AfterLife

Chapter Three

--L--

Lyr stared down through the viewing hole, and watched the humans drink their coffees and eat their muffins. They sat at tables underneath green umbrellas, sipping what they called "grande vanilla lattes" or "tall white mocha frappaccinos with whip", reading the newspaper, unaware that they were being watched. Their cars slid past the seating area, drivers keeping their eyes focused on the stoplight at the corner. The morning scene came complete with a pair of joggers pumping past, down the sidewalk and around last-night's puddles.

How familiar it all seemed. How eerily nostalgic. Lyr attempted to keep such thoughts from his consciousness, but every now and then they slipped through. He brought a white finger up to his face and began absently poking at his lower lip.

Jessica Stevens, 57269842, exited the café with a grande coffee in hand and a toss to her blonde hair. She wore a creamy tan blouse and black pants and was crowned with a pair of dark sunglasses. Lyr watched her, wondering what she could offer his starving intellect. Probably nothing.

Kevin Rhindemein, 47412903, stared at her from behind a round table, ignoring Elena Rhindemein, 68003102, seated beside him. She clutched her coffee with manicured nails on waspishly thin hands, and her brow was permanently creased from worry. Her hair was red and wispy, and floated free from its headband like some kind of strange, bloodied halo. Kevin Rhindemein looked back to her and then picked up the paper on the table in front of them.

Lyr considered opening his Death Note, and scribbling something in it. He wondered what actions the humans would take. They were so oblivious to their mortality, carefree in their flirtations with death. It was strange that Kevin Rhindemein could not know his wife was too close to death for any of the gods to bother writing her name.

Lyr's head tilted slightly as he contemplated the weirdness that was the Human Realm. How strange it would be to come into existence knowing that one's existence is temporary. That one is generally unnecessary. Expendable.

Of course, some humans were exceptions. Not that any of them had been able to escape death—there were no exceptions there—but some of them were less expendable than others. Some almost achieved a faint glimmer of necessity.

Lyr tugged at his lip, and clicked a fingernail against his teeth. He had the feeling he was forgetting something again, but suppressed it. Instead, he wondered how humans could possible tell each other apart so well, when they could not see each other's names. Compared to the variety of Death Gods, the humans all looked alike. Such thoughts were simple, and easy to entertain.

Jessica Stevens left his field of vision as Vernon Asdin, 23985046, entered it. The man walked down the slick sidewalk towards the coffee shop, nodding to anyone whose face came close to suggesting eye contact. He wore clothing that might have been popular ten or twenty years ago.

How did Lyr know what had been popular ten or twenty years ago? He quickly emptied his mind, and began anew his calm surveillance of the scene slowly unfolding before him. The humans were going about the usual activities of a bright morning.

Lyr sat more on his heels, and noticed movement to his left. He looked away from the pool of shadows and light that showed him a piece of the Human Realm, and was confronted by a tall, skeletal Death God with jeweled goggles atop his skull. Kei, as expected.

"What's it like?" Kei asked, peering over Lyr's shoulder into the viewing hole.

Lyr hesitated before answering. "I'm not sure yet." Certainly there was more to the Human Realm than what he could see in so short a time, and he was certain he had not been crouching here for too long. The lifespans of the humans had not changed.

Then again, Lyr and Kei had discovered somewhere else, which was a huge step as far as Lyr was concerned. And while he gazed down upon the humans, keeping his focus to simple observation, the gray fog kept to the back of his mind, unconcerned. Furthermore, as far as Lyr could tell, in the Human Realm there was color (although it still felt strangely muted) and presumably red, round, juicy, sweet, living apples.

"I'm going to the Human Realm," Kei stated suddenly. Lyr's head snapped to the left so he could put all of his attention on the other god. Kei smiled.

"Me, too." Lyr had decided the instant he heard Kei say it. Perhaps he could get away from the fog entirely? He kept that thought small, distant, pretended it had never happened.

"Do you know how?" Kei asked, his voice a strange mixture of gentleness and a sneer. Lyr assumed that this was because Kei already knew, and thought that Lyr did not. Or… had Kei already gone to the Human Realm, and had just refrained from inviting Lyr during his first exploration? Lyr would not put it past the other god, to go first and therefore have more experience, and to avoid letting Lyr (or anyone else) see him in what could potentially be a moment of weakness.

"There is an entrance…" Lyr said in response, searching his mind for the innate knowledge of locations in the Death God Realm.

