From Brighter Skies to Darker Depths

[Tamiara]

From Brighter Skies to Darker Depths

In all his years Luther had never seen anything so ethereal. It was as if he'd stepped into one of the fairy tales he remembered his mother telling him when he was little. Just like the fairy tales too in that the beauty had a dark undertone to it. He half expected some kind of monster to be lurking, the kind of evil to taint such beauty. The Prime stood up and Luther brought his attention back to the here and now.

"We wanted to ask you a few questions about how you are doing." She began. Luther stood silently. The immortals still creeped him out. He didn't know what it was about them that did, though it was probably their unnatural length of life and that they never changed in appearance in their long years. But their personality changed greatly over the years, they weren't the same person from one decade to the next, and never returning to the original one you thought you knew.

"How are you living quarters?" He heard the Prime say.

"Fine, thanks" He replied.

"Is there anything you want? Food? Furniture? Hobby equipment?" She pressed.

"No, thank you" He reiterated. "I have everything I could possibly want at my disposal'

"How do you feel? Are you lonely? Tired?"

These questions seemed innocuous enough but Luther couldn't help but feel that the immortals were trying to get a certain answer from him. "I feel fine." He began. "I'm not tired. I get plenty of rest, thank you" He deliberately omitted to answer about the loneliness, they didn't need to know whether he missed his family and friends or not. But he stayed polite in everything he said, he didn't want to tell them it was none of their business so stayed quiet. It was no good to anger the immortals, they could easily send him back to the life he had before they mysteriously plucked him from the mortals and asked him to live amongst them, a life that he had grown to become malcontent with. The Prime spoke in quiet murmurs to other immortals in the room for a while.

"You are free to go now" She said turning towards him, "Thank you for taking time out of your day to answer our questions."

Luther turned and left the fairytale room, he didn't want them changing their mind. He walked steadily back to his not nearly as ethereal, but still magnificent, home to think over what just happened and what the immortals wanted. Again, as he had done for the past three months since he'd been taken away from the only home he knew.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

I'm hooked already! Eagerly awaiting more

[Tamiara]

Sat in his lounge area, Luther thought on the conversation he had just had with the Prime. Why was she so interested in his well being? They weren’t before and he hadn’t changed in the time he’d been in the Inner City, she knew that. Luther had seen her spies (who were not very good at being inconspicuous) watching him as he explored the city and surrounding area. He had gotten used to the idea that he couldn’t think out loud or go to The Outlyers to visit everyone he knew. So nothing in his demeanour had changed for the sudden summons and chit-chat that occurred earlier. Luther very much wanted to talk to James, Paul and Anya about what was going on, they would be able to tell him whether he was just being paranoid or if he was twitchy with reason.

It wasn’t that Luther hated his new life, he quite liked it, if you took away the spying and the strange questioning by different people. But even he could get used to that as it it didn’t really interfere, They never tried to attack him or make him do anything he didn’t like. It was a very different life to what he had been put through for the last ten years. Being passed around like some sort of stud was not his ideal way of living. Sure, it was fun and games to begin with, but then it got boring, and then he met Meryl. Meryl was the love of his life and suddenly she was taken away from him, he hadn’t seen her since that day. Being a kind of gigolo was great and all but when he was parted from her he felt more like a live sperm donor rather than the man about town that he’d felt like before.

It was the Immortals idea to split them up and he still couldn’t work out why. All he was told was that he had to move back to the Bordello and out of Meryl’s house while they found a new woman for him to live with. He had been fine at Meryl’s but the Immortals said that something wasn’t quite right.Meryl was then moved somewhere else also, the knowledge of her whereabouts was hidden from him. Maybe he could find out where she was from somewhere in the Inner City. At least his last words to Meryl weren’t in anger. She knew he cared about her and he knew she cared about him.

