"She's gone," Val informed, as he had repeatedly throughout the week, missing not a day since he and Nazareth returned from The Rim. "Wasting another second here, another breath is absolutely inexcusable. Whatever scrap of sanity remained in mother flew away the minute you and I returned home with Pilot's corpse. And just why, I don't know. She already knew she was dead. . . so why is she so broken?"
The estate of Maetron, called Remeer Manor ("Reminder" in the old Dominion tongue, Judace constantly reminded, despite the uselessness of the language in the present) was a place mentioned aside religion and hereditary recuperation in the few remaining circles of cognitive Dominion; in the paved, watered lands and cities of The Brides and the mundane of blood that plow, dig and mine under its flag, it was a place of legend forcefully jettisoned from the scripts of fact, for it was insane to award it validity; it was simply too horrible a place that housed too horrible a power. Seated in the The Narvoble Chasm (A depression in the land so massive that the furious dust storms that roamed the sands stirred within it always, filled it up every hour of every day like a bowl of quicksand) it was the last standing structure, the last lesson of Dominion architecture that would ever inspire the eyes of the furiously charging generations of Bride that, in Val's eyes, would soon spread across the very world like the virus his sister so frustratingly swore they were.
Aside from the glorious dome roof??"that which wove into the fibers of the soul some smokey, spiritual chastity that whispered diffidently, uneasily of a historical purpose?""the streamlined sides that sloped and span around the exterior without a single crease, a single jagged edge?""it was the land it presided over and the alien growths in its black soil that inspired centuries of legend, lore and insipid (to the Brides, of course) exaggerations. In neat rows, as if mathematically plotted, stretched four rows of a dead, unknown and mystic foliage of a single trunk design, hundreds of splintery, blade-like appendages that seemed unjustly deprived a purpose, split out from the primary root. Two-thousand-three-hundred-fifty-two (For Judace counted them every sixth day) in all, spread out from the estate and crawled up the slope of Narvoble. The place itself was a forbidden zone for merchants and travelers for reasons they not once cared to argue, for treaties were made for their protection of course (of course), but many tales had been told about the hours preceding morning, when the sands were calm and the trinity of cracked moon, bald tangerine half-sun and sharp stars would show, for a brief, terrifying moment, the etchings of those neatly-lined plants cruising out of the Chasm's smoggy pit.
Cooperation with the existence of a constant of course dulled mystique, meaning the plants, in the eyes of Maetron's children, were nothing noteworthy anymore. Judace alone found them fascinating; Val found them unbeautiful and nonfunctional; Nazareth once told a story of slicing one down, only to find it regrown in the morning; she did not like them afterwards. However, despite his general dislike of the bleak vegetation, Val always felt many years younger when gazing over the prickly canopy. It was a wonderful piece of a cherished memory that felt like a key to a much larger and more significant one. Frustration would rise and boil in him sometimes while seeking to unlock the rest of the strobing, fleeting memory-frame, but these instances were few.
This memory begins with a calm in the rushing sands and a glimpse of the opal, cratered moon: a remarkable rarity in Narvoble's pit. On the serenely curved porch that bends around the estate's right side, he recalls being seated in the lap of his mother, her fingers gently musing through the infant curls of black hair that tussled over his head. "And then what, mother?" he recalls as the first words, and they are his own and quite inquirous. "How will I know?"
Lush as the fabled Hailous Garden that supposedly surrounds and richens mythically the castle deep in Inosis" pit, (mentioned innumerous times in his mother's lovely, lyrical reveries) is Maetron's replying voice: "Death will no longer stand jury over the hot, angry world, Valcroix; you will make it happy again."
Lovingly, the boy leans his head into the nook of his mother's neck and shoulder. His eyes are closed and he's smiling brilliantly. "I can do that?" he asks, but his smile, his chirping voice reveals unwavering confidence in the great power confided in him by his mother. Long, luxurious arms ensnare her little boy. She kisses his ear "You can do much more than that. This world's repair will be trivial to you in time. Make it happy, and you will be filled with happiness; from there you will do things so great that none in this world will live without joy. You will invent glories that will inspire progress; that will ignite minds and hearts and fill the spirits of this world with the purpose The Great Death stole. Destinies are not locked courses of existence; rather, they are segments of them, each with breaking routes, actions and reactions: removing the great hate, the Great Death from Gailey is but a single trivial destiny of your wonderful life, Valcroix. But I cherish this segment above all others, selfishly, for it will be the only one I will be able to oversee in flesh."
