by Ema Alves
10
The end of the cycle
After having found shelter in a tiny abandoned hunt, Elektra and Meridian were preparing themselves for the night. They lit a bonfire and waited for the darkness to defeat daylight.
Stirring the base of the firing tongues with a little stick, Meridian tried to entice the flames. After a long sigh, he asked Elektra, trying to extract from her the tormenting pain:
- Were those the ones… who killed your father?
- Yes – she said, her eyes engulfed in tears. Confronted with the recent succession of events, she had been strong. She had controlled her emotions as much as possible but, alone with Meridian, she failed to restrain herself and hugged him while convulsively crying. - You can’t imagine what he had to suffer! – she added amid sorrowful sobs.
- But it was worth it, at least – Meridian added, caressing her hair. – He did what he had to do to protect you and he certainly does not regret it. If he had to, he would do it again.
- Why are you saying that?
- Because he was your father and... he loved you – he proceeded. I know it, because... I love you too... I’m also your “father” and, if the situation demanded it, I would certainly die for you as well.
Elektra hugged Meridian even tighter. She was glad to have him.
Before the feeble firing light, she told him what she had seen when she approached the house where she had been born. She revealed the accumulated karmic loads that had waited and called her since the death of her biological father. They had been the reason why she had been propelled to walk to the river, looking across it. All that anxiousness for freedom came from those forces. Her parents needed to know whether she was okay or not.
However, she did not reveal that her father had prophesied, when he was near death, that she would come back to avenge him. She had not found the strength to put that revenge in motion and felt bad about it, seeing herself as a traitor for not having served the purposes of her parents.
“He did what he had to do to protect you and he certainly does not regret it. If he had to, he would do it again” – Meridian’s words echoed in her head, torturing her. After everything that her parents had been subjected to, putting her above their own lives, she had not had the courage to protect their dignity and avenge them. But killing those people would represent even more suffering, more pain and it was not a way to counteract the course. Elektra believed in love and the karmic wheel could only be stopped with it, something that had begun with her birth.
Nonetheless, although she had forgiven them, Elektra felt that those assassins were still hateful. They kept fearing her and also what they did not understand. They would probably make the same error again. But Humanity was like that and a change was quite unlikely. The different would continue to be different, pointed out, repressed and trialed. Prejudice would subsist and Elektra would have to live with it until the end of her days.
“Forgive me, father, for I have not been capable of avenging you!” – Elektra declared, feeling hesitant with the thoughts that came to her mind like the ebbs and flows of a distant sea.
When the moon was high already, she fell asleep.
*
The day had begun.
Tiny seeds neglected by time were feeling livelier due to a subtle energy that encouraged them to wake up to life. The sunlight, which the earth filtered finely, pointed towards the route to victory. Justice had been done and Shekhinah’s maternal womb was fertile once again.
Under Elektra’s footsteps, green shoots emerged from the soil, forming a hopeful path right in the heart of inhospitable land.
In a tiny settlement, a man was doing what he had done every day of his life: he had woken up early, worked the land and waited pointlessly for something that had caused in him eighteen years of nostalgia: food.
Drenched in sweat, he cleaned his skin with a small rag that he tied at his waist. He was staring at the sun with his eyes half closed and, when he looked around, he stared at that strange trail. Incredulous, for a moment, he thought he had just seen an illusion. But the apparition proved itself to be firm and hopeful.
He started to ran and dropped to his knees in the muddy earth that now swarmed with life.
He stretched out his arms and his hands managed to feel the softness of the tiny leaves that energetically revealed its shoots, throbbing with life. A joyful laugh grabbed the attention of the few who still endured life in the village, now also stunned before the green line that stretched to the horizon. But they had not been the first to witness that omen. Coming from the south, as if following a salvific trail, a great number of bystanders approached the village.
- Have you noticed this miracle? - One asked, as he approached the peasants.
- We have followed this path from the border with Safed. Do you know the one responsible for such a wonder? – another man added, leaning on an oak stick.
- ... I have some memories of two foreigners who crossed this land a couple of days ago... Her beauty was so immense that it managed to divert my attention from work.
- Her beauty!! – they vividly exclaimed.
- Yes… She was beautiful and by her side stood an older man. They were heading towards the citadel! – the man proceeded, pointing to the North.
Without wasting time, the men who had arrived from South continued their pilgrimage, following the green trail that was now expanding itself beyond the frontier.
With a new force, the peasants spiked the soil with their mattocks, glad to know that now their work would be rewarded.
*
Some birds were tweeting happily. Elektra opened her eyes and, stretching herself, called for Meridian, who was still plunged into the sleep’s dreamy sheets.
- Look, birds!! – she said as she stood up, pointing to a flock flying over their heads.
