“Stop staring, sapient.” His bark broke my concentration but I held my gaze. He laughed and held out his stick to threaten me. You are mine, he mouthed before jabbing his point into the air. “Hopeless creature,” he said with a snigger.
ONINE
I was barely a few tongues high when I first saw my goddess, bathing with the sisters of the Astros in the lava beds on the shadowed side of Granite Peak. The beauties were unaware I could see them and I had wanted to avoid the pools, but they were the only place I could get the onyx I needed. As I came over the ridge of the vast rock plain, my eyes were pulled to her light. It was like a concentrated spark made up of the entire cluster of stars that trimmed our galaxy. The sisters paled in comparison to my goddess and it was then I knew my dreams had done her the gravest injustice. Her beauty’s effect on me grew uncontrollable with time, and whenever I stood a mere pittance from her flame and saw her in full regalia, even if on her pedestal, I would unravel. It is nothing to say I love Kypria—my desire is the only reason I sacrifice everything.
Rather a genius with stone and lava, I worked the forge even after I was inducted into the Kyprian retinue. When my goddess commissioned her hall of jade, I sent my apprentice to the surrounding hubs for the milky rock that is rare on Venus. But it is useless to mourn the misfortune now, his returning with the slick jade trader from the planet Menaleck. Foolishly, my apprentice gave away our coordinates, making us vulnerable, and taught a contentious species how to breach our fiery atmosphere. We anticipated the cost an alien migration would have on our bountiful landscape but when Menaleck’s ambassador, Midan, arrived, we were blind to his coming destruction.
“The ambassador has seen Ur and promised the jade?” My apprentice was keen to hear about the visitor and his dealings. I nodded though impatient for him to return to his smelting.
“At what price?” He asked.
“Unlimited access to the fire brines,” I said.
“Does Ur want him to stay?”
“I cannot speak for the sire of Venus.” I pulled the rod from his hands and stirred the lava bath myself.
“The ambassador’s arrival may help them gain the vow of the unpledged ones,” my apprentice said.
The suggestion made my fire brighten though I would have preferred to hide my irritation. My apprentice spoke of the rebels who were undecided in their devotion to my goddess, those of the old regime who still worshipped Ur. A generation had burned away since then, but some of the stronger fires remained loyal to the sire and renewed their allegiance despite his command to worship his progeny. Even after he announced his departure, they persisted.
“How can Midan help Venusian matters when they are not his concern?”
“The ambassador has ingratiated himself with the sire’s regime,” my apprentice said. “Though it seems he has also fallen under Kypria’s spell—”
“You forget yourself,” I said. “You mean to say my goddess has pleased our visitor with Kyprian flame?”
Though I spurned my apprentice’s remark, he was correct. Midan had fallen under Kypria’s spell and her flame corrupted him, impure as he was. His desire for our goddess grew so great, in fact, it demanded more of him than he could offer and soon the ambassador proved a warmonger bent on dominating the group of unpledged Venusian. Despite the strength of the Kyprian retinue, Midan’s arrival spawned a large number of rebels and civil war threatened our planet.
But our brave and ingenious goddess proposed a plan for those of us willing to follow her. Though a pacifist, I volunteered for the Kyprian guard shortly after she suspected Midan’s plan for her planet. Long before the ambassador had a secret army of Venusian at his disposal, Kypria had a clandestine guard of her own. Our existence on Venus was coming to an end and when we received the message from Ur, we knew what had to be done. Our sire sent his progeny the coordinates to the dark passage, the only way out from under the reign of Midan. I never doubted Ur but when he left on his interstellar quest with a small group of Venusian, his abandonment was our loss. The fate of our star had been decided long ago, written in the tome of the deity and impossible to avoid. Since the sire would never return, the Kyprian guard vowed to use the dark passage to keep Ur’s progeny from the yoke of another despite its risk.
We held a private meeting in my goddess’s solarium to strategize our departure. We would attempt an exploratory jaunt first and then make plans for a permanent escape.
