by Luke Tarzian
A flurry of emotions swam through Rhona, curiosity and fear the strongest of them all. She had been invited to peek into the mind of a goddess—how many people could claim that? But how would she react to Luminíl's dreams? What would the Vulture's dreams do to Rhona? What would Luminíl do to Rhona?
"Well?" Luminíl took a step toward her.
Rhona extended a trembling hand. "This won't hurt, will it?"
"I cannot say for certain," Luminíl said. "I will keep you as safe as I am able."
The Vulture's words inspired little confidence, but she was Rhona's friend and you were supposed to help friends in need, were you not? She took Luminíl's hand.
"What now?"
"Be still," Luminíl said. The Raven's Wood swirled and dripped away in rivulets. "Be still."
Now
Rhona hadn't thought about that night in the Raven's Wood in years. Probably for as long as the Raven's Wood had been Hang-Dead Forest. It had changed her, molded her. For better or for worse, she wasn't sure. On one hand she hated what she'd seen in Luminíl's dreams, hated what her exposure to them had done. It had cost Rhona her friendship with Luminíl. It had cost her Djen. But it had saved Banerowos, had saved the whole of Jémoon, and wasn't that the most important thing?
"Is that what you truly believe?" Fiel asked.
What do you mean?
"You tell yourself what you saw in the Vulture's dreams were the catalyst for everything," Fiel said. "Is that really true, or it something you tell yourself to mask a horrible reality?"
What would I be denying? Rhona asked.
"That you were always wary of the Vulture," Fiel said. "That she tricked you into revealing your true nature—your desire for control, for authority over those who scare you most. Like Luminíl herself. Like Djen Shy'eth and Sonja Lúm-talé."
That's ridiculous, Rhona spat. In those dreams I saw the end of everything. What I did saved Jémoon. I saved Luminíl, whether she and her acolytes care to admit so or not. If not for Alerion, Mirkvahíl, and myself this world would be dead.
Fiel chuckled. "You say that, yet here we are having this conversation. Here you are, thinking to yourself you ought to have a conversation with Alerion, or Varésh Lúm-talé perhaps."
Rhona growled. She continued through Hang-Dead Forest; Banerowos was still a way off, probably an hour or so. There was a grain of truth to what Fiel said. Life was like open water, each wave, each ripple ripe with possibility.
What do you suppose I should do? Rhona asked Fiel.
"Whatever your gut suggests," Fiel said. "One's gut instinct is more often than not correct, especially relative to the heart and mind. Do whatever you must to see the truth in all this madness."
Madness. There was a lot of that going around these days thanks in no small part to Djen and Sonja. How had they been so weak of will? How could they have let Luminíl influence their actions? Alerion might have insight, as might Varésh. But there was someone Rhona felt would be more reliable.
She was going to request an audience with the Phoenix Mirkvahíl.
3
Flightless Bird
Varésh Lúm-talé was a failure. He had always been the least skilled Architect; the other Celestials thought it an affront he had risen to such prominence. The title of Architect and the responsibilities that came with such a rank were reserved for the most respected of the Celestials and Varésh knew he was on the opposite end of the spectrum. It didn't help matters he had been appointed to his current position by Ouran, the Celestial Emperor. It helped even less Varésh was the favored son of Ouran. He had yet to figure out why.
“Yet here you are, having wrought this world,” his conscience said. “Here you are, the false king of Harthe.” A Celestial word meaning Harmony. Another lie, the grandest of them all, Varésh had come to learn.
“What say you, O Crown of Harmony?” his conscience sneered.
Varésh walked in silence as the voice berated him. Before him sat a vast expanse of grass, a sea of gold, soft and gentle like the feathers of the Phoenix Mirkvahíl whom Varésh sought. He sought a great many things, redemption most of all, and Mirkvahíl was the grandest requisite.
