The Archons of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  They watched as a radiant spiral of unnumbered stars rose up slowly through the sky, leading their eyes to its incandescent center as if they were drawn into a whirling dance. Ailia gazed again at it in wonder. In a soft voice she quoted the Vision of Welessan: “‘And I was raised up even to the sphere of the outer stars, and beheld beneath me all the Lesser Heaven, as it were a turning wheel.’ How beautiful it is, Damion!”

  “Very beautiful. You look on the Celestial Empire as Athariel himself once did, from his Cherubim Throne. And now,” said Damion, “look behind you!”

  Ailia turned. “What is it? I see only a few stars, scattered about in the void.”

  “Not stars, Ailia. Talmirennias. They are so remote that they appear as mere flecks of light, but each is as big as the Great Dance itself.” She stared, enraptured, realizing that she looked at galaxy upon galaxy, a universe vaster than all her imaginings.

  For a long time they were silent. Then Ailia spoke again. “How long has it been since the battle of Ombar?” she asked. “I have lost track of time in the Ether.”

  “Twenty years have now passed since the war ended.”

  “Twenty years!” cried Ailia. “So much will have changed in the mortal worlds. They will all be older—my father, and my Meran family, and Jomar and Lori. I so long to see them again.”

  “You can visit with them if you please.”

  “I wonder if Jo and Lori wed, and had children,” Ailia said. “If so, the children will be grown by now.” An ache of longing came into her voice. “I have missed so much. They chose to stay in time, in the stream of things. One day I will remember them, and go to see them, and they will be gone.”

  Suddenly she sprang up and returned through the portal from which they had come. He followed her, and they passed through the Ether, through the choiring realms of light. At last Ailia paused before one ethereal portal, leading into the world of Arainia.

  “I must return,” she said. “Not to visit, Damion. But to remain. It is where I belong now.”

  “I cannot go with you,” said Damion. “The Ether is more home to me that any of the mortal lands I knew. Of course, you are still half-human and your mortal life never ended.” He looked on her in sorrow. “Must you leave?”

  “I am too much changed. I yearn for the mortal worlds. I cannot go back to what I was before.”

  “Ailia,” said Damion, “you need not return to the material plane. Your task there is done. You said yourself that it is better for the mortals to have no ruler, and govern themselves.”

  “I did not go merely to perform a task. And I do not go now to rule, or undertake any other duty. I asked to be chosen for the errand long ago because I desired to be as mortals are, knowing all they know. And there is so much of their life I have not yet seen and tasted and felt. I have not known age or death. And if I remain an Archon, I shall not ever enter the Empyrean.”

  “If you do enter it we will be sundered from each other. The place of the Archons is the Ether: we do not go where mortals go.”

  She could not bear the sorrow in his voice: it recalled to her the anguish she had felt when she had believed him dead and lost to her. “Damion, my love, all created things have an end,” she said, placing her hands upon his shoulders and gazing deep into his eyes. They shone with the reflected glory of quintessence. “The Ether has not always been, and perhaps when both it and the mortal plane are no more, all divisions will cease. I cannot believe we will always be apart.” And she turned toward the ethereal rift. “Yes—I am sure that we will meet again.”

  “Then I can be reconciled to it,” said Damion, clinging to her, “if I have that hope.”

  “There is always hope,” said Ailia. For a moment her hands held fast to his; then gently she slipped hers free. Leaving him, she stepped through the portal into Arainia.

  She stood within the Gate of Earth and Heaven, and before her the bridge of stone spanned the gulf between the portal’s lone pinnacle and the mountaintop where the towers of Melnemeron rose. The wide lands lay below, and on the eastern horizon was a glimpse of the far-off sea. She felt cool of wind, warmth of sun, and the gentle pull of the earth beneath her binding her to itself.

  After a moment she knew, by the fading of the light, that the portal had closed behind her. She did not linger any longer in that place, but with a swift stride and never a backward glance, she set forth across the bridge.