Now he was here in his new spacious home with every amenity imaginable (and some that weren’t). here with all the scrutiny and fake nonchalance, he was actually quite happy. Maybe if he could convince the Immortals to bring a James, Paul and Anya (the three people he counted as close friends and people he could trust) here with him he would be having a brilliant time.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

The plot thickens. I wonder what the deal is with this Meryl character

[Tamiara]

Unbeknownst to Luther, many different meetings were taking place while he was musing about the past. All of the meetings were about him, and in great detail.

“When are we going to ask him about his family?!” Gareth demanded.

“We can’t come right out with it. He’ll clam up” The Prime answered, trying to placate him. “We have to see if he even is one of us or if it’s just a dead end family line, either way they both need to be investigated. We can’t scare him off and not be able to find out all we can.”

“I told you we should have kept a closer eye on pregnancies. We started doing it ten years ago but that only helps us with children now. I’ve been an advocate, as you well know, of better records of the Mortals but everyone has been against me for so long, and now its too late. Isn’t it?!” he nearly shouted the last part to the other five people in the room with him.

“There’s no need to berate everyone for something which can’t be changed, and before you start, you know time-travel is impossible. What’s done is done.” In a calmer voice the Prime carried on “We will ease in slowly. If he IS one of us, we have all the time in the world.”

“No we don’t, there are others who wish to control Luther. If we don’t get this information soon someone else will and they’ll use it against us” Gareth was now pacing in agitation.

“What information could they hope to gain from Luther?” Christine piped up. “There is nothing he could say that could harm us”

“His father!” Gareth exclaimed. “If his father was an Immortal they could find this out from him, just like we’re trying to do, if they find out first they will have the new information and an advantage that could topple us from power. Come out of your house once in a while and you’d see what is going on Christine. Nothing new has been founds for centuries, this would be a massive breakthrough one way or the other and they could gain control of the Mortals.” The council exchanged worried looks.

“We will press Luther more” The Prime finally said. “But we do not want him to retreat into silence, then we get no information from him about anything, and that could lead him to the arms of another faction. We will go slowly”

“Fine. So long as we get answers.” Gareth sat down with a thump.

These were the kind of conversations people were having all over the Inner City. All about Luther and how to find out about him. Some were convinced one of his parents was an Immortal, others thought he had discovered the secret of immortality, as they had a millennia before. There were also many who thought he was just a dead end genome. They were the ones who wanted him dead and everyone in his family dead, just to make sure it could never happen again. But there were naysayers who thought he couldn’t be killed, that he was a new breed of Immortal.

The Northerners (so called because of where they lived in the City) were what the Prime and the Council called ‘Radicals’, because they disagreed. But also (reasonably) because they had radical ideas about how the Immortals should live and wanted to take over the Council. The Northerners were of the belief that it was Luther’s father who was an Immortal and managed to have a child with a Mortal woman (Luther’s mother).

“We should stab him in the heart!” Someone in the crowded cellar shouted. Others chimed in with words of agreement or advice on how to kill him. “If he lives, he’s one of us. If he dies then there is no waste, one less Mortal in the world” More agreement from the crowd.

“We need him on our side, not the Prime’s.” Rose shouted to make herself heard. When all had quietened down she continued ,“If we go barreling in and just stab him in the chest he’s not going to want to work with us if he survives. He is going to mistrust us and then be no use. As much as that is a quick and accurate way to test if he is Immortal or not, Simon, it will not further our cause.” She turned and spoke to the rest of the room, “If we find out who is father is we can find him and ask him all he knows about us and what it was he did to evolve and have a child. Once we know what he knows (and with Luther) we can start a new generation of Immortals, ones without prejudice, no class structure. All Immortals would be EQUAL!”

The room erupted in noise again with cheers and thumping as people stamped their feet. Rose raised her arms for quiet once more, the room hushed quickly. “Now. Does anyone have any ideas about how to get close to Luther without alerting the Prime and her Council. He must know something about his father.” People fell to talking amongst themselves in small groups, throwing ideas around and generally chatting about the most exciting thing to happen in a century.

