Elysium Shining

by Terri Kraemer

  “I can.”

  Ahead, the procession walked in pairs past the dividing, metallic rail inside the entryway. A few pairs held hands, and more did not. Among the pairs that did not hold hands was Shungdi, whose smile and gaze fell on Dasos.

  “Dasos,” said Zoey, “could you give her this for me, please?”

  She held out the container in her hands and let him take it. She then took a few steps toward Tong-Chang, who led the emperor to her. He gave her an approving nod before the next person could speak.

  Tong-Chang said, “Your Majesty Gao-Xing, this is Zoi’ne Thalassas, the love of my life. Zoey, this is Emperor Gao-Xing III, honored ruler of this land.”

  “How do you do, sir?” said Zoey.

  “I am well, despite what the laeknar says about my back, young Lady of Earth,” said Gao-Xing. “This here is my wife, Yin-Ann. Let the four of us walk together if you do not mind.”

  “After the amount of sitting we have done for the past few days, sir, I would be most gracious to accept.”

  “You will need to cut the formalities with me, too, at least while no one else is around. We are all family here, so speak to me as you would a colleague of yours, or a friend from school. Come, there is a dear friend I’d meant to say hello to before people guided me to the door. Was your ride here pleasant at least?”

  Both Zoey and Tong-Chang affirmed as much during their walk. They returned to the structure that was akin to the emblem. There was more depth going front to back at the top, and the top of the structure was held aloft by four crystalline poles. Etched within the front of the central, round wedge were characters in an older style of writing that predated the alliance by millennia.

  Elysium to Zoey, you can geek out about this later.

  Between the group and this structure was a pedestal with what Zoey presumed to be one of several protected copies of a tome, shielded from the elements.

  “Here lies the rulers of High House Leezu,” said the emperor. “Rather, here we honor the heads and their most beloved companions in life. As you well know, it has been man of the house and his wife throughout the ages, with three exceptions. You may find more in this book and its archived copies, such as the deeds they had all been renowned for during their lives.” He bowed at the hips, his hands together. “My friend from childhood was the passionate sort. He gave every challenge a stiff lip and hard stare, which translated poorly to half of his children, but he loved them regardless. I hope your soul finds respite, old friend.”

  “I wish we could have done more,” said Tong-Chang. “I hate how he treated me as a child, but he deserved better. He meant better, I realized too late.”

  “Such is the pity with life. Some fools poison us one way or another to serve their own ends. You and your sister did well to give him the hints and warnings he needed to find the truth in his fate, and we were able to eliminate the poisoner pretending to be a bringer of life and medicine. A shame that such a man had served your family for a generation, but a blessing that we were able to buy my old friend more time. When he met his final throws seven months ago, we all knew it to be his end. He was at peace when it came. The last ttime we spoke, he told me the planet above could crush him for an age and he would know peace because the girl he had failed most had forgiven him. For that I thank you, Tong-Chang.”

  “This family deserves more than I, alone, can give it. I will be away for college for one more semester. My girlfriend will be off studying as well so I’ll be there to give my support. I will need all of the help I can get to keep our businesses and faith in the balance.”

  “For some of us that is another day. You have siblings willing to extend their aid when you need it. That is more than your father and I had at the beginning. I have no doubt that you will do fine. One day you, too, will be commemorated here, along with Zoi’ne perhaps. For the man or woman who follows, it will again be another day.” The idea of being a part of history sunk into Zoey’s mind when the emperor said this. “Now then, Zoi’ne, while we continue our walk, I understand you are a lover of studying the past. Would you have any tales from Earth you would like to share with me?”

  “I might, Gao-Xing.”

  * * *

  Shungdi approached Dasos, more bashful than he had seen her before. He took her hand and kissed it, unsure how far she was willing to go in public. No, they weren’t in public, but in front of her royal family. That made it more uncertain.

  “Zoey brought you this,” he said, handing her the container.

  She looked inside and found a pair of cupcakes. Each one of them was a carrot cake, made from a card full of strange markings. Dasos had recognized a few lyurunics from what he had seen, but was in awe as his little sister read it all as easily as she did the writing that Dasos took for granted.

  “She really did it, didn’t she?” said Shungdi.

  “Yes, she did,” said Dasos. “Every Aelf has been reluctant to try it at first, and every Ginserei who has experienced it so far seems to love it.”

  “I’ll try one if you do.”

  “Very well, you have a deal.” They each took a cupcake. “It’s about time I tried one of these anyhow.”

  Shungdi bit into hers and hummed with delight. Dasos still wasn’t convinced. He braced himself for having to live a lie to make his little sister happy, and then put the top of the cupcake into his mouth. Never mind, that wasn’t some simple language he saw on the index card. It was some sort of witchcraft, and he was under this cake’s spell.

