Cerberus Slept

by Doonvorcannon

  Graceful auburn deer arose from the snow and pranced among the wolves, their bounds in tune with the soaring heights of the howls. And then an orchestral backdrop of cicadas hummed, their chirping rising and falling in a symphonic wave of sound. They swirled out of nowhere and into the heavens, just below my hovering form. Their shining, slick bodies blackened my view as they swirled and twirled together in apparent choreography. I could still catch plenty of glimpses below, and what a sight it was becoming!

  The impossible was coming true! No temple had yet arisen, but now, sleek gray dolphins leapt to and fro, swimming through the snow as if it were an ocean. Thousands of serpents shivered out from the ground, all of different lengths and shining colors, forming a reptilian rainbow that shimmered, their vibrant scales flashing below like millions of tiny lights. The song grew colorful now, those haunting howls taking on the tune of sublimity, transcending my senses to the point of causing me tears, the only expression proper to such beauty. I wept. Now ravens and crows rolled in like black thunder, their caws neither harsh nor discordant, merely somber as if to remind us all what had been lost. They rolled in the waves of the sky with the cicadas, in harmony and now almost completely blocking my view. I would wait above. My fated time to act was almost at hand and my fingers itched to scratch at and hold this destiny. I continued weeping. This was our legacy.

  ***

  The sky no longer swirled only in black, it lightened as glorious swans arrived. The black waves of ravens and cicadas parted in deference to their pure white. The swans’ garbles rolled amongst the sweeping canopy of music and only added to the uncluttered, infinite expanse of nature’s solar song.

  None of us spoke, but my eyes did for me as they teared. Hesiod’s face was a light of childlike joy. Hope and love were the only things capable of creasing that face into such a grin as tears ran rivers of youth through the old crevices of his tired mien. Cerberus’s ears were twisting in all directions as he stared at the glory surrounding him, his snakes hissing along and lulling back and forth. Even his impressive size was dwarfed by the swirls of eternity singing around us. My eyes streamed and I knew not what to do but weep with joyful gratitude that I lived, and that these animals lived, and that life was beautiful, even in death.

  Hyperborea was not finished, not as long as these creatures continued their song. The snakes slithered around my feet in an affectionate manner, and the gaily dancing deer and still singing wolves lived together and acted in a harmony that drove me to my knees. I prayed to the Lord and thanked him for his mercy and love in creating such a world filled with such abundant life as this, no matter where. Why had Apollo buried this away? Was it not his? Perhaps the temple was truly the Lord’s.

  A triumphant and eternal roar drove my head into the dust as griffins soared over us. They were magnificent, golden winged lions with manes made of fiery feathers that were fitting for their eagle heads. The seven of them swam through the filled sky and sang a song of triumph, a trumpeting bellow of pure light. By their hind legs they carried large Doric pillars of red-painted marble. Was this the temple?

  The animals had destroyed the lie of the vision and unleashed the powerful and primal truth of return and recurrence. They belonged to the same soil that drank deep and gnawed hard on our spent and hollowed bones. The griffins flew, singing songs of flame, their feathers and manes so gold and bright that the orchestic dancing song of the other creatures was swallowed in their glory, a slight shuffled hum to their triumphant roars.

  The griffins circled their flight into a tighter and tighter spiral, funneling down and dropping the pillars in a circle around us, the seven of them spread equidistant. As the pillars landed and stood firm, the animals bellowed together and in a great sweep of color and life, they pooled as one, soaring into a giant wave like a teeming tsunami of rainbow. They burst free and together into the heavens, vanishing to leave behind silence and nothing but the seven red pillars, and the returned desolation of the tundra. We stood there unmoving, not wanting to break the silence and bring an end to the sanctity of the space and moment.

  Your friends must leave.

  The thoughts swept through me, heavy with dust and age. I saw nobody, and Cerberus and Hesiod showed no signs of hearing.

  They must leave or the light will not come.

  “Hesiod, Cerberus... you must step outside the circle. The light will not come otherwise,” I said, my stare inward and searching, trying to uncover the voice.

  “I will not abandon you,” Hesiod said.

