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TRAS Chapter 66: Wings of Gold
🕑 Added 2025-02-06 12:21:33 +0000 UTCIt was over a month ago that Kylian saw the mural. To grant Ailn and Renea entry—from their perspective escape—he had to destroy the front half of the sarcophagus that supposedly housed Noué Aregyni’s body.
The body missing and the lower chamber thus revealed, Kylian had returned with Ciecout to examine it. At the very least, they had to restore the panel painting stolen by the criminal ring back to its proper place.
Unfortunately, at the time they had only torchlight at their disposal. When the learned, yet irascible, priest discovered that the walls descending into the lower chamber bore not only a mural, but also strange ritualistic text he'd never encountered in his studies, he forbade Kylian’s torch come even near.
Hence the month-long wait for a gentler lighting artifact to be approved by the bishop, and procured by the cellarer. In that time, Kylian had forgotten all about the lower chamber, given all the ‘excitement’ that had taken over the castle.
The eclectic styles that decorated the wall gave Kylian pause. For reasons he couldn’t quite put together, he found the mural unsettling.
“This piece strikes me oddest of all…” Kylian muttered. Being so close to it, he felt a strong and almost childish urge to touch the gold leaf that decorated the woman’s head. “Is that woman supposed to be Lumitheia?”
It would make sense, given that there was a bas-relief of The Legacy of the Magi above.
Some variants of the myth of Vilesyel Dorado held that the magi were her retinue, and the city itself her vessel. In that telling, Lumitheia was master of the sun itself, and the city of Vilesyel Dorado—that radiant, golden beacon in the sky—only vanished with the fall of night.
Then, glancing back at one of the verses, Kylian understood what it was that bothered him.
⁴ Her father is the sun, and her mother is gold.
Lumitheia was not depicted in the relief in the chamber above. And yet she was depicted repeatedly here. Why?
Her absence in the relief was not so strange. As a deity, she was a sort of straggler—adopted into nigh every mythical tradition within the empire. Tenuously with all, yet claimed by none.
In a sense, it was merely a matter of the teller’s discretion. But if she was excluded from The Legacy of the Magi, then why was she depicted down here? And with such glaring sun imagery?
Lost in his thoughts, Kylian heard a particularly high pitched gasp from Renea.
“Why couldn’t you just keep me in the dark?!” Renea hissed.
“You broke it in the first place because you were in the dark,” Ailn shrugged. “Anyway, have you figured it out yet or not?”
“W-well, if you hadn’t distracted me…” Renea bit her thumb.
“Are you saying you have the answer, Your Highness?” Ciecout nearly tripped over his vestments as he rushed down the stairs.
“We still need to test it out but… yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Ailn said. “Solving it ‘properly’ using the text is tough. I’m sure something stands out though, doesn’t it?”
Everyone’s eyes drifted toward the final part of the mural.
It was the wooden panel they had retrieved from the criminals. And on it was a rather striking image of two women reaching toward each other, their index fingers on the verge of contact.
One woman, depicted with golden eyes and red hair, was floating. Kylian assumed it was meant to be Noué Areygni. According to popular myth, her eyes would turn gold when she received divine inspiration. As for her hair, he had never heard any mention of its color, but it matched the red of the woman in The Weighing of the Heart.
Unlike that mural, however, exceptional attention was given to fidelity—the two women were lifelike, if somewhat grand in their portrayal.
“It’s odd how the art simplifies in form—until the final piece,” Kylian said. “Not only does this panel break the pattern, but it’s the only one which is removable.”
“Right. Not a bad way of putting it,” Ailn said. He replied to Kylian, but turned to Renea. “What do you think ‘as above, so below’ means?”
“Three dimensional… versus two dimensional?” Renea asked. “If Noué is, er… similar to us then that might mean something… different to her.”
“She might have meant that too,” Ailn said. “No reason it only has to mean one thing. But one explanation is most useful to us.”
He pointed toward Noué.
“It’s the idea that an artist is the creator of a world of their own. So, a pretty simple paraphrase for what she means is…”
“I’m the god of the world I created,” Renea muttered.
“Right. So then we look at the next few lines. The world’s imperfection is here—she considers herself imperfect. Then, remove lies with what’s holy.”
Ailn gestured at the four consecutive scenes, each featuring presumably the same woman: standing atop clouds, on the bustling dock, amidst worshippers, and then in the company of hunters.
“...Determine the lies of myths?” Kylian muttered. “Father Ciecout, do you recognize these scenes?”
“Recognize? How possibly?” Ciecout squinted at Kylian as if he’d heard the most ridiculous thing. “What can you glean from these beyond the presence of Lumitheia? And even in the relief above, where Vilesyel Dorado is depicted sans deity, how could we say which version of a myth is true if any were at all?”