Many other factions in the Inner City would have meetings just like this in the coming weeks, all discussing Luther, whether he was Immortal or Mortal and predominantly, what to do about him. All of this happening without the Prime or the Council knowing. They thought they were safe in power.

For now.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

Interesting stuff One thing though, you mention that if he couldn't be killed, he would be a new breed of immortal - yet later they're saying that if they try to kill him and he survives, he'll be one of them. So can Immortals be killed or can they only be killed in certain ways or not killed at all? A little confusing.

[Tamiara]

Just to let you know, Immortals CAN be killed, but only a certain way. Any other way of trying to kill them doesn't work. So a stab to the heart would kill a Mortal but just hurt an Immortal. Sorry for the muddle.

[Tamiara]

It had been 6 months since that first strange meeting with the Prime. There had been many more in the mean time and Luther still couldn’t work out what they were after, but they seemed more and more satisfied with his answers, not that he thought he was giving them any information, he was just talking about his childhood which was the same as everyone elses. Then there were the other Immortals who were trying the befriend him, it was creepy. He didn’t want to be friends with them, he’d gone through most of his life hating and being afraid of them, why would he want to be their friend now. But they persisted. There were about three Immortals who kept trying to be his friend, not a day went by without one of them offering to show him around a different part of the city or offering to teach him the history of the city or the families within it. Sometimes he indulged them and went with them so he could find a way back to the Outlyers or just a way out of the Inner City once and for all. On these occasions that he went with them he questioned them about different things to do with the Immortals, “know thy enemy” as the saying went. But every time he got anywhere near asking about their origin every single one of them clammed up and wouldn’t say a thing to him. If he even mentioned the first Immortal they went silent and started looking around as if someone was watching them and they didn’t want to get caught. More often than not this is when they started to wrap up their little tour that they had had planned for him, whether he asked about an hour into the tour or six hours later, within half an hour the ‘guide’ would be gone and he would be back at his home again, alone.

Who was this first Immortal? He had heard reference to it when Professors from the university talked about it when they thought they were alone on their campus, but when pressed at a later date, they would plead ignorance about it. This was also linked with no one telling him anything about the Immortals themselves, no illness was ever mentioned (or hospitals ever seen) no one would use dates either. Luther knew they had all been around for a long long time, but he could not work out who had been around the longest. He knew this was most likely deliberate on the Immortals part so he couldn’t seek out anyone who was around with the first Immortal or the one’s just after. For all he knew, the Prime was only two hundred years old and the ‘guides’ were a thousand, but as they all looked about thirty he would never know their actual age. Also, no one was talking about age. There were no birthdays (that he could see) and no dates on plaques around the city; things just seemed to happen at an indeterminate time and everyone just accepted that they did and were there. Any questions were met with silence or ignored, as if nothing had been said.


The Prime and her posse hadn’t spoken to Luther in about a week when a strange woman turned up in Luther’s bedroom in the middle of the night. She was silent but Luther had lived in shady places in his life and knew when something that wasn’t supposed to be in his room was. He couldn’t make out any features on her face and to turn on the lights would let her know that he was awake, he just wanted to lie there and see what it was she wanted. She padded about his room on small feet looking around and through drawers and cupboards. Luther wasn’t worried, he had nothing personal in his room, all personal things were hidden elsewhere so this type of thing wouldn’t lose him anything he held dear (not that there was much that he did hold dear). She suddenly froze while looking through the bottom of his wardrobe and turned towards the bed. She knows I’m awake, Luther thought to himself, she’s definitely not an amateur. From this he deduced that she was probably a Mortal then as no Immortal would ever need to be this quiet, there were no locks on doors in the Inner City which had led Luther to believe there was no theft. Unlike the Outlyers where theft was pretty common and you had to be pretty good to actually get anything of value and not be seen let alone caught.

