by Lesley Smith
Jeiana remembered, the events and things from this woman’s life assimilated as if she herself had lived them, rather than just reactivating parts of a dead mind. “Marthus was from there. His sister Chelle, she’s an artisan, a jewellery-maker, in the Sky District.”
The image of Marthus’ sister, her dyed platinum hair with a mixture of Aia’s blue and Ishvei’s green, and silver at her throat and in her ears, flashed up in her mind.
The Edoi, she knew both from her own knowledge and the memories in Jeiana’s mind, were nomads, traders who took goods around Reshka. Their coming was celebrated, promising fruits and incense from Baaren or perfumed oil from Fenoi, things which the Seaborn didn’t normally have access to, but valued all the same.
They brought stories too, news from Aiaea and that, for most, was the best thing. They even brought letters from people they passed and many of the towns had spent weeks composing missives of their own to send with the travellers in hopes that they might find family during their next visit to the larger cities. It was no coincidence that their journeys were timed so they coincided with festivals, both large and small. She knew they would be heading to Aiaea eventually. That was good because it was precisely where she needed to go, even if it wasn’t time to be there yet.
“We’ll take you to Aiaea if you wish,” Taras, the chieftain said, his voice gruff but still filled with kindness. “We’re planning to be in Aiaea for the New Year, so go to your family, grieve with them, and you’re welcome to join us until we reach the capital. Come to us when Thaeos reaches His zenith the day following our arrival in the city.”
“Thank you, Clanfather,” Jeiana replied. She was sitting on the back of Cavalentis, Desert Wanderer, one of the great shaggy baelish favoured by the clan. He was was too old for eating and had studded more than a few females in his time and now he was put to work. A creature of his size was more than capable of carrying two people and pulling a cart or a shaded caravan. The Edoi had six of the beasts, and it meant they would reach Gehol in just a single night, rather than the three it would take on foot.
Jeiana raised her hood and tried to sleep, but all she could do was watch the cold desert envelop them as Thaeos sank below the horizon and turned it blood red, in honour of the fallen. In the west, Kaiene rose, her holy white light piercing the all-encompassing darkness as night slowly descended upon the caravan as the journey of the Lady of the River truly began.
Hearth and Kin
Life is but a journey, what your learn in your travels is the lesson.
The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.
Gehol may as well have been a city full of aliens. Actually, that might have been a lot easier, Jeiana mused as the Edoi caravan rolled into the city.
Everything about this city of stone and wood felt wrong. It felt impossibly strange but also achingly familiar. Jeiana had been here before, she had seen these buildings, and it was the strangest sense of deja vu. Buildings two or three storeys high towered over paved stone courtyards and walkways. Fountains danced and musicians played and people in the marketplace sold their wares, hawking their goods in loud voices.
It was all alien, so abrasive in its obviousness, that Jeiana felt her heart quicken and the need to find silent solitude burned through her. Despite all that, the pale, gold-tinged faces and softly twitching tails were heartbreakingly familiar. These people, they were the star-kissed Kashinai, Ishvei’s children. Jeiana was one of them now and she had to get used to that no matter how uncomfortable it made her.
She saw artisans selling their wares; jewellers and blacksmiths crafting everything from ornate pendants to statues of the deities whose names Jeiana knew without thinking. The smell of food had woken her before the sunrise had, the smell of meat cooking guiding the Edoi through the city’s heavy gates and tall stone walls which protected it from the frequent sand storms which descended from the deep desert.
Chelle, heavily pregnant with her second daughter, was waiting for her in the marketplace. She saw Jeiana before the caravan came to a stop. Jeiana, in turn, saw Chelle had brought her first daughter, Kei’a, with her; the little girl was only just out of babyhood and didn’t understand why her mother had started to cry when her aunt appeared.
“Jeia.” Chelle flung her arms around her sister’s neck, tears trailing down her cheeks. “Sister, I heard…I had hoped but-”
Jeiana had to remind herself that on this world, blood meant nothing. Chelle was her sister as much as if they had come from the same womb, and she had not had a sister like this in a long time. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the words, right or wrong, to answer her.