Eighteen years had passed since the exultant tweeting of birds had been heard in that dilapidated kingdom. Even if they were part of the migratory route of some species, they had always avoided kingdom and never flew over a territory that had nothing to give them in return.
Why did they come back? – Elektra wondered. But she quickly found the answer, in an invigorating greenish tone that painted the Shekhinah soil again.
Meridian stood up and, marveled by what he saw, he declared:
- The curse has been broken. The cycle is complete.
- Even without avenging them… – Elektra quietly said, glad that her parents had heard her prayers.
- What did you say? – Meridian asked, looking at her. – Avenging them?
- Yes... my father wanted me to come back to avenge him. But, now, it seems that he has changed his mind. – she answered, embarrassed that she had hidden that fact from Meridian.
- I don’t think he did... He simply forgot what he suffered when he saw you and became certain that all of that was worth it. He is now sure that he has saved a child, not a demon, as his murderers had professed. Your unmatchable goodness also prevented you from becoming a demon, drenched in hatred, someone who, driven by the fuel of vengeance, would shed blood again yet again over the lands of Shekhinah. The murderers would die, but they would win as well, their perishing would prove they were right and that you, Elektra... you would be a demon, indeed – he said, caressing her smooth face. - You followed your heart and you were rewarded for it - Meridian completed, as he disassembled the camp.
Elektra, feeling more courageous now, asserted:
- Father... I have nothing else to do in this kingdom.
- And what about the prince who is waiting for you? – Meridian said, testing her.
- Although we are equal, that doesn’t mean that we are bound to be happy together. Only more incompatibilities would emerge... I don’t love him. My heart has brought me here to do what was needed... now it drags me again to meet my destiny, whether that is to be happy or not.
Meridian kept himself quiet and silently mounted his horse.
Elektra stood on the ground, waiting for some r
esponse.
- We needed to complete this long journey so that you could embrace what your heart has been telling you. It was the most difficult lesson I ever taught you - Meridian said with a subtle smile. - Come on, get on your horse. I also have nothing else to do in this kingdom.
- But... didn’t you have to serve it? It was a dream of yours. Why are you rejecting it now? - Elektra asked, not understanding his change of plans. He did all of that to teach her to listen and now he was the one who looked incapable of listening to his own heart.
- It’s just as I’m telling you. I have nothing left to do in this kingdom.
Silently, Elektra jumped on her horse and together they rode south.
*
A few days later, in the center of the citadel of Shekhinah, the castle still had its doors closed. The king waited for Meridian inside, the well-known Wizard of Heidegger, who had been recommended by his brother, the King of Safed. Apparently, that would be the last chance to save his kingdom. There had been times when he failed to believe in anything, or perhaps, because he did not need to, he thought he did not believe. But those eighteen years had been extremely torturous. His kingdom had begun to turn into a devastated barren land after his son’s day of birth. He was not a common mortal being, but a defective hybrid. “A true demon who had arrived in this world only to destroy Shekhinah”, the king thought. With fear and shame, the people were prevented from seeing his son, since they would certainly be overthrown if he knew of the prince’s defects, tarnishing his noble name.
He remembered a time when he had given the order to hunt and burn all the kingdom’s wizards. The irony of fate now forced him to rely on their help. – “Indeed, when one is about to lose everything, even magic becomes trustworthy” - he thought.
But why are they taking so long? – he wondered.
*
Although slightly lit by a window, one room was darker than usual. The disgraced Prince Moad-ib walked every day of his life to that window, hoping to see something different on that monotonous land that stretched itself to the horizon. For years he had wished a fertile soil, so that he would no longer be blamed for the evil that had fallen upon the kingdom.
The imposing sunlight, which unremittingly tortured the ground, seemed to have disappeared, hidden by cloudy cumuli that were about to fall on the earth.
The abrupt darkness was now a source of concern for Moad-ib. Now on his feet, he walked to that crack in the wall. As he approached it, his heart was pounding so fast that he could feel it in his tongue. Something different had taken place and he could sense it, however, it was not the first time he had experienced that feeling and, in none of them, a miracle had painted that landscape with the greenish tones he dreamt of.
A slight breeze invaded his room with a different scent. Afraid, the prince slowed his pace, closed his eyes and slowly approached the wooden railing. A breath of fresh air touched his face, forcing him to wonder about that whole freshness. When he opened his eyes, he stared at a horizon that was no longer sterile, it had now had a subtle greenish hue. He looked around and, amazed, he could see colors that he considered to be possible only in dreams. His eyes were watery and, along with the clouds, the drops poured into Shekhinah’s rough soil.
*
The castle’s turmoil was generalized. The king, self-centered in his ponderations, was suddenly awakened by a raucous thunder. He walked to the window and watched the huge drops falling on thin grass shoots that appeared on the land.
Stunned by what the landscape was presenting him with, he wondered “How can this be possible??... Weeds... the rain”, while he ran through the castle’s gloomy corridors, looking for a door that would allow him access to the outside.
