The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 36: Codex Light and Sampo Might

"Codex Lacrimae, I can't see," Aurelius exclaimed, panicked by the sudden absence of light when his previous experiences with the tome's sorceries had been color-filled.

We are between the seconds, Lore Master, and Du bist jetzt fungibel.

"I'm now fungible?" Surprise almost made the Hospitaller forget his fear. Did the Codex intend to trade him for something? "You can't trade me like silk or goods. What do you mean I'm fungible? Get me out of this ... this purgatory!"

Fool, I speak not of commerce. When I say fungible, I mean that we have achieved symmetry in space-time. It means that we are more than identical ... we are exchangeable. The instants of our lives are simultaneous constants. By your will and the Word of my Script and Scope, we manifest in triplicate existence on the trajectory of the Eternal Ellipses.

"I don't understand." Besides being confused by the book's explanation and unnerved by the silence of the void, Aurelius couldn't reconcile this sensation with how he'd felt when he'd traveled through runeporten while in the Nine Worlds. Each previous translation had been marked by an explosion of colors and sounds that left him momentarily disoriented upon arriving at each destination.

This is a true Gȧteful Runer, Aurelius, and it takes much dark energy to maintain.

"You're called the DarkBook ..." Aurelius murmured.

They call me many names, but mostly because of a misunderstanding about the universal constants. In that name, however, some have coincidentally sensed the nature of my power. Let Mimir and the rest call me the most 'corrupt' of the Codices because of the design of my Script, but they also realize that I'm among the most powerful because of my command of the five dimensions.

"Five? What are you talking about, five?" Aurelius snapped, angry that the Codex still seemed to be trying to confuse him, even after almost losing its life to Fafnir's fire.

Let me explain to you, if I must, the Codex's voice dripped with condescension. You exist identically in space and time, Santini, but my presence prevents paradox and provides the energy needed to sustain us through—

"No, that's not what I meant, and I'm not going to be patronized by a book."

A BOOK? How dare you? Is that what you think I am? Fool! Typical. I knew your daring me with Dragon's Fire was a simple knight's gambit. A ruse that any athlete would try when faced with—

"Silenzio!" Aurelius said, his voice as devoid of emotion as the Codex's had been when it accepted his mastery. "Stop thinking me a fool, Codex. I meant that I See many more than five of what you call 'dimensions.'

Pah. You don't even know what a dimension is.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Aurelius said, not wanting to reveal more than necessary. "Clarinda used the same word once, when she was trying to explain how the Norns perceive time. But whatever these dimensions prove to be, I clearly See eleven of them, Codex Lacrimae. Not five. When we entered this runeporte, I saw eleven different ... layers. I don't know how to describe what I'm seeing, now that I know what to look for, but they're still there, beyond the veil."

He frowned, recalling the moment the Sight had come upon him while bathing in the hot springs of the Fenrir-baude. In those sequences of supernatural vision, he'd been entranced by filmy bubbles floating upward from the soapy pool. "No, not cloth. Wrong comparison. These ... dimensions, they're as thin and transparent as bubbles, or the membrane of a jellyfish, very thin, but somehow ... somehow, I get the sense that they're all folded into one, as if these different spheres weren't just in their own places, relative to space and time but—