by T. Wyse
Amelie placed the palm of her hand against the glass, straining to see outwards, straining to gaze into the world unseen. She strained so hard, pushing against the glass, but it betrayed no flaws. She stretched out her perceptions behind, towards the doors of the school, forcing her mind through the tiny breathing cracks.
For all this terrible, painful strain, she was given nothing. Her trickling perception could not reach far beyond the doors before it became a useless blur, yet even in that air there was a subtle truth. The wind itself waited in hushed anticipation of what occurred, and with an aching head she surrendered to the guidance of her eyes in whole.
Another bolt, and she could taste it. The shimmering electricity of the sky, the subtle silence, but not quite silence, no. There was a sensation of light, of a thick presence in the back of her throat. In all ways it was the thing, the Terror of Night, but counter to that, everything not the creature she had seen.
"It's dying." She realized. The bolts were that of a weapon striking an anvil, forging something, changing the world itself. She looked up, and heard something, the faintest sound. It was not unlike the whispers of the artifacts, but much less sinister, much less legion. It was a song, a chanting of some kind, accompanied by a drumming rhythm.
"This isn't something to be feared." She said, loud enough to be heard. "This isn't the end, it's not the end at all." She looked back upon the room of fearful eyes. "Open your minds, look up without fear." She declared, her eyes cast upwards, her palm basking in the warm light above. "It's a piece of the world, becoming whole again."
Another bolt, then another. Amelie imagined she could hear the wailing of the terrible thing, somewhere in the night. Its screams were not things of fear, they were of comforting warmth.
It screamed, and Amelie remembered the warmth of a fireplace against the cold of the winter's bite. It bled, and Amelie could almost hear the sound of rain softly tapping against her tent roof as she slept soundly, without fear. Its pain, its agony was everything wonderful, it was hope to the lost, it was shelter for the dissolute. Each blow struck in it shot another bolt across the sky, each a bolt of purity, of joy.
It was the blood of despair itself, the misery of night's terror incarnate that painted the sky. Amelie stole a look at the room, and saw that there was a calm in some of the faces, they had opened themselves, and now too saw the wonder that was before them.
A final blow exploded, a bolt ten times as bright and ten times as wide tore skywards, illuminating the entire world with a light that drowned the dimness of the pathetic electric lights below. It hit the blisteringly paced colours gyrating and swirling in the sky, and exploded into them.
Amelie stared up, transfixed on a sight that she would never see again, couldn't even possibly be seeing now. The final bolt had torn a hole in the sky, a disk of pure radiant white emerged from it, hovering there a moment then exploding outwards in a shockwave. It disappeared beyond the horizon, and a second ring, one of black, wrapped meticulously around the white, leaving only sparkling flecks of the canvas behind. The blackness too disappeared beyond the horizon, and then the night was tranquil again.
The once fearful children looked up, raising their hands in concert, as if to touch the sparkling strangers above. Their eyes glistened, and in a hushed reverence they gazed above.
The sailor's map, the pieces of gods long forgotten. Inspirations for the raw spirituality of humankind, and the kindly wardens of those travelling at night. The stars had returned to them, and in concert they wept with joy.
13
The Second Night
The calm spell hung in the air well after the spectacle had completed. All of the franticness had melted away, and those still managing to stand had arrived at the consensus to sit. The spell lingered on even after Lyssa had slipped away back to her unchanged duties, apparently satisfied of the conclusion of the crisis.
Amelie wove through the crowd without resistance, her presence almost entirely unnoticed. Even Melissan and E had settled into a couch, E’s head against the older girl’s shoulder despite the crowding of the strangers sitting with them.
Neither Craig nor Wendy noted her passing, having sat down in the back of the crowd beside one another. Amelie strode as a ghost in a world transfixed by the return of an old and unappreciated friend.
