“Not any more than is necessary,” she said. “All is as it should be.”
Though she was the healer, her words gave me no solace. My sibling’s ways were mysterious, and I only had half the story. My goddess had relied on me to do my part but it was a simple ripple amidst a wave of change. Our plan for salvation was complex.
“What can I do?” I asked. “My goddess was blind to this—that Midan would come for her.”
“The secrets between Kypria and the sire shall remain hidden, Onine.”
Ur had planned his progeny’s escape, but had he anticipated the destruction of Venus? I doubted Midan’s hostile takeover of Terra was a part of the sire’s strategy to free my goddess. I feared he was unaware of the danger we now faced. “But Terra is to be our haven,” I said. “Kypria is to be safe here—Kyprian too.”
“Stay your hope, my sibling. Fire cannot live if you cut off its oxygen. Terra is a part of the greater plan, as is the arrival of Midan. But you must do one thing.”
“Anything.”
“I hope you understand the depths of your offer because something greater is expected of you.”
“You know I would give my existence to save my goddess.”
“So you shall.” Her words rung with finality and she unwrapped her flame from mine, tearing herself from fire and back into the terrestrial form she had made her own. I followed her and prepared for the true eye’s rise.
“Your role is significant yet,” she said. “Do not doubt it. You must watch over the youngling once Mara joins me. Her offspring will be left to fend for herself since we have annulled her assignment with the sapient.”
My goddess chose the fire starter long ago but Saturnia’s sister had terminated the union. “Why have they been separated? Did the fire starter no longer please my goddess?” I revealed my contentment too easily and regretted my transparency.
“The annulment was for a greater purpose,” she said. “An adjustment had to be made since two schemes were possible and I was to choose the one that best fit.”
“The fire starter, then, is the cause for the annulment?”
“Yes,” she said. “He must be prepared, a detail we missed.”
“Can I help prepare him?”
“You will play your part in this but it is different than you think.”
“Does she desire him?”
“El does, yes, but Kypria another.” All at once, I understood my part and felt silly for letting my emotion blind me. Saturnia’s sister acknowledged my revelation with a smile.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Now you see.”
“I must begin immediately,” I said. “She must know me, she must recognize me.”
“Easy, Onine. You will take this in stride and let the sapient come to you. You cannot let her know your role—not just yet.”
“And Tiro? Where does he fit in this scheme?”
“Exactly where he is. Awaiting his sapient.”
“Can he really believe she belongs to him?” My apprentice was dimwitted but this proved the silliest thing he could imagine yet.
“He must,” she said. “We need him to meet them when they come.”
“He will perish, will he not? He cannot be prepared for the change that is to come. It will destroy him.”
“Yes,” she said. “But it was his choice.”
I felt no regret for my apprentice. He had brought about his own extinction. “May I keep Tiro in line if his desire grows too great to control?” I despised the thought of the knavish brute harassing my sapient.
“He is too vain to attempt anything daring, especially before her preparation. She still frightens him, despite his desire.”
“He is a foolish one.”
“When we have taken Mara, you should be diligent, but keep your desire for the youngling hidden. Terrestrial jealousy is still a mystery, and if he suspects the sapient, he may stir the flame before Kypria chooses. The choice must be hers—we cannot sway her, Onine. She must choose of her own volition.” I nodded in agreement. “We may tip the scales in our favor, if ever so slightly, but everything must unfold as it is written in the tome of the deity.”
“And the ravishment?”
“Impossible to avoid.”
I touched my Kyprian sibling with the palm of my terrestrial hand. She held mine with hers and squeezed my rigid skin, as we both suffered the coming of our goddess’s pain.
“I admire your sacrifice,” I said.
“And I yours.” I tried to console her but the thought of our end burdened her. She knew the agony to come and that which we had already suffered.
When I left to fetch Mara, thoughts of my goddess warmed me and my sibling’s touch had softened my wounds. I met the sapient in the wheat field after watching her kiss her offspring goodbye. She was unable to understand she would always be united with her youngling through my goddess. Our ways were so different from hers and though she had seen the future in the gold sediment, she was incapable of trusting its truth.
“You will be with her again,” I said. “Did you tell her so?”
“I promised her,” Mara said, “just as Kypria told me I should. I said ‘I will always be with you and you will always be with me,’ though I have yet to believe it. I do not see the goddess in her.”
“You will, my sapient,” I said. “And you will see why my goddess has chosen you.”
“I am afraid.”
“Do not be. The worst is over.”
“Will I feel the pain?”
“Nothing you cannot bear,” I said. “All good things must come with a little pain.”
“Will she?” She was asking if El would suffer the choices she had made, the sacrifices she had offered my goddess.
My honesty comforted her. “She will.”
Mara was tearful when we walked through the wheat together. I offered to help her along with my stick but she refused. “We have enough time, don’t we?”
Terra’s satellite reflected the eye at full strength and its coldness crept into every crack of my terrestrial form but I let Mara enjoy her last journey. “We have time,” I said.
