by Lesley Smith
That was the worst part, listening as the hours took their toll, and Saiara herself started to doubt. Doubt could kill and Senna knew of at least one case when a woman had died of a broken heart. Her heart hadn’t literally shattered of course, but she had lost the will to live, had called out across eternity to those who hear. Jaisenthia always came to those who truly wished for her presence.
The little one was stuck but eventually, in a flood of blood and fluids, she slipped from the womb and into the world. Kadian actually had to step out of the way less his sandals be swamped. Senna didn’t even flinch and instead focused on getting the rest of the cord from around her neck, she was born half-strangled and too close to death. Senna was terrified when Jeiana poured air into the little one’s lungs, convinced it would end the child before she even had a chance to live, instead the little one coughed and screamed.
“Is she alive?” Saiara asked, pale as a shade and only half with them.
“Yes, just,” Senna said distractedly, focusing on cutting the cord and placing it just so. She remembered doing it after Chelle’s labour and seeing Jeiana’s wonder at the miracle of being Kashinai. “Rest now, and I’ll let you hold her in a moment. For now, why not give her a name, eh?”
Saiara looked thoughtful. “We never discussed it, Caspa never knew.”
“Didn’t you dream and spend hours naming unborn children?” Jeiana asked, smiling. Custom might say not to name a child until you held them in your arms but in practise every expectant parent would dally with names, tasting their balance before branding their newborn. “We were going to call Lukai ‘Arietes’ until he turned up…Marthus looked at him and knew he was a ‘Lukai’ instantly.”
“I have given it a little thought,” Saiara admitted. “I liked Korryn.”
Jeiana laughed, and no wonder, the name was familiar. Even Senna knew it but, for Jeiana’s people, it was a sacred name. “The first Seaborn princess? The daughter of the Lady of the Waves?”
“Yes, she united the sea and the land. It seems fitting. You’re not offended, are you?”
“Of course not!” Jeiana dismissed the notion. “She’s your child, no one should have a say in her name but you and her.”
Senna spoke up, adding weight to the argument. “I like it, cousin, it suits her.”
“Korryn it is then,” Saiara said softly. “Vashi, would you go let people know?”
“As you ask,” Vashi frowned. “There’s supposed to be an official proclamation.”
“Oh forget all that, let word of mouth do the work of your pen and paper.” Saiara accepted the bundle of swaddling and child, reveling in the tiny fingers and thumping heartbeat that made up her firstborn daughter. She was even more pleased when Jeiana pointed out that Korryn had blue eyes, the same shade Caspa had called his own.
Senna left them to it after that, content in the knowledge that mother and daughter were safe and that they’d just won the battle for hearts; now it was time to finish by appealing to the minds of those who called Saiara ‘Oracle’. That was going to take much longer but it was no longer such an impossible task.
The After Days
Night must follow day and effect must chase cause. Thus is the universe ordered out of chaos and even the gods must abide by celestial law.
The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.
Jeiana let Cassia brush out her hair. It was going darker now, streaks of white running through it which her child thought beautiful. Her child…and Senna’s. The little girl was on the cusp of the Age of Maturity, named for a son she no longer remembered having. Sometimes she could see his face in hers, an illusion of a life long forgotten, but she lacked the knowledge of why she remembered a boy who was never born.
Senna had died a year previously from sun-sickness and Jeiana had used the last of her power, the final shards of memories she didn’t know she had, to ease her beloved’s passing. As Senna breathed her last, so did the memory of the woman whose soul was enmeshed in Jeiana’s aging body. Others, who had known Jeiana since her first days in Aiaea, said the shock of her second mate’s death had finally broken the grief-induced madness of that of her first.
Chelle avoided talking of those days, knowing the mention of that lengthy period of induced madness made Jeiana uncomfortable. Now though, she no longer called her Ana but Jeia because that was who she now was. The Lady of the River was gone and only the memory of a dead woman remained, a hollow spectre visible only sometimes, when the light was right, in the old woman’s eyes.
