by Alison Baird
“I remember now,” Ailia whispered. “When I asked my question you said to me, ‘There is one way, but that I would not have you take—’”
Elarainia finished. “‘For it is doubtful, and hard, and fraught with many dangers.’ Yes, I said that. But still you were resolved.”
“So—I chose my role.” Ailia was filled with wonderment.
“Yes. In that time you were very curious about the human race, for you had no living things in your moon-sphere then. Nor had I any humans yet in my world.”
“My sphere.” Her moon, her own sphere of Miria, shining high above . . .
“We are El, you and I, and El are drawn to the things of the material plane. In particular we love shapes that are perfect, and spheres are the most perfect shapes in nature. There are here few circles or straight lines or cubes such as we conceived in our minds when we were in the Ether. And so we were attracted to suns and moons and planets for their shape, and sent our power across the Ether to fill them.
“You were fascinated by the little moon that came to be called Miria, and because it is near to my planetary sphere you and I became close. Mortals would later call us ‘mother’ and ‘daughter.’ And so we indeed came to be later, when you agreed to be born human. But before then it was but a manner of speaking. You were my celestial handmaiden as Elnumia is Elmera’s.”
Ailia stared down as the pale apparition of herself spoke, gesturing with a transparent arm at the moon. “It is strange to see it thus,” Elmiria said, “as a thing separate and distant, and not a part of myself. Still, I would know more of this plane.”
The winged goddess answered, her voice the same as the woman Elarainia’s and yet not the same. “If you would move among mortals, in their worlds, then you must first become as they are. You must be born.”
Ailia and Elarainia watched their own images from long ago in silence. Then her mother laid a hand on Ailia’s shoulder, and spoke to her. “This was the task. Of all the Archons you alone were willing. Your chosen celestial sphere was small and would not suffer for your absence. You offered to be made flesh. And out of my love for you I chose then to be your mother in the material realm, having found for you a mortal father both kindhearted and willing to call on my name.
“You did not go alone, however.”
“I didn’t?”
“Long ago I brought you two companions from the mortal realm to dwell with you in the Ether, since you were so interested in humankind. One was an infant born to a mortal man and an Elaia who had taken human form. The Lady of the Grove—for so the humans called her—dwelled in the material world from choice, for she was not yet ready to forsake Mera and those who had called on her there. But in those days many feared the Old Ones, and they warned of the perilous faerie woman of Selenna who would cast her spell on any mortal who entered her domain. There was one who had no such fear, however, being of the Elei blood; and he made many pilgrimages to the Mistmount to pay homage to the powers that lingered there. The man was a knight who lived in Maurainia during the time of the Interregnum, and he desired to restore the order of the Paladins after it was dissolved by the theocracy. He continued to wear his armor, in defiance of the clerics’ edict, and he rode about the countryside giving aid to all who called upon him. But he was captured, and tried and executed: the last of the Paladins. Elthina grieved for him, and in bitterness she forsook the mortal world. And she brought her infant son with her into the Ether, and gave him to me.”
“Elthina! Damion’s mother!”
“Even so. I took the child, and he grew in wisdom, living among the Archons as one of us. But because he was half-mortal, he could not stay with us on the Ethereal Plane. Only when the priest of Valdur struck him with the sacrificial knife, ending his mortal life, did he return to us. We bore him away into the Ether and translated his body, and in the Ether he must remain. For he is fully an Archon now, his human side taken away.
