El and Onine

by Ambroziak, K. P.

  “Eat.” I held out the bowl with the elixir. “It’s sweet.”

  I wished I could have stayed with her. I wished I could have kept the elixir from her and held her a little longer, but the eye was rising and she would be gone soon.

  She took the bowl and held it to her nose, and then brought the cup to her mouth and suffered the drink.

  “You don’t need the covering,” I said, anticipating her question. I stood up and prepared to go. She would be asleep again in moments. I passed through the fire to sit on the other side, and waited for her to fade away.

  “Tal …”

  Onine, I wished to say. “Sleep, clay-born goddess.”

  “Onine …” she said, as she slipped into darkness again.

  The possibility of her actually recognizing me made my flesh tingle, but it was impossible. To her, I was Tal and would remain so. I waited for her to fall deeper under the spell of the potion Saturnia’s sister had mixed for her. My sibling told me I must wait until the dreams began before returning her to the field. “The potion must work through her,” she had said. “You will know when she is ready.”

  I watched her sleep, imagining her beauty in the darkness. The fire died out and when her body started to twitch I picked her up in my arms and carried her back to the field where she would await his arrival. Before I left her, I covered her in the veil for the last time.

  I saw her again when Midan had breached Terra’s sphere and paid my apprentice his due. I skulked on the underside of the rock ledge until I caught her scream on the air. I bounded through Tiro’s ashy pile and swept her up for the third time since I had become the fire starter. She saw the reptile despite my speed and I hoped her reflection was only mildly terrifying. He would look as she imagined since she could only see her version of Midan, not his true form. I had wanted to get her off the ledge and into the field before he realized I had taken her but he proved quicker than I expected and Tal’s form was more cumbersome than I recalled.

  I barreled down the mount with El in my arms and Midan at my heels. Once I reached the wheat field, I felt my energy wane. Sapient stamina was limited. I was about midway in the field when Midan and his troop surrounded me. The ten rebels had taken ugly terrestrial forms since they still needed to be purified in the molten liquid of their home planet. They reminded me of the Hephaestes who lived on the dark side of Venus, those we banished to the trenches deep below our planet’s volcanic surface.

  “Give the goddess to me,” Midan said.

  The troop of ancient Venusian, forged long before Ur had created Kypria, voiced their assent at Midan’s command with shrieks and screeches. They were unwilling to submit to my goddess on Venus, but now wanted her because she was their only salvation. Soon after we abandoned our volcanic home, those who stayed realized their flames would suffer without my goddess. Midan destroyed the planet’s source of fire when he turned it to jade, and the Venusian were dying because of their rebellion.

  “The creature is mine,” Midan said.

  I held his stare for a moment, sensing Saturnia’s sister approach. None of them recognized me, believing me to be sapient, but they knew the Kyprian healer and backed off when she entered their circle.

  “Put her down, sapient,” she said. “The goddess belongs to Midan.”

  I trusted my sibling. We had prepared for this, made our plan. I lowered my arms and laid El on the ground in front of me. The serum had done its magic and she was asleep again. I dreaded the thought of her waking without me but had to let her go.

  “Come, Midan.” Saturnia’s sister led him through the field. “We shall take her to the hall of stones where she can wait for you while you bathe. If you are to survive Terra, even for one moonscape, you must all see to your form.”

  The foolish aliens trusted the Venusian healer and followed my sibling just as we expected. The ambassador paid little attention to me despite my stealing his prize. I could only reason he saw me as we had first seen the sapients—mere hums and drones on the landscape. They were taken to the baths and El was brought to the hall of stones where Saturnia’s sister showed her what she needed to see. I was told to keep away. I was supposed to wait for her at the shanty but I needed to say a final goodbye. I had learned a bit of Kyprian magic from the healer, though she was unaware of my dabbling, and would slip into my terrestrial form one last time.

  When I pulled myself from Tal’s body, I was determined to make use of Onine’s once more.