“Mother.” Cassia called softly. “Someone comes.”
Jeiana’s eyes were clouded over now, partly due to age and sun exposure. Thaeos had dimmed, calmed a little, but they still stayed out of the light for much of the day, preferring the coolness of twilight. It had been a long season under the earth but eventually they had stumbled out to discover a world changed but eerily the same.
Now they slept during the day and ate with the night tide, smelling the salt water of the Sea of Lilies. The waters had begun to recede and Baaren was lost although not forgotten. Scouting parties had begun to reclaim the forest but few souls wandered too far from the Basin. Even if the Seaborn were itching to reclaim the ocean, it was still too soon and the daylight posed too great a danger.
“Who is it, daughter?”
“I have no idea, mother. Can we help you, stranger?”
The young man was wearing a long hakashari that half obscured his long white-blonde hair, tied back with a leather thong. It was as if someone had taken silver and spun it into thread then bound it to his scalp. He had kind silver-grey eyes and a strange sort of agelessness about him, she thought him familiar and yet knew they’d never met before.
“Good evening. I’m looking for Jeiana.”
“Well you’ve found her. What can I do for you, young man?” She asked.
“Could I, perhaps, sit a moment?”
“Certainly. Cas, go and fetch iced water.” Jeiana looked down at the angelic face of her daughter. “There’s a girl.”
“Cas? An interesting name for a girl child.” The man sat down beside her, settling into the contours of the chair Cassia had occupied moments before. “How did you choose it?”
Jeiana thought of her madness and unconsciously touched the silver lily and pearl at her throat. It had been Senna’s and now she wore it in her memory. “It came from an…unstable point in my life. Cassia is the last remnant of that period, but she also started the healing process.”
“I understand,” he said gently, everyone understood the toll. “Thaeos’ Rage was a terrible event for all of us.”
“Hard to believe it’s only been a quarter lifetime ago,” Jeiana said, thinking of all those she missed, the people whose faces were blurred and voices were indistinct and who came to her in dreams.
“Indeed. You were one of the first travellers, weren’t you?”
She nodded. “Such was my burden. I came from Caerim, one of the Seaborn hamlets on the southern coast.”
“Tell me, does the blessed Oracle still live?” He asked, and it didn’t occur to her that this was an odd question to ask. There were so many people, no one truly knew who knew what anymore.
“Saiara? No, sadly she passed but three seasons ago. Her daughter, Korryn, lives and has a daughter of her own.” Jeiana sipped the water, the evening breeze was cool on her skin and the night eerily silent. “Where did you come from?”
“There are tiny pockets of survivors. I’ve been travelling north, trying to get to you for some time,” the man said. “I’ve been trying to find you, Jeiana.”
“Why me?”
“Because you asked me to,” he replied and sipped his water. “Do you not remember me?”
“You seem strangely familiar to me,” she said, sounding as much embarrassed as honest. “But my eyes fail me and my memories, well, they’ve never been my strongest point. I tire so easily now, where have the years gone?”
“You’re not the only one asking that,” he
said softly. “So many died, and yet many more have been born.”
Jeiana remembered, thinking of Kei’a who was pregnant with her own daughter now, and Sui’a was courting a young man of the Feium Asun who had been her childhood playmate during the long dark year when they had lived under the earth.
“Indeed, even death has a silver lining.”
“I understand you and yours view it now as a blessing. They say Jaisenthia walked amongst you, sharing your suffering on the great journey from Aia’s city. Is it true?”
“Many believe it to be,” Jeiana shrugged. “But many believe the world is flat and that Thaeos is a Starchild who takes out his whims upon us.”
“True enough,” the young man agreed, placing his empty glass on the rock. “Jeiana, are you ready?”
“Ready?” She asked. “For what?”