"Yes, there is. I know where it is, and the conditions for using it." Kei sounded too smug, and it rubbed Lyr the wrong way. Lyr ignored his distaste for Kei's arrogance, and simply continued the conversation. If he wanted to learn something without facing the fog, then he could annoy the arrogant god to get his information, which would be extremely satisfying.

"What are the conditions?" He knew where the rocky stairway that spiraled down to the shifting darkness of the entrance lay.

"When a Death God stalks a human with the intention to kill them, they can stay in the Human Realm for up to 82 hours before killing them," Kei told him. Lyr wondered where he got this information.

"How do you know?" Lyr asked, his voice a note darker than usual. He looked back at the graying sand between his toes, not wishing to look at Kei any longer. Although he liked the Death God more than, well, other Death Gods, he was strangely uncomfortable with the idea that Kei knew more than him about something they should both have knowledge about.

"I read it in the User's Guide." Kei's answer was surprisingly simple. And obvious.

Lyr looked back to him. "Oh." His shoulders slumped a little as he grudgingly admitted that Kei's idea to check the User's Guide had been a better idea than staring down at the Human Realm. Kei had learned something useful… and Lyr had not. He decided it was a good thing the two of them were working together. He resolved to put up with the other god's ego.

"I'm going now," Kei said loudly as he turned and began walking away. Lyr jumped up and scurried across the sand to the tall god, not wishing to be left behind. It was not that he needed Kei to get there, it was simply that if they were both going to the same place, they might as well go together.

He made it a point to walk next to the skeletal god, taking two strides for his every one, rather than patter along in his wake. To Kei, he would be a partner, not a follower.

--L--

After they had left the desert, walked across the valley, and hiked up the jagged, charcoal crags of the hillside, they entered the cave. Echoes from the valley below softened. Chains rusted from old blood hung from the walls and wound around some of the larger stalactites and stalagmites. An abandoned scythe lay in a corner. The two Death Gods passed these, and when the cave narrowed suddenly, the smooth floor abruptly changing into worn steps, Kei's long legs took him in front, and Lyr was forced to follow. It did not sit well with him, though he pretended it meant nothing.

The cave opened up again, forming an open pit with the steps hewn from the rocky walls leading them ever downward. Tendrils of light rose from the inky depths below them, shimmering tantalizingly, as if urging them onward.

Lyr trailed a ghostly hand along the edge of the wall, listening to a sound like rushing air mixed with the tinkling of bells and the thuds of Kei's boots on the rock. Lyr's footsteps were nearly silent.

The noise increased as they continued downward, as did the intensity of the light. Rather than sparkling strands, the light became a harsh glow. Lyr turned his face towards the wall when he took the next step, avoiding the penetrating glare of the light. It was much brighter than anything he had encountered before, and stung his eyes. He supposed it had turned out for the best that he was following Kei, because the god managed to block at least some of the light. The wind increased to a roar, and Lyr could feel it pass through his black hair, ruffling it gently, and then becoming more insistent. Cracks and booms exploded from the bright pool below them, some of them seeming to rumble throughout the cavern, resonating in his ribcage.

The trail suddenly left the wall, and Lyr turned his eyes to the ragged scythe on Kei's back. The two gods stood above the pit, on a small ledge.

Kei looked at Lyr from over his shoulder, his glowing eyes flaring in his enthusiasm. "Wait until I completely disappear before you enter," he said, and Lyr instantly disliked the position of follower. He had no doubt that Kei understood himself to be the leader after Lyr had completed the simple, almost unconscious act of walking behind him down the stairs, and he thought it his business to tell Lyr what to do.

Lyr nodded, however, understanding that he had no User's Guide, and that he had no way of knowing if what Kei was telling him was for his own safety or for some other purpose.

Kei turned back to the howling crater of light, spread his wings in a rush, and lifted himself off the ledge before folding his wings and dropping down.

The wind suddenly increased and the roaring grew louder, echoing in the subterranean hollow. The pit sparked and released torrents of light upwards, crackling alternatively with waves of intense heat and extreme cold, and then settled down into a loud, vibrating purr.

Lyr moved to the edge carefully, and forced himself to look down, once, and be blinded. It was nearly painful, yet… he took a step back, and blinked rapidly, his eyes tearing a little.

