Trinian

by Elizabeth Russell

  With a scream of terror, desperate and consumed now with killing the queen, she plunged it in again, and even a third time; but though Adlena cried out and was as pale as death, she was not dead. Backing up in all-consuming, shaking fear, Passion left the blade in the queen’s heart and ran – shrieking and mad – never to be seen again. Trembling with pain, Adlena gripped the blade, pulled it from her back, and hurled it away, clutching her breast which was whole and without a mark. Slowly, breathing quickly to regain her bearings, color returned to the queen’s face.

  Power was entirely distracted, and while he had absent-mindedly held Trinian at bay, he had stared at the action of the two women as if watching a play, mesmerized and trying to find out how the actors tricked their audience. He did not see Garrity, who had lain dying upon the ground all this time, lift his head. He did not see the former demi-god drag himself up from the floor with a weak, stumbling heave, and with an effort of will, grasp the blade that lay upon the cave floor. He fatally did not see that with the last of his strength he cried, “My king!” and threw the sword as he fell to the ground, and perished.

  Trinian caught the blade and cried aloud as if his voice were a trumpet: “Victory for the Golden King!”

  Power whirled toward the mortal king in a last, final, desperate act to save himself and all for which he had fought. Terror and Destruction too, finally realizing, in a moment of panic, the consequences of all their actions, the complete loss of everything they wanted, roared down on Trinian. Afias could not stand but he could move, and he threw himself in their path so that they tripped over him, tearing his back with their wild force.

  It was the twelfth hour, and Trinian took the blade, swung it around, and pierced the god of Power.

  * * *

  The sword that had pierced Adlena three times, but had done her no harm, was not harmless to Power. It was glowing – a brilliant, golden glow, that pierced shafts of light all through the darkness of Power’s mortal form, and his darkness was powerless beneath it. Adlena stared at Trinian across the room, her pain powerful, lasting, and sweet, and their eyes locked and held, their love communicating across the distance. Around them, Terror and Destruction were fleeing. At last, the light burned so bright that all were blinded and closed their eyes against it, and when it was gone, the roof of the palace was wide open to the blue of the sky, and Power had utterly dissolved in the light.

  It was at that moment, in the celestial palace, that Fate’s watch chimed twelve, and the gong of the bell was so loud that it reverberated in the heavens, and drowned all sound above and below.

  Every mortal in Minecerva shrieked and cried out in terror, looking to the heavens at the unexpected sound of something greater and louder than thunder. Every god, good and evil, shook in their celestial robes, anticipating what they knew was about to come. In Drian, Gladier stepped outside and basked in the glow of a sun so bright it filled him with unutterable joy. In the heavenly palace, Fate leapt from his throne with more energy and joy than he had shown in twelve hundred years, and in Karaka, the humble assembly of trembling mortals, broken, bleeding, stabbed, and dying, felt a sudden surge of glorious hope.

  How could they hope? It was little, shy, and unassuming, but there it was in all of their hearts, and Adlena and Trinian smiled at one other.

  As if in a dream, the dark palace melted away into pooling mud, grass pushed up between cracks in the dirt floor, and the dripping mud turned to water. The room around them expanded, and soon, they stood in a large, green, open meadow beside a lake, and Adlena recognized it at once.

  They were in Paradise.

  XVII

  THE GOLDEN KING

  “Those ancients who in poetry presented

  the golden age, who sang its happy state,

  perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place.

  Here, mankind’s root was innocent; and here

  were every fruit and never-ending spring;

  these streams—the nectar of which poets sing.”

  - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

  112

  The Advent of the Golden King

  To each of the gods, the coming of the Golden King was a separate, intense, and deeply personal experience. He came all at once, and each saw him all at once, but it was as if his coming was meant just for them.

  To a few, a very, very few, it was unadulterated happiness. Fate was consumed with burning passion, Knowledge shook with utter ecstasy, Hope flitted about as if she had never been quiet or shy, or knew how to be so, and Rordan wept without ceasing, his tears fountains of song raining upon his bubbling beard.

  When The Golden King entered the palace, they were drawn to him as to their own hearts. He embraced them, kissed them, enfolded them, and they overflowed with joy. And then, to their unspeakable wonder, another goddess stood beside him – Peace, more radiant, timeless, and beautiful than ever. It was, as no mortal can ever imagine, but which, in their deepest souls, they yearn for with every fiber of their being, a perfect moment.

  To others, the happiness of His coming was blended with fear. Death, Joy, Charity, and Solitude quivered behind the pillars of the palace, too frightened to show themselves without being called forth, knowing that they did not deserve to stand in his presence. Yet, oh! how strongly their hearts desired it! They had loved him late. But looking upon them, with His infinite, understanding gaze, they accepted His love, He purified their imperfections, and they too rejoiced in His presence.

  Destruction, Plenty, and Famine had no such qualms. They had done what they were ordered to do at the beginning of time, they told themselves, and they had no fear. They walked unafraid into Fate’s center chamber, where The Golden King now presided from the throne, and stood unafraid, almost defiant, before Him. They stared Him down until they could stare no more, and then they ran away screaming. They threw themselves from the parapets and lost their intellects, and they became senseless elements: wind, rain, and heat.