  APPENDIX

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  It will be apparent to any reader of the Kanta Meldralöanan ad Trynamiria (“The Book of the Dragon Throne and the Moon Princess”) that the codex is as much a literary work as it is a historical account, and I fear that much of the original flavor imparted by its unknown author has been lost in this translation. It is also impossible to know exactly when and where the events of the Trynamiria (as I understand it was commonly known in its place of origin) took place, though hints in the text suggest they occurred at least a thousand years ago. One thing is clear, however, and that is that the humanoid beings the text describes are too like us not to be close relatives of ours. There is little doubt that our own Earth is their “original world,” and while some of these beings have been strangely altered in appearance, there are others who would likely not cause a second glance were they to walk down one of our city streets. It is interesting to speculate what changes have since occurred in the worlds they inhabit, seeing how greatly our own civilization has progressed in the same amount of time.

  As to the provenance of this copy of the Trynamiria and the accompanying documents, many of them fragmentary, it is a mystery and will likely remain so. The same applies to the manuscript that serves as a sort of Rosetta Stone, making this translation possible, though that at least appears to have originated here on our Earth. (But that merely deepens the mystery.) The three excerpts given below are taken from parchments that seemingly date from different eras. I would surmise that the first comes from either Mera or Arainia, and was written after the true nature of the “Archons” was revealed at last to the people there. As to the other two, they are certainly Meran writings, and come from much earlier eras. The first of these is an account by an official emissary of the Maurainian court, describing to his monarch what he has learned in Trynisia of other peoples and worlds. This would place the time of its composition sometime within the early days of the first Commonwealth. The second, a brief overview of Meran history, seems to come from an educational text (no doubt used at the Royal Academy in Raimar), and must date to a period after the Dark Age when most scholars believed the island of the Elei was a fable.

  Of the Beginning of Days and the Ordering of the Celestial Empire

  (From the Imperial Archives of Eldimia)

  The El, that we call the Archons, were before any other thing that was made. Their place was the Mid-Heaven, or Ether, that lies above our plane of Lesser Heaven but below the glory that is High Heaven; it was given to them to be their home. Though its true substance was the divine element of quintessence, yet images appeared in it at times of things that were yet to be: living dreams of the Maker, of worlds and beings still to be created.

  When the lower Heaven was formed in a burst of light, the Archons delighted in it and went down into it to play. Still greater was their joy when suns and worlds appeared out of the primordial fires. Many were drawn to these spheres, claiming them for their abodes: but the higher ones among them cautioned that this starry heaven, unlike the Mid-Heaven, was not created for them alone. They would have to yield the worlds one day to whatever beings arose within them. For this was to be the plane of mortal creatures, which would be animated by sparks of the divine spirit from above, yet formed out of the same stuff of which the stars and worlds themselves were made. And so the Lesser Heaven would belong to them, and they to it.

  But at first the Archons were free to possess it. Some went to dwell on planets and made their homes in air and water, earth and fire. Many learned to take material forms in the likeness of mortal creatures
that did not yet exist, save only as images on the timeless Ethereal Plane; or else they took fanciful forms that combined the anatomies of many different creatures. Others of the El disdained to take any form, and dwelled only within the stars, as bodiless spirits. Thus the first division of the Archons was made, between the Elyra or High Ones, and the Elaia or Lower Ones. The latter learned to alter the substance of matter, and they reshaped the planets as they pleased, changing winds and tides and climes, raising up valleys and casting down mountains. They delved deep into the earth and toyed with the gems and ores that they found there; and they created for themselves new metals and crystals like orichalc and adamant, from which they fashioned for themselves objects of beauty. The first of these treasures was a pure crystal without flaw, the only gem of its kind, which they presented to the star-dwellers as proof that perfection could indeed exist within earthly things. Many of the high spirits were swayed by the argument, and some went to dwell within the wondrous Stone, and filled it with their radiant presence. Afterward, some of the Elyra consented to visit the planets, and even to walk upon their soil in material forms. But they never made their homes there.

