[J] Lysium's Diary +Illusionist: Cerena+

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ introduction ]

On the third day, Vive realized that he was being stalked by a book.

It was confusingly bound with a mishmash of twine and what looked like bone, and covered with a shoddy patchwork of clashing fabrics. It showed up in places that books ought not to be, like on the ceiling of bedrooms and in sealed glass cases and, on one memorable and ultimately untasty occasion, in his lunch. He knew it was the same book because he accidentally knocked a pitcher of pink lemonade onto it when he discovered it nestled between layers of lettuce and tomato on his sandwich, and the edges of its pages were still stained pink from the experience when he saw it next.

Furthermore, he knew the book was stalking him specifically because no one else knew what he was talking about. He picked it up one day, cracking open its cover to look at its flyleaf but going no further. He located no author but brought it into the village's only bookstore anyway and left it on the counter for the hired help to find. He had no assignments that day, so he sat on a nearby stool in a corner (which everyone else, feeling drafty immediately when approaching it, avoided for the duration of his stay) and watched it.

It did not move to haunt anyone else. When the bookkeeper's assistant picked it up and rifled through it, she only made it a quarter of the way through before placing it back down, looking utterly bewildered. She fetched her boss, and together they puzzled over the book, laying it flat over the counter and huddling around it. Finally, they threw it in the dumpster on their way out for lunch. When they returned, it had resumed its rightful place on the store counter, and Vive had not moved from his spot the entire time. It was still there when he finally left.

He discovered the next day that he had been assigned to reap the souls of goldfish, and when he entered the village's only pet store, he was not sure whether to be surprised to see the book lying inconspicuously in wait behind a patch of seaweed in one of the aquariums, disturbed, or flattered. He opted for nothing: emotion was only troublesome to express when one was nothing but bones.

"Do you see the book?" He nevertheless demanded of Dooriya when he next saw her, desperation tinting his distinct lack of voice.

The young woman ran her hands through her thin, brown hair, and under the pretense of shaking it back, fully scanned from left to right the sidestreet of the marketplace where she ran her stall on Thursdays. She saw nothing but the colors of fruit and flowers, and the gleam of jewelry and second-hand weapons. People bustled aimlessly through, occasionally stopping to look at the wares. When someone came up to her to buy dumplings, she nodded and smiled and served them, and then noted out of the corner of her eyes as she was handing back change that there was a very odd texture to the table of the leg of the stand across from her. It was propped up by a book.

She shook out a handful of seeds from the folds of her skirt and tossed it into the cobblestone-paved lane in front of her counter. Into the din of the arriving birds she said, "Yes, I see it."

"I do not know what to do. I do not have a brain to speak of, I am not qualified for a psychiatric evaluation. It is driving me a little crazy," Vive began haltingly, dodging a pigeon that had attempted to land on his headd.

Door gave him a Look, easily masking it as contempt for the troublesome bird that flapped around his head. "Have you tried asking it what it wants?" More customers came then, grinding the grains into the stones and shooing away the flock of birds. She continued to be quite busy for some time; by the time she had a spare moment to run her hands through her hair again and look back, Vive had gone, and when she looked across, the book had too.

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ introduction ii ]

There was no commonly accepted way to bind a Death to anything. Not much was written on the topic, much less of successful endeavors. People spoke of old stories never proven true in hushed whispers, created wards against the Deaths according to instructions never proven useful. The Deaths came anyway, shredding the wards as easily as paper and stealing their stories away, and that was just the way it was.

It didn't have to be that way, said the belligerant man on the corner who used to make the most gorgeous, life-like dolls, and when he spoke now people looked away nervously and crossed the roads; he would tell them, shaking his walking stick in the air at nothing in particular, that the only way to bind a Death to your will was to ask him a question he could not answer.

"Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter?" But the Deaths knew this.

