“We will be close again,” she said. “You will know me as no other has.”
“I am ready now, goddess.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are ready. And when you return, I am yours.”
“I am already yours.”
She smiled and leaned toward me, holding my gaze in hers. My violet eyes searched the endless abyss, as she penetrated my flame. The pleasure was greater than the one I experienced with Saturnia’s sister, but it lasted only a brief moment. “Go through the darkness to reach the sphere,” she said. “Come back to me on the other side.”
Her voice echoed, as my form morphed into a single flame, shooting up and out of the solarium past the crystal and into the acidic atmosphere. From ecstasy to torment, I rose and rose, as my flame dampened, leaving a trail through the emptiness of space before I reached the duct at the edge of our star system. Sucked into darkness, my wails of excruciation were silenced by the vast cosmic chasm. When I finally reached the tenth sphere, my fire was almost extinguished and I was barely alive.
As soon as I touched down on the surface of Gelu, my form changed. The icy plane and somber sky were strange, but the cold—the cold was alien and scary. Lost and disoriented, I recalled my mission. My goddess had sent me here to adapt to coldness, darkness, everything against my nature. To survive this was the only way to endure what was to come—the only way to save Kypria.
A cavalcade of Gelanese greeted me with little courtesy, poking and prodding my coarse figure as though I were a simple zephyr. I lay stiff on the ground, hoping they would relieve me of the burden. I was rather satisfied when they picked me up and tossed me onto a large smelly beast that exhaled gas from the tip of his trunk. The beast warmed my frigid skin, as we strode across the powdered terrain—the nivis-laden Gelu had been frozen since before time. A landscape more opposed to Venus than any other, Gelu was a blue planet, one of shade and ice with a valley of cold that rivals the one on Terra’s satellite.
My flame suffered beneath my bald flesh. My new form was more brutish than my terrestrial body, and though the darkness prevented me from confirming it, I was certain I had become a base species. I thought of Mara’s goat. It could probably reason better than the creature I had become. At least it knew it liked to lie between the cabbages.
The Gelanese communicated with grunts and snorts. If I had wanted to understand them, I could have, but they had nothing worthy to say, speaking only of the hunt to come. Fortunately, I was spared as the object of their chase. I worried, however, that if my flame were snuffed out, I would be relegated to the tenth sphere forever. I assumed my sentence on Gelu was fleeting but my goddess could only call me back after I had perished and been reborn.
To keep my fire alight, I envisioned a lava bath. I swayed to the rhythm of the Gelanese beast and my imagined bromine drip of molten saplings that gushed in the new moon on Venus until my fantasy was disturbed by my plunge into the deeps of a frigid sea. I inhaled a mouthful of substance before my body made it up to the surface of liquid ice. A tremendous roar shook the bath around me, as a sparkling white grimace rose to greet me. My flame went out and I sunk again.
When I woke, I could feel neither the cold nor my body. The blue nivis beneath me was stained with the milky substance that gushed from my side. I no longer floated in the water but had somehow gotten to the surface of the tundra. I sat up with difficulty, looking for a star in the darkness. All I saw was the jade light of the Lore Auras and the blackness of space. My eyes adjusted to the pitch of the local cosmos but I still hoped for the tiniest strip of light to rise on the horizon. Gelu was a planet without an eye.
I had one flame left in me, though barely tenable. My fire was in dire need of ignition. Fighting the numbness, I rolled over to stifle the wound on my side when a loud crack exploded in the air behind me and I turned to scan the rock bed at my back. The Gelanese and their gassy beast were gone but I saw the outline of a stalky creature coming toward me. It labored on all fours like an oversized ursa, picking up speed. I pushed myself up to stand and it stopped to rise to its hind legs. It strode toward me upright with greater speed, screeching in a way that curdled the icy air. I tried to match his cry with a sapient wail. When the creature was close enough, it swatted at me, landing its great paw on the side of my head. I fell back unconscious once again.
