by Luke Tarzian
Varésh dwelled at the north-most tip of Banerowos in a home without a door. As he had mentioned to Rhona years ago, he was horribly claustrophobic.
Rhona found him in the parlor with a drink as she so often did. It made him small in the best of ways; it dismissed the general air of prestige that came with being slightly less than a god. She took a seat opposite Varésh and accepted a drink.
"You seem conflicted," Varésh said.
Rhona smiled ruefully. "Djen is a puzzle. She makes me question the morality of her death."
Varésh sipped his drink. "Love is strange in that respect. Profoundly powerful." He looked Rhona in the eyes. "Go on, now. Ask me what you wish—I can sense the question ravaging your mind."
"Sonja."
Varésh set his glass to the side. "She would have destroyed Jémoon."
"But she was your wife," Rhona said. "You loved her deeply."
"As you surely did Djen," Varésh said. He had a faraway look in his eyes. "I have found, in all my countless years, the right thing and the hardest thing are often times the same."
"Of course." Djen flashed across her mind. "How did you cope?"
Varésh offered a melancholy smile. He poured another drink and swirled it in his glass.
Rhona's heart sunk—actions spoke far louder than words. "I wish I could ease your pain."
Varésh reached for her hand. "And I yours." He sighed. "Reconciliation eludes me."
"In your heart of hearts, do you believe your actions right?" Rhona asked.
"Yes," Varésh said. "And no. Judgment is requisite for order, but must every criminal be hanged? Must we frown so heavily upon idealism if it makes Jémoon a better place? I cannot help wondering if perhaps there might be a flaw in the design."
"How could unity be flawed?"
Varésh stood and started from the house. Rhona followed and they came to rest at the edge of a garden overlooking Banerowos. The city was a jewel beneath the moon, its dark streets and architecture capturing celestial light. It was beautiful enough to make one momentarily forget the Vulture had been freed.
"What do you see?" Varésh asked.
"The city as she stands." Rhona tilted her head. "Should I be keen to something more?"
Varésh gave another melancholy smile. "The people. In them, what do you really see?"
Rhona hesitated. Was there a specific answer he was looking for?
"I see fear," said Varésh. "I see frustration. I see anger and I feel it too. I feel their emotional distress where once I did not. They crave harmony; a people united can do great things. But more than that, they desire autonomy. I hear their whispers in the night—they think the tenets too rigid. They think punishment too extreme."
Many people had been hanged for speaking out in favor of Luminíl. Many more had been hanged for less.
"If the tenets are given slack...what then?" Rhona asked. "What do you foresee?"
"Truthfully?" Varésh shrugged. "Emotion is fickle; discontent has a long memory."
Rhona tensed her jaw. Their conversation had led somewhere she had not expected; she was more conflicted than she had been upon her arrival. If Varésh of all people doubted the tenets of Jémoon, what was she to think?
"Perhaps Djen was right," Fiel said. "Too much wine dulls the mind. Are you ever going to think for yourself? Or are you too afraid to have an opinion all your own? Deep in the confines of your mind, what do you truly believe? How do you truly feel? How have you always felt? What have you always thought?"
Rhona swallowed. She had no immediate response. Her body tingled.
"There it is," Fiel said. "The coldness of uncertainty creeping up your spine. Centuries of stout conviction ripped apart by the moral quandary of your almost-god. How does it feel to have lived so subservient a life?"
"I should go," Rhona said.
Varésh nodded. He was silent as she left.
Now
"Are you absolutely sure that's how it really went?" Varésh asked.
“Quite,” his shadow twin replied. “Unlike you I am able to see the truth in madness.”
"You were in Rhona's head," Varésh said. "How?"
His shadow twin grinned and tapped its nose. “Truth from madness, Varésh Lúm-talé. See the truth in madness. Learn your greatest lie—only then will things become clear.”
The shadow vanished, once more leaving Varésh alone to ponder the many lies his life had been built upon. Had any of that been real? The first dream and the last—it was possible they were real to some extent, but the fact of the matter, as it dawned on him, made Varésh cold to his bones:
Who were Rhona and Djen?