  “I thought the fusion was complete,” Tal said, as he faced me in El’s shanty. “I thought this body was dead.”

  “Not yet.” I wanted to explain but could not. I needed to give Kypria the chance to see me as I was, as she would remember me. Tal was easy to put under. I tapped the center of his forehead with my stick and he lost consciousness. I left him asleep between the rows of cabbages until I returned to take his form again.

  I hid outside the hall of stones and waited for the torture to end. It took every ounce of my courage to stay and watch my Kyprian sibling take her new form. When I saw her limbs stretch up to the sky, leafy and green, I felt elation as I had never experienced it before. I will admit it was worse waiting outside the hall, knowing my goddess would suffer the ravishment, but I was resilient when El’s screams reached me where I hid. Her suffering haunts me still, even if I gain some relief with the passing of each moonscape.

  When the villains left the hall, the horizon had almost swallowed the eye. The troop headed for the greenhouses on the mount, thinking they had won my goddess with their fire. Midan stole away with two of the jade stones in his maw and the other on his back. I went into the hall and witnessed the horror of their destruction. Kypria’s power was gone and the tree of life uprooted. It had died when I consumed its energy, but the sight of it pulled up from the soil inspired me.

  I turned my attention to my sibling and admired the last Kyprian healer. She stood strong, alive, vibrant, unbending in will and force. I wanted to feel the rind that surrounded her and kiss her rich leaflets but I refrained from striking her with my fire, if any was left in Onine’s form. I loved her from afar, promising to return to see her with my goddess.

  I picked up my beloved Kypria and carried her out into the darkness. I decided to leave her on the path, a place she would recognize when she woke. I kept my distance until the serum had done its work. I was certain their flame had failed to take hold of her womb since they lost my goddess long ago, when we first arrived on Terra and Kypria chose Mara to be her sapient creator. “I will come into being a second time through that wanting creature,” my goddess had said. “My birth will beautify her and she will be called Minosh—my terrestrial mother—and I will be her Pchi, the first born.”

  I had misunderstood the sapient terms then, what they meant, what they would come to mean. My goddess had seen the words written in the tome and understood them when she met Mara. They were some of the first words she taught the sapient when she reared her to be her maternal figure. Only now can I see the power of the creator and her creation, the womb and its gift of life. Ur had given me that gift when he allowed me to carry his progeny in mine. He made me for that reason, to place Kypria in her sapient cultivator, to give her true terrestrial life so she could bring a new race of beings into existence.

  “My progeny will be mortal,” she had said to me. “A new species for Terra’s landscape.”

  “A creature of fire and clay,” I had said, wanting to tell my goddess I would cherish Tal’s union with El and the mortals to come, even if she already knew.

  I was relieved when I saw El reject the substance on the tarnished stones. “Their implant did not take.” I floated to her side when she cried out to me. “You are safe for now. They have not taken you.” I looked down at my precious goddess and felt the whole of her agony reflected in me. The sadness overwhelmed my terrestrial form, though I resisted reaching for her.

  “I—I—don’t understand,” she said.

  “We must go.”

 
; “Am I?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “But I saw—”

  “Be patient, clay-born goddess.” I longed to feel her flame one last time, as we spoke in the language of our origin. “You will know everything again. It will come back to you when you choose.”

  “I’ve seen things—I’ve seen things I can’t forget.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But we cannot change anything now. We must move forward with the plan.”

  “The plan?”

  “Be patient, goddess. Let me bring you home.” I picked her up to hold her in my arms again. Our touch was nothing to fear. By then, we were both ready.

  “Is this a dream?”

  “No. This is real.”

  I carried her in silence though I could see the million questions in her mind as clearly as the blush on her cheeks. When she asked if she was my youngling I replied the only way I could. “No, but you do come from me.” I looked away—it was too painful.

  “I am ruined—spoiled by their invasion.”