Luther decided now would be the time to give up the charade of being asleep as he knew he was caught and sat up, turning on the light as he did with a quick couple of claps.

“Hi the-” he managed to get out before she lept out of the window and ran off. Luther tried to follow, but as he landed outside his window she was already gone. She left no footprints for him to follow and there were too many directions for her to go, too many places for her to hide for him to effectively be able to follow her. He clambered back through his window and looked through all the places she had looked through. When he got to the bottom of his wardrobe he noticed that the pile of bedding that was kept in the back right corner had been moved to reveal the wooden bottom of the wardrobe (Luther liked wooden furniture over metal, metal was too clinical and shiny for his taste and he was used to wood). “Well I’ll be.” He breathed, raking his fingers through his hair. “She was looking for a false bottom. No wonder she was looking in every single drawer so thoroughly.” He sat down on the edge of his bed. “But who would send her? The Prime? Those ‘guides’?” Luther rested his elbow on his knees, his chin on his thumb and forefinger and pondered for a while, trying to work out if it was the Immortals or someone from his past. He quickly dismissed it being anyone from his past as no one from the Outlyers could get into the Inner City unless you were invited in, he knew that perfectly well. That meant the person (who most definitely was a Mortal) was hired by an Immortal to look for stuff on him. It looked like they were trying to find out about him through nefarious means rather than just sticking to the nicey nicey questions they’d been asking him for months.

They were getting desperate, but what was it they were after? his things held no clue to anything about his biological family. He had never managed to keep hold of anything from his mother before she was chosen when he was seventeen. All her stuff just gradually went to other relatives or friends who needed it more than he did. The sentimental stuff got thrown, at seventeen he didn’t much care for sentimentality, although now thirty-five he regretted not keeping something of hers. He didn’t know who his father was. Just like everyone else, men were matched to women and then moved on the stay in the male part of town and spread their seed to other women so that the genepool stayed strong and healthy, survival of the fittest and all that. His father was probably unknown even to the Matchmakers.

After about an hour Luther got up and put the bedding back in its usual spot and closed the wardrobe door. The sun was just rising so he decided an early morning walk was in order, alone and before his new ‘friends’ decided it was time to try to convince him they were best buds and always had been. He dressed and walked to the nature reserve that was only a 5 minute walk from where he lived. Once he was amongst the trees in the wooded part of the reserve he relaxed slightly and let his mind wander over the events of the previous night. Rather than trying to work out who had sent her, he wanted to see if he could work out who she was. he had this niggling feeling that he knew her, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He couldn’t see her eyes or hair as she was wearing the kind of balaclava that only left the tiniest of slits for you to see out of. He remembered that she seemed rather small in the chest region, but then she could have easily bound those specially to make her appear more boyish and so she could squeeze through small gaps. One things he couldn’t hide was her height which he gauged was about five feet and five inches, give or take half an inch. She also couldn’t hide that she was female either, no matter that she seemed to be trying to look like the opposite gender, too much of an hourglass shape to me a man. He knew a few thieves who would fit the description but knew that none of them would take the Immortals pay. Of course there were probably many more thieves who also fit the description that he didn’t know, but he doubted that any Mortal would want to be in the employ of an Immortal any more than they already had to with their job. Maybe she worked as a maid, so knew how to be quiet and didn’t need thieving skills as she knew there were no locks in the Inner City. He didn’t know any maids, so that left him stumped.

He rounded a corner and found a bench in a small clearing, a perfect place to sit out the morning away from everyone. He sat down and just enjoyed the silence for a small time before turning back to the would be thief.

“Luther!’ Gilbert called. “What are you doing all the way out here? You wouldn’t be hiding from me would you? That’s hardly fair, I thought you were looking forward to playing chess with some of the guys from the university.” He nearly whined the last part out, but caught himself in time. He didn’t want to let on that he didn’t really want to be doing this.