  Giggling, Shungdi said, “You should see the look on your face.”

  He swallowed the first bite and said, “How is this madness possible?”

  “A better question is how none of our worlds had ever done something like this before. You could market this, but protect the recipe.”

  “Don’t worry, the only copy of it that I know about is in Earth writing. Knowing Zoey, she will sell a bunch of these things to try and pay for Il’lyse’s damages. She keeps looking out for her.”

  “How is Il’lyse holding up? I’ve been meaning to visit her at some point.”

  “She has a therapist meeting today. Mom and Dad are escorting the two of them somewhere that Il’lyse needs to see, wherever that is. I think she is recovering from the cracks in her memories, and finding some forgiveness along the way. We all want to do more for her, but we know it’s also her fight to become whole again.”

  Dasos finished his cupcake before Shungdi was done with hers. They walked together, during which time he noticed that some sort of cloth had been clipped to the inside of the ribbon that was wrapped around Shungdi’s waist and tied in the back. The cloth that had been pinned to the ribbon was peach in color and didn’t match the fabrics around the rest of her gown.

  “Are you seeing something you like?” said Shungdi with a playful tone.

  “I’m curious about this cloth here is all,” Dasos said.

  “Oh, that. It’s something I found in my mother’s dresser when I was helping her clean her room. She’s doing better now, but she told me that this cloth will bring her too many memories if it were to stay in her room; memories of Father. I never knew he had such a romantic side.”

  “A romantic side?”

  “We have an old tradition not often practiced anymore. Let’s . . . not worry about that now. I was surprised to hear about what he used to be like when he was my age. My father would sneak out of school to visit girls at night, and read them anything that he had heard they enjoyed. Most went with it once or twice with simple poems or short stories. Then he met my mother and overheard her talking about her tastes. He read whole novels to her, erotic ones, until she couldn’t take his teasing any longer. Or she thought that it was teasing. She confronted him about it, and he proposed to her using the old Ginserei tradition. Mother said yes.”

  “I envy him. I admire the dedication. I’d have loved to know the man better and get his advice on long-distance relationships.”

  “Don’t count yourself out, lover. You�
�ve been getting better at it over the last nine months. If I wasn’t busy with law school, helping Mother cope with her loss, or preparing to help Tong-Chang head this family of ours, then I would be there for your game nights. I would be there for you at night after both the best of days and the worst of them. If you weren’t trying and doing as well as you were, well, then I might not be showing you this cloth right now.”

  The peach cloth was transparent and soft to the touch when Shungdi dropped it over their arms – his right and her left. He pinched at it with his left hand and stepped closer to her.

  “If you weren’t worth every effort I wouldn’t try,” he said. Then Dasos flipped one end of the length of peach silk, bringing it over their arms a second time.

  “What? Wait,” said Shungdi.

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Do you know what you’re doing with that gesture? Here? In front of my family like this?”

  Half of the adult Ginserei present were looking their way. The children were still off playing their games. Dasos knew this, and he pulled in Shungdi by the waist. He kissed her.

  Somewhere, unseen, the children sang their tune again.

  “I might know a thing or two about Ginserei customs,” he said.

  She said, “Dasos, lover! If you’re not careful you can break a girl’s heart, or cause another incident.”

  “If I’m too careful, then I’ll never see you again. Ever since my sisters were on Earth while we looked for them, I thought about how far love could go, or should go. For you I would risk the universe.”

  “Stop that. Now it sounds like you are reading those novels to me.”

  “Shungdi, I am serious, and I want this to be a promise between us that we will keep going until the stars beyond that planet of yours can no longer shine on either of us. Someday I will want a family of my own to raise, and I can think of no one better to do that with. You are beautiful, you are brilliant, and there’s no one else I’d want to wake me up at two in the morning with a counter-argument, because I love you.”

  “Damn it, Das’ithrios. If I say yes, then will you promise to cause the best kind of incidents?”

  “I’ll do better than that.”

  “There’s no such thing as better than the best.”

  He kissed her, letting every single Ginserei see how passionate he was about her. She flipped the second side of the silk length over their arms. When he saw this, Dasos also saw her eyes. They were like windows holding back the rainstorms of early spring, and there was life there, poised to flourish if he gave it more care. He intended to give this life what it needed, because he felt like he needed it as much as she did.

  “Congratulations, beloved,” Shungdi said. “You are now engaged to a princess. Now what are you going to do?”

  * * *

  The ride from Elysium IX to their destination had been given a mere estimate of three hours and five minutes. Il’lyse sat in a shuttle with her parents and the therapist, who was a Metouka. Bon’sinne and Keft’aerak had pulled a few strings to help Il’lyse earn her flight permit despite her criminal record, as diminished as it had been by the pardon. However, she was not the pilot this time, and she deduced from the math alone that they were going as far as the seventh planet of the stellar system.