  “We will not,” Cerberus added.

  “You must,” I snapped. I took a long breath and said softly, “Someone is speaking to me. The spirit of this temple, perhaps. All I know is that for me to finish this, it must be done alone.”

  “Then why did we come? Was there no threat outside Cerberus’s own shadow? Are we to stand idly by as you face peril?” Hesiod said, storming over to me, his face cut with dark lines of concern.

  Cerberus stood quietly in the same place. He nodded his middle head. “Hesiod, we need to let him do this. We cannot aid him here. No matter what, we must leave this circle. Even if he suffers, even if he were to perish, to intervene would be to forever close the path of righteous tyranny Rangabes is on. He must be a tyrant over himself and what is his to possess. A tyrant stands first alone, and second, on the foundational pillars of power from his worthy ancestors.” He stopped and looked at Hesiod, then turned his focus to me. “We go. We cannot walk on a one-man path. Each has his own. Ascend the mountain and take this light, Rangabes. We are nearing the end.” He turned away and walked past the pillars and sat: a guard dog once more turned observer.

  Hesiod slowly walked away, his face ashen and his shoulders stooped and sharp. Each of them watched from outside the circle like statues, cold in their sudden distance that might as well have been infinite. And then, the red pillars glowed orange with flame, and a wall of red light encircled the pillars and burned Cerberus and Hesiod from my view. The decision was made.

  “Are you pleased?” I shouted to the heavens.

  “Pleasure is a state of being, so your question for one that belongs to the light is meaningless. Pleasure is my being, no matter the cause or effect. Pleasure is always for one already pleased.”

  I lowered my gaze at the voice and before me sat a sphinx. Its head was that of a beautiful female with blue eyes, pale ivory-toned skin and braided, chestnut-brown hair. Her chest was covered in bright blue feathers, with spotted, red and white sharp wings that waved upwards onto her back. Her body and legs were that of a golden lioness. Was this all that guarded the light? I’d bested far more fearsome foes than this. Yet, there was a sudden stuffiness in the air and I labored to breathe as if there wasn’t enough of it to be swallowed.

  “A sphinx? So, you speak in riddles like the rest, but what is it that you guard? Where is this final light?” I said, stepping forward and focusing on the beautiful face and not the beastly body.

  She blinked and cocked her head like a bird. “Do you know pleasure?” Her voice wheezed out in an ancient sigh like that of a forbidden book pulled off a dark corner shelf, sending off a plume of dust.

  Annoyed at her aloofness, I said with a frown, “I’ve torn myself asunder to reach you here. I stand here naked and weary,” she looked down at me and smiled. My frown deepened and I crossed my arms as I continued, “I’ve faced treachery, and the purported purveyor of my journey is not even for me, and might cast me into darkness once he’s had his fill of my power. Unworthiness everywhere! Pain in every step! I was torn apart by crazed women. Reborn again and again. Darkness at my back and light in my eyes. What have you done?” I flung my arms angrily about. “Have you suffered? Who have you bested? Are you even the best creature here? Those griffins were more impressive than you. A sphinx! A twisted female it, thinking that all is pleasure. Harlot!” I walked closer to her, waving my hands with disgust. “When will the riddles end? Buried truth is a grave of deceit. I am no grave digger, but I will empty
all the tombs and catacombs where the hollow bones lie, and resuscitate the rotted flesh that speaks silent.”

  “I loathe the loquacious. Rhetorical posturing is weaker than purposeful riddles, for yours stands tall while remaining short, and mine props up the purpose to the actual height of discernment and true knowledge. If you must spin your words in silk, do so with purpose. Perhaps a well-placed pun might earn you this light.” The sphinx sat there unmoved, my approaching steps not even resulting in the slightest physical response. She simply sat and watched, like a bird staring at dying prey. The image caused me to pause and consider caution.

  “I know no pleasure. I pursue power for its own sake,” I said quietly, reining in my rage and relaxing the rigidity I’d assumed with my previous verbal assault.

  “And what is this pursuit? Better yet, what is pleasure?”

  “Whatever feels good. What kind of question is this? Am I a child?”