“You assume the Phoenix lives,” his conscience remarked as he waded through the tall reeds. The clouds shifted white to gray to gold and back. “You assume you can so easily negate your idiocy and that, dear boy, is your arrogance shining brighter than the sun.”
"Do you have a better idea?" Varésh asked aloud. "This entire journey all you've done is whine. All you've done is chide and ridicule and hiss."
His conscience snorted. “After everything you have done, Varésh Lúm-talé, after everything you have subjected me to, I think I have earned that right at least. Would you care to disagree? No—do not answer. My query was rhetorical.”
Varésh kept on at a measured pace. He had been at this for weeks, following the telltale signs of Mirkvahíl's rebirth. Life where once there had been death. Brilliance where once the light was silent. But most of all, the dreams. The images and whispers born of illum prying memories from the depths of the abyss.
"How naive I was and am and always will be 'til the end of time." One needn't cross the Temporal Sea to see that Varésh would forevermore be prone to idiocy. It was evident in his actions and his words.
“The irony,” his conscience mused. “As if Mirkvahíl could help you rectify your wrongs. As if this plan of yours will sidestep the ruin yet to come. Why do you think your father bequeathed this planet unto you? Have you ever sat and thought? Have you ever walked the tomb of memory in search of clarity?”
Varésh had not—until recently, at least. Introspection had always made him wary for the simple fact he had always been afraid to learn the hidden truths about himself and otherwise. It had taken holocaust to finally acknowledge what he had been, was, and always would be.
“Failure,” his conscience prodded. “It rings in your ears. It buzzes like a thousand flies above a corpse. It is your legacy, Varésh Lúm-talé, and what a miserable thing it is. What a miserable thing she is.”
Varésh shivered. She. The Vulture Luminíl. Entropy unbounded. Chaos freed by arrogance and lust and lies.
“How many lives? How many, do you think?” The question rang in Varésh's ears, high-pitched and unrelenting. “Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions, even? What would your beloved Sonja think could she see what you have done, could she see the monster you have made?”
His conscience manifested at his side, hawk-faced with eyes of light and shadow and a mane of midnight hair. "What would Sonja think could she see what you've become, could she see what you have done?"
Varésh trembled at the question, shook with misery and rage. "You keep her name from this."
"Just as you kept her life?" his conscience sneered. "Your Sonja deserved more than you were, Varésh Lúm-talé. She deserved more than you ever will be. She saw from the start what you needed a catastrophe to see. They all saw and for that they are dead."
Varésh tensed his jaw. "Mirkvahíl will help me make this right."
"He said naively," mocked his conscience. "You place your faith in the idea of Mirkvahíl as blindly as your people bow to your father's every whim—and look where that has led!"
Varésh stared across the vastness of this place. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, his absolute fear, the desperation of his endeavor.
"If you were strong you would strike your father down," his conscience said. "You would sever ties, free your people from his madness and his lust for universal conquest. You would have them be true Architects, true World Builders, not the lies Ouran has made them.
"But you are not strong. You are desperate and you are ignorant, and so you go about this task of yours. You seek to rectify a wrong you cannot undo and it will haunt you 'til the end of days whenever that may be."
The manifestation vanished. Varésh was alone with the grass and the clouds, with the wind and his thoughts. It will work, he urged himself. It has to. If not the personificat
ion of preservation and renewal, what could quell the destructive nature of the Vulture Luminíl?
"How could I have ever let it come to this?" lamented Varésh. A great ruin of ice and stone flashed across his mind. A dark world. A dead world. It filled him with more shame and guilt and disgust. He hated himself, and he hated that he hated himself. But that was part of the experience, he supposed. The experience of introspection in the wake of failure. The experience of failure.
And maybe that was why his undertaking had a chance succeed. Success bloomed from the seeds sown by failure, or so he had taken to telling himself. His idiocy was a parable from which greater things could come if he made sure not to make the same mistakes again. If he was going to be an Architect, a World Builder in the truest form of the term, that meant giving a shit.
He walked.