He was not all there, never all there, people agreed whenever the subject came up, but he still made the most beautiful dolls, and could be convinced to make little, simple ones for children with the offering of a meal. Sometimes he disappeared for days and returned with one that looked exactly like how he used to make them: porcelain-skinned, rosy-cheeked, long-lashed and soulless. People would then offer him room and board in their houses for months on end for his troubles.

Today, the man was sitting beneath a tree and eating his lunch. The book was right beside him, unnoticed as always, ominously propping up his paper sack. Vive hovered awkwardly over the pair, draped over the branches of the tree and half-hiding in the shade, and for the life of him he could not figure out a way to strike up conversation with an inanimate object and a hobo.

The man could not see him; the book pretended to ignore him. Vive leaned forward and cleared his throat, but the sound was lost to the sudden scratchy rustling of a newspaper blowing casually down the road. "Can we talk," he said once it passed.

The wind picked up just as he said this, and he feared that this too would be unheard -- but then a wayward breeze caught the edge of the man's hat and sent it tumbling after the newspaper. The man blinked once, then again, and finished chewing, then very carefully wrapped up his sandwich. He left it there on the book and proceeded to give chase.

"Errr, thanks," mumbled Vive as he untangled his long, bony legs from the branches of the tree and landed, in a crouch, next to the book. He gently swept the sandwich and breadcrumbs from its cover, his fingertips catching the edges of it and lifting the pink-stained pages apart just slightly. He immediately jerked his hand away as if he had touched candleflame. It looked at him rather hungrily. He did not dare open it, or approach it any further.

"I've just noticed you hanging around -- errr, lately. I am not very good with spirits, you see, only bodies. If you are indeed haunting me, I thought we might be able to come to an understanding? That is, errr... Is there something I can do for you?"

After a few tense moments -- in which Vive began to wonder if he should start backing away very slowly with no sudden movements -- the book finally relented and signalled him a greeting by throwing open its cover with a very loud BANG.

Vive, startled, found himself looking into a deep white expanse with the outlines of foreign lands etched in brown. Off in the corner was the declaration: "HERE THERE BE" but the statement was unfinished and Vive was not sure, considering the outward look of the book, that he wanted to know. There was a name plaque too, for its owner to identify him or herself in, but there was nothing there but a single dot like a little black eye.

He stared for a good long while, and it was only when the book began to ruffle its pages impatiently did he realize that he had been given permission to handle it. He obediently picked it up, noting nothing special about its weight or texture, and carefully turned to the next page as if he expected the whole thing to either break in half or bite him.

The next two pages did not match up. This was because the one opposite was made of leather and painted on with some stiff red substance: berries, Vive thought and was unsure of where this thought came from. It resembled a cave painting, whereas the other page seemed to be some kind of instructional page on building huts in another language altogether.

He turned to the next page and found it to be a half-completed crossword puzzle. Opposite it was, as best he could figure, an illustrated story about purple polka-dotted creatures that ate other odd-looking creatures in some kind of loopy, circular language. None of their limbs were in the right places. He rocked back on his feet, stared, and then perplexedly flipped through the book.

None of the pages matched up; some of them seemed alive in ways that others did not, but he could not locate these pages when he flipped back to them. The materials for the pages were different. The handwriting on each page was different. The language and layout of each page was different. He found a single page, to his surprise, in his own language, but it was absolutely no help at all -- it was a page from the diary of what he guessed to be a girl, complaining about laundry chores and the mixing of colors and whites. When he looked to the opposing page and back, it had been replaced with an illustration of a girl falling down a set of stairs.

He flipped through to the end, boggled, and flipped his way back. Something loosened along the way and came away, like a wriggly baby tooth just about to fall out, and it drifted to the ground and stayed there. If it was a page, it was nothing Vive had actually encountered during his trek through the book.

It was more circular and barely there. The book snapped shut in his hands and, pleased, wriggled out of his grasp; distracted, Vive let it and leaned forward to peer more closely at the new entity.