Though empty, the stillness infected the hallway, the tranquility’s breath spreading a tangible warmth throughout. The library, the games room, and the fire room all repeated the same scene: in each the activities and distractions had been abandoned, in favor of a swarming around the window, in order to see outwards into the changed night. Amelie wondered if only she and Lyssa were unaffected, guided by duty and destination.
That feeling of destination breathed out from inside of her, her unique understanding of the events calming every bit of her soul. The Terror of Night had been slain, and with that strange and distant action she couldn’t help but be inspired.
Rounding the steps of the tower, the sight of the transformation caught her breath in her throat. No longer an unseen cylinder of vague winds and gloomy dark, now it ascended high and true, resembling some forgotten, crystalline temple. The twinkling heavens filled the swooping mosaic like a kaleidoscope. Greens, reds, blues, yellows, all mingled through the translucent windows, creating a much more subtle patchwork patterning across the room, and its hulking centerpiece.
Kokopelli stood there, gazing out into the night, his fur alight with a rainbow’s lick of sparkles.
She quieted the lantern’s glow, finding it somehow ugly, somehow disrespectful to drown the indescribable jewels painting every surface. Twinkling stars came out to play upon the palms of her hands with the bullying light quashed.
“I…” She broke the silence, and again her breath caught. Kokopelli shifted and the field of coloured stars warped upon his shagged fur. “I watched it all.” She knelt beside him.
"It's gone now, isn't it?" She waved her hands in the air, still filled with joy as the light sparkled on the backs of her hands.
"Indeed," he crackled softly, not looking up.
"The crows. Where are they?" Realizing their utter absence. Not a single black dot blotted out the crystalline windows.
"Even aspects have hearts to be moved." Kokopelli said, his voice smiling. "This night will be one of tranquility, one of peace. It would be safe to walk the earth at night for you, if you were so inclined. Every beast upon the earth, man or god, will find a stirring in their souls at the return of the stars."
And for a moment she considered it, her heart already full of joy trembled with the thought of going out into the dirt, of feeling the wind in her still tangled hair.
Yet, the feeling passed, and either her own rationality or Amanda’s lingering presence warned her away. Were she to exit and be seen, then surely they would expect it of her again. More importantly: to taste of the wind again only to once again be confined…no, that would be too much to bear.
Amelie changed into her sleeping clothes, not disheartened, still enjoying the night devoid of flapping wings. She emerged again from the curtains to find Kokopelli having turned from the vigil, his hunched form having shed the joy of the light and offering only a grey silhouette under the stars.
She took up a position at the centre of the ornamental rug, sitting cross legged. She inhaled a few times, savoring the silence for a few more stolen moments, and then she let the words flow out.
"So, what is your third price, little god?" she asked, not from fear or desperation, not driven by rage. The breath poured out with loose tranquility. "Not my immortal soul, I hope?" The added breath trickled forth and cut through the tranquil cloud playfully.
"Bah," he scolded. "One cannot simply contract their soul away, only through deeds and perceptions changed can a human 'sell his soul,” he finished.
“You feel you are ready then? You feel that this event has harkened the coming of the third price?” he asked with vicious slyness.
“Not the event
itself, no.” Amelie gazed at him. “I think that you may have felt that the shadows might rise again should we do it, because you thought I was too afraid.”
"No. I simply warned against it, playing on your fears of what had happened." He chuckled.
“Then here I am, different from yesterday. Today my breath is calmed. If I am not ready today, then I cannot think of when.”
“In truth, I have already gone much further than I should have. I find myself reluctant to proceed.”
“I want to hear it,” she insisted. “You respected that insistence at first, and again, so please accept it now.”
There was a resisting silence from the creature. He looked back out on the silent world.
"Well, let's see." She began, kneeling before him so they were on closer level. "Your first price was a pittance, a gesture of sincerity. Your second price was blood, gesture of mild sacrifice. I can only imagine the third will be a further escalation of this theme." She said, then holding her arm out towards him.