  I held her more tightly, wanting to pull her into my skin and make her one with me. “You are perfect.” She seemed to drift off and I repeated it, willing the phrase to soften her sleep and convince her it was true.

  When we reached the shanty, I placed her on her bed of silks. I should have summoned Tal then and made Onine disappear forever, but I held on to my terrestrial form until the last moment. I wanted her to recognize me—herself in me. Tal was still unconscious between the cabbages and I knew he would sleep until I called him. Her small voice shook me from my meditation.

  “How are you here with me now in the darkness?”

  When I told her I would leave soon, she asked me to stay.

  “The danger is not over,” I said. “Midan is here and you will have to choose.”

  “Choose what?”

  My direction frustrated her. She had been told to choose many times, and still misunderstood the choice she was to make—the choice she had already made.

  I reminded her of Saturnia’s sister, the tree she had become. I frightened El, forgetting she was unaware that my Kyprian sibling had embraced the transformation. “She revels in the pleasure you have given her. She knew you would choose them.”

  “Who?”

  “Sapient.” When I said the word, the veil was lifted. Suddenly El’s face changed and she smiled like I had never seen her smile before.

  “Who were the others?”

  “The unpledged ones,” I said. “Midan’s troop.”

  “Who is—” She stopped herself, realizing she knew who Midan was. Her face changed again, her smile fading when she recalled the ambassador, the slick jade trader, the dark passage, the destruction of our planet—Venus—and who she was.

  “I am Kypria.”

  “Yes, goddess. You are Kypria.” I stood before her as I once was—a flame to her fire.

  “And I must choose between the new species I will forge and my Venusian retinue, my beloved—you.”

  “Yes.” I basked in the recognition for only a brief moment, though it healed a lifetime of woe. “Time is running out. The troop will return at the rise of the eye.”

  “But how can I choose?”

  “You already have, my goddess. Saturnia’s sister is proof of that. Finish what you have started and begin the world anew. Make Terra a lush and verdurous land again, repopulate the planet with dual beings like you—fire and clay—mortals, as you call them. Bear the seed of the sapient and birth into existence a generation of beautiful mortals.”

  I tried to mask the sadness in my voice. I only mourned the loss of the Venusian. I almost failed when she said she would never give us up, that she could never sacrifice her most beloved Kyprian for another. Her resolution was the danger my sibling had warned me of when she told me to keep the truth from El before it was done. I had gone outside of the plan, had risked a last reunion, and so worked to convince her as quickly as I could.

  “We will live among you. You will see us in Terra’s nature, her organisms, her soil, her people. The Kyprian will never leave you.” She was to remain ignorant of that truth, and even Tal was to be a mere sapient in her eyes. My existence through him was to be a secret since she was to believe I was gone forever. But I was desperate to convince her this was only the beginning, even if I had to refrain from revealing my identity. “This is the genesis,” I said. “You are on the cusp of the most important choice and though you have made it already, do not stand in your own way.”

  She looked at me hard and admired me for the last time. My foolishness, my final tinker with fate, made me eager to return to the sapient form. I wanted to begin our life as dual beings at once—fire and clay—but I had put myself in this predicament and had to work out of it before I could summon Tal.

  When she asked what would become of me, I wanted so desperately to tell her but instead said, “You already know, Kypria.”

  I reminded her we had discussed it long ago when we devised the plan to escape Venus. I could see her trying to recall our meetings, our strategy to get her out from under the rule of Midan. Her transparency gave her away and I read her as easily as I had when our flames mixed. She wanted to know if he had succeeded in his breach of Terra, if his acquisition of her was a success, and I assured her it was not.

  “I saw you spurn their spark when you vomited on the path.” I had no doubt the serum had worked and the torture to which she had been subjected for three moonscapes, her submersion in the molten liquid of Venus, a mirror to mine in the gelid nivis of Gelu, had readied her for their invasion.