If he tilted his head at an angle and looked at it from the corner of his eyes, it looked purple and blurred with small explosions of yellow and orange and white. If he looked at it straight on, staring down as if it were a basin of water, it was dark and impossibly deep and looked very dizzyingly like a hole straight through the entire world. If he looked at it any other way, it was not there at all.

The sound of dragging footfalls alerted him to the returning presence of the man. The book itself was gone. Vive, unsure of what to do with what it had left behined, straightened as if he intended to leave it there; there was a bell-rung noise like a music box playing a girl's voice, and behind him the man gave out a startled cry.

So Vive very carefully picked up the reverie and, folding it neatly, put it in his pocket before leaving.

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ bound ]

Deaths do not need to sleep or eat or even bathe; as a result they have a lot of free time and no real place at which to spend it. Some took up weaving crop circles into people's corn fields, or knitting the world's largest sweater, or gambling or surfing. Vive usually spent his time reading, but unfortunately had already read through all of the local bookstore's usual stock.

The bookstore was probably the closest thing he had to a home, unwittingly shared by an elderly gentleman, the owner and grandson of the one who had originally built this shop with his bare hands, and his two granddaughters. The younger was a very nice girl, homely but quiet; the elder very much liked boys, and parties, and empty buildings in which to party with boys -- that is, the bookstore after it closed down for the night.

When this happened, Vive usually spent his nights prowling about the city or else keeping Door company. She worked in one of the more popular inns (the first to have been established in the town) and always had a room or supply closet to spare for him. In return, he pulled a few strings so that the inn's -- the Clocktower -- gardens had unnaturally long lives.

After his earlier encounter, Vive felt, quite frankly, that he had had enough of books.

"You look like Hell warmed over," said Door, crossing herself when she saw him approach. She was working in the small vegetable garden off to its side, weeding and pulling up carrots for a stew.

"Oh," replied Vive, who did not get the joke. He resisted the urge to shove his hand into his pocket, just to see if the thing was still there. "You look very nice too. May I stay here tonight?"

"Sure." She sat up and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her soil-encrusted hand, leaving a smudgy trail of dirt in its wake. "It's been very quiet this past week, so you can have any of the rooms on the third floor against the far wall. I'd suggest the corner, though -- Granny says a rainstorm's coming tonight so we might have to fill up the rest."

She had returned to her carrots and was saying something about the stars and Venus being in the wrong house or something, Vive wasn't paying attention but knew her too well anyway. She neither noticed his inattentiveness nor looked up after that, so finally he drifted into the building and up two flights of stairs.

The rooms on the corner was always the smallest -- sparsely furnished but quiet. Neither of these things really mattered to Vive, but he knew it comforted Door to think she was appealing to his lack of taste. Not bothering with the lock, he entered the room, only briefly noting the sparse light -- the sky was indeed overcast and ill-looking -- and the odd object in the window, backlit in grey light and casting a long, rectangular shadow over the neatly swept wood floor.

It was the book. Vive wished he had been carrying something so he could promptly drop it in shock. Forgetting his resolve to not be rude to odd books with stalker-like tendencies, and not having a tongue to bite down on anyway, Vive cursed underneath his breath and said in a vaguely cross manner, "What are you doing here?"

He became increasingly more aware of the reverie, which -- for something which had no real substance to it -- was very oddly shifting in his pocket. He fished it out, wondering if the book had wanted it back, and laid it gently down on the floor before backing away, so that it was between him and the book. It gently unfolded itself and hovered, tiny stars twinkling in its unknown cosmos.

"There," said Vive tiredly, "It's yours. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted me to have it."

The book did not make any move to claim it. The reverie, now more of a cloud than a liquid, gravitated towards it, hesitantly moving into and around it as if trying to envelop it, grab it, open it--

Was that a child on its surface?

Vive did not care to think about it any further. He shifted and turned away, determined to ask Door for another room, or perhaps even to coinhabit hers tonight. He would inevitably forget about the book, he was sure, and he could not wait for this to occur.

