Roberto Ricci
Rise of the Harlequin (The Red Harlequin #3)
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Table Of Contents
Prologue
20. The Rite of the Moxia
21. Cestia
22. Friend or Foe?
23. A New Alliance
24. The Twin Cities
25. The Sisterhood
26. The Sun and the Moon
27. The River of Blood
28. Rise of the Harlequin
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
Come, come closer, friend.
Do not be afraid.
I am a Harlequin, yes,
but that should no longer scare you.
You have listened to my story so far,
and you have learned the truth about us.
Let me tell you now,
how I learned about love.
20. The Rite of the Moxia
It was always moist and humid in the Everdian forest, watered as it was daily by gentle, misting rains. I often had to adjust my eyes before I could walk deeper inside it, for the sunlight was blocked by a dense leafy canopy — so dark and yet so alive, bustling with insects and birds of every kind, such as the psitta , a colorful bird that the Green also called the flying rainbow due to the variegated colors of its feathers. The forest was full of them and they made sure every inhabitant of the woods knew of their whereabouts due to their constant tinkling calls. I did not mind their noise, however. As I watched them hanging upside down over the tree branches, with their multitude of red, blue and yellow feathers, they reminded me of us Harlequins. We were free creatures, just like them, only that instead of colored feathers, we had colored souls.
Yes, I no longer feared being a Harlequin. I embraced it. I had rejoiced when I removed my mask once and for all. I welcomed the freedom and the knowledge that I had gained from leaving the Black Nation and traveling to the Blue and Red Territories.
More often than not, my thoughts turned to the city I’d most recently left behind – the Red city of Samaris. Many dear lives had been lost there – the closest to me being Chtomio, better known as King Quadrio. He and I shared many adventures and I felt as close to him as I would have to a beloved second father. He taught me how to survive, fight and break free of the yoke created by aligning myself with a single chrome color. My second great loss was a sweet infant named Tiara, who was an orphaned spawn of the poorest caste of Red chromes; the untouchable Janis. Tiara lived outside the walls of Samaris, shunned by most chromes. Her humble shelter was a grass hut by the sea, yet she shared whatever she had unstintingly with me. Thanks to her I’d befriended several Janis Red chromes who now lived in exile with me as fellow Harlequins. We’d fought side by side to escape from the Red Kingdom and from the Violet and Blue lands, and now we were closer than brothers. Who would have thought that a Black chrome would become so close to Reds – his traditional sworn enemies? Yes, remarkable things had certainly happened to me in Samaris.
And even though there was much suffering along the way, I now felt stronger than ever, like the giant trees that grew in the Green forest. Every day that passed they grew taller and larger, no matter what. The Greens called these trees star singers.
The star singers dominated the landscape and grew higher than fifty chromes put together. Their massive, twisted branches were covered in moss and vines, so walking underneath them was like entering a house made of green lace that was divided into many different rooms. Large, exotic orchids grew directly on the trees, nourished by the soil in the seams of the bark. They stretched their sweet blooms upward, toward dimly glimpsed shafts of sunlight trying to cup that radiant energy with their petals. The star singers were also home to large bees, some the size of half of my fist, whose honeycombs hung like enormous curtains from the underside of the canopy. According to the Green, the vibrating hum of their wings is what gave the trees a ‘voice’ for their ‘songs’.
Ah yes, the Green. I often wondered during my whereabouts as to how could I have ever taken this gentle nation for lazy thieves and liars. Like other chromes, I had let a few bad apples influence my opinion of the entire Green nation. In truth, I had much to learn from them. Having lost everything, the Green shunned personal possessions that could be taken from them and destroyed. Now they chose to live each day as it came, sharing, creating art, making harmless mischief and seeking a further communion with nature.
I suppose I could be excused for my prejudice, because of Astor, the first Green I had encountered. He had used me, stolen from me and had propelled me headfirst into a huge amount of trouble before abandoning me to my fate. But amidst all this harmony, even those events seemed part of a distant past. And this was all thanks to Failan, the generous priestess of Everdia.
She took us under her wing after we blundered into the Green territory looking more like wild and cruel scavengers than civilized chromes. It is a wonder she didn’t have her serpents kill us on sight. Instead, she stepped out of the forest and offered us rest and shelter. She had been so adept at hiding, we hadn’t the slightest idea that she and her followers had trailed us to observe us and gauge our true nature!
She was different… our Failan; her eyes were vivid green and her hair a tangled red, like leaves before winter. Her body was large and generous, just like her soul. She was so different from the other leaders I’d met during my adventures. She was not despotic like the Black elders, nor greedy like the Blue barons or arrogant like the Red nobles. She was open and friendly. She loved each and every Green and they, in turn, loved her.