Next he recalls the great fear those words fill his little body with. Frightened dearly, he turns in his mother's lap and throws his arms around her neck, his big, unresting crimson eyes shining wondrously as tears fill them. "You're going to leave me?"
"Silly little boy," she says then, and the words fall from a smile so perfectly distant, so divinely somber it cuts her child's heart in two. "Everything here is me; you could not escape me unless you erased the whole, wide world. When my body perishes, I will be the sand; and when the air whisks me away, I'll be the stars. And when the dawn turns them off, I'll be the sun. And as the sun, I want to cast light on your happy world and see the gloriously diverse life it had once before."
He isn't sure if these words reassure him or terrify him further: he cannot speak to the sand; he cannot hold the stars; he cannot kiss the sun.
There was more to the memory, but the skinny young man, exhausted from the completed expedition, although it was just over a week ago, did not want to sink any further into it. With his own evolution came the depreciation of flowery words: the world was indeed hot, and was indeed angry, but no longer did that planted spark, that which was lit as a child, radiate with possibility, with that power that disregarded logic; dim was that destined path that promised a revision of the world.
With his body leaned lazily against the wall near the estate's front door, his loose cloak rippling in the wind, his exposed toes wiggling boredly and slender, unenthused eyes reaching far into the smog that engulfed the great four rows, he said again, "She's lost?"finally lost. And now we either choose to be lost with her, or go on alone."
Nazareth had been squinting harshly at her brother, even before his dire, deadpan proclamation. A creature of wrath is rarely bathed in constructive ideals, is instead cast, by her handler, in iron discipline and riddled with holes that can be filled only with the visceral, caustic hatred that fuels their power. She could of course not slip into his memories, nor had she ever heard him speak of them, nor would she choose to embark upon their murky shores were the invitation extended. Nazareth's only concern was the promise made to her on the bloody sand over the spared body of a grizzled old captain whose name she would never be able to forget. It was as much a regret now as it was then.
"You're a fool, Valcroix," said Nazareth firmly. Her gaze intensified. The slender fingers of her left hand took on a deadly grip of the long, thin hilt of the blade sheathed at her side; the knuckles whitened; Judace had once asked her if she felt insecure when not "holding its hand"—-he was beaten severely for this observation. "You were given absolutely everything." Her face twisted-up, wrinkled like a fissure in the sand. "Everything! And now so quickly you'll abandon she that not only gave you life, but entrusted to you the power to raise your own people from bedamned Void. You're shameful." The girl glanced away with a snotty flick-of-the head that sent sharp straws of glimmering platinum hair dancing into the air. "Were you betrothed to a Reika, she would have to remove as many as four fingers as repentance for your shame. The disgust I feel may drive me to do just that, for I feel like the great fates will unleash an epic storm on this house if no payment is made."
Val hissed laughter, smiled a smile that was full of teeth and shook his head. "You don't get it." Again, dilapidated and inauthentically servile chortles patronized his sister. "Stuck in a period of time and allied with an old caste you're only seventeen generations too late to even understand. . . You're truly the pathetic one. You're no Reika. You're just an angry little girl with a bad temper and an old sword. And that's all you'll ever be."
Understanding that he'd whipped up a storm with but a few harsh words, Val looked inwardly for guidance"'strangely, neither his younger brother, Judace, nor his own mother were creatures asphyxiated by pride's nonsensical trappings?"he and his sister, the wild one with The Void in her sparking, spiraling eyes, eyes that were at that moment snipping his soulstrings from afar, razing his resolve, were, themselves, completely consumed by it. She more than he, but a history of deadly alliances between he and the sensation had brought injury and ridicule upon his head many a-time. Standing up, his face grave, the young man figured another such instance was impending.
The hellish young girl, snarling, said only, "Shut. Up."
With a grin and his arms folded, her brother replied, "I will not. Mother herself told you to keep away from that weapon and to leave dead religions alone. There's no need for it. We're not at war."
