The Smuggler's Ascension: The Ties That Died

by Christopher Ingersoll

  Sitting at the center of the cushions was a woman with long, curly golden hair. Her eyes were also golden in color and they glisten with unshed tears. She wore a pure white toga wrapped around her, while her pale white shoulders were bare. The Goddess Cassandra was heartbreakingly beautiful, Sabine felt, and it was easy to understand why Pyreus and Azrael had desired her so. Sabine hesitated in calling what the two Gods had felt for this Goddess to be love. What she had felt from them in the vision on Durani had felt more like possession than love.

  “And so you have come,” Cassandra said in a sad, musical voice. “Even though I had told you to turn back, still you come to torment me.”

  “We do not come to torment you,” Sabine objected in shock. “How could you possibly think we mean to torment you?”

  “It may not be your intent,” Cassandra said sadly, “Yet it happens just the same. I mourn the loss of those I thought loved me, and I mourn the loss of love itself, and you three would come here flaunting what you have, as if it could compare to what I have lost.”

  “I make no claims that our love compares to what you have lost, Cassandra,” Kristof said boldly as he stepped forward to face the Goddess. “I have seen what you shared with Pyreus and Azrael from the visions of the Temple replica on Durani. So yes, what you had is no comparison to what I share with Sabine and Anasha. What we share is true love freely given and taken, while Pyreus and Azrael sought possession of you, not love.”

  “How dare you,” Cassandra said as her sadness was replaced by sudden anger. “Who are you to speak to me so? You know nothing of what I felt for Azrael and Pyreus, of the pain I have endured from their loss.”

  “You know exactly who I am,” Kristof continued relentlessly. “Do you remember who you are? I came here expecting the Goddess of Knowledge and Visions, beloved Anza’Tai of the Su’Tani people, not a Goddess wallowing in misery over two Gods that she clearly did not truly know.”

  Casandra’s rage was a frightening sight, Sabine thought, and she wished Kristof would quit provoking her. While what he had said was true, he could have found a softer way to say it. Anasha appeared just as shocked beside her as her jaw hung open.

  “I have witnessed the passion that ignited between you and the tiny queen,” Casandra said angrily, “But you believe that it is love? I have also witnessed your passion with the daughter of beloved Subat, yet you believe this also is true love? You think to forge a Triad of love where the Gods could not? You are an arrogant man, to be sure.”

  Sabine stood shocked at the anger in Cassandra’s words, and silently cursed Kristof’s indelicate manner. Subat had told them they needed to show Cassandra the strength of their love, not rub her face in her own failure. Things would go downhill soon if they could not change the course of things here. She began to search for a way to show the Goddess their love.

  “It is true love, Mistress Cassandra,” Anasha said softly, trying to ease the tension in the room. “There is nothing I would not do for my loves, as I know they would do no less for me. Our hearts, our minds, ours souls are as one through the Akana’San’Tani ritual.”

  “It is not possible,” Cassandra said as she seemed slightly confused in her anger. “No such binding is possible, even the Gods have failed in this as I learned to my eternal sorrow.”

  “I assure you…” Anasha began, but Cassandra stopped her.

  “I will hear no more of this,” Cassandra said stubbornly. “You will leave in the morning. I have no help for you, I will not aid you in killing my Azrael.”

  Cassandra rose and left the room abruptly, leaving Sabine and her loves alone. Sabine sank onto a pillow within the center of the room, her back suddenly aching. Anasha came to her and started rubbing the spots she knew were sorest what they both gave Kristof a scathing look.

  “So what now, Mister Tact?” Sabine asked sarcastically. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go smack her around a bit with some more hard truths?”

  “Yeah,” Anasha said in agreement, “What’s with trying to beat her down with her own failed Triad? She needs to see the possibilities of what we have.”

  Kristof came and sat near them with a sigh.

  “Cassandra has had eons to nurse this hurt,” Kristof said. “She’s practically turned the whole tragic event into a sort of armor around her, and we’re not going to get through to her with subtle words. I needed to rattle her smug self-pity and start opening some holes in the way she sees things.”