5
Mother Woe
Mirkvahíl exuded warmth. Rhona could feel it even from the first floor of her tower. Felt it more profoundly as she ascended to the pinnacle atop which the Phoenix resided. It eased her mind, pushed away the worry and anxiety of the last few days and helped her keep composure. It wasn't everyday citizens of Banerowos were granted an audience with Mirkvahíl, prominence be damned.
Mirkvahíl's quarters were radiant. She was, after all, the Phoenix—why should her dwelling not serve to further cement that fact? Like many of the other towers in the city this one too was open to the sky, possessing windows without glass and a long balcony that ran the southern length of the tower. It was there the Phoenix stood, garbed in whites and golds that fell to gossamer threads of mist. Her great wings were furled about her like a cloak and her hair fell in loose, dark curls.
"You have questions," she said as Rhona neared. "You dream but do not sleep. Fear clings to you." She turned, boring into Rhona with her pitch-black eyes. "Tell me your thoughts, Rhona. Tell me your fears. What makes you think that we were wrong to imprison Luminíl? To exact judgment on her followers as was necessary?"
Rhona frowned, joining Mirkvahíl on the balcony. "Nothing. I don't believe we were wrong. I just…want answers. Clarity. How could two people as strong-willed and logical as Djen Shy'eth and Sonja Lúm-talé fall prey to Luminíl's influence? How could they not see her unbounded power threatens the existence of this world?"
Mirkvahíl studied her, never once blinking, never once looking away. "Something deeper tugs at you, Rhona. You do seek answers to these questions—you have always had the best interests of this world in mind. But your heart aches. I can feel as much. 'Why Djen?' you ask yourself. 'How could I have gone through with hanging her?'"
Rhona wiped a few stray tears from her cheeks. It was the first time she had cried in who knew how long. It was a peculiar feeling. She felt vulnerable here before the Phoenix and she did not like the sensation.
Mirkvahíl took her in a gentle embrace, furling her wings around them both.
"It is normal to feel such things," the Phoenix said. "The hurt. The confusion. The guilt. I have felt them all more and more with each passing day, each passing week and month and year. I loved Luminíl more than anything. I have felt her absence for some time, but I have also felt her phantom rage slithering through the air, unbounded like a storm. Were we right to imprison her? Were we right to favor country over person? Was there anything—is there anything we can do to quell her rampant mirkúr?"
Rhona said nothing as Mirkvahíl spoke. She focused only on the Phoenix's self-admitted pain, the very same she was going through. If such a creature as powerful as Mirkvahíl was having doubts then perhaps it was normal Rhona was having them too. She was, after all, wrought from the combined power of Alerion, Mirkvahíl, and Luminíl. Everyone was save Varésh Lúm-talé, and what must he be feeling?
"Why now?" Rhona asked. "Why express regret now after all these years?"
Mirkvahíl sighed. "Power and authority are enticing. They are seductive and profoundly so. You have felt this—that is why you are here. You need someone to whom you can relate. Idealism is a double-sided coin, Rhona. With utopia comes darkness. Every candle lit is another shadow cast. Perfection is a lie. Law requires chaos. It is a vicious circle; one I fear we have realized far
too late."
"Too late?" Rhona asked, pulling back. "Too late for what?"
Mirkvahíl closed her eyes. "There is no saving Banerowos. There is no saving Jémoon."
"You can't possible know that," Rhona said. "Where there is will, there stands a chance. Luminíl's power is not so wild that it cannot be contained."
"I wish that were so," Mirkvahíl said, turning to stare out into the night.
Rhona bared her teeth in a rictus of disgust. "How can you give up so easily? If we are truly responsible for this mess then we have to do what we can to rectify it!" Mirkvahíl was silent. "How can you abandon your people so easily?"
"Luminíl and Djen might ask the same of us," Mirkvahíl said softly. "They did ask the same, and with what did we reply? 'I do as the Raven wills.' What a shield to hide behind. What a lie to justify our actions."