“I’m so sorry.” Chelle said tearfully.
Jeiana let the younger woman hug her, memories of another life and her own sister bleeding into Chelle’s face. Aerei, the kind Princess of Stories, was long gone, as was she, the Princess of the Raven Hair. It had been her sister, whom these people called Ishvei, who had asked her to walk on this world. Whatever names they used, however many people had forgotten them, how many times they walked in borrowed or created mortal forms, they were still sisters, and when kin asked for favours, it was impossible to refuse. This was particularly true here with the ramifications this cataclysm would have, and not just for this little planet but dozens more..
“Come home, I have food cooking. A good meal will help you.”
Chelle had her hair cut short since they had last seen each other. It must have been, what, a year or more since Lukai and Jeiana had come to Gehol to visit. Now her hair was dyed with deep blue streaks backed by the natural red she had been born with.
She was a lifelong maiden with her ieshiya—the network of nodes and nerves that ran from where her neck met her body all way the way to her tail—displayed proudly for all to see. She dallied with whom she chose and raised her daughter alone, a proud parent who instilled in Kei’a that your heart was your own but there was no harm in sharing your thoughts, your body or your dreams with those you called true friends.
Chelle wore a fine dress of mesh-silk that was tied at the back with thin ribbon, and plain baelish leather sandals dyed red by street dust, the colour of her eyes was stolen from a forest cat and her tail trailed behind her. It was unusually long for her height.
Around her neck was a choker of her own design, a woven chain which men and women of science in a distant future on another world might recognise as that which constituted life’s basic building blocks. Here it was simply a design of silver and gold spun together with copper, and a pendant that reminded the old soul in Jeiana’s body of a child in its parent’s womb.
“Auntie!” Kei’a raised her hands, begging her aunt to pick her up. Jeiana acquiesced, holding the child against her hip as the little girl played with her hair.
Leaving Taras and his brethren behind with a promise to return, they walked through the streets, past houses and businesses. Word had come with the Edoi, and the only news was about the Wave and the deaths in Caerim. Jeiana suddenly felt visible and vulnerable, as if she wearing a sign around her neck which said ‘survivor’ written in Ishvei’s own hand.
Chelle’s house was small, but still a well-loved home. Jeiana could feel the emotion in the place even though she was not an empath. She saw the notches in the wall where her sister was marking Kei’a’s growth, the twin beds, the cluttered area where she designed and made jewellery, and the small locked box containing the pieces she had found or had bartered for a tale, and a little metal or filigree for making chains. Jeiana remembered something and reached into her pocket, her fingers finding the pearl.
They ate in silence, a small carafe of iced wine and a bowl of hearty summer stew. on the table between them. Jeiana was starving and devoured the food as if it was the first meal she’d ever eaten. In a way she supposed it was.
Chelle waited until Jeiana was halfway through her second pillow roll before she spoke: “You’re not my sister, are you?”
A part of Jeiana should have been surprised, but the res
t of her was resigned. Even in this form, some things were obvious and she had been too busy surviving to focus on pretending to be another person.
“I’d say ‘yes’ but there’s no point. I have Jeiana’s memories but I’m not her,” she tried to explain. “What gave me away?”
“Kei’a. You didn’t instantly pick her up. Her aunt would sweep her up before saying hello to me,” Chelle said, eyes refusing to leave Jeiana’s face as she frowned, eyes narrowing. “And your eyes, they used to be blue and now they’re silver-grey.”
Jeiana hadn’t noticed that, but then she’d not had access to a mirror. Such things were uncommon. She shouldn’t be surprised that Chelle noticed, after all, many worlds had long ago decided the eyes were the windows to the soul. The body might be Jeiana’s, but the soul belonged to someone else.