“A great journey.” There was a pause that seemed to span all the ages of the world. “Once, long ago, I promised I would come and find you and we would go together.”
“But I don’t know you, though you seem so familiar to me.”
“I get that a lot,” he replied.
“What do I need to do for this journey?”
“Nothing, but tell me, are your family happy? Are your children content and safe?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is time,” he said, holding out his hand. “Will you come with me, Jeiana of Caerim, beloved of Senna? She’s waiting for you, you know, and she’s very impatient.”
“You can take me to her?”
“Yes. She refused to leave without you.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” She asked, and reached out to take his hand and, together, the disembodied souls walked into the River of Stars.
Adria moved through the cavern-corridors, a basket of freshly folded towels against her hip. Her daughter, Arrian, was in labour, crying out as the contraction tried to tear her in two, her voice echoing through the caves as the other mothers held her hands and mopped sweat from her brow. She hurried quickly through the caverns, following the girl’s cries even as Kadian waited at the entrance for her.
“Where did you go?”
“We needed towels,” Adria said, leaning forward to kiss his nose. “Come on, let’s welcome our greatdaughter into the world.”
“Vashi.”
“It’s Adria, remember?” She said, thinking of a city long ago and far away when she had denied her Edoi name for her temple one.
“As you wish,” Kadian said. “Now hurry up or she’ll have had the child already.”
Inside the birthing cave, Arrian lay on blankets and a pallet, legs spread and face flushed rose-gold from exertion. Adria gasped as she realised she could see the child’s head between her daughter’s thighs, skin flecked with blood and amniotic slime. Kadian stood back behind Kei’a, Arrian’s most beloved; he’d lost all ability to deal with blood when he’d watched Senna remove Jeiana’s hand.
For a few moments Adria was transported back in time. She had birthed her daughter on the same pallet.
“We aren’t too late!” She said, quickly handing the towels to the midwives so they would have something to wrap the newborn in. “One more push, Arri, just one and your daughter will be free.”
“Mother,” Arrian reached out for her mother’s hand. “I’m so tired.”
“Come on now, child, one more push. You can do that, can’t you? Just one more push.”
“Kei,” she whimpered.
The older woman, was sitting in the birthing position, acting as both Arrian’s pillow and support. Her fingers gently stroked the pregnant woman’s back and hair at the height of the contractions and that made her cry out in bliss. “I’ve got you. You can do this.”
“Last time? Promise?”
Kei’a agreed. “But it will be worth it.”
“I know!”
A few moments later, as Arrian coasted from her final orgasm, her little girl was cleaned with warm water and wrapped in one of the towels, to be presented to her mothers to name.
“What are you going to call her, Arri?” Kadian asked gently, suddenly glad of his height so he could see without getting any closer to the blood.
“Isuri,” she she said, without hesitation. “‘Memory’. For those remembered and never forgotten.”
That evening was the happiest Adria could remember, none of the days since her joining to Kadian could match it. She lay with little Isuri on her lap, rocking the child and gently humming memorisation songs that she hadn’t realised she remembered. On the other side of the small birthing cave, the babe’s mothers lay entwined and sound asleep. Kadian had gone to the shrine cave, to leave offerings to Jaisenthia and ask that this daughter of Ishvei live a long and healthy life.
Jeiana stood at the door, Saiara with her, a ghost of a memory. She was gone, and Korryn held her title now. She was barely even Arrian’s age and yet she had been well taught, trained for this role from childhood, to lead where Saiara could not. Saiara was gone now, across the River, and Jeiana too had been dead a good year or more, it was hard to tell, living in the caves by day and traveling less than a hair’s breadth into the forest by night.
Adria looked up, blinking and Saiara’s form faded, replaced by Jaisenthia’s Ferryman. “Ah. So that’s it, is it? My days are done? My time has run out?”
Jaisenthia smiled. “I promised you that you would see your greatdaughter born, didn’t I?”