The warmth of the tower vanished. With it went the light and brilliance of Mirkvahíl until she was little more than a winged silhouette. "You came to me hoping for something else and for that I am sorry. For many things I am sorry, most of all you, Rhona. Farewell."
Disgusted, Rhona fled the tower teary-eyed and wanting desperately to shove a knife down Mirkvahíl's throat. Did she dare speak to Alerion now? Might he echo the same sentiments? Might he too concede defeat? Rhona didn't care to find out and so withdrew from Banerowos to the solace of Hang-Dead Forest.
What did it say about Rhona that she felt more at ease amongst the corpses in the trees than she did the majesty of Banerowos? Until tonight she had never thought to question it. Until tonight she had never thought to question many things, and the one person to whom she thought she could relate had done more harm than good.
"You are going to do something reckless," Fiel said.
Is that a question or a statement? Rhona asked.
"A bit of both," Fiel said. "What sort of recklessness are you resorting to?"
The expensive kind, said Rhona. Some think my reverence of the trees overzealous—I will prove them wrong. Every action has a purpose, realized or not; every purpose has a price. Tonight my scarlet coinage grants an audience with the dead.
Fiel gasped. "Such an act is forbidden."
A lot of things are forbidden, Rhona said. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong.
“How desperate you must be to have strayed from your path, little rule-follower,” Fiel hissed. "Have you begun rewriting your articles of faith or are you simply grasping at straws?"
Rhona came to the Lost Tree from which Djen and so many others hung. It groaned in a breeze; bodies danced their pendulum dance. For a moment she imagined holding Djen, the pair swaying on the shore of the lake.
You seek the hang-dead dream, said the Lost Tree.
Rhona knelt and bowed her head. "Blood paid is a debt owed."
Indeed, said the Lost Tree, and you have given much. I will grant you access to the dream, but know that what is written cannot be erased.
"I understand." Rhona closed her eyes.
Be still, now, said the tree. Be as the souls you seek. And remember my words—
This is more than a dream.
The Lost Tree was not the first to relay to Rhona the notion dreams were sometimes more than what they seemed. Such a thought was a favorite of the being Equilibrium whom Rhona had conversed with many times before. Still, this time around she couldn't help but feel...different. As if the Silent Place—to which the Lost Tree had surely delivered her cognizance—had manifested from within and engulfed her. As if it were calling out, trying to become one.
She turned about the darkness she had woken to, each step reverberating softly, each movement leaving an ethereal echo in its wake. The way forward was not certain; Rhona wasn't remotely sure what she was looking for in this instant. Djen, Sonja, any of the Hang-Dead souls were whom she sought but the question now was how to find them.
"Mirkvahíl always had a saying," said Fiel. "Do you recall? 'In the darkest night the faintest light is blinding.' Draw upon yourself to illuminate the path. This is, after all, a conjuration of your mind. At least, as the Silent Place interprets what you seek."
Rhona held an upturned palm out to the nothingness. Gradually small beads of light coalesced at her finger tips, braiding inward until they formed a sphere of pale blue illumination. It ascended and the darkness bled away in rivulets just as it had the last time she had come. Instead of a silver meadow she found herself before the ruin of a temple, the sky above a pallid swirl of clouds.
"What is this place?" Rhona asked, mostly to herself, but partly to the ruin.
Fiel hissed.
Do you know where we are? Rhona asked. She took a step toward the threshold; Fiel snarled. Spit it out.
"This is her realm," said Fiel. "They call her Mother Woe."
Rhona had never heard of Mother Woe. Where did you learn that?
"Through exploration," said Fiel. "You and I are one and the same. In the rarest of instances I do have autonomy."
Imagine my shock. Rhona rolled her eyes. Explain to me this Mother Woe. Why are you so afraid of her? What is she?
"Dangerous," said Fiel. "As was Luminíl to Alerion, as Chaos is to Balance, Mother Woe is to Equilibrium." The temple door creaked ajar. "It seems she has been expecting you. Be vigilant. Be receptive to her words. As the Lost Tree said—this is more than just a dream."