  “A child knows pleasure in the warmth of the womb. A man knows pleasure not. Pleasure is to be taken from all and everything. Power is pleasure. Pain is too. With a will heightened to joy and always bathed in light, all experience is transcended into pleasure. It is to be not finite in finitude, but finite in infinitude. If all is washed in forever, then even death is pleasure.”

  I shook my head and then smiled as I thought of a pun. She wanted silk words, did she? “You must be in jest; chin up you fool for your words are drool—my heart burns and my stomach clenches at such empty speech. If all is pleasure, then nothing is.” I nodded and stroked my chin.

  “But in the dark, do you not have the light of your eyes? You can look inward. All is only pleasure if one loves being. To curse existence and to flail against your flesh, is to deny purpose and the eternal light of joy. Pain is only pleasure if the cause is necessary.”

  “What is the point of this? I am here for the sacred light of Hyperborea.”

  “If you cannot find pleasure, you cannot find Hyperborea. This was a land of joy and celebration. A people of light and affirmation. What can you affirm when you deny what is good?”

  “And if I say it would be my pleasure to kill you right here, then what? Would the light come to me then?”

  The sphinx laughed, her voice musical and free. The dust of her voice lifted off with her mirth. She smiled like a sultry woman while her wings stretched and her curtained tail raised. “It is a start. Kill me, or I you. Make sure you enjoy this death.”

  She growled and flew at me like a hornet, and I dove to the ground and rolled beneath her hurtling sting. I tore Solisinanis from out of the air and spun to the left as she flew and swiped at me, her talons clashing against my steel, showering us in white sparks. Retreating, we eyed each other like two boxers sizing the other up as we paced. Her wings fluttered and she pawed at the ground, her face poised and ecstatic—the combination of calm and exuberance, a fearful elixir that sparked her eyes with fervor but smoothed her face with a flat boredom.

  I held my arms out, clutching the axe in my right and flexing, opening myself up to the light sizzling in my marks... but no light came. My axe suddenly appeared dull, its gold ornamental and its fiery hilt merely opulent and useless. As if the mythic power had ceased pumping in my veins, my heart beat faster, acknowledging my sudden and ever-present mortality that I’d hitherto forgotten. My confidence crumbled and my breath came ragged. I held out my hands and stared at my flesh in its weakness. This was not like my fight with the false god Sobek-Ra—this was an unchosen weakness.

  “What have you done?” I said, my voice shaking at the sudden loss of power.

  “What have you?” she said, prowling and slinking along the ground.

  “My power... I earned this!” I yelled, holding up my axe and gnashing my teeth. “I don’t need your light to best you. You can darken it, but you cannot darken me.”

  “I cannot darken, I only shine my light where it necessitates a shining forth. Best me with your own light, and you will have your ancestors’. To gain their might and spirit, you must be worthy first.”

  “Have I not been? All this was earned from my worth. The stains of darkness trying to corrupt my light have been burned into another form of shadow, a dark light. I possess it on my own. I shine in shadows and light; no darkness can consume me. Yet now my light is snuffed out? What have you done?”

  “Before we trade blows once again, is this pleasurable?” she asked, her words spinning and venomous like a spider about to devour its mate. She chuckled, sounding of all things like a flirtatious woman. I shook my head at such madness.

  I chewed my lip and breathed deep, swallowing the weight of my remembered mortality and letting it first hold me down, then yank me back up as I stared inward at the infinite calling me back to the surface. I nodded my head as I began to understand the strange sphinx’s purpose. “My will is pure, focused on ascension. I see what this focus means. Willing one thing—this pure heart of mine loves its purpose.” I looked at her smiling face and grinned back at her. Pleasure! Pleasure! I chuckled, before continuing. “When all this is willed purely as one, that is how I reach the infinite. In this reaching out, pain, loss, and gain all become an ocean of glorious pleasure. That is living as a mortal drinking from the mirror pool of immortality.” I laughed and shook my head at yet another riddle solved in the heat of battle. “Perhaps this loss of light is to see the infinite source shining deeper. Joy at striving! Joy at becoming! And most of all, joy at being. I am pleased sphinx, for I am myself.”