  “I can’t do it,” she said, as she rushed toward me. “I won’t give you up.”

  I was no longer hidden in the darkness of the shanty. The eye’s light was drawn to me and revealed my radiance. I recalled my encounter with Mara. It had taken place in this very spot and had changed our worlds. I hoped it was something that would stay with me forever. El held on to me but I had already summoned Tal. “You will never forget me, El.” I wanted to tell her I would be with her always but I let those words remain Mara’s.

  “I can’t do it—I can’t do it,” she said.

  I was already gone, fused with the fire starter forever. “You must,” I said with Tal’s voice, pulling her away from Onine’s form. “He’s coming through the field—the wheat crumbles under his step.”

  The ground shook and the shanty collapsed just as we had planned. I looked out to the field and watched the beast hurdle over the wheat, enticed by the Venusian spark he could see in the distance. He was the same ugly creature he had been on my home planet, unwilling to change his form to suit Terra’s atmosphere. The creatures from Menaleck proved adaptable to other atmospheres, as the chameleons of our cosmos. I held out as long as I could before I reached for El and covered her with my body, crouching down and keeping her hidden, as the beast passed. His troop had fallen behind, their bodies clinging to the ground beneath them and rooting in the soil. Their transformation into trees would be complete before Midan made his leap, drawn to the Kyprian—his enemy—the one who had stolen his queen. He was oblivious that my form was a mirage readied for his doom.

  I watched the event unfold, as El remained wrapped in my embrace, protected from the flame, blind to the fire, and kept from seeing Onine’s transformation. Midan grunted, as he vaulted over us, straight for the trap I set for him. When he hit it, sparks flew across the shanty floor and out past the collapsed walls, an explosion of green light like jade stones thrust into the liquid of the borneo lava lands. Onine consumed Midan just as Kypria’s gold spread over Terra’s plains, seeped into its cracks and ate up its vibrant, living soil. The ambassador from Menaleck was burned to Venusian cinders and blown into the wind. Never could he have anticipated such immolation since the baths in the Temple had secretly filled his scaly form with lava from the hot beds of our home planet and readied him for his doom.

  The beast was slain, conquered by the Kyprian fire he longed to rule. My goddess was safe and all that remai
ned of my terrestrial form was a tree with wax flowers. I wanted it to be our reminder of Onine and Kypria while we lived as Tal and El.

  ***

  “Is it over?” The sound of her voice was the most pleasing one in the world to me. Sapient tongue had never been so inviting.

  “It’s over.” I lifted her up from the ground, holding her hand in mine, threading my fingers through hers. She had tears in her eyes and I knew they were for Onine. I led her to the tree I had left for her in the middle of the shanty. “Touch it,” I said.

  She pulled her hand from mine and reached for the wax petals but hesitated for the briefest moment. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. “Huh,” she said. “Smells different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled a little and turned back to look at me. “Never mind.”

  The tree remained untouched, but she admired it for a while longer and then perused the open space in front of her. With the walls of the shanty gone, she could see farther than she ever had before. “Things are no longer the same.”

  No, my goddess, they are not, I wanted to say but instead, “No, El, everything is changed.”

  I offered her my arm and led her away from the tree and into the garden she had known her whole life. “I have something to show you.”

  She followed me past the rows of cabbages and onto the edge of the wheat field at the back.

  “What’s that?” She noticed the little straw hut right away, but only saw Bendo when the goat came out from the shade. El made a shrill sound that could only be pleasure, as she ran toward her cherished pet. “Bendo! You’re alive!”

  I laughed at the joy she had yet to see. Inside the small straw hut were five of Bendo’s six kids. One had probably found his way out into the field to explore the newly sprouted trees. The goat had been in labor when her mistress found her whimpering and covered in blood.

  When El noticed the baby goats, she reached for me to steady herself. “But how?”

  “Saturnia’s sister,” I said. “A gift for you.” Kypria, my goddess, my beloved.