“Will you look after my youngling?”
She too was blind to the tome of the deity and I understood her concern. She was unaware of the future to come. She was Kyprian as much as any sapient could be and though she trusted us completely, she had yet to become a part of us.
“El is my charge,” I said. “And I will guard her as the precious source she is. Nothing is more sacred to the Kyprian than your youngling.”
Mara smiled at this. She was unveiled and her hair hung loosely down her back. She looked as she had the first time I saw her in the field. Her manner had mellowed since then and her physical appearance had changed, but she was still the same. I admired her, as she walked alongside me, traipsing through the soil in her bare feet one last time.
When we reached the ridge of greenhouses overlooking the landscape of wheat, Saturnia’s sister met us and ushered Mara up to the large glass tablet at the top of the mount. The sapient held on to the Venusian’s diamond-encrusted stick and slipped behind the glass with ease. I followed my sibling and her new flame with a touch of sadness, most likely Mara’s reflection. Once we entered the greenhouse, the Kyprian healer worked quickly. The sapient tried to speak, but was silenced. I know the name of her youngling was on the tip of her tongue when Saturnia’s sister pulled her into her flame and made her one with us. I was unaware of the pain Mara suffered and hoped it was minimal. I danced with her among the flames since then and knew she would see El again.
***
The smoke of the fire pits distracted me when she came rushing through the cedar door, her tiny body barreling toward me as if some force drew her to me. I raised my stick, bent on protecting myself as much as the sapient. I had gotten good at avoiding them, especially now that I was so involved with the one. The end of my rod stabbed her in the chest and I could barely contain my shriek of anguish at contact. When she fell to the patio, I tho
ught I had ended her life. I watched for the blood to drain from her complexion but her color remained. I stood over her like a fool, willing her to stand and look at me again.
When the fire starter rushed over to see her, I kept him away. His connection to her was strong and I envied his open display of affection. I was anxious to make it my own.
“El,” he said. “Get up. He’s waiting.”
I pushed him aside with my stick, motioning for him to return to his fire. He obeyed but left her there reluctantly, keeping a watchful eye on her from afar.
I leaned over the clay-born goddess and whispered in Kyprian tongue. I shared my regret and begged her to forgive my foolishness. “I would never wish to hurt you. Please come back to me.” Her veil masked the color on her cheeks but when I traced the outline of her face, despite the sheer silk, it took everything in my power to resist touching her. I held my gaze on her, even as she stirred to life again, the veil lifting with each breath.
“Come back, El.”
When she opened her eyes, I shared my relief. I think I smiled but cannot remember. When I saw she was fully awake again, I moved to the side and held out my stick for her and brought her up and onto her feet. I should have let her go then, but I did the thing I was forbidden to do. Saturnia’s sister would have chided me if she had known, and I expected my goddess would have also, but I wanted to show her I remembered her. I placed my stick below her chin and raised her eyes to meet mine. Like pools of ore, her gaze was strange next to my goddess’s flaxen look, but the exchange was for her, not me.
I showed her everything my species had to offer. I reminded her of her core, her alien being, her universe. My act was slightly selfish, for I saw deeper into the sapient creature in doing so. That moment of pleasure was in fact the only thing that kept me going during my fusion with the fire starter. The vision of El’s eyes helped me see through the pain of my torture and it was then that I realized she was the matrix I had created in the cold deeps of the Gelanese pool. I knew El before she existed.
From that moment, she thought of our encounter every time she looked at me. I could see it in her eyes whenever I passed her in the Temple. That simple moment of ecstasy made me greedy for more and I returned again and again to be with her, even as she slept. I braved the coldness of an eyeless sky to sit and watch the peaceful beauty, as she traveled the dreamy realm of sapient rest. I recalled how I felt when I first saw my goddess bathing with the sisters of the Astros in the lava temple on the shadowed side of Granite Peak. Every night I spent at El’s shanty felt like that first time.
As if driven by some inexplicable force, my attempts to be alone with the sapient grew bolder and bolder. When the fire starter caught me in her garden and stopped me from touching her beneath Terra’s cold satellite, I dropped my pursuit. He was right to chastise me for putting her at risk. I had abjured all sense of decorum and was lost to desire.
“You have to wait until it’s done and we’re ready.” The fire starter was jealous, the emotion showed on his cheeks. He had come around, which made me happy, protecting her fiercely even from me. He had doubted my plan at the start. “I don’t understand how it’ll work,” he had said. “How you can become me?”
“I will not become you,” I had said. “I will no longer be as I am now, but I will only become a part of you.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Confusion was written on his face. We were alone in the silo and I had asked him to remove his covering so I could see his expression at hearing my scheme. The sapient was skeptical, as expected, though Mara had prepared him for some of it before she left.
“I know what El means to you,” I said. “I know the feelings you have for her and I envy the world you may build together but her future is complicated, as is her past, and she will need both of us despite the change to come.”