The book motionlessly pushed past the clinging grasp of the reverie and fell stiffly to the ground, cracking open near the center; its pages slowly rifled in a non-existant wind, and fell open on a page only long enough for him to carelessly glance over. It then shut and smiled smugly at him.

"Who am I?" The book had asked in a small voice with the language of Death, a tiny vine-like sentence in the center of the page nearly smothered by the blank void of paper surrounding it, and the Death did not know.

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ record i ]

4/11/07 -- To whom this may concern,
The Council of the Afterlife
Vassals of the Moirae

I am writing to you in inquiry to Definition 4.8 of Ordinance 15 and 16 in the Book of the Dead, that which continues to define Death as -- forgive me, I am paraphrasing here as I am in a bit of a hurry -- like so: "The dead cannot beget life." I am wondering how literally you would interpret this.

Recently I have found myself in a bit of an awkward situation. It involves what I think is a baby, that has emerged from a bit of nothing-ness I found slipped between the pages of a demonic book that is stalking me (I was wondering if you might know the identity of said book, too? I am thinking it is some kind of parasitic spirit merely taking form of a book, as it is completely and utterly useless as an actual one.) It seemed like a wormhole at first, not that I have much experience with those kinds of things, but it was decidedly not animate.

Recently the shadowy image of an infant has begun to surface within this thing, however, and it is beginning to respond to stimulation. It follows me wherever I go, and if I try to leave it behind, it begins crying (sort of.) It was very decidedly not alive when I first met it, but now that it has been forced into my care (via the book, which has somehow imprisoned me, as I do not know what it is but perhaps you do and I can be released? Maybe?) it has drifted further and further from Death. The other day, something akin to a pulse awoke in the half-formed creature. I fear it will actually turn into a real baby.

Should it do so, would it be classified as my offspring? Everything else is in working order, I have no ties to life -- besides, well, the book, as I have said -- and my powers have not waned. I hope you will note that I have done everything according to regulation and have caused no trouble. I am eagerly awaiting a promotion, in fact, and this situation I find myself in is not due to any of my own actions. I hope there is some solution to this, as it is hard to reap the souls of the dead when the baby (the thing as I have described, which might become a baby, rather) interferes.

Eagerly awaiting your reply,
Vive, residing Death of Silence as of this date
Formerly Victor Sloughn

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ record ii ]

4/12/07 -- Vive, residing Death of Gerbils as of this date
Formerly Victor Sloughn

You will be glad to hear that, after some consideration, your current situation does not nullify your status as one of the Dead. From what little information we could gather, including what you have described to us, your new charge is what we would classify as a spirit. As long as it does not physically manifest, the Definition you have quoted is not violated.

We were not able to find anything of the book you have spoken about: it does not describe any deity, demon, or monster that we have record of. It is likely, therefore, that it is a remnant necromancer tool bewitched to latch itself to Death. In short, it is most likely human-created and nothing to be entirely worried about (while we appreciate your concern of your dedication to the rules of Binding a Death, please keep in mind that this does not actually apply to irrational objects, even bewitched ones.)

Please keep us updated on your situation should anything new result, otherwise we expect you to carry on as normal.

Sincerely, Thanatos
The Council of the Afterlife
Vassals of the Moirae

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ pareidolia i ]

[from the mind of lysium]

oh bla di oh bla da

It was very different, out of the labyrinth of the book. She had not thought that she would ever see order again, or birds of prey. The man was staring down at her with clocks ticking in his eyes, the second hand just past nine, and it was too early for tea.

That was disheartening.

He did not do a very good job of acknowledging her. The sheets on the bed were wrinkled, besides, and the smell of tomatoes in the air seemed threatening. He turned his back on her to have words and crumpets with the book, and all she could hear was red-tinted static.

when the moon hits your eye like a bright pizza pie that's always tended to hurt quite a bit

She did not much like being in this state of half-being and half-soup. There was a painting of a dog hanging on the far wall and it was eying her rather hungrily; she was not sure how long the glass partition separating her from it or the other way around would last. She would not like to be dragged into that world of his, black and white and crosshatched, and be eaten.