Taking a deep breath, he unfurled his black, feathery wings, and let the wind carry him upward a bit, fighting against the current that threatened to push him up and out. He floated above the pit, and then closed his eyes and held his breath, curling his wings close. He fell.

The world pulled at him, tugging on his wings and feet, clutching his hair and hands, and then came an absolute void of feeling. Sound increased to an incomprehensible roar and then faded. Light flashed across his closed eyelids, and then stilled. Slowly, the world, a new world, came into focus, spreading gently across his senses.

Lyr stood in a field of grass, the tall tips of green waving gently in a breeze that carried the briny, stiff scent of the ocean. The sun was high overhead, deep in a blue sky dotted by fluffy white clouds. The wind caressed his face, ruffling silkily through his wings. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face, his arms, his chest, and the cool tingle of shadows cast by the grass on his legs. When he curled his toes, they grabbed bits of green. To his left were thousands of tiny white flowers, flooding out across the field. To his right was an old tree, its wide branches full of broad, sheltering leaves. Above, the sky. Below, the earth.

It was the strangest sensation bubbling up from within, inflating inside him like some kind of balloon. Lyr had never felt so calm nor so happy, and had never experienced both at the same time.

It was as if he knew this grass… those white flowers… the tall, welcoming tree.

Lyr felt it somewhere down in the core of his being. He belonged here.

His dark blue eyes swiveled this way and that, and he turned in a tilted circle until he saw the stone buildings in the distance. One had a tall spire and from it echoed the chime of deep bells.

Something within him resonated with the ringing of the bells, though he knew he had never heard such a sound before.

He spread his wings out wide, catching bits of air and allowing him to float gently above the grass, towards the tree and the cluster of buildings. The base of the tree was covered in white petals, and fresh leaves were sprouting from the old branches.

Lyr paused, allowing the air to move through his wings, and he gently settled back onto the earth, his black toes landing in a swirl of white petals. He looked up at the graying branches of the tree, his eyes picking out the vibrant leaves and pinpricks of sharply green buds. He felt distinctly removed from this process of life, but at the same time, Lyr was strangely fascinated.

He reached a finger out to trace a limb, wondering. Was this… an apple tree?

Would the apples be red?

He smiled to himself, looking down from the branches. He might have to come back here, to this place where the sun shone and drove away the fog. The grass here was green, and the trees were alive. It was, he mused, probably spring.

With a rush of excitement, Lyr lifted off the ground, sailing through the tree's branches and towards the sky. If he wanted to stay here, he needed to find someone, a human, and follow him or her with the intent to kill.

Lyr shifted his wings so the wind could take him to the buildings, choosing the tallest one as his first place to find a suitable human. He floated ahead of the breeze, spiraling down around the spire, through the rooftop, and down into a large, dimly lit room with rows upon rows of dark benches. There was an altar at the front of the room, below a circular, stained-glass window. No one was inside the church.

Lyr glided out through the heavy wooden doors at the front, out into a freshly mowed lawn. It too, was empty, so he tried another building. There were four in the small complex, including the church he had just vacated.

Lyr chose the one by the wrought-iron gate, with the black car parked in front. The water in the fountain in front sparkled and gurgled in the sunlight. It caught the light in a way nothing in the Realm of the Death Gods ever did. Not that the light itself was similar. Here, the light was brighter, and somehow purer. There were no muted traces of gray sidling sluggishly alongside the flashes of clear light.

He floated above the graveled drive and up over the concrete steps. Passing through the door, he encountered a dimly-lit hallway, with a deep carpet of cream and gold patterned over wine red. To Lyr's disappointment, there was no one there either.

He drifted towards the nearest door, listening for any sound other than the low echo of the wind outside. Lyr glided to the next door, and suddenly the hallway erupted into noise.

A door opened, spilling children into the hallway with a flood of light behind them. Lyr lifted into the air, startled, with his dark eyes wide to take in the sudden movements, the bubbly laughter, the bright smiles, the downcast glances, and the bored tones of small voices. Their giggles and flashing bits of jewelry caught him off guard. Their impersonations of a lecturer and heavy sighs of frustration washed right through him, reminding him that his existence to them was even less than the walls he swept through were to him. There was something indescribably real thrumming through them, just underneath their pink skin or just behind their bright eyes.

It was life, and something Lyr was completely unprepared to meet.