“And we never lie,” her Ferryman added before asking what must be asked. “Will you come with us, Vashi? The journey is long and we could use a storyteller such as you.”
Her eyes panned down to her sleeping greatdaughter. Isuri lay dreaming on her stomach. “But what about her? What about Kadian?”
“He’ll survive.” Jeiana said, reaching out across the aeons from the other shore. “Come and rest, dear one, be reunited with those who insist on waiting for you. You’ve earned it.”
“I’m scared,” she said, eyes falling to her daughter and her lover, nesting together on the pallet, both exhausted and dreaming together of who knew where. “I won’t be me anymore.”
“I was scared too, being mortal.” Jaisenthia sounded empathetic, even as her form drifted and she looked more like Jeiana with every word. “But I learned more as a daughter of this world that I could have in a thousand lifetimes elsewhere.”
“And my greatdaughter—?”
“—Will learn of her greatmother’s courage, of her part in the greatest story this world has known. She will learn how Saiara the Brave battled insurmountable odds with you at her side.” She reached out. “Come now, sleep a while and then return, there are more roles for you to play yet.”
“I don’t have a choice do I?”
The Ferryman shook his head. “But at least you can die surrounded by those who love you and whom you love. It’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”
She was growing cold when Kadian returned and he was slower to notice than he should have been as he slipped down beside her. Confused, he felt for her pulse, for the breath escaping her lips only to find neither there. He wept silently, taking the child from her arms, and holding her close as Adria’s family, her chosen kin, slept on until the evening came. She would be remembered under both her names and many more.
From the cave entrance, the woman who had been Vashi, already remembering her past and future lives, watched him. The parting grieved her, her tears trailing like stars falling across the skies, even as her guardians tried to console her. Eternity was but a moment and a lifetime just a heartbeat.
“Goodbye, love,” she whispered.
Then, in robes made of moonlight, with hair the colour of Saiara, the new moon that hung in the heavens and lit up their world like a great silver lightstone, Adria followed the Lady of the River and her Ferryman from this shore to the other.
Epilogue
All of us are called, not just to gods or our kishai, but because we each have a role to p
lay in the great stories of the universe.
The writings of Jannah the Pious, fifty-fifth Oracle of Aia.
Jannah listened to the movements of the universe from under the depths of the earth. The River Cavern stretched above her even if she couldn’t see the tiny points and crystalline fragments embedded into the ceiling. They marked out the skies as they’d been during the first period when they were only just learning sentience, what it meant to be alive, and yet this magnificent accomplishment had lasted longer than many of the paintings on the walls, longer than the geodes in the earth and the stars themselves in the heavens.
Jannah was called ‘the Pious’ by her people; she trusted in Aia and yet also exercised practicality, as her ancestor, Saiara, her several times long-dead greatmother, had done. She trusted those who advised her, but Old Haia’s upbringing had also taught her to smell baelish shit a mile away.
She meditated to the singing of the water and the rumble of the earth, but craved the sky. The memory of the Changing of the Sun had carved fear into the hearts of each new generation…Jannah’s was the fifth or sixth and the memory of cloud-filled skies fuelled the blind girl into her adult years, into her Ascension as the current Oracle.
Aia whispered and Jannah’s heart soared: Time has passed, Thaeos’ rage cools, soon you will crawl from the darkness into the light.
Sunlight on her face, she dreamed of it. She had visions in which they walked in daylight, unafraid and unbowed by the need to hide from the light. The smell of damp and rising water levels in the lower caverns would force them out, back into the world. It was time to reclaim all that was lost, all that was left. The notion came unbidden, as all Aia’s whisperings usually did, but the meaning startled Jannah so much, she woke from her trance with more than a bump.
Daie’s voice came from her left. “Your Grace? Are you well?”
“I’m fine, dearest.” Jannah pushed herself up to her feet. “But we have things to do. This world of ours is about to force us back to the surface permanently.”