  “I couldn’t believe when she said she didn’t believe in love anymore,” Sabine said sadly. “It must be a sad life, especially for a Goddess, to live thinking that love is a lie.”

  “We need to show her somehow that what we feel is real,” Anasha said. “She needs to experience it somehow.”

  Sabine considered what Anasha had said, and an idea began to form in her mind. There was certainly one way in which their love always shined like a supernova in a mineshaft with its expression. She wasn’t sure how the others would react to what she had in mind, so she worked out the plan on her own as Kristof rose to explore the room they’d been left in. Sabine watched him, and let all the love and desire she felt for him fill her mind and then she tried to let that love flow outward to him and beyond.

  Anasha seemed to sense what Sabine was doing and turned to give Sabine an incredulous questioning look. Rather than answer, Sabine let the love and desire she felt for Anasha to also fill her to overflowing, and wove that love into the love she felt for Kristof. In time, Anasha began to understand what Sabine was doing and allowed her own love and desire to rise and overflow as she leaned forward to kiss Sabine.

  Sabine drew Anasha into the kiss, letting all of her love and desire flow freely like a river. She felt Kristof watching them incredulously all of a sudden, and also felt his love and desire for them rising and mingling with theirs even as it pressed outward beyond them. Their mingled love and desire was a familiar sensation, and yet profoundly more powerful because they done it so deliberately and intensely in the moment as the feelings began to flow throughout the Temple. Sabine slid her hand under Anasha’s shirt to caress her breast as her love burst forth like a ruptured damn with Kristof’s love added to theirs.

  This was the most joyous expression of the love and desire they all shared, the way the made love together as a single entity. Kristof lifted Anasha’s shirt free as Anasha lifted Sabine’s over her head. The storm of love they had created rushed around them like a wildfire that created rather than consumed. Kristof kissed them both even as they undressed him and each other. Their love had become a small star within the Temple as Kristof laid Sabine upon her back and kissed his way down her body. Anasha came to kiss her, and Sabine returned her kiss passionately even as she gasped in joy as she felt Kristof also kissing her between her legs.

  Sabine lost most of her conscious thought in the storm of their love as Anasha and Kristof brought her over the edge of passion into a blissful oblivion, even as they began to love each other with a growing need and love. Sabine reached out to caress Anasha’s sex as Anasha took Kristof in her mouth even as Kristof continued to lick Sabine’s sex, and the three lovers were slowly building the fire of their love into an inferno. The Temple chamber seemed like a pressure cooker slowly rising in intensity.

  Time seemed to stop as the three lovers continued, and Sabine slowly reached out with her mind and found Cassandra’s consciousness watching them in wonder and envy, yet still wishing to deny what she was seeing. Sabine made a split second decision, which was just as quickly and miraculously approved by her loves, and pulled Cassandra into their spiritual union to bathe the Goddess in their love and desire.

  Sabine smiled as she watched Anasha kiss Cassandra even as the Goddess stiffened in shock. They had completely surprised the Goddess with the openness of their love, and Sabine rose to kiss the Goddess as well. Moments later she sensed that it was no longer just a spiritual union, as Cassandra joined them in body as well. Sabine smiled in delight at having reached the Goddes
s and broken through eons of doubt and misery to bring her this moment of pure joy. For as long as the moment lasted, the Goddess would forget everything except what it felt like to truly beloved.

  Now four, the lovers writhed in a sea of their desires, the fires of their passion now raging through the room, barely contained within its walls. Kristof eased Cassandra’s robes off so that she stood nude among them, and they enclosed her within the love of their Triad. Cassandra became lost in the moment as Anasha and Sabine kissed her, while Kristof kissed the back of her neck and caressed her body.