Lifespans spun away towards decades above two girls as they considered getting their hair cut, and boys with large red numbers resting like gleaming laurels punched each other in the arm, determined to prove who was strongest. A girl with dark hair, nose in a paperback, marched away from the rest of the children to enjoy her private world. They were vibrant, bursting with youth. Their heads passed through his dangling feet, and they remained blissfully ignorant of the death that hung above them.

It was so different from watching from the Death God Realm. Being among the humans was an entirely new experience. The children and the noise accompanying them filtered away down the hallway, turning to race up the stairs or flooding out onto the lawn, and Lyr was suddenly alone again.

He hung in the hallway, motionless, listening to the receding echoes of the doors shutting and the faint noises of the children at play outside. There was something there… something… missing…. His thoughts trailed away, petering out into the vast, empty void within him. Lyr frowned, looking down at the patterns in the carpet, his mind falling blank.

With a start, the Death God remembered that he was only allowed in the Human Realm when on a mission. He stretched his wings, and beat them once, sending him gliding down the hallway after the children. He should at least pick one and follow it around….

Lyr frowned to himself as he caught up with the Rianna Greeber, 9874086, eyes still glued to a book. Her feet had taken her as far as a staircase, but not up it. He looked at her, but suddenly realized that he could easily find a much better target. Rianna seemed like the kind of child who stayed in her room, and Lyr wanted someone who would indirectly show him this world and all of its wonders.

He let the air currents pull him further down the hallway, and he slid outside the building and into the open air. Other children were running in circles or chasing each other on the lawn, caught up in the energy of spring.

Lyr watched them as the breeze lifted him higher, and he adjusted his wings. A child would give him a lot of life, and his Death God instincts approved of his choice to circle lower and study the group of children for an appropriate target. He would stalk a child for a few days and then return to the Death God Realm chock full of stolen life, and it would be a long time before he had to… return.

Lyr was blown sideways as a gust of wind caught him unprepared (and rather tangible) and lost in his thoughts. He adjusted to a more incorporeal form and sailed airily through a wall, quite suddenly finding a suitable target. Directly beneath him was an older man, his remaining lifespan short enough to allow Lyr to return to the Human Realm more or less when he so desired.

Roger Ruvie, 50082091, patted a small child on the head and then walked down the hallway, unaware of the black and white god of death that followed him silently down the long corridor and into his study. He had slightly less than 82 hours to live, and to show Lyr what he could of the Human Realm.

--L--

Roger Ruvie's first act was to climb the stairs at the end of the hallway, all the way to the highest floor, the fourth level, and proceed to open the door. It was locked, so by the time Roger Ruvie had entered into the hallway beyond it, Lyr had already drifted through the wall and was speculating on the meaning of the black, Gothic-style letters on the doors.

The furthest door on the left had a large L, the one across from it and the one on its right both sported Ms, and the diagonal had an N. There were two other doors, one bearing an O and the other bare of lettering. Lyr had the feeling that there was some kind of great significance here, that the letters were more than simply letters, that they represented something far greater…. But perhaps the meaning was only consequential to humans.

Roger Ruvie immediately went to the door with the N, rapping his knuckles against it thrice. Lyr waited behind the human, and wondered if there was even anyone on the other side of the door. There was no reply to Roger Ruvie's knock.

But, after several long moments, the door finally creaked inward, revealing a swath of several inches and a pale face set with black eyes. Nate River, 80345728.

"Yes, Roger?" the boy asked, leaning on the door from the inside in a way that made it clear he wished to be back at whatever he had been doing earlier. His eyes rolled in his head as if they were particularly sensitive to gravity, his gaze wandering along the floor.

"Near," Roger Ruvie replied heavily, and it took Lyr a moment to realize that this was the term that Roger Ruvie was using to address the boy, "you have considered the American case?"

"I have." The boy's facial expression did not change.

"And?" It struck Lyr as strange that this older man was behaving in a manner somehow subservient to this oddly pale child. Normal human behavior was not present in this interaction… and Lyr wondered how he instinctively knew this.

"I wish to be in America on Thursday." Nate River finally lifted his eyes to Roger Ruvie's face, and gave him a brief and mirthless smile. Its effect was chilling, but strangely enough, Lyr felt that the expression suited the child. "That is when we will catch the target." Nate River leaned back, and the door closed with an audible click.