  And finally Passion, Despair, and Terror were nowhere to be seen. Whether they too had turned to elements of the earth to serve it as they had never done, or whether they were so full of hatred that they chose to abide in darkness, wailing obscenities and grinding their teeth, stripped of their powers and fleeing the Golden King’s healing gaze forever, will never be known.

  The mortal world felt him too, though not all knew why the sun suddenly grew so bright and drew all eyes to it. Not all knew why the world smelled suddenly of sunflowers, and why the grass was freshly washed, like linen drying in the summer breeze. But the four mortals in paradise – the half-Dryad, the king, the farmer, and the infant – they saw him. He came to them.

  All at once, seeing the Golden King before him, Trinian understood in full what he had only faintly grasped before – that he had not killed Power on his own strength. That he could never have touched a god without the aid of a higher being. That it was always arrogance to believe he could. All at once he knew that the prophecies were children’s whispers in the dark about the adult world. That he had never really known what was coming. That he was unworthy of it now that it was here.

  For the first time, he fell willingly to his knees before a god. Kneeling in Power’s chamber had been a twisted foreshadowing, a pale glimpse of the fear and awe he would feel before the Golden King, and in dutiful yearning, he could not stand before him. He was all at once too afraid and too in love.

  “I did not kill Power,” whispered Trinian.

  113

  Of the Creation of Minecerva and the New Battle

  The Golden King smiled, and his smile was a ray of sunshine across a golden plate. He was gentle and ageless, beautiful and mighty. There was a buoyant youthfulness to him even as he was weighted with the knowledge of the wise. Without answering Trinian, he reached out and took up baby Lillian who was still lying on the ground, grabbing at a dandelion and cooing. When she saw His golden countenance, her face lit up with her very first baby smile, and He played with Lillian like she was the onl
y important thing in the entire universe. Finally, He dragged his eyes away from her to answer her father.

  “You did kill Power, as much as he can be killed. But only because you allowed Me to work through you, and because of the sacrifice of your friends.” He looked to where Garrity lay broken on the green grass, and He looked at where Adlena stood, her heart pierced, but not dead. “It was only with the aid of those who were both divine and human that the sacrifice could be made to atone for Power’s great wickedness. You, a mere mortal, were not like him enough to make that sacrifice.”

  “I have no power. I thought my birthright… In my arrogance, I thought I had a special gift, but I am just a man.” The sword had crossed over with them, and now he picked it up off the grass. “This is yours, oh God. Please take it from me – I have no right to wield it.”

  A silver lady stepped forward, and Trinian started. His vision had been consumed by the Golden King, but now he realized a lady, all in silver, and shining with a white light, had stood beside the Golden One all along. She took the blade from his hand gently, stroking him as a mother soothes a worried child. “This was mine. I gave it to your son. Its power is gone now, and you may keep it.” She handed it back and turned to the Golden King. “This is too much for them.”

  At once, both their lights dimmed, and they diminished to the size of a mortal man and woman. Trinian had been too in awe before to realize what giants they had stood. From his knees, the whole world looked large.

  The Golden King was now a man, and he stepped forward kindly with the infant. “Rise.”

  Trinian stood, and for the first time, he could truly look at his daughter. She was perfect, each hair and finger, each little ear a curve all her own. As he looked, he wondered how she could have come from him, who was so flawed and wrecked, and his heart ached over the failings he had unwittingly bequeathed to her. He had not thought such things at Jacian’s birth. At the time, he thought he would learn to be a perfect father, but time had come and passed, and he was more broken than ever.

  “She is yours,” he suddenly gasped, looking with new awe at the God. “Isn’t she?”

  “They all are,” the Golden One affirmed.

  “I know,” he looked at her again, and his daughter glowed as if woven from light. “I know.”

  The god held out the babe. “But I gave her to you, to keep for a time. She is yours still – until she comes back to me.”

  Trinian took her in his arms, his love and yearning breaking his heart. He felt Adlena come from behind and rest her tall head against his shoulder, stroking her daughter’s pink hand with her long finger.

  Afias kept silent, watching everything. When the god and goddess appeared, his eyes had seen the woman first. She was breathtaking, and he had forgotten everything for a long, refreshing moment. All his cares, worries, even his physical ailments had melted away, and he knew he could rest in her presence forever. Then she had lifted a finger and pointed to the God, and his eyes followed obediently. His first glimpse of the Golden Giant was less awful than his brother’s. Less terrifying. He was seeing him through the eyes of the Silver Lady, and she was gentle and soft. The lady loved the Golden King, and Afias loved the lady, so he would love the God too. He would love them both forever. His heart went out to her like a child’s, like Jacian’s in the cave, and like him he could have cried out, “I want to stay here with you forever!”

  When the king and queen of Drian stood aside with their child, the Golden King knelt beside Garrity’s lifeless body. The god licked his finger and touched each open wound separately and patiently. When he was done, he stood up and commanded, “Get up, warrior. The battle goes on.”

