."

He reached back, and tossed down a backpack. "Leave that inside. The original clothing is long gone."

"But, the bell. It has been killing people. Perhaps for years. That was Lucio's will? Or heaven's?"

"Not Lucio's. Lucio's will is captured in the book. The bell and candle... they are only the overflow of his need for justice and desire for Adriana. It's complicated; I did not do things quite right. The bell got a little out of control, as righteous rage sometimes will when one is not careful. The candle likewise has been a little indiscriminate. But I blame myself, not Lucio. And even those the bell killed... we are all imperfect as you know, Father, and all liable to judgment at any time. Perhaps those that were judged were ripe for it. But things should be better when the items fulfil their purpose."

"But I still think you have-"

"So," Adrienne said, suddenly. "If I'm not insane and not dreaming... a man dead for hundreds of years is going to come out of that cave soon. And I'm supposed to love him. Do I get a choice in that?"

"As much of a choice as any human gets," Oro said, a slightly sad smile on his lips. "You have free will, Adrienne. All I am doing is giving Lucio a chance to live a life he should have had, and a chance to win the girl he loves. It is true you are not the same woman as Adriana of Sevilla, but you are as like to her in mind and body as there has ever been or can ever be. Genetic twin doesn't begin to cover it. And you have... all I can say is taken on Adriana's thoughts and become her some sense even I don't fully understand. I think you will love Lucio. I think you already do, or you would never have come to Spain."

"Culture shock," I said, suddenly. "Lucio doesn't know this world, the language, anything. How is he going to stay sane?"

Oro climbed down. "The book has been the home of his... intellect, you'd say. Soul. He's been able to observe history in a limited way from inside it. He's been around. He won't understand everything he sees but it won't be as bad as you think. I explain this to him at the beginning, that it might be a long time before he found his Adriana and the world would be very changed."

"But he's been here in this tomb," Adrienne said. "But sometimes in a book? I don't understand everything, but... How did he give me pearls?"

"I don't know," Oro said. "I wasn't there. Adrienne, will you hand me the book?"

She did, slowly. He held it, closing his eyes. His expressions shifted, almost too fast to recognize.

Oro said. "There was a woman... with a cruel husband she'd been forced to marry. Lucio felt the deepest sympathy. A lover gave her those pearls, but her love for him was about to become known, and Lucio... he warned her to flee before she was killed in a jealous rage. He got her away safely, but in exchange he convinced her to leave the pearls behind. He knew you'd need them."

"But she died. The wife. There was a murder." Adrienne said.

"Lucio says otherwise... I will ask. No, she lived. The husband came home drunk with murder on his mind and killed a servant woman in his rage. She had a passing resemblance the wife, and he'd turned off the gaslights so he would not be seen in the act... The wife really did get away. We can't fault Lucio for the servant's death; the book had already been mailed off again before the husband arrived home. Books, like angels, can't be everywhere at once."

"And then I just happened to take that same apartment?"

"Child," Oro said, gently. "You would be astonished if you knew how many things that just happen to happen, could not have happened any other way. Lucio's will is not the only thing to reckon with in this story. Your life, and his, have gotten tangled not just in my will, but because of what I did, into the very will of heaven. Not that that's so remarkable, people get tangled into the will of heaven every day. Your race wouldn't have survived two days out of the garden otherwise."

"Adrienne, you're starting to delve into mysteries we shouldn't explore," Jose said.

"Eh," Oro said. "You Catholics. A little too prone to making that argument. You'd be better off taking on more mysteries head on. The universe isn't as incomprehensible as you claim."

"Can we just open the damn door?" I gritted. "This hand of mine needs a surgeon."

"By the same token," Oro said. "You skeptics. A little too prone to demanding everything is knowable and will be understood in time. It won't be. Stick your hand where it does not belong, in your arrogant confidence that the world will bow and kiss it, and you can expect the occasional broken finger."

"The world didn't break my finger. You did. You're an angel it seems, so heal it."

"Nope. The provision of heaven you call doctors is enough mercy for the likes of you. You don't rate miracles, Alan St. Laurent. And the healing process might teach you a little humility. But you're right about the door. Lucio is waiting. Adrienne, would you pull it open? Just grip that grooved part."

He handed the book to Jose. I handed over the candle. Adrienne pulled the door open, with effort. Jose picked up the backpack and walked in.

He was out thirty seconds later, somewhat pale. There was light pouring out behind him, and it was not candlelight.

"I will never see a tomb in the same way," he said.

The light faded out; and then we heard footsteps.

"Is this what an arranged marriage feels like?" said Adrienne, shaking.

Lucio stepped out, crouching through the small door, then standing erect.

He was six feet two or about, dark eyes, unkempt long hair, muscled and frighteningly confident in the way he walked. I thought to myself that this was a man who hadn't learned the modern niceties of politely deferring to strangers, of keeping his eyes and his attitudes to himself. He was a man from an earlier era, and the way he looked at us was a direct challenge, a demand that we follow him, prove we could lead him, or get out of his way. I got out of his way, as I was between him and Adrienne.

"Oh," said Adrienne in a shocked voice. "That's not fair. He's gorgeous. He's like the cover of Jane in Chains-"

He pounced on her, lifting her off her feet and kissing her roughly. Time passed, for everyone except the two of them. When he set her back down, she swallowed wordlessly, stunned out of her mind and clinging to him weakly.

He turned to Oro. "Salir. Usted fue menos ayuda de la que yo dezeaba."

Oro nodded and walked into the tomb. We never saw him again.

"I need a place to stay while I learn to do useful work," Lucio rumbled at Jose. "You are a priest, if that garb means what I think it means. Prove you are a good one and arrange it for me. I will not need charity for long."

"You can- you can just, um, stay with me," stammered Adrienne, now bright red. She and Lucio were speaking an old form of Spanish, and I had to struggle a little to understand them.

An almost cruel smiled formed on his lips. "Wanton slut. Don't you want me to woo you, my sweet and passionate Adriana? Don't you want to learn what it is like when Lucio makes your heart beat fast, before you take me into your bed?"

"I'm good, thanks," she whispered. "Adriana's memories... they've gotten very clear. My heart is beating fast enough. I promise."

"As a priest, I am going to point out that fornication is still on the books as a sin," Jose pointed out. "So if you could at least wait until you're-"

"Silence," he rumbled. He took Adrienne by the wrist and moved her without effort to the stone outcrop. He put her back to it, and caught her wrists in his hand and held them to either side of her head. She mewled, trapped.

"Look me in the eyes and answer me this, girl. Will you be mine? Wife, lover, will you bear my children and love me solely, until they return me to a crypt?"

She looked into his eyes, and then her own eyes closed helplessly. "So unfair. You've been in my head, Adriana's been in m-my head, all I can feel is... is... please Lucio, you're a t-thousand times more intense in real life than you ever were in the visions, and I couldn't even handle those-"