"The third sacrifice, is of flesh." He answered. She couldn't help but flinch at that, withdrawing her arm slightly.
"Not much, don't worry." He tried to say with a soothing tone; it didn't help much.
"Will it hurt?" She asked, "Will it heal, as it has been?" The words 'as it has been' brought that denying buzz to her mind in force. No, she resolved, fighting it back. No, I won't deny it.
"This is the same sacrifice the crows have been taking from you, only one given freely. It will heal as all your wounds have." Kokopelli paused, "It will hurt, however, there is little I can do about that. It will be quick." He added finally.
Amelie rolled up her sleeve. "It seems a pittance, for knowledge of the gods themselves." She said with a tinge of biting sarcasm.
"Here." He tossed a bandage wrap down on the floor, apparently having produced it from the air itself.
"You've been raiding the clinic have you?" She asked, jokingly.
"Doors aren't terribly hard things to get around." He answered.
"Well then." Amelie said, bringing her arm back towards the little creature. "I assume the words are the same?"
"They are, though the meaning is different." He purred.
"Asay nitukoosinin, Nikeentohtawawak okimawak kamamawahpichik unteh Kokopelli Nahemtumwak." She spoke, her eyes closed. She gripped the bandage in her right hand. She winced, feeling a sliding tear down her arm. She quickly applied the bandage, rounding it tightly around the arm, her eyes still closed. The thought of seeing the spectacle that was likely in front of her made her stomach churn.
She waited there, hand clamped around the bandage, and bathed in the mercy that whatever happened away from her sight did so without any sinister sounds. Breath in, breath out, she focused inwards, not wanting the shape to brush against her narrowed vision of the wind, and then finally something changed.
Her eyes, not being shut as tightly as her sense of the wind, sensed a faint crack of light against the black.
“Relax. It is done,” a stranger’s voice declared somewhere to her left.
The light erupted forth from the vague pinprick, and the room shifted into a new life. The space bathed in the radiance. The floor seemed to hum in some happy recognition, once again warm to the touch. The great machine too, glittered and shone, as if having been polished with meticulous hands in the brief passing moment. The celestial temple of brilliant stars had been drowned in the radiance, and yet the most shocking change in the room was Kokopelli himself.
In the place of that tiny and shagged little creature now stood the proud form of a great silver cat. His matted fur now flowed neatly backwards, shining in glimmering radiance. His slouched and jutting shoulders and crooked back now rippled with sleek muscle and proud nobility. His jaw no longer scowled with a jutting underbite but resembled a serene and thoughtful prowling prince of the deepest jungles. He sat there, his eyes closed, basking in his own radiant silver light.
"Kokopelli?" She whispered, shifting over to be near him. Even sitting he was larger than she was now, the size of a small deer.
"No." His voice echoed with clarity and enough force that the machine hummed as the words shot out. His eyes opened, all traces of the red had vanished, only glorious pure white shone forth. The light was soft, comforting, Amelie felt her heart weep at the beauty of the god before her. "In this moment, this briefest glorious moment of remembrance, I am Qotsamosa."
"I..." She started, but then staggered on the words.
"Are you unafraid?" His voice boomed, face gazing down.
"I don't think I've ever been less afraid." She smiled gently and from her very core. His face brimmed with a contemplative wildness, his weary sadness overwritten by this gentle visage.
"Then we shall begin," he breathed out. The swirling mists of the lines appeared, only now they enveloped the entirety of the room. They circled the great shining machine, and the glow hushed into anticipatory dark. Lines radiated off of the machine, and the room swam with a misty storm of crackling colour.
"Since the beginning of memory itself, this is how the world has been." His voice boomed, obstructed by the mists, swirling and forming. The machine in the middle of the room echoed his words, it too seemed to remember the life it once had, it too seemed intent on sharing the telling of the tale.