Rhona crossed into the temple, overcome by the scent of old stone and dirt. Of rain.
Of mirkúr.
She thought to conjure a blade but the notion fled as quickly as it'd come. She knew it was purely out of fear, a means of a defense, but she doubted Mother Woe would see it that way. Best to come unarmed to such an amphitheater of uncertainty, especially if its mistress was as powerful as Fiel had said.
The anteroom was long and wide, its ceiling arched. It had once been beautiful. Beyond the crumbling stone and lichens, past the dust and mold, were faded, fragmented inlays illustrating winged beings numbering in the hundreds. What had this place been built in reverence to?
The anteroom yawned into a circular courtyard bordered by tall white-leaved trees. Motes of light and shadow wafted through the air like snowflakes. Had the temple itself not been so glum Rhona might have found the scene beautiful.
"And here I thought you found solace in death," Fiel jabbed.
Rhona ignored the voice.
A faint melody tickled her ears. She trained her hearing to the words—it was coming just beyond the trees. She marched through the courtyard and into the woods, the song growing louder, more intelligible all the while. It was infectiously sad. The nearer she grew the darker she felt. By the time she withdrew from the woods and found herself staring at a stone altar, her cheeks were stained with tears and her eyes were so pained from crying she was ready to gouge them out.
“Now, child. Keep your hands to your side.” The voice was gentle yet imposing, physical yet at the same time trapped between the fabric of the world. “You have need of sight for as long as you are here. How else will you trail your sins? How else will you behold the majesty of your monstrousness?”
Rhona swallowed her pain. She stumbled, nearly tumbling forward, but managed to regain her balance as a lithe silhouette manifested in a swirl of smoke. She bore a black cloak and hood; tattered bird wings trailed behind her and her eyes were two full moons encircled by dark veins and peeling flesh.
Rhona fell to her knees. "D-Djen?"
The woman offered a melancholy smile. “I have not used that name in...centuries. I am called mother woe and I am here to point you on your way.”
Rhona's mind was a jumble of confusion. Mother Woe was Djen? What did she mean she hadn't used that name in centuries? Rhona pushed herself to stand. She was dizzy as she rose to meet Mother Woe's eyes. This place felt a blur.
“You have questions to which you seek answers,” Mother Woe said. “I could posit my own but what good would that do you?” She held a hand out to Rhona. “The way ahead is treacherous for those unprepared.”
<
br /> Rhona hesitated. "How do I know you aren't lying?"
“You don’t," Mother Woe said plainly. “But what choice do you have but to trust me, the warden of this place? I can give you what Mirkvahíl could not.”
There was venom in that last sentence, decades of subtext. But Rhona needed answers and she was sure lashing out physically at Mother Woe would lead nowhere good.
Rhona took her hand. It was frigid. There was not a modicum of warmth to be felt. Rhona's heart dropped at that but she couldn't bring herself to be angry at Mother Woe, at Djen. She felt only sadness and an inkling of regret.
"Where do we go from here?" Rhona asked.
“The Bone Garden,” Mother Woe said.
They started for the trees, crossed the threshold into a dark wood illuminated by tiny motes of light. Normally such a place would have made Rhona feel at ease. The manifestation of corpses, wayward souls, and twisted trees would have made her feel as though she had done the right thing, what the Raven had willed. But here, beside Mother Woe, all it did was fill her with dread. What was this place? Who were these sorry, white-eyed corpses hanging from trees? Who and what were all these wailing, gossamer spirits?
“You will learn,” Mother Woe said as if she had read Rhona's thoughts. “In time you will learn. For now, simply walk and ruminate on everything you have been, are, and want to be.”
6
Father Sky
Then
Rhona had always had a soft spot for Alerion. To all of Jémoon he was the Raven, a third of the great creators of Harthe. Secretly, to Rhona, he was Father Sky, a parental figure for a woman who had simply come to be, like so many others of her kind. Yet she found herself questioning his judgment. So many Jémoonites had voiced their opposition to his jailing of Luminíl; for that they now hung from the branches of the Raven's Wood.