Nazareth never looked away and, of course, not for a second relinquished the whiteknuckle vicegrip of her weapon's handle. Every filthy line that dripped off the foolish, corroded tongue of her brother was like a magic passage that acted to unlock the stowed-away wrath inside Nazareth; they both understood the repercussions of completely unsealing the rancor swimming around in the girl's belly. The young girl could always take a stance of blindness, for she knew not what she did?"Val could not, but proceeded anyway.
He shouted now: "Did you hear me! You don't have to act like an assassin! You don't have to spend every second of every bedamned day hating everything that doesn't share blood with you. . . . . you don't: you really, really don't. Say what you may about my gifts, but don't act as though you suffer any great hardship yourself. You were born with as much privilege as?""
Even with sharp Dominion senses, Val was never once able to track Nazareth's movements when she approached full speed. There was only that same explosion of sand, the kinetic ferocity, the reaction of the world at her feet disturbed by her incomprehensible celerity. And even so, the clue in the rising dust was simply not enough; he was too slow; he would be hit. This instance was no different. The speedy girl flew through the air and inserted her elbow into her brother's chest. Val's body ragdolled, hers pressed fiercely into it, and collided into the terribly sound wall of pure stone at his flank. There was a shattering crash followed by a pathetic and stunted whimper, that of a seemingly crushed windpipe sucking in air futilely. The damage was not so extensive in actuality, but rather the strong, sharp elbow piercing into his chest impeded all oxygen flow. The girl whipped her arm around, caught Val's neck with the underside of her forearm and slammed him down to the ground effortlessly.
Before he closed his eyes, he saw, looking up, the detestable image of his vengeful sister hoisting her weapon high over her head. He'd taken beatings before; had seen her nearly completely consumed by the elation of violence?"for this alone was the alien joy in her damaged little heart?"but this sight was new, was authentic in a way that did truly terrify him. The shadowy black steel of the weapon did not glimmer, but her eyes did: they sparkled with a contentedness previously unwitnessed by the boy on the ground. Before his eyes closed, the last thing he captured was a break in the clouds and a sole beam of light that threw his sister's shadow over his chest.
If this is the only thing that will ever bring you joy. Well. . . then sobeit. For what felt like ages (but was in actuality seven seconds) Val laid on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth cringed a bit, his body resisting the inevitability, or so his mind supposed, of a strike. But the light that had trickled in and made shadows, had made the underside of his eyelids red, faded out. Or rather, was masked. Slowly, Val opened his eyes and saw this: the image of two figures now, made nearly black by the brilliance of the sun at their rear.
Nazareth's pose was unchanged, but this was the doing of the figure behind her. Maetron, tall as a sleek, white peak to the aghast boy laying on the ground, had her fingers wrapped around the risen blade in Nazareth's hands. Blood ran from an opening in their mother's palm, span down the straight edge of that pitchblack blade and finally gave it glimmer.
Her daughter's face was torn in terror. She had yet to turn around, but the situation was very much clear.
How. . . How could she have moved so. . .
"Silly little girl," her mother said in a voice without intonation, and yet, dead and equalizing as it was, Nazareth felt mocked by the way the woman spoke to her. Maetron leaned down; Val could see her smile, but did not hear the words she whispered:
"I do not move fast around this world, child. I move the very world itself."
Cooperation with the existence of a constant of course dulled mystique, meaning the plants, in the eyes of Maetron's children, were nothing noteworthy anymore. Judace alone found them fascinating; Val found them unbeautiful and nonfunctional; Nazareth once told a story of slicing one down, only to find it regrown in the morning; she did not like them afterwards. However, despite his general dislike of the bleak vegetation, Val always felt many years younger when gazing over the prickly canopy. It was a wonderful piece of a cherished memory that felt like a key to a much larger and more significant one. Frustration would rise and boil in him sometimes while seeking to unlock the rest of the strobing, fleeting memory-frame, but these instances were few.
This memory begins with a calm in the rushing sands and a glimpse of the opal, cratered moon: a remarkable rarity in Narvoble's pit. On the serenely curved porch that bends around the estate's right side, he recalls being seated in the lap of his mother, her fingers gently musing through the infant curls of black hair that tussled over his head. "And then what, mother?" he recalls as the first words, and they are his own and quite inquirous. "How will I know?"