I pictured Mara in the darkness, but my sapient was less playful with hair as fair as a Kyprian. She was only imaginary but she lit me with such warmth that I chose to embrace the hallucination rather than shun it. This sapient felt warmer than Mara did in the garden and when I touched her she remained unharmed. She took my form into hers, exchanging her heat with my coldness, cradling me in her arms just as Mara held the baby goat in hers. Her embrace thawed me out and the fire inside my wretched form grew until my single dying flame regained its strength and sparked another and another and another until a furnace lit me whole again. I basked in the heat of my Venusian flame, relishing the end of my torture. I was a creature of fire once more and the sapient had made me so.
“Remember,” the voice of my goddess whispered.
My imagined warmth was short-lived, for I woke to the excruciation of my frozen core. I had remained on the Gelanese shore, still lying on the frigid nivis of the icy planet. No one was coming to save me. I had yet to be reborn.
I struggled to get up, digging my clawed feet into the tundra. My skin ached from exposure but I was alive and my flame was the slightest bit higher than it had been before. I searched the landscape for shelter, grateful to see an alcove on the highest peak of the massif in front of me. I rushed over the tundra, scraping its icy surface with my claws at every step. As I gained momentum, my body lifted off the ground until I hovered just above it. With another bit of effort, I pumped the limbs at my sides and raised my body even higher. Soon I was in flight, but I failed to keep my body elevated for long. Tornadic gales came over the massif and forced me back down, tossing me across the blue nivis and into the pool of liquid ice where I sank for a third time.
The sapient found me anew in the icy bath and pulled me to her once more. Beneath the surface with me, she looked like a vision of beauty only my goddess could match. Her golden hair floated freely above her head as though it were her diadem. She was a goddess too—a sapient queen—and when she spoke, I understood.
“I will not let your flame die, keeper. Come with me.” She pulled me through the dark liquid, keeping one hand on my torn side and the other wrapped around my neck. “The suffocation is temporary,” she said. “You can’t perish, so don’t be afraid. Let the inferno come.” Her voice masked her fear, though I sensed it and wanted to grip her with my flame. My fire, though stronger, was still too weak and I held on to her, just barely alive.
We floated through the underwater abyss in the cold darkness together for what seemed like an eternity. She held me up and I fed on her clay form, converting her energy into mine, ingesting her essence bit by bit. “Fire and clay,” she said. “The spark is in you now.”
I had only imagined I consumed the sapient life force—I was in fact alone and had fabricated the matrix so I could ingest the frigid Gelanese liquid without perishing and use it to make kindling. As though caged in stone—or ice—my fire rose to meet the hardening prison about it and worked to melt it from the inside out. With the sapient’s imagined spark in me, I stoked my fire until it became the inferno I knew on Venus and conquered the immeasurable pain of my Gelanese exile. I welcomed the splitting of my outer form when it arrived.
Deep within the gloom of the frigid sea of Gelu, I cracked into endless pieces, slivers of crystallized ice reborn into darkness. My unprotected flame engulfed the liquid, desiccating the basin into which I had sunk. The Gelanese pool became a valley of clay, and I felt my form return, encompassing my newly raging pyre. I had defeated the cold, the dark—the end. I closed my eyes on Gelu and shot up through the frozen atmosphere out into the sunless cosmos and back through the duct to my planet.
When I arr
ived on the other side of the tenth sphere, I landed in my goddess’s solarium and found myself on her pedestal once again. The Venusian landscape was changed. The lush lava and acidic manna, caves of liquid crystal and hot granite, dells of molten trees and amber stuccoed brush, fields of gold sand and plains of stilted infernos were all wiped out, dissolved into a million petroglyphs. The planet was nothing but stone—a fortress of Midan jade. Kyprian temples and monuments stared up at me, defaced and pulled down or smashed to smithereens. I had been gone for longer than I knew.
“It is over,” she said from somewhere within me. “Tell me you have been reborn.”
“I have, goddess.”
“Then we must make our escape.”
“You cannot want this, goddess.” I knew why she had chosen as she had and would submit to her despite my disapproval. I belonged to my goddess.
“This is the only way,” she said.