  Sabine looked deep into Cassandra’s eyes and sent her a brief thought ‘We love you’ that broke through the last of Cassandra’s armor which released a torrent of unshed tears that evaporated in the heat of the love offered to her, and she let herself be swept away in the currents of that love. As Cassandra learned the depths of true love and passion, Sabine rejoiced in the Goddess’s awakening. She and Anasha lay beside the Goddess and kissed her softly as Kristof rose above her and entered her slowly, and the look in Cassandra’s eyes was all that Sabine could have hoped for.

  Their passion grew beyond the bounds of the Temple, and their love swept through the Garden of Eternal Light, giving freely of the true love that consumed and renewed the lovers within the Temple. When Cassandra’s passion reached its peak and exploded, the Garden was lost in brilliant white light, and all of the people within the Garden felt their Goddess’s love as they never had before. Waves of that love burst again and again from the Temple through the night, until all lay quiet and more peaceful than ever before.

  ~30~

  Kristof awakened slowly amidst a tangle of arms and legs. Sabine lay to his left, still asleep, with Anasha spooned in behind her with her hand on the Queen’s stomach as it normally was when they slept. Sabine’s leg had draped across his, and her hand rested on his chest. Another leg lay draped across his, and there was another arm on his chest as he felt a warm body curled up tight to him and a head laying on his shoulder.

  It took a few moments of realizing Sabine and Anasha were both lying to his left before he remembered that it was Cassandra that he held on his right. Sabine had so subtly drawn them all into the power and openness of her love that it had seemed only natural to draw Cassandra into it as well. The Goddess may not have been entirely willing at first because of her disbelief, but her reluctance had not lasted long.

  They had all felt the Goddess’s heart heal in the light and power of first Sabine’s love, and then the love from all of them as they took Cassandra into their hearts. Cassandra had become wondrous as she beheld the depths and strength of the love between Kristof, Anasha, and Sabine. Kristof had watched as, for the first time ever, the Goddess truly understood what love was.

  Once her barriers had at last been lowered, Cassandra had openly loved them in return as she understood and felt what love truly was. Kristof marveled at Sabine’s ability to open her heart so freely and welcome Cassandra in, and through Sabine’s love Kristof and Anasha had also come to love the Goddess, though Anasha already had since Anza’Tai was the Goddess of the Su’Tani people.

  For Kristof, it had almost been as difficult to lower his barriers as it had been for Cassandra. He was amazed to find he even had any room left in his heart after all the love he had for Sabine and Anasha, but in those moments he had learned something new of love himself. Love was like a fire, where if you took two separate flames and brought them together, they would become a single flame but did not necessarily take up more space.

  “You’re family has taught me much of love this day,” Cassandra said softly as she lay in Kristof’s arms and slowly caressed his chest. “I was arrogant and rigid in my beliefs, and all along I knew nothing. I can see now that Pyreus and Azrael coveted me for my beauty, and sought to possess me as you said, but it was not love.”

  “It is hard to see the nature of the storm when you are caught in its throes,” Kristof said just as softly, his hand caressing her back in return.

  “So wise, for a mortal,” Cassandra said and Kristof could feel her smile. “Since the dawn of time the Gods have held themselves as the pinnacle of progress to which mortals should strive to be like, and all along there has been much that mortals had to teach us too, and we were too blind to see it.”

  “Perhaps it is because being mortal forces men and women to grow faster, experience quicker, and value what we have more,” Kristof said after some thought.

  “It is because we have so little time that we strive to make the most of it,” Sabine said from beside them, now awake as well as was Anasha.

  “You three have given me a gift beyond imagining,” Cassandra said as she grasped Sabine’s hand and kissed it softly. “I will forever carry this night in my heart as a beacon of love and hope.”

  In a flash, Cassandra was gone.

  Kristof began to worry that she might still refuse to help them, but he silenced his doubts as Anasha came to his side and curled up with him as Sabine snuggled closer as well. The room was very warm, so they did not seek to cover themselves as they lay together. Starlight shined through windows in the ceiling they had not noticed before. Sabine and Anasha were soon asleep in his arms, but Kristof felt no need to sleep. The night had energized him and made him feel more alive than ever.