Lush as the fabled Hailous Garden that supposedly surrounds and richens mythically the castle deep in Inosis" pit, (mentioned innumerous times in his mother's lovely, lyrical reveries) is Maetron's replying voice: "Death will no longer stand jury over the hot, angry world, Valcroix; you will make it happy again."
Lovingly, the boy leans his head into the nook of his mother's neck and shoulder. His eyes are closed and he's smiling brilliantly. "I can do that?" he asks, but his smile, his chirping voice reveals unwavering confidence in the great power confided in him by his mother. Long, luxurious arms ensnare her little boy. She kisses his ear "You can do much more than that. This world's repair will be trivial to you in time. Make it happy, and you will be filled with happiness; from there you will do things so great that none in this world will live without joy. You will invent glories that will inspire progress; that will ignite minds and hearts and fill the spirits of this world with the purpose The Great Death stole. Destinies are not locked courses of existence; rather, they are segments of them, each with breaking routes, actions and reactions: removing the great hate, the Great Death from Gailey is but a single trivial destiny of your wonderful life, Valcroix. But I cherish this segment above all others, selfishly, for it will be the only one I will be able to oversee in flesh."
Next he recalls the great fear those words fill his little body with. Frightened dearly, he turns in his mother's lap and throws his arms around her neck, his big, unresting crimson eyes shining wondrously as tears fill them. "You're going to leave me?"
"Silly little boy," she says then, and the words fall from a smile so perfectly distant, so divinely somber it cuts her child's heart in two. "Everything here is me; you could not escape me unless you erased the whole, wide world. When my body perishes, I will be the sand; and when the air whisks me away, I'll be the stars. And when the dawn turns them off, I'll be the sun. And as the sun, I want to cast light on your happy world and see the gloriously diverse life it had once before."
He isn't sure if these words reassure him or terrify him further: he cannot speak to the sand; he cannot hold the stars; he cannot kiss the sun.
There was more to the memory, but the skinny young man, exhausted from the completed expedition, although it was just over a week ago, did not want to sink any further into it. With his own evolution came the depreciation of flowery words: the world was indeed hot, and was indeed angry, but no longer did that planted spark, that which was lit as a child, radiate with possibility, with that power that disregarded logic; dim was that destined path that promised a revision of the world.
With his body leaned lazily against the wall near the estate's front door, his loose cloak rippling in the wind, his exposed toes wiggling boredly and slender, unenthused eyes reaching far into the smog that engulfed the great four rows, he said again, "She's lost?"finally lost. And now we either choose to be lost with her, or go on alone."
Nazareth had been squinting harshly at her brother, even before his dire, deadpan proclamation. A creature of wrath is rarely bathed in constructive ideals, is instead cast, by her handler, in iron discipline and riddled with holes that can be filled only with the visceral, caustic hatred that fuels their power. She could of course not slip into his memories, nor had she ever heard him speak of them, nor would she choose to embark upon their murky shores were the invitation extended. Nazareth's only concern was the promise made to her on the bloody sand over the spared body of a grizzled old captain whose name she would never be able to forget. It was as much a regret now as it was then.
"You're a fool, Valcroix," said Nazareth firmly. Her gaze intensified. The slender fingers of her left hand took on a deadly grip of the long, thin hilt of the blade sheathed at her side; the knuckles whitened; Judace had once asked her if she felt insecure when not "holding its hand"—-he was beaten severely for this observation. "You were given absolutely everything." Her face twisted-up, wrinkled like a fissure in the sand. "Everything! And now so quickly you'll abandon she that not only gave you life, but entrusted to you the power to raise your own people from bedamned Void. You're shameful." The girl glanced away with a snotty flick-of-the head that sent sharp straws of glimmering platinum hair dancing into the air. "Were you betrothed to a Reika, she would have to remove as many as four fingers as repentance for your shame. The disgust I feel may drive me to do just that, for I feel like the great fates will unleash an epic storm on this house if no payment is made."
Val hissed laughter, smiled a smile that was full of teeth and shook his head. "You don't get it." Again, dilapidated and inauthentically servile chortles patronized his sister. "Stuck in a period of time and allied with an old caste you're only seventeen generations too late to even understand. . . You're truly the pathetic one. You're no Reika. You're just an angry little girl with a bad temper and an old sword. And that's all you'll ever be."
