Curse: The end has only just begun

by Rich Hayden

  As he looked to the sky, Amil witnessed a cooperation of opposite forces. Typically segregated by the commands of time, he saw the darkness and the daylight, bright brilliance and conquering black. The sky was blue, like the ocean at dusk, and decorated by stars. Planets, entire solar systems, were clearly definable, as was the orange sun as it blazed above the natural stitching of the forest. Its wavering light bled through the trees and sent rays of amber into the pools far below. As Amil followed the lines of the sun’s extension, he also traced the curve of planetary rings as they wound themselves around their masters like celestial blankets.

  The air around him was fragrant and adorned with sound. He could not see the creatures which produced the pleasant melody of chirps and peeps, as they played soundtrack to his step, but Amil was fully content to allow their divinity to remain in the realm of imagination. The air itself was thick, not humid or full of allergens, but bountiful in its concentration of vaporous riches. It felt wonderful in his lungs, almost as though he truly lived again, and the mist which fell upon him returned a forgotten feeling of moisture to his skin.

  As he continued to weave through this arrangement of vitality, Amil never gave a thought as to when he might find Isadora. He no longer cared. Not from complacency or heartlessness. He simply wasn’t permitted to feel things which caused him distress or alarm. He had been refreshed in the breath of calm, and though he still clearly knew his task, he could sense no urgency or pain. Among the translucent haze of starlight and fog, as it rose from the water-rich soil below, Amil was content to endlessly wander. For if this was a curse, forever he be damned.

  Amil came upon a small lake that was enveloped by a hedgerow. This living border was swollen with young growth, and appeared to be frosted in a layer of pollen. The powdery substance shimmered with the same brilliance as the leaves above and delicately moved as one being. All around the tops of the shrubs, the sparkling pollen moved lazily about like a river that cannot decide on a direction of flow. As Amil neared, he was fascinated by its soft undulations, but what truly enraptured him was the quivering voice that rose up from the powder. Like a spirit as it ascends into heaven, the song drifted up into the bounty of the sky.

  It was near silent, but in its quiet, he could feel a praise whose magnitude surely reached into the far corners of the cosmos. Words were not offered from the hymn. The aural treasures were not directed toward Amil. Nor was the collective voice altered for the presence of a common man. They were sung for a greater purpose. Like a million voices in a singular worship, the song was a chorus for the grace of Isadora. Amil allowed the sound to fill his being until it was all he could sense. That divine dusting of life, those infinitesimal specks of the purest creation, they wove through his soul like vapor through a screen, and drew him into the embrace of the lake.

  The water was cool and slippery, almost like it had been polished until every trace of impurity was removed. As Amil waded into the pool, the azure mirror rippled away and caused the moonbeams upon its surface to dance with the shifting of the liquid. He stared up and watched as all the color of the magical forest slowly rose away from him, as under the surface he sank. Dragged down by the weight of Aphelianna’s key, he drifted deeper into a world of wetted blue. With no desire to swim against the touch of Isadora, Amil invited the fluid into his lungs and welcomed the water and the drowning that its company might bring.

  Amil next found himself lying upon a sandy trail that was flanked by reeds that grew tall and nodded with the breeze. He opened his eyes, and, there above him, held within a great ring of rock, was the bottom of the lake. It hung, suspended by nothing at all, and shifted as water is wont to do. As he stared up at the liquid and desired to again feel its touch, the thought occurred to him that perhaps he was much too tainted a creature for the pool to retain. Instead then, it had released him, and onto a new path, he was free to walk.

  He rose to his feet and trod down the narrow road. It exited the little cove and proceeded to coil its way through hilly terrain. The slender grasses which ran along the curve of Amil’s path all shared complexions of purple, and as he wound the sandy pathway further south, the plants grew taller than he. Walled in by the stalks and guided by them, he sent his eyes skyward again, and reached for the key around his neck. He felt the breeze as it kissed him. He watched as the long grasses were swept aside by the wind like waves. He stood within the center of purity, and as he felt cleansed by the harmony of life, Amil knew it was time to relinquish Aphelianna’s gift.