Luther closed his eyes for a second and berated himself for thinking that he’d managed to evade them for the morning. “Damn” He muttered under his breath. “I forgot Immortals don’t sleep much” He turned to Gilbert and shook the hand he offered. “Sorry Gilbert, I completely forgot, I thought I’d come for a walk this morning as I hadn’t in a while, the City is wonderful and all but I’d forgotten how lovely the nature reserve in the early morning light.”

“No worries old pal. Let’s get to the university now, we can enjoy a fine luncheon while we play.” Gilbert happily replied. “I’ll go on ahead and let them know you are actually coming” He started walking ahead of Luther “See you in a few!’ He called just before he was out of sight amongst the trees.

Luther sighed, there wasn’t much point in staying here, they all knew where he was and would all come badgering him to do things with them. Out of all the things people had offered him yesterday, playing chess seemed to be the best of the lot. He liked chess for a start, and if he didn’t want to talk he could just say that he was concentrating on the game. The added bonus today was food as well, which meant he could stuff his face so he couldn’t talk. Today wasn’t going to be as awful as it looked when Gilbert’s annoying face appeared in the small clearing.

[McScottish]

Good stuff, really looking forward to the next update! Keep going!

[Tamiara]

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this, I shall be putting up a new update soon though.

[Tamiara]

Luther arrived at the university about ten minutes after Gilbert did, and made his way to the room where they usually met.
"Luther" a man with long dark hair raised his glass and nodded at him.
"Edmund" Luther responded "I didn't take you for a chess player?" he queried.
"Oh no, not me" Edmund chuckled, "I'm here for the food, Gilbert knows where to get the best stuff and and always gets a lot." He smacked his lips and laughed at the look Gilbert threw him. "I thought I'd make a bet on the outcome of the game as well, I've been really bored, with nothing to do these past few days"

Luther didn't bother to mention that he'd seen Edmund only two days prior meeting up with the Prime for a lengthy discussion and then going to talk to a woman in (what could be called) a darkened alley. He liked Edmund more than any of the other Immortals, or more likely Edmund didn't creep him out as much. He wouldn't bring up that he knew of Edmund's comings and goings, though as he wanted to find out more before asking anything outright. For now he would keep the information close to his chest and see how things panned out. He just knew now that they were all untrustworthy, even the one's who seemed nice. "What are you betting with?" He asked, knowing that as the Immortals had no material wealth or money, there wasn't much really left to bet with.
"Personal possessions." The other man, Alfred, put in before Edmund could. "Edmund has something I want and I have something he wants" Edmund nodded in affirmation.
"Oh" Luther said, "That's a different way to bet" wondering what they actually possessed to bet with. "But you've always done things differently Edmund, you are an odd man"
Edmund burst out laughing. "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me for years! Haha!"
Gilbert sat down by the board, "Shall we?"

The chess game played as many chess games have been played, moves, counter-moves, backtracks, and lots of silent staring at the board. Alfred and Edmund sat away from from the board and spoke in quiet voices so as not to break either player's concentration. they ate most of the food as well, whilst Gilbert and Luther barely touched it.
"This game is going on longer than usual" Alfred remarked, "I can't tell if one of them has upped their game or lost their edge." Edmund just nodded.
Luther had heard him and it made him look up at the clock to see how long the game had been going on for. It had been going for about three hours now and also made Luther sharply notice something that had been nagging at him throughout the whole game, Gilbert was deliberately playing worse than usual. He wasn't playing terribly, not bad enough to be noteworthy, but enough that Luther now definitively noticed what was happening. His playing was just bad enough to keep a game going indefinitely, and as they were at the three hour mark, the tactic was working. After what had happened in the early hours of this morning, and Gilberts extra effort to come and find him for this chess match, Luther began to wonder if Gilbert was deliberately trying to keep him in the chess math so someone could have a proper rummage through his home. Luther wished he'd dropped home first to see if someone had already started or to set out a little trap to see if his suspicions were correct. Gilbert glanced out of the window as he had many times throughout this game, but three moves later he exclaimed "Checkmate!", triumphantly.
"Well blow me down" Alfred was astonished. "Luther? That's the first time you've actually lost at chess to Gilbert"
Maybe I was just overreacting, thought Luther, maybe it was all just a chess ploy. If it was, it was a bloody good one as he never saw it coming.