  They had told her where they wanted to go, of course, but she ran the numbers through her head to be sure this trip was real. The shuttle landed inside of the dome on Dereskoo. Its passengers disembarked from the interplanetary craft once Il’lyse told her parents and therapist that she was ready. Shadows of the cult flashed in her mind while she advanced through the garden.

  “Someone has been tending to it all,” she said.

  “That would be my parents,” said Bon’sinne. “Since he retired from the military the day before the Hulda’fi conflict, my father needed a new project, and he refused the life of politics. I had told him that this place needs care until it’s been decided what to do with it, and he volunteered to come here every so often to keep it alive as long as it needs to be. Mother keeps pestering him to ask for compensation for this project. Never we mind that captains receive benefits and pay for a decade after retirement.”

  “If it were up to me, I’d say keep the garden and burn the house. Build something new in its place. Maybe block off that secret garage behind the main bunker if nobody’s done that yet.”

  “Once you sign for it, perhaps it will be up to you.”

  “Huh?”

  Keft’aerak said, “Fe’remene passed away two weeks ago. The government and bodies of military have been trying to keep it quiet from the public in case any of the last Hulda’fi in the shadows decide to lash out. We have been going over her legal will since then.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “It was a cardiac arrest. Her organ, that none of us dare call a heart, collapsed on itself. The woman had called for a guard and asked him a cryptic question regarding his children. Then she stared defiantly in his face from the moment that her organ gave out. The guard realized something was wrong when her eyes didn’t move at all, when there was no sign of breath, and he moved aside without her moving her head. Her final stare will haunt him for some time. He called for a laeknar, of course, but she had perished.”

  “Any more than that will be saying too much for his privacy,” said the therapist.

  “Yes, you’re right, laeknar. Anyways, Il’lyse, both she and her late husband had left behind a legal will that had last been updated within days before the major conflict. It states that, should anything happen to the both of them, they would leave this entire property to one of three people. One of them had been found to be dead two days after the conflict ended. A second is in prison for life, her rights to wealth or property now forfeit, though her biological brother was allowed to contest this and take the property for himself. Ren’baek showed no interest, and was all too happy to remain at work on his ship. That, and the stars, is his real home.”

  Il’lyse nodded and kicked at a stepping stone without much force. She said, “Do you need my help finding the third one, given my history with the Kroke Team?”

  The others looked at one another, and two of them cleared their throats. Il’lyse suddenly didn’t like where this was going. Bon’sinne said, “They’ve listed you by your Hulda’fi name. As I said, if you sign for it then this garden, the dome, the ten kilometer radius of land outside, and everything in it is yours.”

  “They tried to kill me. They tried to initiate Zoey. Why would they do this?”

  “We do not know, dear. I wish I did.”

  “I can understand when Uncle Aren’oro offered me a place to work if no one else would take me once I’m out of that clinic. I can understand the both of you offering me my bedroom back until I’m on my feet again. But this? Cold, infinite beyond. Now I really will have to do something about this damned house.”

  “Is it so bad?” asked the therapist, stepping forward. “It looks nice.”

  “It’s full of too many bad memories. I haven’t told any of you this yet, but I am remembering more of my time being brainwashed, initiated. There was a time, Dad, when you’d come to visit here for coffee and biscuits, after I was believed to have died. You didn’t see or hear any of us. But I saw and heard you over a camera. I heard the Fjorfolias trying to console you over the loss of your daughter when she was on the other side of the house in a mindless fugue of anger and pleasure.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Keft’aerak said, “I wish I had known. I would have come to save you.”

  “That’s why this manor can’t stay here,” Il’lyse said. “This symbol of wanton lust and deceit is a bigger burden to everyone than any of us truly know. We can rebrand it or hand it off to anyone, but in this case it’s not a simple thing or object. How dare they give it to me after all that’s happened?”

  Her parents hugged her tight. She needed it; needed them.

  This place was hers. It was the whole world she had wanted, long ago, but
this land on Dereskoo was hers. She needed a plan as to what to do with the whole thing. Why did she want the world, and what would she have done with that?

  Perfection came, spreading a smile on her face while her parents held her in the open courtyard. She knew exactly what to do with this place.

  “How is Doctor Rakendaya these days?” she asked, her tone happier.

  Everyone there gave Il’lyse a sideways glance.

  A week later she’d come back with her therapist. She adjusted the maroon cloak that was now hers. She had always wanted this one, at least. Il’lyse fitted a visor over her head and took one more look behind her where the Metouka woman stood. Next to her was Valkoi’ves, whose arm had healed since the conflict. The man smiled and gave her a thumb up with one hand before pressing something on the computer held by his other one.