“Normally I would try to be Jeiana. I could do it easily,” she said, her words flowing with an assurance she didn’t have a moment before. Jeiana opened her mouth and the Lady of the River’s words came out, a tiny piece of her other self allowed to reign for just a moment. “But the transition was rough, and since then I’ve been surrounded by people who didn’t know or care if I was me or not. I let the facade of her slip.”
“Can I ask who you are?” Chelle’s voice trailed off. “Which deity are you?”
“I’m not one of those, but you have a name for me.” Jeiana met the other woman’s eye and she didn’t need to say her name. Chelle already knew.
“What do I call you, if not the name we gave you? You’re not my Jeia.”
That made the being who was now walking in Jeiana’s form stop to consider. “What about Ana?”
“Okay then, Ana, why are you here?”
“My sister loves this world. Of all the planets in the cosmos, this one is her favourite. As sisters we shared a womb, and even now, so far away and beyond the physical, we are still close. She asked me to come and offer aid during the times of trial which lie ahead for you. I don’t walk in this plane often but when I do, it’s at times when I’m needed.”
“Death is needed?”
“Sometimes,” Jeiana said. “If you were ill and in tremendous pain, wouldn’t a peaceful end be better than suffering day after day with no end in sight?”
“Maybe.”
“My chosen one—we call them soul mates—and I, and our son, we act to help those in pain, to end their suffering when there is no other choice. The gentle death I offer, it is a mercy, a blessing.”
Chelle’s eyes flashed to where Kei’a lay sleeping soundly, and there was a note of fear, of maternal fierceness in her voice; she was a forest cat protecting her kitten. “You’re not here to take her, are you?”
“No.” Jeiana was almost hurt but the reaction was natural, perfectly understandable. She would not be the first, nor the last, to experience it. “If I were, I would not be so cruel as to share your table. If I was to take your dawn-child, I would do so silently, invisibly. You would never know I’d passed through.”
“You speak strangely…”
“I know, I’m going to try to learn, to become like Jeiana,” she hesitated. “If it will not cause you too much unnecessary pain.”
“That depends on what’s coming.”
“Normally,” Jeiana said softly. “I would never say. I’m supposed to be dispassionate, an outsider watching, but I’m here to help, and your sister’s memories, they’re still so vivid, so fresh. I care for you and your daughter because Jeiana did. You are as much my sister, Chelle, as you were hers.”
“So?”
“Something is about to happen in Aiaea which will lead to a great exodus. Something is coming…you might call it Thaeos’ anger. It’s going to change this world. Millions will die—some quickly and some very slowly. I’m not here to stop it. No one can. It needs to happen, but I am here to help. I have a little knowledge, and I will use my gifts and help you adapt to a new world very unlike the one you’re used to.”
“Die?”
“Everyone dies. The wave was the start of it. The icecaps of this planet are melting.”
“Icecaps?” The concept was too remote for Chelle. “What do you mean?”
“The top and bottom parts of this world are frozen; great lands of ice which seem to go on forever. They’re warming up as Thaeos’ sends out great fingers of heat, only you can’t see or feel it, only see the aftereffects.”
Now Chelle understood; she’d seen ice melting in a glass of water. “So what can I do?”
“After the festival, I’m going with the Edoi as far as Aiaea, and further north if they’ll have me. You and your daughter, you could come with us. I can’t guarantee your survival but if you stay here, I know my soulmate will come for you. If you need more time, you have it, but you must be in Canhei Basin by Midsummer’s Day, when Thaeos is at his brightest. That’s where everyone will be heading. That’s where you can be safe until the Changing of the Sun is over.”
“The Changing of the Sun?” Chelle was puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“It’s what they—the Kashinai of a future time—call this event. It’s so massive the entire calendar is based around it and a new system of counting years begins.” Jeiana stopped, fingers touching the necklace around her throat. She was still quietly amazed it had remained, even after Jeiana’s body had been bruised and broken. “But then you know this, well, a part of you does. You made this necklace for Jeiana. What do the discs represent?”
Chelle was taken a back. “It was a dream I had as a girl. I dreamed I was standing looking up at the night sky, Thaeos was setting and Kaiene had risen but there was a second moon rising.”