The mists coalesced together, forming a browned sphere below the two of them. They were floating in space, the tower having vanished. A sparkling line tore across the world, populating it with plants, water, animals. They fell towards the earth, landing in a field thick of radiant green grass. The feeling of the lines remained, all of the objects were more complex, yet still expressed through the simplistic, rounded lines.
"Once," The voice paused, spacing itself from the words to come, "There was a man." A man, glowingly blue appeared. There were patterns inside him, spirits of animals, spirits of the world, all living swimming inside. "His name was Enut. He sought and he craved, all the things that men crave." Amelie saw the stylized image of the man hunting animals, feasting, laughing with his tribe. She saw him in his triumphs, rising to a place of power in his tribe, his hand gentle and knowing to those it touched.
The man took a wife, the man was borne children. Time passed, the children grew, and the man slowly changed from blue to a tired grey.
"Man seeks the company of others, he seeks to raise himself to comfort, to stability. Men are foolish beasts however, and they are quick to lose sight of that which is of most import."
Something happened, so quickly that Amelie could barely understand. The villagers standing around him knelt down, wracked with invisible pain, each of them faded into black in turn, their hearts encompassed with a familiar piercing white. Each of them died from this terrible illness, and then crumbled into ash.
Enut too, lost the colour of his life-force, but he lived on, he endured the pain of the sickness. It was a dull greyed figure who left his village behind, staggering with the shape of his last remaining child clutched in his hands. The child was nearly blackened, though that piercing white had not yet claimed its life.
He arrived at a cave. Strangely he was brighter in colour than before, his stagger less pronounced. The cave went on through a mazelike series of passages until he arrived at the mountain’s heart, the den of some unspeakable beast. Even resting its form dwarfed the man, the thing’s shoulders stretched wider than the demure man was tall. It rose up with a weary interest, and massively muscled arms dragged temporarily stayed claws along the floor. It shone within a tearing and ancient red halo, and it was not pleased to have this guest.
It did not strike, however. It merely regarded him with a scowling silence.
Enut fell to his knees, pleading desperately, his words lost into the forgetfulness of time. He motioned at his son desperately, screaming 'help him, help him please!' with his very soul.
A murky sentiment tainted the memory, muddying the clarity of the image. It tasted of the staleness of uncertainty, of the struggle to recall some
thing long faded, but also there seemed to be two different concepts overlapping the moment.
One of the flickering images asserted itself, burning the other's troublesome memory, and the great beast smote the man, a great claw striking through his heart. The man crumbled to dust and was gone, yet the light that had signaled the death of the others did not shine.
The creature touched the child with the paw not guilty of the crime of murder, and the child was healed, the blackness overshone with a vibrant blue. The terrible and ancient beast took the boy gently into its embrace.
Again that flicker, of more than one thing, more than one image fighting for dominance. She wanted to ask what it meant, but didn't dare interrupt the great cat's tale.
"When man enters the night of his life, he travels to a place unseen, but known to all." The setting changed, the world was replaced by darkness consuming. In the darkness the silhouette of man stood, walking in lonely solitude. Each side of his path was bordered by silhouettes of black trees, silent, still. The man came to the end of his path, reaching a final tree, neatly sliced down its middle so that the core faced the intruder. At the heart of the tree shone a symbol. The symbol was a simple angular shape, and yet the radiance of it burned her eyes even in the faded memory. "This, is the dark heart of the wood. The edge of all that is, the end of the path of the soul." The voice boomed.
That light, that consuming light that burned her eyes even in the falsified and vague memory—she realized she knew it. A memory left inside the dream world, but asserted in the real: she had ‘seen’ it through the mesh of her pen every time she had been there. She had felt its burning touch in every visit, in every dream.
"It is here, that each man is judged, each is weighed." The voice declared. The man stood, staring at the symbol ahead of him. "Yet, even in this hour of judgment, or rather especially so, man seeks companions." A number of silhouetted creatures appeared, some of them purest red, some of them of purest white. Amelie recognized the silhouette of the great clawed beast from before, the child now standing beside him.