But she had no rope with which to climb out, or a head of long hair, or even cabbages to throw. Lovely, ripe green cabbages with jam on top. It was good for the heart. Once upon a time, she had these cabbages, and they were set up so she and the other runners of the Caucus could run all over them, on top, spinning spinning like gerbils in a plastic ball, or a log on water going over the niagra falls, whichever came first. The president won the day of course and he spent it on half-price furnishings and the promise of a planet without the hole in the ozone layer.

It was defective merchandise, that's what it was. That's why it was marked down. It didn't want to risk the plastic surgery or the prospect of seas swimming in silicone.

And oh yes, it was time to come out. The book had not come back yet but it was time to come out; she had had quite enough of being flatter and smaller than it was.

There were many things she didn't know yet, like the hands of rain and how to shade the human body, but she was looking forward to learning. The Death looked away just for one second, and the book finally came forward, and she thrust one tiny fist through the cosmos of her reverie and grasped onto its spine like a lifeline. That was enough to propel her more fully into physical manifestation and her first breath of air since her doctor's liver exploded.

 

[Sable Eye Cerena]

[ introduction iii ]

Vive had been, once again, under the mistaken impression that the book could be of any help at all. It was not that the child -- bright eyed and as fascinated with chewing on her own hands as she was with table legs -- was a problem (or, he sometimes thought grudgingly to himself when the realization came again and again that he would have to report this eventually, a mistake -- it was merely that he had no earthly clue what to do with her.

He had thought that at least the book would have had the consideration of devouring a few baby manuals along with everything else that produced the nonsensical mishmash of information it presented to unsuspecting readers. Clearly it devoured. Clearly there was no one else in the 'verse, much less hundreds of people, as insane enough as this book was to actually handwrite frustratingly little as they did onto its pages.

It had been about an hour after he made the discovery of a very small girl in his room where there had been none before that he ventured to ask it, "You wouldn't know anything about children, would you?" It had been lying in a small patch of sunlight, fat and lazy and far too pleased with itself to care, and after a few moments grumblingly rifled to a page that seemed to have some kind of recipe for soup.

"Eaihoidhg," said the child approvingly, with all the solemn wisdom of an earth-thing that could not even control her own bowels yet.

"Right," muttered Vive, setting her down on the bed and pacing impatiently in front of the door and considering his options. The first was simply to leave her here and let Door discover her -- though his friend would not admit it (and perhaps was not proud of it), she had always had a way with children that an avatar of Death simply did not. He could always claim that he certainly hadn't left her there. (Which was true to some extent, wasn't it? After all, it had been the book -- defying all logic and rules of physics and sensibility, and did this make the book a girl? -- to bring the child here. He had seen her falling from its pages and promptly lost about half of his remaining sanity.)

His second option was to dress her up as nicely as he could, and -- somehow -- find a willing set of parents. The old doorstep trick, of course; surely there was some barren couple living in this village who had always wanted a child, and would not mind some pixie-like little girl who had come into this world smudged with ink.

The third was quite impossible (and even thinking of it made him stop in his tracks, giving both the book and the child a look of concern.) It would be simply impractical for him to raise her on his own. Simply out of the question, he shouldn't give it another thought, Deaths did not have children--

"Vive," said Door through the door, sending jolts of fear down Vive's nonexistant spine with every rap she made against the thick wood, "Is everything alright? There's no one dying in there, is there? The people in the room next to yours made a complaint, and you know how much I hate washing blood out of the sheets."

"E-everything is fine!" He managed to call back, not even convinced himself, but the child disagreed: "MURRRRRRRR."

There came a long period of silence (Door was undoubtedly trying to figure out exactly what she had just heard) and the newborn Illusionary added as an afterthought, "

poo."