“We shall leave when Jupiter sets,” Kypria said, as she stood on her pillar of jade.
Our flames rose up to greet her fire.
“Goddess,” I said, “how can we know the terrain? The atmosphere?”
“She is a sister planet,” she said. “A twin.”
My goddess had never been to this planet and yet she knew everything she needed to breach its sphere. Despite its cold and watery landscape, she expected us to survive the migration since it boasted a small verdurous patch of land. We were creatures of fire and lava, however, and acidic smoke was our substance—I doubted we could inhale the planet’s air and live to speak of it.
“Goddess,” I said. “How can we get acclimated to such a hostile environment?”
She appeased my early fears with seeds of greater ones. “Its surface will melt under my fire,” she said. “And we will change our forms to live in harmony with the planet.”
The thought of changing forms was beyond unreasonable and my Kyprian siblings flickered at the notion. “What new life form will we take?”
She answered with a word foreign to Venusian tongue but one she had seen etched in the tome. I asked her if this life form was different from ours.
“In every way,” she said. “Which is why it has been chosen. It is a form without beauty—without heat.”
“Do you fear extinction, goddess?”
“Fire and clay,” she said. “The union must be.” Her exquisite countenance held my gaze and I would have been satisfied to admire it for eternity.
“Is there no other way to save you, goddess?”
“Ur has spoken,” she said. “My sire’s coordinates are plain. The dark passage must be taken, the breach to the planet’s banks made. Kyprian will live on despite the inevitable changes to come.”
The flames of the Kyprian guard rose unanimously in assent.
“Please send a few of us first, goddess,” I said. “We must assure its safety before—”
“Impossible,” she said. “Only my flame will ready the way. You cannot pierce the sphere without it.”
“But what if this planet—”
“My sire has spoken.”
Saturnia’s sister came forward then, out from the fire of her goddess. “The planet’s creatures are sentient, organic beings thriving on the richness of the soil. Our colonization will avoid enmity and strive for peace. Our union with these beings is fated and thus we must embrace the gift from our sire. This passage will lead us to freedom and eventually renewal.”
“But must we abandon our form?” I said.
My goddess raptured the others, mesmerized them with her flame, and spoke to me alone. “You are gifted,” she said.
I thought she meant the jade stones I had erected in her solarium. They were meant to be symbols of our heritage, the rocks of Kypria. “Manipulation of stones has been my trait since before inception, goddess.”
“I am not speaking of your artistry.”
I could not respond with a word—speech suddenly seemed an impossible act. Perhaps it was her beauty or the truth of my love that stayed my tongue.
“Saturnia’s sister has told me you can carry the spark,” she said.
Saturnia’s sister saw all within our flames. She knew our gifts before we did. Kypria’s question wanted an answer but I remained without one for some time. The goddess leaned forward on the pillar and looked directly into my violet eyes.
“Do not be afraid,” she whispered. “I am not.”
Her voice shook the solarium, as though it too shuddered in the presence of
her greatness.
“I-I-I do not know what that means, goddess.”
It was common for us to be confused by our gifts since most of us were spared from special burdens at inception. Some were simply heat bearers made for worship. My goddess smiled and pointed her scepter at my chest. I held my fire, as she plunged the liquid metal into my front and stirred the flame within. She leered at me, as she prodded me for proof of my gift. I closed my eyes, though I wanted to look at her forever, and was grateful she remained in the darkness. When she pulled her scepter from me, she laughed.
“Excellent,” she said. “Saturnia’s sister has done well.”
The goddess released her retinue from rapture and dismissed each of us with an order to return at the rise of Jupiter. As I exited the solarium, I saw Midan for the first time. Until then I had only heard the rumors of his grotesque shape, but as I passed him then he greeted me with a flick of his forked tongue. Though wearing Venusian apparel, his scales showed in the light of the solarium. He ignored my flame but we exchanged looks.