  She smiled wider and bowed her head, dipping her plumed chest and extending her front paw. “You see what you always and already saw. Let us finish this.”

  She swooped up into the air and arced in a steep loop upwards. She paused at the peak of her flight and cannoned straight down at me. I held my axe with both hands and spread my feet. It was inevitable. I side stepped and chopped up at her head. Her outstretched talons scraped down on my left arm, carving deep claw marks from my shoulder to my biceps. But Solisinanis sang, and it struck her neck like an axe to the trunk of a tree and her head tumbled down, a smiling fruit rolling free as the timber of her body collapsed skidding, leaving her head behind.

  Yet no blood sprang free and her spirit stayed within. I walked over to the smiling head and was unsurprised to see her blinking up at me. I bent down and picked her up, her head warm and hair soft as silk. She smelled of the desert oasis, fresh and hidden, strange and distant. She smiled as I held her aloft, and she blinked her deep blue eyes, their heavy lashes curling like tiny fingers and canopied under thick brows that held the elegance of a British queen.

  “Sphinx, what is it now that must be done? I need this light.” I spoke slow and quiet, holding her warm flesh in both palms of my hands. Her lips were drenched scarlet like cherries as she smiled wider.

  “Hold me aloft and give room for my body to grow. You have freed me from my monstrous prison.” Her voice was a river of honeyed life, smooth, sweet, and rich.

  I did as she commanded, holding out her head by the temples and up high enough to give room for a body to form. Light emitted from the base of her detached neck and then extended, white and pure, into a blazing silhouette of feminine form. As the light brightened, a body emerged with pristine white skin that sloped like Olympus—perfect peaks for breasts and a valley of smooth snow sliding down her sleek form. She stood there unclothed, unashamed, and smiling, her body grown to perfection like the choicest of flowers in a royal garden.

  “I cannot simply call you sphinx now,” I whispered, lowering my hands to her cheeks and letting my fingers linger before pulling back.

  She laughed and pushed her brown hair over her shoulders with her slender fingers, and stared into my eyes, her blue the water to my evergreen. “My name belongs to the future. You will soon meet a man that will shape your own future people and land. I take my name from him. Not for his love, but for the honor of his discovery. My light demands it. My name is Columbia. And yours is Samuel.”

  I laughed. “A beautiful
name, but I do not know how I feel about you being named after another man. And I know not anyone named Samuel.” I shook my head.

  She stepped close to me and peered up into my eyes, her upturned nose begging to be kissed. “A name demanded by the future. He is a great man, but he is not the father of those to come. He is not you. You are neither Greek nor Roman. You are Hyperborean and your name bathed in my light, in our light, in the highest light, is Samuel.”

  “If I am now Samuel, have I then at last received this vaunted light? Am I ready to face Apollo and leave for my promised land?” I said.

  She leaned so close now her breath salted like seawater, tickling my tongue and nostrils, her scent and taste washing over me in aromatic waves. “Adam needed a helper. He was given Eve.” She ran her fingers over my ribs. Tracing their outline, she said, “I came from your rib. From you, the man. My bones are caverns filled with marrow light, and the bones that bloomed out first were yours. That is Hyperborea. I do not have this light of my own, it was yours first. Will you enjoin me to it? Will I become as your flesh, aglow with your blood?” She stared up at me with fear, biting her lower lip and folding it in half with pearled teeth. Her eyes were wide and innocent.

  I stepped backwards and her face froze in horror. How I longed to rest in that warmth of hers—how sorry I was to cause this perfect being to suffer cold. But she misunderstood my movement, and as I dropped the axe to the ground and stepped back towards her, her eyes burned with passion. Her face was singed with pleasure, and she stepped closer to me, the both of us as natural as Adam and Eve. I took her hand, its warmth like butter melting into my palm, and placed it back onto my ribs. I pulled her to my body, and her head rested against my breast. We moved as one, and became bone of bone, flesh of flesh—the way of paradise. This was the light of Hyperborea, and Apollo was unworthy. I released myself in waves of her, and she in the sea of me, and we rode inward with pleasure at every toss and turn.