“As for your other companion, she was a child whose Rialainish mother was murdered after the Disaster by her kinsfolk, for consorting with a demon—as they believed. Her lover was, in truth, an Elaia in man’s form. He too called upon me to take his mortal child, who was then but two years old, lest she suffer the fate of her mother. And she too was translated to the plane of the Ether, and you delighted in her company and Damion’s. When you chose your mission to the mortals, they both swore to return to the material plane to be your protectors. But they had to return to the world in which they had been born, and to the age they were when they were taken from thence: to be helpless infants once more. That is why Lorelyn was aware of her Purpose, and Damion was not: she entered the Ether at an age when children are first growing aware of their world, and then she reentered the plane of matter at that same age. And so she was able to recall just a little of her existence here—just enough to remember that she had an important mission, a reason for her return. But she knew no more than that: the rest was lost to her child mind. And Damion, who left and then reentered the material realm as a mere babe, could remember nothing at all of his ethereal sojourn nor the mission he had sworn to undertake. The mind of a babe cannot hold such things. When you were born you were the same: you knew nothing of your former life upon the higher plane.
“Damion was sent to the Faerie Cave on Mount Selenna, to be cared for by Eliana Elmera, who yet remained in material form in her world because the Nemerei there had summoned her. And Lorelyn was sent to the Isle of Jana, not far from the resting place of the Scroll of Bereborn.
“And then you were born, Ailia! Ah, I can never forget that day when I knew two hearts beat within me, and felt you grow strong and begin to move! What a joy it was, to feel life for the first time as a mortal mother feels it!” She smiled, remembering, then turned grave once more. “I fled with you at last, knowing our enemies sought you to take your earthly life from you. I had surrendered the power to move between worlds at will, and the Gate of Earth and Heaven was closed for the safety of the mortals. So I crafted a winged vessel for myself, such as the Elei made in olden days, and hid it away until the time should come when I had need of it. But the firedrakes and soldiery of Valdur pursued me into Mera, and there I had to leave you, drawing my foes after me, retreating at last into the ethereal plane. For I could not remain in the mortal realm: my chief task there was done. And now you are grown, and need me no longer.”
“I so longed to stay with my foster family in Mauraina, Mother! To be one of them again. I thought then I needed them as a refuge, but I suppose I also remembered my desire to be a mortal in the mortal world. They were everything that I wished to be. But now what must I do?” Ailia asked.
“That I cannot tell you,” replied Elarainia, stroking her daughter’s face. “Oh, how I have longed to touch you like this! It is not permitted that I should direct you on your path, for demigoddess though you be, you are now half-mortal, and so by the Pact I may not interfere. But come with me now, my daughter, and be at peace for a little while . . .”
IN THE END AILIA SPENT a long idyll with her mother, for no time would elapse in her own day and age. They entered the undying worlds of the Ether and walked them together. And her mother spoke to her of the Archons’ plans, that she herself had long forgotten.
“The Elei call upon Archons and live among us, but do not ask anything of us,” Elarainia said. “And that is why we linger in the great forest. But we cannot remain there forever. And the Elei will vanish over time, as fewer Archons mate with humans: their descendants will wed Merei instead, losing their powers. That much of what Mandrake told you was true: they are a doomed race. In the end they will be merely a memory—but a memory that endures, of what a human being can be. This is what we intended.”
Ailia listened, never speaking or straying from her mother’s side. There was no sky in this ethereal country where they walked: instead the pure quintessence glowed above them like a golden mist. Within it soared flights of unnumbered seraphim, their forms illuminated by the radiance above them—like flying
insects that, caught in a sunbeam, appear bright as sparks of fire. And even as she gazed on them Ailia saw them all come together, drawing into a tight swarm that assumed a distinct shape: a gigantic fiery bird. Its eyes blazed like stars, its wings and the feathers of its tail were like the plumes of flame that rise from the surface of a sun. It sang with one voice as it flew, like a choir in unison.
The Elmir. The One-Who-Is-Many.
“Before the material plane was fully formed,” her mother said to her, “it was all of one substance, like the Ether. Within it lay the stuff of everything that would come to be: stars, planets, living creatures, lifeless stone, water and air, all the natural laws that govern them, even time itself. But as yet this stuff was all of a kind, uniform, unvarying. We who had awakened within the Ether looked on this new thing that had been wrought, and thought it good. But it was only the beginning. The balance had to be broken, the harmony altered, the primal unity turned to division, in order to bring forth many different things.”