The wait for the rise of Jupiter was long. My apprentice pledged himself to me when he was told he was unfit to go with us. I promised I would send for him if successful. In the meantime, I assigned him to keep an eye on the newcomers.
“You will report back to me when I call,” I said.
“If the dark passage is safe and the planet hospitable, will it replace Venus?”
“Nothing can replace home.” I reassured him our stay on the other planet would be temporary. We would never give up Venus.
“What does Terra mean?” He had heard me speak the name we had given the twin planet.
“It is named for its substance,” I said. “The matter that coats its surface.”
“It’s not lava then?” My apprentice was eager but unskilled in many ways. He was fanned into being around the time I was, but only because his lineage boasted a line of gifted masons. He proved less capable than his ancestors and was assigned to be my disciple shortly after my talent became renown. “Is there a forge on Terra?”
“Perhaps we will need to make one,” I said. “Once our settlement is secure, you will be given your place.”
“With you?”
“Our goddess will oversee her retinue just as she does here,” I said. “We will certainly need to construct a solarium and temples befitting Kypria.”
“Will Terra change us?”
No truer concern had been voiced. My apprentice knew the answer despite his inability to know the truth. “Let us speak of other things now,” I said. “How will you ingratiate yourself with the ambassador?”
“Through the jade trader.”
“Yes, he will do.”
My apprentice stirred the lava and I poured in the bromine, as we discussed his plan of espionage. The dark red fumes rose from the crevasse and colored his flame—his aspect had never looked so sinister. I was relieved when he smiled and said, “Will you send for me?”
I promised him I would, though I was uncertain of my return. I feared our descent to the cold, uncharted planet, but making an escape back to Venus worried me even more.
***
The first expedition to Terra proved successful, and difficult. Our celestial bodies were jettisoned to the watery planet through the dark passage located with Ur’s coordinates. We suffered an icy quarantine that snuffed out several of the younger guards. For those of us who did survive, the journey was painful. Our forms mimicked the stars, as we traveled past them in space. We morphed in and out of bodies, lighting up the universe, as we trailed through the opening to the twin planet. We hung in the sky above the lush plains of wheat—auroras in the darkness—before plummeting to the edge of Terra’s horizon and dropping into its soil.
From microscopic bursts of space static to clay-covered beings, we multiplied our spirits and rose a dozen Kyprian strong, decked out in the flesh that would keep us from succumbing to the planet’s atmosphere. We learned to breathe Terra’s air and expel unwanted waste from our new form, which I will admit was the most difficult to get used to.
The terrain was vast but sparsely populated. Before we touched down on the cold soil, our goddess lit the landscape on fire and melted the seed down to gold. Everything condensed to metal with the touch of her flame and she excavated the soil with one stroke. Lava shot up from the green pastures and sand soaked up the lush marshes of the forests. The living trees froze mid-growth and grew strong with the tin covering of Venusian element. Newly erected in granite and gold, Terra’s surface bowed before its new goddess.
Soon we encountered the first beings, those who survived her immolation. With their swarthy bodies covered in hair, they were ugly creatures. The beasts folded before my goddess, as she bathed the planet in her warmth and stole their energy, wiping out most of the species we met. When we finally made contact with the forms we had come to emulate, my goddess was disappointed. At first sight, she wanted to destroy them despite our original intention to colonize and repurpose the beings. When she found Mara, however, she decided to uphold our plan.
The youngling was sitting in a field of golden stocks, twirling with her arms outspread. She was bare and free with long hair that clung to her head and draped down around the sides of her face, covering her in ways that indulged her purity. She was unaware of our approach and continued to spin on the spot where she stood. She made a sound that could only be an expression of pleasure. When she finally stopped, she faced us, showing my goddess the sapient’s potential to reflect our beauty.
“It is happening,” my goddess said. “Can you see it? Can you see the pale glow of her skin?”
The sapient looked unchanged to me but I was only just getting used to the anatomy I had been given. Mara was smaller than us and looked pleasant because of it.