  Garrity stood up and cried out in joy to see the God, as if greeting an expected friend. Then he knelt on one knee, as a knight before a king, and the God blessed his brow.

  “What battle, Sire?” he asked eagerly.

  “Much has been destroyed.” The Golden King turned to include them all, and Trinian and Adlena stepped forward to listen. “Now it is time for you to build. To spread, teach, pass on, and prosper. To battle against the evil that Power has left in your hearts. To teach future children to fight. You, more than anyone,” He told Garrity, raising him from his knee, “know that the inner battle must be fought forever.”

  “I have grown so weary, fighting on my own,” Garrity said. “Will you be here now?”

  “I will be here always, guiding you from afar. But I am afraid you will sometimes be weary. That is the way of it.”

  “And when the battle is over?”

  He smiled wide, and they smiled too, He was so infectious. “Then I will come to bring you to me, and you will be with me forever.”

  Garrity laughed. “I can do that then. For You, I think I could fight forever.”

  “So could I,” said Prince Afias and Queen Adlena at the same moment, and they all laughed.

  “And you, my son?” asked the Golden King of the earthly one, his eyes sharp and demanding. “Can you serve me?”

  Trinian did not answer for a long moment. He saw himself so clearly before this Being; a God he now loved with his whole self. Beside him, he was no better than any man. No better than Power, even, for he was greedy, weak, frightened, and proud, and Trinian wept. “I am not worthy.” Everything he had wanted: to keep his family safe, to defend Drian, to be a powerful king – they were weak desires. Good on their own, perhaps, but his motivations had been imperfect. He had wanted them from fear – fear of losing what was not his, fear of failing, fear of being alone. He had sought love when he should have given it, and feared love when he had it.

  He had struggled to love his wife and son. He had sent his family away to hide from them. He had even run away from Drian to escape the tears and pain. And when he had come home, and Lavendier had given all of herself to him and to the city, he had looked upon her with suspicion. He was not even a man, but lower than a worm. Still he wept. He was utterly broken and entirely undignified. He was no warrior, but a victim of his own vice.

  The Silver Lady bent down, lifted him up, and escorted him to the Golden King, bringing him so close that he had to stand eye to eye, and to his surprise, the golden eyes were kind. They were bottomless amber depths to a heart burning with love, aching with love, longing to pour its love upon him. The question was not whether he could serve, but whether he could receive love.

  He thought of Phestite, throwing his body before the blade. He thought of Afias, departing Drian because he asked it of him. He thought of Kett, Trigent, and Cartnol blown dead on the battlefield. He thought of Lavendier, bleeding out in the Healory. Finally, he thought of something far less dramatic. He saw his bright, happy brother-in-law standing in the fragmented light of a command tent, offering to serve his family: “In this matter, I offer you my service,” his voice echoed in Trinian’s mind. He was loved. Even in a place beyond death, by a person gone forever, he was loved.

  “I can serve you.”

  * * *

  The day waxed long into the evening, and they all sat in a circle on the grass. The King and Lady spent the time telling stories of the past, the present, and the future.

  They told how The Golden King created the heavens and the earth, and left the gods of the heavens to guide and form its growth. How He had always promised to return, but that the mortals forgot, and the gods almost did. A very few had kept faith, and they told how it broke His heart.

  He told how He had bestowed free will, the most precious and awful of gifts, and how His creatures had misused it at their own discretion. “But know that you were never forsaken. I had my eyes upon you all the time. In my unending love, which does not vanish with the faults of a few, I made you instrumental in your own salvation.”

  He told of the prophecies, the wizards, the natural gods, and the blessing of the monarchy, and that all such blessings were His way of making Himself near even when He was pushed far away. “But now it will be far more difficult to ignore me. Men will try, and they will fail. The
gods can never do so again.”

  “What has become of the gods?” asked Afias, who was like an unafraid child in this meeting, constantly questioning and interjecting, for the presence of the Silver Lady emboldened him.

  “They have all received their dues. Those who loved me without err, both the natural and the high, have been appointed your special guardians. They will be able to live in both my kingdom and the mortal realm simultaneously, living in glory with me while guiding you until the end of time. Upon Rordan, though you knew him as a river, I have bestowed the rank of high god. Those who loved me late I have drawn close to me, to live in my presence, to abide in my heart, forever. They do not wish to dangle still in the land of time, for they are too weak, and I am glad to hold them close.

  “The natural gods will not rule the physical domain any longer. Minecerva’s infancy is no more, the world is fully formed, and their time of glory is ended. Those who served me will join me in the heavens, and those who did not will become the elements they were given to rule. Finally, as for all those who hate me – whether mortal, demi-god, natural god, or high god – I will abide by their choice. If they have no wish to be near me, then they will stay far from the light, gazing out into bottomless darkness; or if they desire to come to me now at the very end and pay for their crimes, this too will I allow.” At this His face was drawn, like an old man whose life has been nothing but struggle and trial. His brow wrinkled fiercely, His chest heaved, and His face was blotched and red. His hand shook as He passed it over His eyes. “How I mourn for them. How I will miss them.”