Raindrops fell.
Varésh had seen much of Harthe in these last years. As planets went it was an infinitesimal thing, large yet scarcely populated. In his youth he had fantasized about the day he might be made an Architect, be made to shape and mold worlds, to nurture them from infancy to maturation. The notion of parenthood had always appealed to Varésh—what could be grander than fatherhood in the context of rearing an entire world?
"Do you truly believe you can set things right?" he asked of himself as the wandered through the rain. "How does a parent come back from that, from ignorance? From annihilation born of arrogance?"
“And a false sense of unity,” his conscience said.
"Of course..."
Varésh stopped. He was soaked to the bone but he did not care. He stood and stared, trained his ears to a faint but anguished melody behind the liquid misery and clouds. He had heard it so many times these last years, increasingly these last few weeks.
"Mirkvahíl," he whispered. The louder her song grew, the nearer Varésh knew he was.
“Or perhaps you are imagining it,” his conscience said, “as you imagined so many things before. A man who fancies himself a god is the biggest lie of all, and all he does comes from a false heart.”
Varésh choked back tears. He had fancied himself a god in his yesteryears—things were the way they were because of that. But he had changed. Celestials, he had changed! Why else would Mirkvahíl have called to him? Why would the Phoenix call to a man not pure of heart?
“What makes you think your heart is pure? What makes you think your motivation comes from a place of remorse? Truths are lies we tell ourselves,” his conscience hissed. “Lies we tell ourselves to mask the monsters that we really are. The truth, Varésh Lúm-talé, is not so easily discerned from madness. In fact, they are more often than not one and the same.”
His shadow twin manifested and caressed his cheek with a wispy hand. “Which one of us is real, Varésh?”
Varésh trembled at its touch. Its words chilled his blood.
“What makes you think me your conscience, hmm? From where, pray tell, did that little notion arise? His shadow twin grinned as its shape waned. Think on it as you walk, but remember this: I am not suck in here with you…
“You are trapped in here with me.”
Varésh retched at its lingering touch. Retched as he never had before. He crumpled to the grass and curled himself into a ball, hugging his knees to his chest. It could have been the sickness, it could have been something else, but he was certain there were spirits in his midst, silhouettes of yesteryears gliding through the grass. They were silent, faceless, yet they filled him with fear, sorrow, with agony and shame.
"Stand up."
Varésh regarded the rainswept meadow with blurry eyes. Before him stood a silhouette composed of brilliant light.
"My dearest Varésh...stand up."
The world swam back into focus and he wasn't sure whether or not he was hallucinating.
"Sonja?"
Her laugh was unmistakable. Varésh knew the moment a smile manifested on the silhouette that it was her, his beloved Sonja come to talk some sense into him—he hoped. For all he knew it was a trick of his shadow twin, a ruse to unnerve him, to further unravel his sanity and push him to the brink of utter madness.
Her touch was warm, gentle. Her smile and her eyes were as sweet as he remembered, as he had seen in dreams. Varésh reached for her but to his touch she was a ghost. How cruel a punishment that was.
"You need to stand," she said again, and helped him to his feet. "This meadow is not the end of your journey. That, my Varésh, is a long time from now."
He averted her gaze, shame rumbling in his gut. "I sometimes think I don't deserve to live. Not after all I've done..." He inhaled deeply, looked her in the eyes. "Not after what I did to you."
Sonja winced. Her expression soured slightly. "I hate you for my death, Varésh. But I believe in your heart—even the worst of us, the most misguided can achieve redemption."
Varésh swallowed the lump in his throat. Fresh tears fell from his eyes. He felt lighter for her words, yet still weighted down by his sins.
"The way forward is arduous," Sonja said. "Far more than you can see. The game is long."
"The game was always long," Varésh said.
"There are many pieces yet to be revealed," Sonja said. "It is a game of shadows. I have seen the end."
There was a tremor in her voice. Varésh frowned. "And?"