  When the first living creatures emerged within the worlds, some Archons were ill pleased, not wishing to renounce the plane in which they took such pleasure. Yet most welcomed the advent of the mortal beasts and beings, and watched over them and guided them as they claimed their mortal realms. Those Archons who had chosen to inhabit planets rather than stars were closest to the living things, and helped many of them grow to wisdom, and showed them how to enter the Mid-Heaven and so pass freely from world to world. The first beings that rose to wisdom under the reign of the Archons were the Loänan. The Archons appeared to them in dragon-form, and tutored them and persuaded them to abandon their more barbaric ways. They learned to draw power from gold and silver and gemstones, and flew through the Ether to other worlds. Next to arise were the unicorns or Tarnawyn, and after them the firebirds. These three peoples formed an alliance under the aegis of the Archons. Then many more and younger races appeared, and the old Empire of Talmirennia was formed: a great realm connected by ethereal portals, watched over by the dragons that were oldest and wisest.

  The Archons also made a study of the seeds of life, and learned to alter living creatures as they had altered the worlds: they made strange and unnatural beasts and beings, sphinxes and chimaeras and cherubim. These last are said to have mated with high Archons shape-shifted into like forms, and so they declare themselves to be the true heirs of the Empire. The Elyra desired that they should guard Talmirennia, and watch over those things of power that could not be unmade and might fall into the possession of mortals, causing them harm.

  There was one planet in particular that brought forth a numberless multitude of creatures, and some of these the Archons took and bore with them to other worlds. Among them were the forebears of the human race. Like all mortal things they were brutish and coarse at first, and the Archon Elarainia, who was then nurturing the living things that had risen in the world she claimed for her own, was troubled when many of the alien creatures were placed in a neighboring world. But Elmera her sister Archon, whose world it was, loved her adopted children. Mera was barren save for some sparse forest and a few fierce beasts, and she wished to see the new beings thrive there. She counseled Elarainia to withhold her judgment yet awhile, and see what came to pass. And in Elmera’s sphere humanity grew in wisdom, and learned the use of tools, and to make objects of beauty. Then the Archon caused one northern isle to grow warm and fruitful, and she set in it humans from various lands whom she thought wiser and gentler than the rest. For, she said, by placing these apart from the rest of their kind she could cause them to become truly enlightened beings, that might later serve as an example for the others and teach them in turn. The people of that island (in later days named Trynisia) she called the Elei, the children of the gods: for she allowed the lesser spirits to mingle with them for a time in human form and instruct them, and even take some of them for mates, to bring forth offspring that were half-divine. And the Elei grew in grace and knowledge, until the Archon of Arainia herself became fascinated, and left her own sphere and dwelt among them for a time, taking the likeness of one of their kind. Her own world had as yet produced no thinking beings like these, and although she still could not abide the Merei (those humans in other lands of Mera that remained crude and barbarous), she made a path through the Mid-Heaven between the land of the Elei and Arainia, so that the latter might visit her world if they wished. And the Elei who crossed the Ethereal Plane and found themselves in Arainia marveled at it, and desired to remain there. For fair as their island was, it could not come near to the beauty and bounty of this world that lay closer to the sun; and the spirits had since departed from Trynisia, as Elmera desired them to: but the sphere of Arainia was full of Archons still.

  Elarainia pondered their plea, and said at last that she would suffer a small population of the mortal beings to remain within her sphere, so long as they did no harm. But no Merei must ever set foot in it, nor look on it save in a vision, for she would not have that race do violence to its beasts and birds and forests as they did to those in their own world. And so it was that many of the Elei went joyfully to dwell in that blessed sphere with those they called their gods. And as the Merei grew wiser with the passage of time and the gentle influence of the Fairfolk, Elarainia relented yet again and permitted some of them to journey to Arainia also; but still they were not permitted to dwell there.