“You may perish, and then we will all be lost.”
“We will be together again,” she said. “Believe it.”
“But in what form?”
“It is irrelevant.”
***
Before the fall of Jupiter, my goddess slipped unseen into my forge. She stoked my fire from within, twisting my flame about hers. The pleasure was too much and my flame roared, as it consumed hers. Desire fed us and marked the beginning. Kypria was conquered but not vanquished.
Midan troops were already at the gate and would soon storm the crystal and breach the solarium. My goddess had to be gone by the time they reached the pedestal, and I was the only one who could assure that she was. We made our plan long ago—I knew what I must do.
I picked up my shield and casing before I sealed my forge forever. If I returned, it would be as something other than what I was then. “The breach has begun,” I said to the others.
My Kyprian siblings flew past me, as they made their way to the entrance of the dark passage. I hoped more of them would have already escaped to Terra but the risk to that planet was too great, and our migration had to be discreet if we were to fool Midan. We feared his finding my goddess despite the bounds of space and time. The ambassador had to believe she would never relinquish Venus.
When I reached the launch station, I saw hundreds of dying flames, stamped out by the coldness. I ached at the sight. Only the strongest could make it through to the other side, into terrestrial forms—the shapes that could adapt to the strange atmosphere of Terra.
“Stay,” I cried to them. “Do not risk your flames.”
My words were useless. The Kyprian would follow their goddess, refusing to let Midan strip them of their idol. They would rather perish than be bound to a new ruler of Venus.
Saturnia’s sister called to me, as she made her way to the opening too. I appeased her and drew her flame to mine. The sparks of light flew off my shield and bounced back onto my casing. I united my energy with hers, as we made our way to the passage. Others saw my generosity and begged me to give them the same means of transport, but I refused—I had to refuse—I carried too sacred a cargo.
I looked back only once. A troop had broken the seal and was headed toward me. I had mere moments to escape and as I fell into the coldness of space, I threw my shield at the opening of the passage and sealed it forever. The light of Venus closed on us and we were thrust into darkness. Only a few of my kin made it out with me, as we were propelled through the passage and sent down to Terra where I landed hard, splitting in two, my Venusian figure expelling Saturnia’s sister. Both of us were pulled into our new forms, surrendering flame to flesh, adjusting to the soft shell and organs we were prepared to greet again. I was ready to return to the body and the creature I was to acquaint with my goddess.
I told Saturnia’s sister to go to the greenhouses. “The eye falls from the sky and soon it will be dark.”
“You are not coming?” she said.
“I must watch the sky to be sure.”
I believed it was impossible for Midan to follow since I had sealed the way, buried it in darkness forever. The coordinates had been destroyed and the duct would never be found again. I believed Midan troops would never see Terra’s atmosphere, though I hesitated in my certainty.
“Will they find us?” A look of sapient worry seemed to wear out my sibling’s face.
“You are safe,” I promised her.
“But our goddess?”
I was unaware she was wise to what I carried deep within me, that she knew my goddess had already arrived. “She will come.” I reassured her with my lie. “Go now before the light is lost.”
She thanked me again, as she started for the greenhouses on the mount. She stumbled at first, but soon caught a graceful stride. When she disappeared over the horizon, I headed to the shanty.
Mara was in the garden, dancing barefoot on the peat moss, spinning and twirling with her arms outstretched. Her hair sailed through the air with a freedom so grand it looked as if it might fly off her head. As I approached her, she slowed her spinning. I waited on the other side of the garden for her to call to me. I felt my goddess rejoice at the sight of her vessel. I knew this was the moment she had chosen.
Mara stopped and turned to look at me. She waved from the moss. “Come, Onine, come to me.” Over the gate and onto the peat, I was in front of her before she called my name a second time. “You have returned.”
I leaned in and caressed her cheek, giving it a kiss as my goddess had done to me in the hall of jade.
“I have returned with a gift,” I said.
“Is it time?”
I was silent.
“Come,” she whispered.
She held my hand and led me into the shanty. I was ready for the dark room. I had prepared for this moment. The suffocation would pass—the coldness too.