  Hours passed as Kristof just lay in a sense of bliss as his love for Anasha and Sabine still swirled through his head and heart. After a while, he sensed that Cassandra had returned, though she stood in the shadows and just watched them. He made no move to acknowledge or disturb her, as he sensed that she watched them to learn, and that the swirling of love he felt in his heart was from her examination of their hearts so she could continue to learn.

  Love for Cassandra remained in Kristof’s heart, as well. One could not make love to a Goddess and remain unchanged, and he knew it was the same with Sabine and Anasha. They all also knew that once they left the Garden of Eternal Light and returned to the Mortal Realm, they would likely never see Cassandra again. They would know she was there, though, watching over them even as she did now. It would be enough.

  Cassandra left shortly before the sun rose and brought light to the Garden. Kristof was in awe at the power it must take to create such a place in Null Space, a place that sat between realms and had no natural laws of its own that he knew of. Sabine began to stir in his arms, and Kristof leaned down to kiss her as her eyes came open.

  “Good morning, my love,” Kristof whispered quietly as he felt Anasha also begin to stir. “Good morning to you, too, my love,” Kristof whispered as he kissed Anasha.

  “Where did Cassandra go?” Sabine asked once she noticed the Goddess’s absence.

  “She watched over us in the night, and then left just before first light,” Kristof told her. “You really gave her a lot to think about last night.”

  “She needed us,” Sabine said softly, a tear forming in her eye. “I wasn’t sure that you two would go along with my idea at first, but it just felt so right. I wanted to cry when I felt her heart finally heal, I was so happy to see her feeling our love and becoming a part of it.”

  “I think everyone in the Garden felt her heart heal last night,” Anasha said with a smile and a laugh, “As well as the rest.”

  “You mean they all felt us…” Sabine stopped, blushing furiously, and Anasha laughed again as she leaned across Kristof to pull Sabine into a deep kiss.

  The three of them emerged from the Temple a while later, not sure what to do while they waited for Cassandra to return. They were greeted by Subat and Juliet again. Subat gave Kristof a look with a raised eyebrow, but was courteous enough not to bring up in words what everyone had felt the night before. Kristof responded with a blush and a shrug of his shoulders, to which Subat laughed as he and Juliet led Kristof and his wives to a small pavilion.

  Breakfast had been laid out for the visitors, and Sabine and Anasha sampled fruits from the Garden. Kristof sat and listened as Anasha and Sabine spoke with Subat and Juliet, all of them havi
ng much to catch up on. His family was larger than he had thought, Kristof realized with a smile, as he watched the boisterous Juliet speak animatedly. While he had heard Anasha speak of her mother often in the past, she’d not truly conveyed just how energetic and motherly she was as Sabine was bombarded with questions about her pregnancy.

  Other people walked through the parks around them, and it seemed to Kristof that everyone was happier and lighter today. With a sudden realization, he knew that Cassandra’s inner turmoil had cast a pall over the garden since it had been founded, and was only now lifted and gone with the healing of their Goddess’s heart. It made him smile to see these people now happier in their afterlife.

  “You and your wives have done me a tremendous service,” Cassandra said as she appeared at Kristof’s side suddenly. Amazingly, they all did not jump at being startled in such a way.

  “I can never repay the miracle you have shown and shared with me,” Cassandra continued, “But I can begin to make things right. I know why you are here, though you do not know why you were drawn to me. You, Kristof, possess the Hammer of the Father, the power to build or destroy that my father once wielded in the creation of the Universe. My father laid the power down in grief when he banished Azrael to the Underworld. Had the power been picked up then and used by my Father, Azrael could have been slain.”

  “Azrael had grown too powerful for that now,” Cassandra told them and allowed them to absorb what she had said. “He has twisted and corrupted the Underworld and made it into a nightmare, and he draws strength and power from the Great Maelstrom in the Underworld. That is why you have been drawn here to me.”

  Cassandra drew a crystal vial from her robes and handed it to Anasha. The vial was clear, and the liquid within was also clear and sparkled with light of its own that shined out in random rays.