  The Archons had also taken the ancestors of humanity to many other worlds, and they too found wisdom, though their bodies often took different forms: they became the Maliji or amazons, the woodwoses, and the hobs. Some of the Archons deliberately altered the human form, turning them into sylphs and undines, centaurs and satyrs. And of the beasts that were also taken from their original world, some also grew to wisdom: these became the nagas, pucas, kitsune, and others.

  At that time the emperor of the Archons was Modrian, lord of a black star: he reigned in a winged man-form on the world of Ombar, with the Star Stone set in his crown. The human beings taken to that world had grown into strange and hideous creatures, owing to its unwholesome climes, and to the Archons called incubi and succubi that took them for mates by force. But despite the protests of the other Archons, Modrian would not free them, preferring to watch for his amusement the savage history that unfolded. Then the Archons became divided a second time, between the followers of Modrian and those who rejected his ways, and they went to war.

  The mortal creatures were drawn into the struggle against Modrian’s domination of their worlds and lives. The dragons learned that Modrian had been breeding creatures called firedrakes from members of their race: these were less wise than true dragons, and they could spit fire and fumes from their mouths. The Loänan grew divided over whether to disdain these creatures as abominations, or accept them as their blood kin. Soon the dragons were at war as well.

  Modrian then summoned the spirit of the star Azarah, who was one of those that served him, and commanded him to cause his celestial sphere to pass through the cloud of comets that surrounded the star Auria—the star that was the sun of Mera and Arainia. And it was done, and the other Archons fought with him and his minions and pursued them into the upper airs of Mera, where their captain Athariel struck the Star Stone from Modrian’s diadem with his sword. It fell to the earth, onto the island of Trynisia that he had intended to destroy.

  Once Modrian was driven back to his own star and confined within it, the other Archons, surveying the ruin of the worlds, knew that the time had come for them to withdraw from the lower plane. Only at a mortal’s behest would they enter that realm again. They went to dwell in the Mid-Heaven, leaving the Lesser Heaven to mortals. But they remained vigilant, for Modrian had vowed to return and revenge himself upon them and the mortal creatures they loved.

  As for the Elei, they thrived both on the Isle of Trynisia and in Arainia under the guardianship of
the dragons and the cherubim. They learned to construct flying ships and chariots to carry them safely through the Ether, so that they might seek out their kindred who dwelt in other worlds. They encountered first the children of the Elementals, whose planet-homes circled their own sun. Then traveling farther, they discovered the peoples who dwelt among the stars, and the wise animals also. The latter had learned to take human shapes, though in their own worlds they kept their original forms. At long last the Elei met with the firebirds, the Tarnawyn, and others of the Elder Races, and were joined to the Celestial Empire.

  As for the Archons, they observed all this from the Mid-Heaven, but obeyed the Pact that they had made and intervened in the doings of the mortals only when summoned by them.

  But Azarah’s passage had unleashed many comets that still swept toward the planets of Auria, and could be diverted only by powerful sorcery. The starfaring Elei were able to undertake this task, with the aid of the Loänan and cherubim; but the firedrakes and the goblin-folk of Azar fought with them in the void, and many comets passed through their net. The goblins also captured flying ships from the Elei, and learned to captain them. Amid the battles and great devastation that followed many worlds were laid waste; the greatest sorcerers of the Elei were diminished in number and Arainia lost much of its knowledge; and in Mera the people came to fear and hate all sorcery, whether black or white, blaming it for the Great Disaster. With the ethereal portals closed and none left who knew how to open them, those Merei who were visiting Elarainia’s world were unable to return, while the few Elei who remained in Mera were forever exiled from their kindred in Arainia, and their race diminished and died.

  It was agreed then among the Elder Races that they should not interfere at that time, but rather await the fulfillment of an old prophecy: they would not resume their commerce with humanity until one arose who was both human and Archon. This heir foretold of the old Empire would guard it against Modrian’s return, wielding for its protection the Stone that was the Archons’ greatest treasure and the home of their high kin.