“Perfectly sound thinking, Father,” Ailn agreed.
“Yes, well,” Ciecout coughed, “I am not the total fool my confreres believe me to be.”
Then what could be done?
Kylian stared at the panel painting, wondering how one could possibly find truth in myth. Moreover, whatever truth that was would be entirely dependent on…
“The artist,” Kylian said. “The truth would depend… on the artist.”
Holiness shall reveal lies. Could it really be that simple? Kylian glanced at the panel painting, then turned his eyes toward the upper chamber. Was there an order to it?
“Looks like Kylian beat you to it, Renea,” Ailn said.
“What?” Renea turned with a start. She took a moment to process Kylian’s words, and she bit on her nail harder. “I’m going to be upset if the answer is some nonsense about subjectivity.”
Making a decision, Kylian went dashing up the stairs. If there was an order to it, then surely the upper chamber should come first. In fact, ‘as above, so below’ was likely intended as a hint toward the lower chamber’s existence.
They’d simply been lucky to discover it due to odd circumstances.
Standing in front of what Ailn and Renea had called The Weighing of the Heart, Kylian began to manifest his holy aura.
He had never heard the phrase ‘selling out’ before, but the mural provided sufficient context. Here was a woman holding her hands greedily toward money, indicating she valued it more than her heart.
And yet here they were in an elaborate mausoleum which contained none of her riches; instead, it was filled with art she’d deigned not to display in her own lifetime when surely it would have grown her fame, and brought her coin.
Nor did she receive material wealth for painting The Saintess and The Wolf in the cathedral above.
His holy aura manifested, Kylian reached his hand gingerly toward the mural, till his fingers were nearly touching the painted pile of coins on the heavier side of the scale.
Paint began to flake off the fresco, and Kylian felt a surge of panic—perhaps he had been rash.
“W-what are you doing?! You fool!” Ciecout tried to grab at Kylian’s aura-producing hand. “Are you not satisfied with the sarcophagus? How much more history must you destroy?!”
“Destroying the sarcophagus saved the current duke’s life,” Kylian countered, keeping his hand steady even as he began to feel a cold sweat. If he were completely wrong, would he have to pay for the damages?
Perhaps it was a blessing that none of the priests besides Ciecout cared.
Slowly, more than just paint began to flake, however. Stone itself began to crumble, and even as Ciecout looked as if he may try to punch the increasingly anxious knight, a shape began to emerge—as well as a color.
Kylian was speechless.
“Ah…” Ciecout’s brows went wide and his cheeks began to flush with excitement, “Ahhhh! Truly?!”
Ailn and Renea, who had taken their time following, arrived up the stairs just as the object was fully revealed.
Renea came bounding over, almost hopping in her excitement. “It’s a golden feather!”
______________
Everyone’s first reaction was to stare at it.
No one in the group, not even Ailn, had ever experienced quite so thrilling a combination of mystery and magic. In his past life, his sleuthing endeavors would’ve unearthed scandalous secrets—or even a corpse.
Confident as he was in his deductions, seeing really was believing.
“I’m fairly certain of where this needs to go,” Ailn said, hesitating for a moment, before reaching for the feather. “First, though, we need to light up the other lie.”
Ailn glanced at Renea.
“Here, why don’t you hold it?” Ailn handed her the golden feather.
“Oh! Really?” Renea grasped it tremulously, holding it up to her face in awe.
Descending back into the lower chamber, Ailn instructed Kylian to manifest his holy aura near the panel painting—where the two women’s hands reached out to each other. But before he could do so, Renea used her free hand to hold back the knight, while turning to Ailn.
“Wait! Explain it first,” Renea said.
It was nice to see her so enthusiastic.
“...Well, it’s sort of just the obvious thing to do,” Ailn said, scratching his head.
Even without referencing the riddle, the panel stuck out like a sore thumb. As far as Ailn was concerned, there was no need to solve exactly as intended.
“But what’s the lie?” Renea cried out.
“Does it even matter?”
“It… it could be a trap.”
Ailn sighed. “I don’t know exactly. She’s depicting herself as a creator and god. There’s any number of ways she could consider that a ‘lie.’ At any rate, that brand of vanity seems at odds with the rest of the chamber.”
“If I may, Your Highness,” Ciecout broke in.
“Go ahead.”
“The goddess depicted through the rest of the mural is likely Lumitheia,” Ciecout continued. “She’s a deity of the sun, according to many traditions the creator of magic, and—most relevant to this riddle—an arbiter of truth.”
“...Expose the lie about a goddess of truth?” Ailn asked. “Are you saying she’s denying truth?”