This harmony between a leader and her nation made living in Everdia a completely unique experience from what my life in the Black nation had been. There were no mindless obedience and busy-work chores like the poor chromes of my kind had been forced to endure in Axyum. Most of the Green lived uncensored and unrestricted, free to do as they pleased out in the open so long as they didn’t hurt anyone else: “With the sky as their roof and the earth as their home” — one of the few truthful things Astor had told me. More preferred to live in the forest or high up in the trees rather than in their simple tents. Some of them, mostly the females with their infants, even found refuge in the ruins of their temples. As for us Harlequins, we settled in the middle of the forest, near the ruins of an amphitheater.
Everyone lived for the moment, savoring it like honey. The Green ate little food, bit by bit, yet in the end, they were more satisfied than any rich Blue chrome merchant who gorged himself on bejeweled sweets to show off his status. Regarding food, Daerec was the worst of our lot. He ate constantly, but the more he ate the hungrier he grew. Really, it was a problem that all of us Samaris refugees had in common: a hunger that could not be satisfied — a hunger for life.
Thankfully, the main thing we continually struggled to adjust to, was interacting with other chromes without our masks. I remembered the ill-fitting mask Astor made me when he disguised me as a Green. The Greens rarely wore masks among themselves and when they did, they carved beautiful wood masks for rituals or dealing with other chromes. The wearing of masks among one’s ‘forest family’ was considered to be rude. Neither I nor my Red merchrome friends had ever seen an entire city of unmasked chromes. Yet here they were, out in the open, unafraid of showing their faces! It was beautiful and disarming at the same time – like going naked in public. Everyone’s features, when they were happy or when they were sad were on display for all to see. Even after all this time, my new ability to recognize chromes for who they were by their mere facial expressions felt like being tossed off a cliff and never h
itting bottom. I often caught myself staring at the Green chromes so I could study their laugh lines and the light in their eyes. But always, the intensity of these naked emotions forced me to look away.
One day, Failan caught me gawking and I felt like a perverted spy. “The Harlequin is curious now, is he?” she said, mocking me in her odd, serene way.
I nodded, blushing for the umpteenth time.
“Tell me Failan, what exactly happened to Everdia?” I asked, eager to change the subject. “How did your nation fall into such ruin?”
“You’ll have to come to one of my lessons to find out,” She replied.
She then strolled over the broken stones of an ancient courtyard, where all the infants were playing on the stairs of one of the larger temples and clapped her hands: “Come along, little ones, come along!” Like ducklings, the young Green chromes followed Failan as she led them down the temple steps to the middle of the old amphitheater, a place she called ‘Everdia’s heart’. I quickly joined them, accompanied by Daerec who had overheard our interchange and was also curious.
“What are you doing?” he asked, taking a bite from a shiny red apple.
“Learning a new lesson,” I said.
No sooner had the infants settled in a circle around the Green priestess, than their pleas began: “Please Failan, tell us again how you came back to Everdia!” They cried.
“I have told you this story many times. No use in saying it again. Besides, today I wanted to discuss the Moxia…”
Her announcement was received by another, wheedling chorus of “Pleeease!” this time, more urgent.
“Oh very well, how can I say ‘no’ to such sweet little peas?” Failan turned to me and Daerec, rewarding my Merchrome friend with a saucy wink. He glanced at me, perplexed.
I patted him on the back and said: “Why, you sweet little pea.” His face turned red as a berry and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Failan addressed her young disciples, raising the flowing, leaf-like sleeves of her homespun costume. Like all the Green, she wore a close fitting tunic with wide cut sleeves that allowed her to move through the forest with ease. The sleeves served as pockets for any object or tool their wearer might need so hands were left free. They made Failan look like a peacock taking wing. “There was a time when Everdia was the guiding light of the territories.” She said. “It was a place where chromes of every nation were welcome and where the land was fertile. But the other Nations grew jealous of us, and of our happiness. They could not conceive how our homes had no doors and our hearts no boundaries, for theirs was a world out of step with the harmony of nature. They built many walls to close themselves off. Instead of reveling in the sunlight on their faces, they created masks to hide in the shadows.”
As I listened to Failan’s tale, I remembered how Astor once told me the same story and I wondered whether it had been Failan that had taught him these words, just like she was teaching the youngsters now. Even though we avoided each other, here in Everdia, I was still wary of his presence. I reminded myself that I’d been truthful with Failan when I told her about the bad blood existing between us, so I had nothing to fear when, not if, he’d inevitably try to lie about our history.
I went back to paying attention to Failan’s lesson. She continued to speak about the other chromes: “Ultimately, their fear united them against us. The Black, Blue, Red, Yellow, Orange… even the ordinarily peaceful Violet came and burned Everdia.” She paused to allow her troubling words to sink in. “And then, not satisfied that they had destroyed our glorious city, the Black and Blue forced us out of our land…”
When I saw the sad faces of the infants, I felt ashamed for what the Blacks had done. I wondered, for a moment, if my father had taken part in their aggression.