“It’s a memory of a life in a future time. That’s all prophecy ever is, remembered memories,” Jeiana said. “And these smaller orbs, they represent rings of stone which will fall into orbit around this planet. Thaeos is going to rage so hard that his fire will destroy several of the planets that spin in front of this one, and this is what will protect your world from destruction. A chunk will eventually settle in the heavens as a new moon named for the priestess—the Oracle—who will predict the Changing of the Sun.”
Chelle shuddered as the life of her future self stepped on her past self’s grave.
Jeiana reached for the pearl in her pocket. “Your sister picked this up minutes before she died, intending to give it to you to craft something. I will leave it with you. Think upon what I’ve said, Chelle, and know that I do care about your answer as if I were Jeiana herself.”
“Thank you, Ana,” Chelle said.
Jeiana hugged her with genuine affection, then she left the table and went to lay on the makeshift pallet. Sleep came quickly, and so did dreams of a life she had not led.
Jeiana sat on the bank, her wet hair plastered to her face, crying softly. Her dress was soaked through and showed every curve of her body. She was scared. She was exposed and not quite sure of what happened; the disembodied seldom were, and even death-shock took them time to comprehend. Especially if it was a violent passing.
The River wasn’t real, but it was how the people of this world saw the transition to the ever-after. They said you passed over a river of stars—their name for galaxy spiraling across the heavens—and that the Lady and Lord of the River, Jaisenthia and her consort, the unnamed Ferryman, would transport you to the place where you would go. Other worlds, other cultures, had different ideas on the transition: some said there was a white light, or a weighing scales to measure your heart. For the people of this world, the illusion was much simpler and so much more beautiful.
The River glittered as if stars floated in the water, and the boat rocked gently, already filled with people. In theory the boat was a construct. It could hold as many as needed and each would be alone, or surrounded by their nearest and dearest who died with them. Candle-boats and lilies floated on the water, and in the sky were billions of stars floating in coloured, nebular gas.
Lukai and Marthus stepped onto the boat. Lukai went first, but his father stoppe
d and turned, reaching out to her. “Jeia?”
“I’m scared.”
Jeiana found her eyes focusing on the Lord of the River, the Ferryman. He stood on the other boat, long silver hair hanging between his shoulders in a half-braid. He wore a long black cloak, but his face was kind, and his grey eyes held resolve. He had long ago come to terms with his role as psychopomp, as a guide for the souls of the dead, and he knew the choice was hers to make. Not that there was a choice, not really, but the illusion was needful. Jeiana was drowning, her body broken and battered. Nothing and no one could survive that.
Jaisenthia stood at the prow of her boat. She leant over and gently touched her consort’s arm. “It’s time.”
“I thought it might be,” he replied, glancing at her. A worried look passed over his face. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“No. The idea terrifies me; but if they can do it, life after life, age after age, what excuse do we have?”
He said softly to her, “Be safe.”
“I will try. Come for me when I’m done?”
“Always and forever. Though I’ll be sure to check in on you now and again.”
A light laugh broke the stillness in the boat. Jaisenthia was still standing at the prow but she was also moving the boat, passing the dead souls waiting for them to go. For them it was a simple thing, as easy as reading and eating at the same time, but every soul on the boat stilled, regardless.
As she passed Lukai, she touched his shoulder gently and reassured the boy. “It will be alright, Lukai. Go and sit while I speak with your mother.”
Marthus saw the Lady of the River and bowed his head in reverence or fear. The two emotions mingled as they always did, no mortal could really understand what these beings were, their purpose or their origins.
To mortals, they were gods and though every atom of Jaisenthia’s essence hated that idea, she was resigned to it. Gods were beings mortals could understand. What she was, well it may as well be godhood for all it would mean to the star-kissed sons and daughters of a world that would one day be Coronis. They were so young and so, for now, that reverence was only to be expected. They would grow up soon enough and lose their innocence as well.