“The opposite, I expect,” Ciecout said, shaking his head. “The legend of Noué Areygni’s art is that her works are suffused with divinity. I believe she is claiming that Lumitheia was her patron.”
“There are numerous deities that have been called upon as muse,” Kylian interjected. “Yet I have never heard of Lumitheia as one.”
“That is precisely my point,” Ciecout said. “She is not an artistic deity. Areygni is affirming the nature of her divine inspiration. Merely look at verses nine through twelve upon the other wall.”
⁹ Then her last lie will be shown in glory.
¹⁰ Drown it with truth, which immerses all things, dissolves all pretense
¹¹ Thus, reveal her world.
¹² Such is the miraculous method to transform lies
“She is not merely depicting beauty, which could well be a lie,” Ciecout said, coming to his conclusion. “Areygni is making the claim that her art is the unabashed truth.”
“...The color of the woman’s hair in the panel painting is black,” Kylian frowned.
“I believe that is the hint of its lie,” Ciecout said confidently.
“Do you know who Ishmael and Ahab are, then?” Kylian asked, curiously.
“I do not,” Ciecout admitted. “...Nor Odin.”
Ailn and Renea exchanged a glance.
“Well, that’s good enough for me. Why don’t you go ahead and light it up, Kylian?” Ailn asked.
And so Kylian did. Unlike the mural above which had started to crumble, something even stranger happened.
The figures in the painting started to move.
As if she were suddenly granted flight, the woman who was presumably Lumitheia began to float, almost swimming through the air. Marking the glory of her ascent, her brown hair shifted color, gradually changing from dark brown to sandy, then to a dark gold, as if strands of light wove themselves through her hair.
Noué Areygni, meanwhile, began to drift downward, her expression dramatically crumpling from condescension into pleading.
Lumitheia had risen up, while Areygni had fallen. Still, the two’s arms reached out, and yet Lumitheia seemed to pull her entire self back coyly, so her hand was just out of reach, while Areygni was stretching to her utmost to desperately grasp.
Ailn couldn’t help but whistle at the sight.
“Looks like you were on the money Ciecout,” Ailn said. “Way to show up all those priests who call you an empty-headed academic.”
“All of them?” Ciecout asked in dismay. “Just who—”
“Shh!” Renea shushed them both.
Entranced, she watched the mural continue to change. A golden chain began to form upon it, as if being painted right before them.
It looped around the beasts in the cave-like painting to surround them. In the Byzantine painting, Lumitheia firmly grasped it between her hands. Through the dock, it snaked past laborers and between Lumitheia’s feet, before it retreated into the vanishing point. And finally, atop the clouds Lumitheia held it taut.
Her hand which was in the shadows tugged at its terminus. And her other hand, which reached toward the light, pulled at another chain which dangled from the sun.
Renea gasped.
At bottom of the mural, the chain around the beasts elongated, stretching into the panel painting. There it bound Noué Areygni’s hands and a golden disc formed at her feet, a pocket of wood shaving away to reveal an indentation right behind her.
“...That seems a bit dark,” Ailn said with a troubled look. “Though I suppose you could say being ‘bound by truth’ isn’t a bad thing.”
Then, Renea almost flinched in realization.
“Oh, I believe I get it,” she said. She seemed a bit reluctant to give up the golden feather, but she held it up to the indentation behind Noué’s painted figure anyway. “Ahh! It’s an artifact?”
The second it clicked into place, the feather made an almost metallic sound as it began to rend into two.
Now a pair of golden wings tethered at what was once the feather’s quill, they carved through wood and ‘stabbed’ themselves into the painted Areygni’s back. The wings, however thin, were a three-dimensional object moving through a two-dimensional world, leaving splinters and pulp in their wake.
After that, however, the mural ceased its movement.
“...Are… are there more steps yet?” Ciecout asked, glancing at the verses behind him. “If her works are complete, she shall rise above… I truly don’t understand.”
“Nor do I,” Kylian said, honestly.
“I think Renea can solve this one, actually,” Ailn said. He seemed quite confident.
He didn’t even have to say anything, really. Renea’s eyes were already locked on the wings, tracing the chain upward. Deep in thought, she bit her thumb.
She looked at the golden disc. The way it was connected to a long chain to the upper chamber… was it supposed to be one side of a scale? On this end was a feather…
Then her head jerked toward the upper chamber, and back to the disc again, then over to the jars of organs on the shelves. A look of repulsion and distress started to creep upon her face as she forlornly muttered to herself the name of the mural in the chamber above.
The Weighing of the Heart.
“Truly? That’s so… ugh!” Renea gave Ailn a pleading look. “Is that really it?”
Ailn shrugged. “We’re just lucky you didn’t knock over the wrong jar.”