Roger Ruvie's only response was to sigh, and turn away from the door. But instead of turning back towards the stairs, he turned towards the other rooms. Lyr landed onto the floor, folded his wings into nothing, and walked behind the human. Roger Ruvie moved to one of the doors labeled with an M, and Lyr slipped through the wall moments before the man knocked.

The room was shockingly dark. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows, sheltering the mass of cables of wires taped to the floors, the walls, the ceiling from the crystal daylight. Lyr's eyes adjusted swiftly, the blue pupils widening to nearly fill his eye sockets. Two children, a boy and a girl, no… two boys, Mihael Keehl, 34569832, and Mail Jeevas, 52983473, were startled by the loud rapping on the door, and immediately began shoving a small object made of black plastic underneath the pillow on the motherboard-adorned bed.

"What is it?" Mail Jeevas called to the door, rubbing a hand through his red hair and sliding a finger underneath the rims of the large pair of goggles on his face. He shuffled towards the door as Roger Ruvie's muffled voice came from beyond it.

"You've received another call from the ICPO," he began, and then ceased as Mail Jeevas opened the door. Mihael Keehl seemed to be sulking in his leather ensemble on the edge of the bed, booted feet propped up on an old gray monitor, hands fiddling with an empty box of cigarettes. For a child, he was certainly unusual.

"Oh, uh, okay," Mail Jeevas said at the door, yawning, and turning to look back at Mihael Keehl. He stepped back into the dark room, not exactly in a way that invited Roger Ruvie to enter. It was more like allowing the old man the privilege of looking into the shadowed room and trying to pick out the leather-clad boy from the surrounding piles of blinking green and orange lights.

"As I just said, you've received another call from the ICPO. They are waiting to hear back from you about the Munich murders. Are you going to take the case or not?" Roger Ruvie's voice hardened as he asked the question. Apparently, Roger Ruvie was not fond of these boys.

A short laugh, something like a contemptuous bark, snapped across the room as Mihael Keehl unfolded from his position on the bed, tossing the cigarette box aside. The boy walked towards the door, his voice leading the way. Lyr was at first slightly intimidated, thinking back to how Kei had lifted him off the ground and shook him, but then realized, like he had back then, that Lyr never had anything to fear.

"No need to be so nit-picky, Roger." He leaned against the doorframe, pulling out a bar of chocolate from his tight pants. "You say the ICPO is waiting to see whether L will take the case or not?" He took a vicious bite of the chocolate as Lyr pondered his words. This was the "M" door, but Mihael Keehl had obvious referred to himself as "L." Then who was behind the door with the large, gothic L?

For some reason, it seemed like Lyr should know the answer to that question. He decided that he would go find out.

"If you want to know whether L is going to take the case," Mihael Keehl continued as Lyr floated back through the wall, and around Roger Ruvie's rounded back. "You should take a look at this." Lyr looked back to see the blond boy handing the old man a large, yellow envelope. "We've already solved it, Roger."

Lyr turned and made his way to the door with the black L, painted on with sharp lines of contrast against the pure white of the door. The vertical side of the L had what seemed to be hooks on one side, smooth on the other. For a moment, Lyr stared at the door, and the symbol on it.

A strange fascination was overcoming him, drawing him towards this door, with this symbol, and towards whoever lay beyond it. Lyr blinked, once, and took a step forward, his black and white body phasing through the white and black door with a striking contrast forming when the opposite colors met.

The room was filled with a thick layer of dust and a slowly heightening sense of entrapment. There was a bed in the corner, the dark blue dust cover looking as if it had been undisturbed for years. Cobwebs adorned the corners. The room was so still that the streaming spring light from the window was undisturbed by any movement of the air, was free from dancing dust motes. A clock lay by the bed, its red numbers glowing listlessly, like the lifespan of a human on a deathbed, waiting for the last few digits to count down to zero.

An old bureau stood against a wall, the dark wood turning gray from the heavy dust. The carpet looked dusty and gray, and now that he thought about it, the cobwebs in the high corners of the room made even the dark corners gray. The lamp on the small desk sported a tiny string of cobweb that anchored it to the flat surface of the desk, and the ensemble had probably once been, if not beautiful, than at least tasteful. Now it simply looked gray. Unused. Dead.

There was no peace in this room. Certainly it was still, but it felt like the stillness that inhabited the Death God Realm. Lyr felt that this room would have the same muted echoes if he tried to make a sound. And he stepped backwards, suddenly afraid that this room, the room full of endless dust and so backwards from the rest of the rooms here because it lacked the one component—life—that made this world so very beautiful compared to the Realm of the Death Gods, that this room would swallow him like the gray fog, and turn him into a blank, empty being of gray dust.