“We Green dispersed throughout the territories, like seeds setting sail on the wind. We wandered for many solstices through different lands. That is why the other chromes began to call us nomad chromes. Yet we could never blossom anywhere else. A few of us lost hope and began to do bad things… things that Greens usually never do. The other chromes accused us of stealing, when it was them that stole our land… It was a sad time… still, even though we had been separated like branches from a mother tree, the tendrilled vines of our chrome-spirit stretched across the sky until they became once more entwined with Mother Goddess. The distance between us was no match for the greater bond that we grew with our land. So the solstices passed and passed… ”
One of the infants couldn’t resist chiming in and said: “Until one day…”
“…Until one day,” repeated Failan, amused, “I heard the Mother Goddess sing to me through the star singer trees. She told me it was time to return. And that is what I did, but not before making sacred green fluid to bring with me as a gift, for this gift is the very life blood of the plants and of the Mother Goddess herself.”
Failan then took out an ampoule full of green serum from her sleeve and she sprinkled it on the laughing infants. It had a strong, pungent smell which I recognized as liquid chlorophyll. We used it too in Axyum, for it was well known to be a very good source of health and energy.
“When I came back,” she continued, “I discovered that the Black and Blue, with cruelty of spirit, had deliberately rendered our land barren. They had tried hard to exploit it, but they didn’t meet with any success. Do you know why?” She asked the young chromes.
“Because the land needs love!” they cried in unison.
“Exactly!” She said, beaming. Then she grew serious. “The burnt land had remained arid, just like their hearts. Without love, nothing can grow. So I gave our land the sacred green fluid I’d brought with me, but most of all, I gave her back the love she’d lost. And slowly, the land gave back her fruits. In a few solstices, it became a forest once more!”
She gestured at the thick, verdant jungle shading the amphitheater. “These forests; these lands shield our faces. That is why no masks are needed here. We are all the same in front of the Mother Goddess.”
Even though the infants had heard this story before, they were so caught up in its telling they still reacted to it with a first time learner kind of awe. I also couldn’t help but admire Failan. She was a true leader who really had created a loving community that flourished, whereas Axyum stayed parched unto death by the Blacks’ collected wrath.
Failan broke into my gloomy thoughts when she clapped her hands once more and announced: “Come now, it is time to practice the Moxia.”
“Moxia! Moxia!” The infants cheered.
Failan touched her hand to her forehead. “Oh! The heat from brother sun must have distracted me! I can’t remember what the Moxia is. Can someone tell me?”
“Me! Me! Me!” The little Greens screamed in unison.
“Let’s see… hmm… you tell, Bleda.”
A plump female Chrome whose tunic was twice her size wriggled in excitement and jumped to her feet. “The Moxia is our most important rite. It is when we come together with the Mother Goddess.” She recited.
“Very good!” said Failan. “The more we immerse ourselves in our forest, the more we need the rite of the Moxia so that we can become one with nature and the Mother Goddess. Now, little ones, think about how you’d like to become one with the Mother Goddess and start gathering the things you need for your Moxia!”
“I want to be a tree!” declared one.
“I want to be the sky!” cried another.
They scattered deep into the surrounding forest to gather whatever it was they needed to accomplish their task.
“Tonight, we will perform a true Moxia. A nocturnal one, in honor of the moon.” Failan told Daerec and me.
Daerec was confused. “I don’t get it – is a Moxia some kind of symbolic union with nature that you seek?”
“I think… part of it may involve camouflaging yourselves!” I said, lit by a sudden understanding. “That is why we did not see you when we first arrived in the forest.”
Failan nodded. “Although it is a
rite, it is also a way to defend ourselves from others. We Green are peaceful. We never attack another creature if we can avoid it.”
“No, we let others attack us!” a voice broke in. I grimaced. It was Astor’s. We had carefully avoided each other all this time, mainly because I was convinced he was still dangerous. He was scarred by an ugly anger that he held deep inside him – a condition I neither understood nor could explain, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed that it had grown inside him, festering even more, since we had parted ways in Ayas.
“Attacking, fighting, hating another chrome… that is all based on fear,” Failan calmly told him. “And we worship the opposite of fear. We worship love.”
“You will never gain respect in the Territories with your ‘so called love’!” hissed Astor. “And we will always be forced to flee from others!” He then pointed at me: “Like him!”
Before I could respond, Failan approached Astor with her arms open, ready to embrace him. “Love overcomes everything, my son,” she said. “I know how hard it is to fight the demons inside you. How the fear of being lost is overwhelming. I will remind you for as long as it takes that you are not lost. We are here…”
“Stop it!” Astor cried out. “I am immune to your tricks. I’ve traveled far and wide, remember? I stayed long in the territories, getting to know the weaknesses of other nations, long after you slunk home like a weakling, from exile. So I know the real truth! We must hurt them before they hurt us, again! To ignore the inevitable is ‘inviting death by foolishness’. As for you,” he snarled at me, “you are not welcome here. Leave or die.”
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