The celestial music changed: from a single divine melody it split into many different parts, a pattern intricate as a fugue. Another eidolon appeared in the sky, a dark green shadow winding sinuous coils about the Elmir’s body. Ailia recognized the figure of the Vormir as she had seen it so often portrayed in art, combining with the figure of the Elmir to form the ancient symbol of the Elvoron. The divine bird and the earthly serpent were at enmity, it seemed to her at first. But presently it became apparent that what looked like a battle was more like a dance: the two figures were so evenly matched that they created a balance. Spirit and matter were as one. “But different as these things might seem,” Elarainia continued, “beasts and beings, trees and rivers, mountains and clouds, shining suns and dark voids—all come of the first Substance. Every thing is connected to every other thing by that common origin—yes, even the Ether, for the lower plane was formed out of quintessence. Only Valdur would set himself apart, deny the bond that goes back to the Beginning. And because he cannot destroy the realm of Spirit, he has turned upon the realm of the Vormir, altered and distorted matter to his purposes, tormented its poor creatures—knowing that this causes still greater hurt to the El.”
The music shattered into a jarring discord. The shape of the serpent changed: it became more monstrous, darker, grew fierce fangs and clawed legs. It tore at the form of the celestial bird, and even bit at its own coils in its madness. Ailia cried out in horror. At last the two struggling figures faded from her sight. Now as she gazed upward she seemed to see a light within the glowing quintessence above, a brightening at its zenith like a sun in a sky, which made the rest seem dim by comparison. But there was a blot upon the light, a cone of shadow cast by some obstruction near its center. Little motes of living light were circling about the central luminosity, but all that passed within the obscuring penumbra were darkened and consumed.
“He would cast his taint over all things. But it cannot ever be truly as he desires,” Elarainia said. “For all are One: that unity stems from the Beginning, and what was cannot ever be altered.”
Then all the things around them faded: the illusions and eidolons and semblances of material forms were gone, melted back into quintessence once more. And Ailia too felt herself at one with the surging power of the Ether, like a bird gliding on the wind’s back, or a dolphin that rides upon a wave: she became a part of what surrounded her, of the light and the bliss, joining her voice to the countless others that were once more raised in perfect unison.
Sometime later—days or centuries, she could not have said—Ailia found herself alone in an ethereal landscape, without knowing how she had come there. Music flowed from somewhere—was it a harp, perhaps? She followed it, into a garden where fountains played amid billows of flowers. The music came from here—many seraphim had gathered together, and some other curious figures. All had human bodies, but one had six arms branching from his torso, while another had the figure of a woman but the head of a tawny-furred cat. At her sandaled feet crouched a creature with the jaws of a crocodile, the mane and foreparts of a lion, and the squat hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It rubbed its scaly muzzle against her knee and she stroked it absently, as one might a pet dog. Another being stood apart from the rest, a faint ethereal figure clad in flowing robes with just the hint of white wings rising in graceful arches from its shoulders: like her own ancient, semicorporeal self, only this figure had a masculine form. As she watched, the being began to sing softly:
The crown jewel of the god of Night
Was from him wrested long ago,
And fell upon a hallowed height
All mantled round with ageless snow.
In that same land a fair folk dwelt,
Who saw from far the radiance bright
Descend upon the mountain-spire,
As though a star did there alight.
In wonderment they journeyed forth,
And to that summit high and cold
Climbed up, and knelt before the Stone,
And raised a temple roofed with gold.
But fate o’ertook that elder folk:
They passed away, and now their prize,
The light divine, in chamber deep
Lies hid beneath the circling skies.
The stars above with sleepless eye
Watch o’er that temple, for the rule
Of all their bright celestial realm
Lies with the hand shall claim the jewel.
A prince of Night, and moon-maid pure
Who shall depart her orbéd throne
Shall war for it; and one shall fall,
And one take Heaven with the Stone.