Stepping into a vast court, which had been a glorious garden once, he closed his eyes and let himself be soaked by the strong pouring. “The Wizards have not arrived, but I no longer need them” - he conjectured.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the prince, his own son, who, in his room’s window, stared at the sky with happiness. For the first time, he seemed to regard him as a creature of God.
He could no longer hold him guilty for the evil that plagued that kingdom, the rain had returned and, with it, the green of prosperity. Now he knew he was simply different. Different, but... human.
*
The greenery brought the insects and these brought the birds, which now had again food for their offspring.
Shekhinah’s new atmosphere was easily breathable, the fresh air of the grass, which quickly burst from the ground, defeated the warm and dusty wind that had been blowing in that territory for days. The rain was relentless. It seemed that the dry land was attempting to retrieve eighteen years of absent humidity, in a quest for revitalization.
Meridian and Elektra rode the sinuous terrain that would lead them to the kingdom of Safed again. Arriving at the top of a hill, they saw from afar a horde of people coming in their direction.
Stopping their horses, Meridian said:
- They are looking for you!
- I know. They are looking for the person responsible for the miracle.
- What do you want to do? – Meridian questioned.
- Get out of this kingdom. I have done my part already and... you know as well as I do, that they would never worship me for the deed.
- Why are you saying that?
- As soon as they discovered my story, they would realize that I have been born with their curse. They would reach the conclusion that, if they had killed me at birth, evilness would never have been a part of their lives. Sooner or later, they would blame me and the stake would be my fate again.
- You’re right – Meridian said, looking around.
The mountainous terrain and the white rainy cloud could provide them with an escape.
- Come on, let’s get ourselves some shelter in that piece of earth. - Meridian said, pointing to a small cave that had been formed by a landslide. – We will try to get around these hills and maybe we will leave this realm without being seen – the wizard concluded, as a beam of light brightened the skies, momentarily igniting the raindrops that hung on his wet beard.
After a rough journey between hills and valleys, they followed the small course of the water that kept getting wider, as they moved away from its source.
“How is it possible that, for this small stream, a major river is born, whose tumultuous waters, for years, had prevented me from leaving the Sibyl forest?” – Elektra pondered, as she walked.
They were getting nearer the frontier with Safed. Having followed the river course, they had diverted a bit from their original path in order to avoid Soamandrakrisal after leaving Safed, where they would certainly not be welcome.
11
The encounter with the absolute. Happiness
Near the river, a man contemplating the other shore, heard galloping. Some strangers appeared behind the horses. Those would probably be people looking for his services. “Yes, that could only be it.” - he thought.
After turning himself quite placidly, he encountered the unexpected. A fervor reached his throat, stopping him from swallowing normally. His eyes shone as he called her name.
- Elektra!!
Their eyes met for a brief moment. The souls touched each other through the crystalline mirror that reflected them on the outside. For a moment, they felt that their spirits had known each other for ages.
He quietly walked to her. After getting off her horse, Elektra looked for a sign, a smile, an unexpected joy, anything to prove that he really loved her and would be happy to see her.
- So, have you found your prince?
- I did…
Offerus, incapable of containing himself, started to weep. He failed to understand the reason that had brought her back to him. Certainly, she had reappeared just to thank him for having saved her. To make him feel important in the superior divine realm, which would give Elektra the encounter with happiness next to her prince.
After wiping his face, he felt
joy for her. True love would never turn into hate. True love did not mean owning the other.
The tear was the sign she had expected and, without fear, Elektra said:
- …It’s you!
He smiled and hugged her with tenderness. Elektra put her arms around him and, without any fear of being rejected, gave him a kiss that was welcomed with joy.
- Why do you love me? – Elektra asked.
- For what you are, nothing else!
- But I’m two!!
- No, you're just... wholeness! The perfect body of the Universe.
She had listened to her heart and, because of that, she had achieved her reward. She deserved that happiness and nothing in this world stopped her from reaching it. Not even the secret that her father attempted to hide.
*
After having taken her daughter to meet her destiny, Meridian returned to Heidegger.
He had studied nature his whole life in order to become a Wizard, a being that would supposedly hold the supreme truth. Deep down, he had found answers to many of the mysteries of the Universe and, the more he discovered, the humbler he became.
The objective for any wizard of the ancient magical tradition of Heidegger was to serve a kingdom and, with their knowledge and advice, prevent Mankind from achieving self-destruction – a process that implied subtle influences on the destiny of Men, whose annihilating genius spoke louder than good advice – but Meridian had learned immensely during the recent months and the level of wisdom he attained had made him a mere bystander. As Offerus did, he would placidly wait for those who were willing to look for him to learn, but he would never try to teach anyone who needed to learn at the cost of their own mistakes.