"It is not for me to tell," said Sonja. "That is the way of things. That is fate."
There was a long silence between them as the rain fell.
"I miss you terribly," Varésh said.
Sonja offered only a sad smile. Her form faded to mist, then she was gone.
It was dark when Varésh finally stopped for the day. Clouds scraped the sky but they were thin and the rain had stopped. The moon shone pale and the light was soothing. It made Varésh think of home, of childhood and all the nights he had spent gazing at the stars. Simpler times. Gentler times.
He leaned against the wall of the tower ruin he had taken refuge in. Its name had long escaped him and this realization was profound. He had always feared being forgotten. The notion made him feel empty inside, made him feel like little more than a ghost. If things and people were fated for namelessness, how important had they been to begin with?
“You,” his shadow twin hissed, “have grown so sadly introspective in these last years.”
Varésh ignored the jab. My philosophical brooding is nothing new, he thought. Just…rediscovered. I was like this in my youth back home on Indris. Celestials, he missed that planet so! Missed home so much it hurt—but he could not go back. What do you care?
“I don’t,” his shadow twin said. “I was merely remarking.”
Varésh frowned and crossed his arms to his chest. Why are you so convinced I haven't changed? You're absolutely hellbent on believing my intentions false, on convincing me my intentions are false—why?
“Because I know you, Varésh Lúm-talé,” his shadow twin said. “More than you know yourself.”
Again you imply autonomy, Varésh thought, and I am reasonably sure I am real. If you are not my conscience then who or what are you?
“Your lie,” his shadow twin said. “The lie you will always carry with you. Worry not, Varésh Lúm-talé, clarity will manifest soon enough.”
The world was silent. Varésh closed his eyes.
"'Your lie,'" he whispered pensively. Lies were the foundation upon which he had built his life—which one was this?
4
Manifested Falsities
Then
Varésh Lúm-talé was a god. At least, he fancied himself a god. Considering the power he wielded and the place from which he'd come, he was at least on par with Alerion, Mirkvahíl, and Luminíl. So, actually, yes—Varésh Lúm-talé was, in fact, a god. And with great power came great emotional instability.
He wiped the snot from his nose and took another sip of whiskey. How in the high holy fuck had it come to this? Luminíl, corrupted and running amok, sowing chaos with every step, with every flap of those great, monstrous
wings. Mirkvahíl, struggling to combat her dark lover. And Alerion?
"Fuck Alerion," Varésh slurred. "Fuck everything. Especially fuck Luminíl."
If not for the Vulture then Sonja would still be alive. Condemning her to death had been the hardest thing he'd ever done, but what other option had there been? If not even Alerion or Mirkvahíl had been able to free her of Luminíl's corrupted will, then what chance did Varésh expect to have? He raised his glass to the memory of his wife then hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered, glass and whiskey flying all directions.
A knock on the door. It opened before Varésh had a chance to tell whomever it was to piss off into the night. He calmed slightly at the sight of Rhona, perhaps the only other person in this city to whom he could relate. Only a week ago she had hung her beloved Djen Shy'eth, another of Luminíl's acolytes. Another soul lost to the corruptive nature of mirkúr.
"A drink?" Varésh asked as Rhona took a seat across from him.
"Please."
Varésh poured her one. She took it from him and downed it in a single gulp. It seemed that kind of thing was going around. He offered a sympathetic frown. "Know how you feel. At least I think I do. I hope I do."
Rhona leaned back in her chair. "And how do you think I feel?"
Varésh opened his mouth. "I—"
Now
"That's not how it happened," said his shadow twin, pulling Varésh from his rage.
Of course it is, Varésh snapped. Why would it not be?
“Why does a jealous lover manifest falsities?” his shadow twin asked as it took form. It extended a wispy finger to Varésh's temple and pressed, drawing a wince. “Relax and let me kill this lie of yours. Let me show you what I saw through borrowed eyes while I was still able.”
Then