As Ailia listened, she wondered whether the seraph’s song might be an old one—or did the Stone indeed still lie on Elendor, while she had not yet been born mortal; was it the ancient past, or present, or future through which she now moved? None of these, she told herself. The Ether was outside of time, and a spirit was bound to no age of the mortal realm.
She gazed long at the scene; and presently the music ceased, and the El began to disperse through the garden. The ethereal figure too turned away, his bowed head coming up so that she saw his face. She stood motionless. The figure’s radiance drained from it, and the glory of the wings became a luminous mist upon the air, vanishing away; what remained was a human form.
Ailia gave a cry and started forward. “Damion! Damion!”
But he did not seem to hear, nor see her. And then the whole of the scene faded from her sight, along with the ethereal realm. Someone was calling her name repeatedly, and shaking her by the shoulder. The voice was Lorelyn’s.
“Ailia! Ailia, wake up: the enemy has come!”
10
The War of the Wood
SO THIS IS THE TRYNA Lia’s own sphere, Syndra thought as she passed through the ethereal rift into the air of Miria. She had never before entered the moon-world, for the Nemerei of Arainia had not yet learned to use the dragon-ways when she dwelt there. Blue fields and isolated groves of lunar trees stretched beneath her: behind her the tall white pillars of the dragon-gate marked the rift, and on a hill beyond rose the white towers of the empty Moon Palace. I feel no Power in this place: no immanent presence. Is it true, then, that its world-spirit has left it, and is incarnate in Ailia Elmiria? That her mother is in truth the Archon of Arainia? Her gaze shifted to the ringed world that shone in the blue-black sky above. She had persuaded herself at first that the Tryna Lia and her mother were charlatans, and made this her argument for opposing them. But now she acknowledged the kernel of thwarted ambition deep within her as the true source of her fury and hate. Ambition, and wounded pride, and envy: these had led her on the road that parted her from the world of her birth. For a moment she felt a faint twinge of yearning for the blue orb above her, the sorrow of the exile. Almost it seemed that the planet called to her. But she warded off these thoughts by reminding herself that she was a traitor to its people now. They would surely punish her severely if she were to surrender. And a
s for the Archon and her half-mortal daughter—what welcome would they give to the Nemerei magus who had repudiated them, and schemed for Ailia’s destruction?
No matter. I have aligned myself with greater powers than theirs. . . .
She spied the transformed Mandrake coiled upon a knoll below, with Torok and some of their other allies, and she began a long circling descent through the air. She traveled, as was her fashion now, in a chariot drawn by wyverns. She wished to soar through the sky as dragons did, so that she might look down from a godlike height upon the lands and peoples below. But she had not yet mastered shape-shifting, that most difficult of skills, and she would not consent to ride upon the back of a Loänan. She must fly by her own power, and no one else’s; and since the dragon-form was denied her, she had found her own way to ride the wind. The chariot was in fact a sort of wheelless gondola that hung on two mighty chains from the harnesses of the winged reptiles, dangling beneath and between them as they flew side by side. Indeed, it took no small amount of sorcery to command the fierce creatures, and keep them from fighting one another.
The wyverns lowered the rocking chariot to the ground, then settled with loud flaps of their leathery wings to either side of it, hissing and snaking out their long necks. She stepped down onto the blue turf and approached Erron Komora, who stood nearest to her. He also was gazing up at Arainia.
“In that sphere dwell those who long denied me the knowledge and the power I sought,” Syndra said as she went to stand by him—for she had told herself this tale so often that she had begun to believe it. “They will all learn a sharp lesson at my lord’s hand—especially she who is named for this little moon, and thought to rule all the stars.”
The Loänei lord turned to her and spoke in a low, confiding voice. “If Morlyn slays the Tryna Lia, we will have nothing more to fear. And then we will have no more need of him. We can reign in his place, Lady Syndra: you and I. Your power is growing. In time you will have your desire: you will be worthy even to be the consort of a Loänei. But the Prince is of no use to you now. He has grown mad, and no longer takes a man’s form. I, however—”