  That piece of damned jewelry felt jagged to his fingers, as it had been nearly dissolved by the lick of water. As it sat in his palm, brittle and malformed by wide cracks, he stared down at it and was reminded once again of all it had done to him. There was nothing but pain in that metal object, as it had only unlocked further misery. He thought longingly of Ali, and though he desired to free her now more than ever as he walked the fields of paradise, Amil felt no more need to carry such a pestiferous artifact. He slowly removed the rusted rope from his neck and allowed the key to drop to the soil below. He exhaled all the torments that had long pursued him, and suffered no consequences for his discarding of the key. As he watched the metal crumble to nothing, forever lost among the grains of sand, he felt as relief was finally given back to him.

  The clouds above, healthy and thick with the hue of white, began to drop rivulets of water onto the reeds beside Amil. They were enriched by the liquid’s delicate touch, and as they were nourished, the plants opened up and offered plumes of colored light back to the sky. As the reeds gave freely of their only possession to the charitable clouds overhead, Amil found himself encircled by the bands of a rainbow. The warm lights sank themselves into him. Expunged of Aphelianna’s wicked stain, he was allowed to feel the supreme generosity of Isadora.

  He fell to his knees, overcome by divinity and the sensation of life as it exists beyond the influence of any blemish or sin. Amil felt the caress of beauty, humbled by its touch, and by the mere fact that it had paid him any mind. Though surrounded by the majestic, he did not feel like a god, but rather, he felt with God, and as that ephemeral voice of the Everything spoke to him, it asked of Amil only one favor: to leave.

  Against the wishes of God, he rose to his feet and resumed his walk down the narrow trail, drawn on by the ultimate curiosity, and by the tease that his journey was near completion. After another blessed collection of blissful minutes, Amil came to the end of the sandy path. He parted a thick growth of the stalks, as they hung before him like a living drapery. The shoots were bent aside by his touch, and as they curved, so, too, did the light which emanated from them. There, beyond that arc of vaporous color, slept the Goddess of Life. Isadora lay before him.

  The forest around her was as lush and spectacular as the one that had led Amil to the lake, only here, every inch of the woodland seemed to softly breathe in concert with the rising and falling of Isadora’s chest. He stepped respectfully toward her, careful not to disturb a tree root or length of vine as he went along. He could feel everything. Even the soil beneath his feet seemed a conscious being that commanded great reverence. He was advancing upon the source of creation, and, as Amil looked upon the vegetation that surrounded him, he began to wonder if in fact he was in the presence of the oldest tree, the most ancient grass, and the first mosses to crawl over a rock.

  Partially obscured behind this immortal weave of nature, and located undoubtedly within the massive center of this interminable forest, was a bed. Curtains of blue hung from the silver bedposts, but they had been drawn back, as Isadora delighted in the feel of light upon her face as she slept. The sheets were of a deeper blue, adorned by gold stitching, and as they rippled down the stillness of her body, they spilled themselves out over the ground. Strange, but somehow appropriate, the linens turned to water as they touched the forest floor and eternally enriched the sacred life that grew next to the resting place of the great goddess.

  A ring of blooms, more full and vibrant than any Amil had pr
eviously seen, formed a wide border around Isadora’s bed. Their community was thick, nearly as tall as the bed frame itself, and the flowers kissed the mattress with their velvety chromatic lips. A pleasing zephyr blew through the petals, and as the tallest ones brushed the skin of Isadora’s arms, he heard as she hummed in contentment.

  The gentle sound, the sensation, whatever it was, almost brought Amil to tears. He had witnessed what no human had before experienced, and was humbled by the purity of the being before him.

  The divine Isadora lay upon her back with the oceanic sheets stretched up to her chest. She wore a simple gown of honeyed amber, and her milky white hands were folded across her stomach. Curled locks of blonde unfurled themselves over her small shoulders, but much more than ordinary hair grew from her head. Roots swam among her ringlets and ran to the ground. Most were slender, however, some were very thick, and grew in intricately woven patterns as they made for the cool comfort of soil. She appeared to be tethered to the forest by her brown and earthen locks, a mother Medusa of life, as all that she touched grew healthy and beautifully wild. She was the heart of it, The Beginning. Perhaps the whole forest, and all that lived therein, could be referred to as Isadora.