“We shall hide their skins until they are fully transformed,” my goddess said. “They will wear coverings until the only reflection they offer is that of the Venusian aspect. They will become beautiful in time.”
“How will you make them obey us?” I had already witnessed resistance in some, their faces revealing wicked thoughts and passionate emotion. It was a shame to cover up such vulnerability.
“We will only keep the younglings,” she said. “Like this one.”
I was more curious about the sapient than my Kyprian siblings and so when my goddess asked me to address Mara, I moved closer to greet her. Frightened by my approach, she knelt to the ground and picked up a loose rock, raising it in her hand. I attempted to communicate with her but could only muster a Venusian shriek. I saw the mischievous expression before the rock flew from her hand and sailed through the air toward me. The wind slowed the rock’s flight and I caught the stone. It melted with my touch and when it seeped to the ground, the chaff around us caught fire. I saw Mara’s urge to bolt before she moved a limb. Her desire was written on her face and I lunged toward her, reaching out to grab her, but the Kyprian shriek stopped me.
“Let her go,” my goddess said. “It may be unsafe to touch them. We cannot know the consequences of contact and risk contamination.”
I dropped my hand and watched Mara run deeper into the field where she disappeared in the stalks of golden wheat. My goddess approached me and put her hand on my shoulder. Her new form felt heavy on mine but I liked it. “We have found the one.”
“The one, goddess?”
She turned her attention to the retinue and commanded they follow her to the site of our new solarium.
“What about the sapient?” I asked.
“She will be forced to turn back soon,” she said. “The outer sands will stop her.”
Terra was cold and dark for half its time cycle and we rid ourselves of the coldness with stick and stone fires until a molten eye was erected in our colony of greenhouses. By the third moonscape, we were ready for the darkness and lived in the warmth of an eye at all times to keep our fires from dampening. We enslaved the younglings to help build the Bathing Temple—lava baths and solariums to keep o
ur nature from being lost altogether. When I found mineral beds beneath the golden landscape, I made my plans to erect Kypria’s hall of jade.
We worked alongside the sapients we enslaved. The younglings were easy to ensnare, most of them starving from my goddess’s immolation of their planet. Saturnia’s sister was assigned to appease their anguish and discomfort with matter she transformed into sweet substances—anise root and serum, she called them. We soon realized certain things should be kept from my goddess’s immolation, and had to leave some of the organic matter alive to nourish the sapients, and ourselves—wheat, milk and grains were our new staple.
When Mara returned, as my goddess said she would, she was made an honorary Kyprian. She was a funny creature and eventually I grew to like her, but I was hesitant at first, when my goddess brought her through the smoke to meet me, as I marked the lava temperatures in the Bathing Temple.
“Onine,” my goddess said.
I paid no attention, forgetting the name she had given me. She called me a third time before I answered. When I looked at both beings, I saw them as one. The sapient basked in Kypria’s flame and my goddess was more beautiful because of it. Each one reflected the other, a visual trick that made me lose sapient speech for a brief moment and I responded with a Venusian shriek. My goddess’s glare put me back in my place.
“This is Mara,” she said. “She is to begin work in the Bathing Temple. She will need to be trained and you shall be her keeper.”
I nodded my approval and accompanied her through the cedar door into the steam of the baths. When Kypria left us, the change in the sapient’s reflection struck me at once.
“We will begin with the chains,” I said.
She remained quiet but bowed her head and followed me through the Temple. I worked with Mara for a full lunar cycle, whenever the eye lit the landscape, and she barely spoke to me in that time. I would give her direction and she would simply obey with a nod. I often saw her looking into the baths dreamily, as though willing herself somewhere else. I thought we were gentle masters but the sapient suffered despite our innocuous nature. At times, I longed to remove her veil of silk, to see her thoughts written on her cheeks. Her dark eyes revealed little to me, but I remembered the expression on her face at our first encounter. Her fear, her disdain, her anger were evident in the coloring of her sapient flesh. To see her face would have told me the things I wanted to know.
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