The Cloud-Capped Towers

by ~veritaslux

Prologue

It was dark. The cool night-air was crisp against the pale, waxy skin of the Controller. His white wings shimmered gently in the moonlight, which was just peeking in through a small glass square in the wall. He looked around with his jet black eyes, waiting for a sudden thud of shifting books, as a new one was formed and sorted. Flicking back his blond hair, he breathed deeply, getting ready to absorb the certain pain of childbirth.

He sighed the same morose sigh that he had sighed every night for the past fifty-three years he had been Controller. His vitality seemed to be an endless struggle,  checking that books had been rightfully created, checking that every new child was named. All of this for a Messiah that would seemingly never come!

A groan, and the Controller knew that the birth had taken place. An inkling of an idea formed in his head, and he suddenly understood the life of the newborn. This was the curse of the Controller: knowing every living thing’s life and destiny, knowing their every thought and fear. Standing on the brink of everything, watching lives unfold exactly as predicted.

Shaking his head out of the mist of pain, the Controller walked down a long aisle of shelves, all laden with heavy and archaic books.  Searching for the newborn’s name was not easy, what with hundreds of thousands of books to look through. But yet,  there was the book, named with the child’s angelic name. Picking out the thin book marked ‘Soldehr’, he flicked open the first page, and checked the declaration. She was an elven girl, born to a simple family in Ab-Montr.  Pity, he thought, as he foresaw the ultimate death of this girl.

Sighing, he replaced the book, the Controller returned to the very back of the library, taking his seat in the battered leather chair that he had sat in for what seemed like eternity. It was relaxing, to sit down after a bout of pain, yet soon it became very boring, with nothing to do but wait and hope. Hope that the Assessor would come someday soon.

Resting his head against the side of the seat, the Controller shut his eyes, reflecting silently for five minutes, before dropping off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

*  *  *

It was the pain that woke him. He had been sleeping for four hours, by the look of the sunlight. He rubbed his arm as it pounded with anger, as if there was an angry demon trying to tear itself out. It was the pain of a new life, the pain of a new child being born. He could tell that in an instant; there was nothing in the sterile, isolated place that could harm him other than that.

Yet this pain was pain like no other that he had ever experienced before. It was like somebody was ripping his heart from his chest. The Controller slid out of his chair, onto the floor, where he clutched at the blue carpeted floor, as if he were trying to cling onto the world.

He could hardly believe the incredible amounts of pain that were coursing through ever fibre of his body. Without thinking about it, he began groping at his own flesh, trying to rip his body apart to keep himself from this agony. His arms were now crying tears of blood, gashes across his face from where his fingernails had dug into his skin.

His skin refused to stop aching; it was as if an inferno had been set alight in his flesh, every lick of the flames causing him even more harm. He could not stop this pain, that was apparent, but what was causing it was the nagging question that took up the rest of his mind.

Attempting to use his voice for the first time in years, he found it hoarse and rough, yet still, he screamed for his life in mangled tones. He used what Clodhrian he could remember to try and shout to the outside world, but deep down, he knew that nobody could hear him.

He was going to die, he knew it. It was a gut feeling that he sometimes felt when lives below the Great Cloud flickered out. Yet this time, he could feel his own life dying like fading candlelight.

The Controller writhed his way down to the great oaken doors that hailed the entrance to the library, hoping that the doors would open to let him out. But the pain was beginning to die away now, the child had nearly been born. He was fading away, at Death’s door. And then, the inferno stopped. And he realised.

His face wide with shock, the Controller read the boy’s life, confirming what he had already suspected. The realisation came like a rush of blood to the head, and it was bittersweet. He was still begging for his release under his breath in Clodhrian, and the Library was resisting.

The Controller stopped thinking, stopped muttering, and lay there, looking up at the great domed ceiling. He felt the air against his skin, the ground against the feathered wings that he wore, and finally told himself that his time had come. But then, just as he thought it all over, a creak.

The great doors of the Library were opening slowly and steadily. A silhouette was standing there in the moonlight, clothes rippling gently in the breeze. It was a young angel by the look of his height, and he had apparently just been granted his wings, which shimmered with golden lustre.

The new angel walked into the Library, breathing in its scent, and unaware of the dying Controller on the floor. The angel was clearer now, with only the half-light of the spacious room, instead of the glare of the moon atop the Great Cloud. The youngster flicked his brown hair back, in the same manner that the Controller would do every so often, and stared at the dying angel on the floor.

“My name is Mordrenr,” he whispered ethereally, only just loud enough for the Controller to hear. “You are dying. I am your successor.”

The Controller looked up at Mordrenr, with wonder in his eyes.

“You were chosen for this post?” he asked in a cracked voice.

Mordrenr inclined his head towards the golden wings that he wore on his back.

“Is it not obvious?” he replied.

“Then take my memories and my thoughts, and the previous Controllers’ memories and thoughts, and serve your duty.”

The Controller raised his head and stared into the eyes of Mordrenr. Everything that he knew was being poured into the mind of the young angel, who was drinking it in with a sincere look on his face. After two minutes, the process was complete.

“Thank you,”  muttered Mordrenr, even sounding more knowing and old. “Rest in peace, knowing that you have passed your title to a worthy successor.”

He started to walk off, amongst the dusty aisles of books and shelves. But a gasping sound from behind him made Mordrenr turn around.

The former Controller was looking up at him, while clutching his throbbing chest. He breathed deeply, and said his ultimate words.

“He lives. The Assessor. He has been born.”

His final breath rasped in his lungs, and as he snatched at his failing heart, his head fell limp, and the Controller was dead.

The words echoed in Mordrenr’s head, as he stalked off to the very back of the library.

He lives. The Assessor. He has been born.