  As Amil gazed at the massive network that fell from her head, and all its subtle movements, he looked upon her face for the first time. She looked radiant in her repose, calm, and washed over by peace. Oh, how he longed to stare deep into the eyes of God. Lost below her lids, her eyes were surely a treasure too magnificent for any common and tainted man to view. Respectfully, Amil removed his attention from Isadora’s face. Slowly, and with great admiration, he followed a strand of springy hair that caressed the side of her neck. Before his eyes, the prize of his interminable journey awaited.

  Upon the tender flesh of her chest was a key. It was a bit large, like Amil’s used to be, but where his was a heavy, ugly thing, Isadora’s treasure was predictably splendid. It looked to have been carved from soap, or another like substance, and was the color of the sea as it washes up on the shore. Its lower portions were meticulously cut for appeal as much as purpose, while the upper ring saw a rope of flower petals run through it which affixed the key around Isadora’s neck. Amil felt as his fingers descended. He wasn’t sure if he was yet prepared to steal from the Goddess of Life, he just longed to finally touch the object which had eluded him for eons.

  “I can only implore you to stop,” a strained voice said.

  Amil glanced over toward the source of the words, and there, feet from where Isadora slept, was a frail old man. He sat upon the ground, horribly gray and overtaken by wrinkles, with his back against the trunk of a tree. The closer that Amil looked, the more it became clear that he was in the presence of another cursed deity.

  Below the knees, the pathetic twig-like legs of the being simply disappeared. Like sacks of grain torn open, the appendages bled into the soil below and crumbled into the consistency of dirt. The back of this forgotten god had been propped against the mighty tree behind him for so long it appeared that he had become engrafted to it. Just where his flesh ended, and the bark began, was a boundary impossible to discern. As Amil was forced to peer deeper into this stranger’s affliction, he made another upsetting discovery. The wrinkles that lined the man’s skin were not the paragraphs of old age, but rather, his flesh had started to turn into coverings foreign to the body of man. The bark of a tree was slowly stretching itself over his bones, and shoots were already visible as they pushed out from his fingertips. To Amil, it seemed only a matter of millennia before the defeated being at his feet would be no more recognizable than any of the other wooden giants which stood stoically among the forest of Isadora.

  “Krykus?” stammered Amil.

  “You have heard of me?” he groaned. “I suppose I am not the fearsome beast you must have envisioned.”

  “How long have you been here?” Amil asked wearily, as he gazed upon the sleeping Isadora and a supposed immortal who looked to be teetering upon the brink of death.

  “It is incalculable,” said Krykus, as he stared into the trees beyond as though he felt a much stronger kinship with them than with anything else.

  “Do you know what her key will unlock?”

  “Physically? No, I do not,” he answered quietly, with elegance usually absent from the voices of warrior gods. “But I do know that it should forever remain with Isadora.”

  “Why?” asked Amil. “You don’t know what it does any more than I do. I’ve come this far, maybe it’s mine to have. Maybe Aphelianna finally deserves to sleep.”

  “Aphelianna, the Goddess of Death,” Krykus whispered. “That key, she should never hold.”

  “So she cursed you after all, and you’re bitter. Oh, the torments you must have suffered,” said Amil sarcastically.

  “It is not Aphelianna who is responsible for my...transformation. More than just ensnare me, it is she who cursed me so,” he explained, as he raised a finger toward Isadora. “Do not confuse creation with purity. Isadora may not be evil, but she is also not pure. Wickedness is the nature of man, and now where do you suppose your kind came to inherit that trait?”

  “Krykus, I’m gonna take that key,” Amil said, softly.

  “Very well. But may I relay something to you first?”

  “Go ahead, try to discourage me,” said Amil, with patience in his voice.

  “On no, not a plea, just a tale.”