I must be brave. I must be brave. I must be brave.
EL
I tried to recall the things Onine told me in the garden but my memory seemed muddled and I couldn’t be sure if I imagined his admission of love. You are still mine. Did he really say that? Could I really understand his Venusian shrieks? Maybe I’d imagined Tiro’s speech in the steam of the slender tower at the rear of the bathhouse too.
I waited on the golden stones for Tiro to arrive. I’d barely slept but was energized by the thought of seeing Saturnia’s sister at the Temple. Her words would soothe my fear and I could ask her what to do. When Em went to the hall of stones, she said Saturnia’s sister was there.
“She’s one of the three,” she’d said. “She’s the one who told me it’s Tal.”
If Saturnia’s sister sat on the council of three, she knew I was chosen for Tiro, but she may also be the one who convinced the goddess to give me to him. When I thought about that, my courage waned. I hadn’t been invited to the hall of stones and officially given my assignment. She’d want to know how I knew about Tiro and I couldn’t risk Tal’s being discovered. I also couldn’t tell her I understood Venusian tongue and that I’d heard the Kyprian tell me himself in the slender tower. Before I reached the Temple, I convinced myself to abandon my plan to speak with her.
“What’s got you so dazed?”
I’d barely greeted Bee and Em when I got in the cart. They’d been whispering in the corner and I’d only said hello. I couldn’t stand to hear about her and Tal. No doubt she’d have plenty of attempts to report and I’d have trouble getting the thought of them out of my mind as I did last time.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You look exhausted,” Bee said. “Didn’t you sleep?”
I expected them to giggle but they didn’t. When I looked more closely, I saw Em was in tears.
“I’m fine,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”
She waved her hand at me, but Bee nudged her to tell. “Maybe she can help,” she said.
“If I can,” I said, “I will.”
Em leaned back and put her head on Bee’s shoulder. “You tell her,” she whispered.
“They’ve called it off,�
� Bee said.
“Called what off?”
“Em’s assignment,” she said. “They told her—”
Em broke in with a tearful plea. “I haven’t seen him for several moonscapes and when they came for me again, I knew that was the reason. I just knew it.” She cried into her veil, as Bee patted her head. I kept one ear open for the road, making sure the cart wasn’t about to stop. “The council called me forward,” she said, “and made me kneel and then I was given a horrid mixture to drink, which made me sick right there on the glass floor in front of them. Saturnia’s sister assured me the sickness would pass and then she sent me off without an escort.”
I found it difficult to understand her through the sobs.
“What about Tal?” I couldn’t remember seeing him at the Temple. I hadn’t gone out to the pits since—since our conversation in the wheat field. I wondered if they’d found out he told me, if he was in some kind of trouble. What if he was punished for coming to see me? I reminded myself they couldn’t have known. They never left the greenhouses—night was our time.
“El?” Bee sounded impatient. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry, I was in a daze.”
“Seems like it,” she said. “Have you seen Tal?”
“Actually, I haven’t,” I said. “But I’ll look for him when I get to the Temple.”
“Will you give him a message?” Em nodded but Bee spoke for her. “Tell him she’ll be waiting for him in their usual spot. Tell him she needs to see him. Tell him—tell him it’s important.”
“It’s more than important,” Em said. “I have to see him.”
I assured her I’d get the message to him if I could. I wanted to ask what was so important but knew she’d never say. I wondered if his seed had taken, if she carried his youngling.
Em recovered from her tears when the cart stopped. Bee got off with her but I was too preoccupied to notice. I was anxious to get to the Temple to see if Tal was there. Could he be gone too? I worked myself into a terrible fright before the cart drove through the gates. When it stopped, Tiro dismounted the zephyr and I listened for his step on the golden stones. I held my breath until he passed me and headed up the path away from the Temple. I jumped down from the cart and walked toward the back of the bathhouse. I wanted to go to the fire pits and find Tal, but had to pull the one hundred and forty-six chains of gold first. I worked as quickly as I could though I didn’t finish before Tiro returned.
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