Understanding that he'd whipped up a storm with but a few harsh words, Val looked inwardly for guidance"'strangely, neither his younger brother, Judace, nor his own mother were creatures asphyxiated by pride's nonsensical trappings?"he and his sister, the wild one with The Void in her sparking, spiraling eyes, eyes that were at that moment snipping his soulstrings from afar, razing his resolve, were, themselves, completely consumed by it. She more than he, but a history of deadly alliances between he and the sensation had brought injury and ridicule upon his head many a-time. Standing up, his face grave, the young man figured another such instance was impending.
The hellish young girl, snarling, said only, "Shut. Up."
With a grin and his arms folded, her brother replied, "I will not. Mother herself told you to keep away from that weapon and to leave dead religions alone. There's no need for it. We're not at war."
Nazareth never looked away and, of course, not for a second relinquished the whiteknuckle vicegrip of her weapon's handle. Every filthy line that dripped off the foolish, corroded tongue of her brother was like a magic passage that acted to unlock the stowed-away wrath inside Nazareth; they both understood the repercussions of completely unsealing the rancor swimming around in the girl's belly. The young girl could always take a stance of blindness, for she knew not what she did?"Val could not, but proceeded anyway.
He shouted now: "Did you hear me! You don't have to act like an assassin! You don't have to spend every second of every bedamned day hating everything that doesn't share blood with you. . . . . you don't: you really, really don't. Say what you may about my gifts, but don't act as though you suffer any great hardship yourself. You were born with as much privilege as?""
Even with sharp Dominion senses, Val was never once able to track Nazareth's movements when she approached full speed. There was only that same explosion of sand, the kinetic ferocity, the reaction of the world at her feet disturbed by her incomprehensible celerity. And even so, the clue in the rising dust was simply not enough; he was too slow; he would be hit. This instance was no different. The speedy girl flew through the air and inserted her elbow into her brother's chest. Val's body ragdolled, hers pressed fiercely into it, and collided into the terribly sound wall of pure stone at his flank. There was a shattering crash followed by a pathetic and stunted whimper, that of a seemingly crushed windpipe sucking in air futilely. The damage was not so extensive in actuality, but rather the strong, sharp elbow piercing into his chest impeded all oxygen flow. The girl whipped her arm around, caught Val's neck with the underside of her forearm and slammed him down to the ground effortlessly.
Before he closed his eyes, he saw, looking up, the detestable image of his vengeful sister hoisting her weapon high over her head. He'd taken beatings before; had seen her nearly completely consumed by the elation of violence?"for this alone was the alien joy in her damaged little heart?"but this sight was new, was authentic in a way that did truly terrify him. The shadowy black steel of the weapon did not glimmer, but her eyes did: they sparkled with a contentedness previously unwitnessed by the boy on the ground. Before his eyes closed, the last thing he captured was a break in the clouds and a sole beam of light that threw his sister's shadow over his chest.
If this is the only thing that will ever bring you joy. Well. . . then sobeit. For what felt like ages (but was in actuality seven seconds) Val laid on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth cringed a bit, his body resisting the inevitability, or so his mind supposed, of a strike. But the light that had trickled in and made shadows, had made the underside of his eyelids red, faded out. Or rather, was masked. Slowly, Val opened his eyes and saw this: the image of two figures now, made nearly black by the brilliance of the sun at their rear.
Nazareth's pose was unchanged, but this was the doing of the figure behind her. Maetron, tall as a sleek, white peak to the aghast boy laying on the ground, had her fingers wrapped around the risen blade in Nazareth's hands. Blood ran from an opening in their mother's palm, span down the straight edge of that pitchblack blade and finally gave it glimmer.
Her daughter's face was torn in terror. She had yet to turn around, but the situation was very much clear.
How. . . How could she have moved so. . .
"Silly little girl," her mother said in a voice without intonation, and yet, dead and equalizing as it was, Nazareth felt mocked by the way the woman spoke to her. Maetron leaned down; Val could see her smile, but did not hear the words she whispered:
"I do not move fast around this world, child. I move the very world itself."