  “Okay then, let’s hear it.” Amil was torn. Every fiber of his being wanted to grab the key and dart away. After all, Krykus could be setting a trap, but curiosity forced him to hesitate. He had to know of Isadora. He had to know of himself. He had to know of the forbidden.

  “In a time so very ancient, when I was young, virile, and strong, Isadora lured me here. I followed her charms, as she knew I would, and on the day that her sister cursed her with eternal sleep, I was forever trapped in this massive garden. With no means to escape and no ability to rouse Isadora, I became her unwilling guard. This was my land to endlessly wander in the hope that I might one day find something to slaughter in order to alleviate the boredom. And so I stalked these woods like a true monster, in search of you, the challenger of fate, but you never came.

  “Then I grew tired. It was a day much like this that I sat upon the ground and leaned against this very tree for rest. And then I slept, and in my dreams, I, a god myself, was subject to the true magnificence of divinity. When I awoke, I had become a part of the tree, and one day I will become a part of this forest, and eventually, a part of eternity.

  “Over the arduous course of broken time, my vitality has been drained, my essence sucked away. It is almost as though Isadora employed this forest as a means to purge all the evil from me, and I suppose it has worked. You may see a dehydrated skin of a life since evaporated, but what I have lost in physicality I have gained a thousand fold in knowledge.

  “You see, after my anger receded and my desire to escape was exhausted, a great epiphany was mine to hold as the richest treasure of all. In time, once I am fully absorbed into this forest, I will also be absorbed into Isadora. You cannot flee here without her key. I’m sure you have gathered that by now, but consider the choice simply to stay. It will take aeons for your own absorption, but the serenity that you felt when you first arrived into this garden will accompany your every breath between this and that final moment. To be absorbed into God, now, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? This is how you escape Aphelianna’s curses, Amil. This is how you cheat death.”

  “What about Ali?” Amil asked, skeptical of the heavenly promise offered from Krykus, and shaken as the god called him by name.

  “She will be with you. She is waiting now. Isadora can give to you all that you need.”

  “You’re a liar! And so is she!” shouted Amil as he glared at the sleeping goddess. “Ali is waiting for me...in a fucking orchard of torture. She’s being eaten by crows, molested by some…diseased relation of yours!”

  “Amil, please...”

  “She
’s scared, Krykus. She’s lost,” he said with resolve. “When I looked into her eyes, I saw more fear than I have ever experienced in all my time in this horrible place. I saw where she is. I know where she is, and I’m going to use that key to free her.”

  “Amil, if you will permit me to speak once more, I have one more thing to tell you. I promise, if you still wish to take Isadora’s key, I will not interfere further.”

  Amil said nothing in return. Instead, he turned toward Isadora and slipped his fingers under her key. He felt the warmth of her skin, and, as his hand closed tightly around the object, he could feel Isadora’s heart as it fluttered.

  “Would you like to know the origins of man?” asked Krykus, boldly.

  Amil closed his eyes. All he had to do was pull, just a jerk of his arm, and his obligation to Aphelianna would be fulfilled. It was an action he could not take. Frozen like a moth that stares into a bright burning light. He allowed the key to rest once more, and turned back to Krykus, impatient to hear the ultimate explanation.

  “I can feel as she feels. I hear her thoughts as clearly as I hear your voice,” said Krykus.

  It was painfully clear that the affliction that fused Krykus to the tree had also set to work on his insides. His tongue was dry and split, like the wood that it was soon to be, and his throat was thick with sap. His voice was already labored from his previous speech, and as he squinted with greater regularity, Amil knew of how difficult it was becoming for the fallen god to form words. But for as uncomfortable as he was in his deformed immobility, Krykus kept steady, and took extreme care in respectfully lamenting Isadora’s condition.

  “Trapped under the weight of sleep, Isadora grew lonely, so desperately lonely. The pain she suffered in absolute silence was maddening. It was a sorrow mightier than the sum of all my former misdeeds. You see, Isadora is the Goddess of life, and, punished by her sister’s curse, she could not participate in living.”