He slipped through the door, and found himself staring at the strangely enticing image of the L. He turned away, focusing his blue eyes elsewhere, finding Roger Ruvie further down the hallway, knocking on the door with the painted O.

"Just a minute!" came a girl's voice, and then the door swung inward, and a young girl's breathless dark face poked out. "I was just working on the Egyptian so-called suicides," she explained, reaching down to scoop up a chunky calico cat as it tried to escape from the room. Lyr unfurled his wings and drifted closer.

"That's good to hear, Orphan," Roger kindly addressed the girl, although the red letters above her head formed Omisha Jindal, 78212943. But perhaps she simply lacked parents.

"Kismet's been very helpful so far," Omisha Jindal noted with a smile, turning back to look inside her room. Lyr floated past the open doorway, and saw no one that claimed the name Kismet, but was surprised by the room nonetheless.

Rectangular sheets of paper, shiny magazine articles, scraps of newspaper, and collections of photographs blanketed the carpet. A pile of thick markers lay at the center, in the only spot where the carpet was visible. It looked as if the markers were used to draw an interlocking web of colorful lines across the papers and photos, as if literally drawing some kind of conclusion from the mass of data.

Four cats were sleeping in various positions of comfort on the bed, a gray one flopped on its back, a long-haired white and gray one curled by the pillow, a Siamese rolling and stretching at the foot of the bed, and a large orange cat with its paws hanging off the side. Lyr glanced back at Omisha Jindal, and eyed the calico's hind legs as they swung back and forth underneath the girl's arms.

Eerily enough, the cat's yellow eyes appeared to be directed at him, although he was fairly sure it was impossible for any living creature to see him.

Roger Ruvie then distracted the animal by placing a large hand on its multi-colored head, and spoke to Omisha Jindal again. "Well, keep up the good work. You've come so far in so short a time, you know."

"So have you, Roger. You're almost like Watari," the child replied with a smile, and Lyr was again confused by the odd relationships these children seemed to have with their elders. She sounded so precocious, yet… at the same time, Lyr wondered why anyone would treat children as anything other than small adults. They often seemed to be smarter and quicker to learn than people who were grown. He shook his head, and then began absently chewing on his thumb as Roger Ruvie excused himself, closed the door, and began making his slow way back down the hall, through the door, and down the stairs.

Lyr wondered what significance the fourth floor held, and why the letters on the doors matched the children's names (assuming that Mail Jeevas and Mihael Keehl had simply been a room belonging to one of them while the other room with the M belonged to the other). But the children used different names than the ones they were given, which was decided unusual, although the nicknames happened to begin with the same letter as their true names. And they took up a certain portion of the alphabet. L, M, M, N, O…. If there had only been one M, then Lyr would have been certain something decidedly odd was going on. As it was, he only had a nagging sense of unease tinged with an uncanny familiarity with the whole place. Lyr slowed while gliding down the stairs behind Roger Ruvie, his mind pondering the gray room with the L on the door.

Who had lived there? Certainly a child whose name had begun with L, but had gone by a different name. But where was that child now?

For some reason, perhaps because of the silence that had hung in the room like an ominous shadow, Lyr was convinced the L child was already dead.

He turned his blue eyes to Roger Ruvie as he continued taking the stairs slowly, using the handrail. The old man paused on the landing of the second floor, and looked out the window at the bright spring afternoon as it faded towards evening.

"I suppose we're all just trying to live up to your expectations…" he said softly, looking out towards the distant tree where Lyr had first arrived in the Human Realm. The old man smiled briefly, then heaved a sigh and turned to the last flight of stairs.

Lyr remained at the window, looking out to the flowering tree. What was going on in this strange collection of weathered, stone buildings? Who were these people, these children with letters on their doors, who lived behind a locked door on the top floor?

And the tree with the beautiful white blossoms… was it an apple tree?

Was this where Lyr was to find the fruit of knowledge, and learn the truth of the here and there, the then and now? Was it possible that, somewhere among these humans, he could learn the answers to his questions?

Lyr was determined to find out, with the 82 hours he had been given by the rules of the Death Gods. When Roger Ruvie was dead, he would return to the World of the Death Gods with more than a longer lifespan.