“What change?”
The fire starter held his position, prepared to battle the metaphysical space he would never understand. He was wary of the Kyprian world into which he had been born. He, like El, had never known another life and instinct led him to believe freedom was possible. He was different because of his selection and sensed that distinction from inception.
“El is special,” I said. “She possesses the power for change within her and she must be free to use her gift when the time is right. For this, we must protect her.”
“I still don’t understand what change you mean—she’s going to change?”
“You will know everything soon.” I knew how unsatisfying that sounded. He kicked the dust from his boots, trying to prove he was built for such candid speech. He was incapable of knowing how worthy he was.
“What does this—this fusion thing involve?”
He wanted to know if he would feel our union. “You will not suffer any pain if that is what you are wondering.”
“What about you? Do you feel pain?”
I kept him from knowing the agony I would undergo, and that which I had already endured. “You need not worry yourself about my sacrifice. I am built for this.”
He studied me for a moment and I tried to read his mind but could not. As I lifted my hand to place on his shoulder, he backed away.
“What are you doing?”
“Trust me.” I wanted to evince the transformation that had already taken place. “It is safe.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Do you know El loves you?” It pained me to say it but I thought it would help persuade him. I could only accept the fact by reminding myself it was the sapient part of her that had fallen in love.
“How do you know?” His voice rang with excitement.
“The council of three discusses such matters and I am privy to them.”
“But they broke us up.” He looked down at his hands and picked at the dirt beneath his nails.
“Not forever.”
“What do you mean?”
“Will you trust me—for El?”
“For El?”
“Yes, everything is for El.”
He nodded, giving in despite his desire to hold out. I smiled at what I considered his admission. Though he was silent, I could see it on his face – I’ll do anything for El. Until then I had only suspected he loved her, but now saw the proof. I felt a tinge of excitement when I imagined the two together and the sapient passion they would share, things my goddess and I would enjoy too.
“I have prepared myself for our union and am almost ready to experience complete fusion.”
“Don’t I need to prepare too?”
“You are perfect as you are.”
“What’ll it feel like?”
“The change for you should be gradual. Perhaps a slight shift in your manner, or your desires and tastes, but then it will be as if nothing has changed and your life will be as though it were always shared with mine.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Will I still be me?”
“Yes.” I refrained from telling him he would also be me. I reached for him again. “May I?”
He nodded and took a step forward. With little ceremony, I placed the palm of my hand on his shoulder and held it there. He tensed at first but soon relaxed when he felt little, if nothing, on contact. The touch rocked through my terrestrial core, as his coldness shot up my arm, making my head spin. Despite the pain, I held on to him.
“Can all of us touch?” He asked.
I assured him this was special. “Do you feel anything?”
“Maybe a tingle,” he said. “But nothing like a burn.”
“This is—is as bad as it will get for you.” It was difficult to speak with my head pounding as it was. I was only at the beginning, I reminded myself. It will get better. That is what Saturnia’s sister told me when she described how I would force my flame into the sapient, letting it live forever bound in his core.
“The coldness will outmatch everything you have ever known,” she had said. “Even worse than the gelid blue nivis on Gelu. But you are prepared for this.
Your rebirth into darkness and cold has made it so.”
“Will I still need the eye?” The thought of breaking free from my reliance on the molten fire had warmed me.
“Not as you do now,” she had said. “It will regulate you as it does the sapient, but your reliance on it will lessen, as it will no longer be the only source of your existence. You and the fire starter will be the second of a new breed, just like El.”
“And their offspring?”
Saturnia’s sister had nodded. “It is unfolding as it should.”
She had no guarantees. We all walked blindly toward the new world. My goddess, her retinue, the fire starter and Mara’s offspring, our fates were intertwined and could no longer be severed.
***
I will keep you safe, goddess. I will make you whole again, but you must go through it. You must experience the truth of your beings. You must know the lechery they are capable of. You must know that we are creatures of desire, of yearning, of lust, of fire. You made us so, in your image, goddess, and we worship you because of it. If they find you, I cannot stop them from ravishing you. They will fight for their existence, for the Venusian species. They are afraid to perish and will take you so their flames stay lit when you choose.
But unlike them I go willingly to my end. I will give up my existence to save yours. I belong to you, Kypria, and you are mine. I will do anything for you, I will suffer everything for you, I will experience all for you. Know that my admiration is infinite, goddess. You will live in me always.
***
I woke with the memory of a dream, the greatest evidence my fusion with the fire starter had taken hold. Soon we would be one and the same. I went with him to the wheat field to meet her, to see her through his eyes, to touch her with his hands for the first time. The field was dark with Terra’s satellite barely visible in a starless sky, so when he called to her, I remained unseen.
“El,” he said. “Are you here?”
Her small voice was like a whisper in the breeze, a welcomed change to the hum of the fire starter. She came out from the stalks of wheat and greeted Tal with a smile. Unveiled and free, she looked as I had dreamed.
El and Onine Page 12