They all stayed for another hour chatting whilst Edmund went to retrieve whatever it was he had bet with. Nothing overly important was said so Luther just 'enjoyed' the conversation and let it flow so as not to arouse any suspicion about any of the events that happened in the early hours of the morning.
Gilbert turned to face Luther directly, "How come you were sat in the park this morning Luther?" He was frowning slightly.
So much for light conversation, Luther thought. "I just wanted to enjoy the early morning as I told you in the park. I woke up early and decided it might be nice to enjoy the outdoors today. I had forgotten about our match as I said earlier, so I'm rather glad you came to find me." He didn't bother to point out that Gilbert had turned up a few hours earlier than he had needed to. He just waited to see what the Immortal would say.
"Fair enough" Gilbert sat back in his chair. "What was it that interrupted your sleep? You normally sleep well past day break unlike the rest of us, don't you?" He grinned at Alfred.

Things were getting suspect now. Why was Gilbert so interested in this morning? Did he know something about it? Was he trying to see if Luther would tell them about it? This, coupled with his demeanour earlier in the park started to look like he knew about this morning but was given the task of keeping Luther busy so didn't know the details of what was happening and wanted Luther to tell him. If this was true, then the Immortals had set up this mornings little burglary which made Luther's skin crawl.
"Nothing much, or important" He answered, being as nonchalant as he could. "I just needed to relieve myself and didn't feel tired afterwards so I stayed up and about" It didn't look like this answer satisfied the Immortal but Gilbert didn't press the matter further. Luther didn't bother asking why Gilbert was up that early, Immortals hardly slept at all, or ate so were up at weird hours and was probably why Edmund and Alfred were already at the University so they could get some food.
Just then Edmund returned with a piece of paper rolled up in his hand, although it was thicker than paper. Luther was curious.
"What's that?" He asked, pointing at the rolled up paper.
"The Declaration of Independence" He answered.
"Who's declaration of Independence?"
Edmund sighed, "Mortals should really be taught history but everyone here quashes my ideas about it, they think its need to know only." He shrugged. "Ah well, nothing to do for now. This belonged to a group of people who called themselves Americans. These Americans were being ruled by another group of people called the British, the Americans wanted to be independent of the British. There was a war and then the leaders of the Americans wrote this document and signed it as a physical way of showing that they were now a separate peple from the British. It's about seven hundred years old and in quite good condition really. I'm quite loathe to part with it."

"A bet is a bet" Alfred reminded him. Edmund sighed as he handed it over. Most of what Edmund had just said made absolutely no sense to Luther. Before he could ask him to explain Alfred interrupted, "If you want to unravel the gibberish that Edmund has just spouted you'll do better by going to the library, Edmund will just set your head in a spin."
"I have no idea where that is" Luther admitted. "I didn't even know you had one."
"I'll show you." Albert said. "It's on the way to my home"
"Thank you" Luther replied.
Alfred stood, "Shall we?" he said gesturing for Luther to stand too. "No need to wait, I'm sure Gilbert and Edmund want to chat and I have a few things to be doing too."
"Of course" said Luther "Far be it for me to hold you up."
"Goodbye gentlemen, it's been a pleasure." Alfred inclined his head at the two men sat, and they returned the gesture, Luther did the same and they were off, leaving Gilbert and Edmund with the mess of the room.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

I'm enjoying this. I wonder what was really going on with that extended chess game, and what Luther will find when he gets home.

I'm also intrigued by the divisions within Immortal society. The Radicals seem very idealistic - I wonder if all of them will be able to live up to their ideals as the story progresses.