Starblood Trilogy

by Carmilla Voiez

  She lies on the earth and closes her eyes. In her dream she is falling. Her body plunges into darkness, never hitting the ground.

  She opens her eyes and her dream is forgotten. She stands up and looks around. In one direction the horizon glows with the blue light of Samael. In the other she sees the golden light towards which she is heading. On either side grey land joins grey sky at the horizon. She rubs the dirt from her body and faces the golden light. Singing as loudly as her lungs will allow she marches onwards.

  Days pass, or perhaps weeks. Every now and again Freya lies down to sleep. When she wakes nothing is different. She starts to despair. How large is this world? Will I walk forever?

  She realises her shoulder no longer hurts. She looks at the stump. The skin that covers her wound is pink even in the grey light. She inspects the rest of her body. Her hair is yellow, her nipples a soft fawn-pink, her body a cool ivory with the greenish hint of olive. Her feet are caked in grey soil. She rubs it from her toes and sees her colour restored. The land around her is still grey, but against it she looks like a Technicolor treat. She sits on the ground and strokes her skin, tugs and tastes her hair. She bites her fingers until they bloom red under the pressure of her teeth then she crosses her eyes to consider the deeper pink of the tip of her nose and wags her tongue beneath it to glimpse another shade of pink which is hers and hers alone. She realises she is not part of this landscape. She keeps her alien colour in this endless twilight. Her wounds heal. Dust cakes her feet, but she leaves no footprints in the sand. However far she walks she will never reach her goddess. The spell has failed. She is here, but she is not here. Binah has not embraced her. This world is not her world and she is not welcome.

  She wonders how she might leave. Which direction leads to home? Sleep does not take her there. Neither does walking. Do I risk madness and walk into the light of Samael’s home? She cannot face another endless journey. Samael’s light looks further from her than ever, further even than the golden light.

  In the absence of any alternative ideas Freya continues to walk towards the golden light. She lets her mind wander, recalling Ivan’s tree of ribbons and her own willow tree. She remembers the cave in which she once faced her goddess through a curtain of rose petals and realised Lilith’s face was her own face. She is her own goddess and that other she made in the woods, Deya, she did that alone. She might make other miracles. Freya realises she is far from worthless. She is the only jewel in this featureless desert. She is precious.

  In the distance two orbs of light, one silver, the other gold, shoot from the earth into the sky. The balls of light collide high above. Shock waves rush out from the point of impact. A wall of light rises above Freya like a tsunami. As it crashes past she is knocked off her feet.

  Her face watches her from the other side of a mirror. An arm reaches up to brush her hair and Freya feels her own arm move in response. ‘Deya, is that you?’

  Chapter 51

  Satori sits on the shore, watching waves break against the sand. He rocks back and forth, letting the problem roll around his mind. Black letters soar like sea gulls. Their angry squawks echo around his brain. A single thought settles behind his eyes - a word. He pushes himself to his feet, raises his arms, opens his lips and speaks. As the sound of his voice hits the ocean a valley of sand opens out between walls of red. He stares at the gulf. If the wall breaks I will be drowned. Is this how Moses felt? He takes a step forward. The water roars, raging against its confinement. He looks ahead and runs across the seabed.

  Satori sprints between walls of water. His limbs and an increasing heaviness in his heart weigh him down. His pace slows. He looks again at the parted sea, afraid. The walls do not wobble or bow. They appear to be holding. He stops for a moment and looks to his left. Distorted by water, wraiths, transparent like jellyfish, swim back and forth. Their luminous eyes watch him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asks.

  ‘We are pain. We are suffering. When a woman names her stillborn child and pours into its memory a thousand regrets, when life is cut short by violence and lost potential swallows a family whole, when man or woman sacrifice their nature to religion or marriage and hold each resentment tight to their breasts, or when a child cowers in fear listening to the drunken footsteps of his father, we are born. Your lost love is here. It dances hand in hand with your lost innocence. The sea is crowded. Pain never stops accumulating. The world is in torment and we grow from its spilt tears.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Satori says.

  ‘Your guilt simply adds to your distress and adds fresh pain to our broth. Accept all that has happened and journey onwards. Your regret and sorrow will be well looked after. You have no further need of them. Leave your suffering here. If you cling to it the pain will only grow. Here, at least, it can be free, as can you.’

  Satori closes his eyes. He focuses on the ball that hovers in his throat. He pulls it and it starts to move. Its roots drag through his chest, stomach and arms. Barbed threads tear at his innards, anchoring themselves to his flesh. Sweating, he tugs harder. He speaks to the darkness offering it a better home. He opens his jaws as wide as he is able and pushes trembling fingers into his mouth. He touches icy slime and grips hold. The beast he removes leaps into the water, breaking the surface easily. As it swims away it sheds its ebony colour. A stain of ink lingers at the water’s edge. The ink changes, swirls and dances in the moving water. Curves and lines join together and a letter is born from the black: a fourth letter.

  He stares at the sigil, his mind tracing every line until each curve and finial dance through his head. He holds the image, burning it into his memory. When he is certain he will never forget he turns and walks away. His steps feel lighter as he treads the valley between sorrows. He stretches his legs and starts to run, focusing on Star and Binah and the task he travelled all this way to complete. Distance folds upon itself and the far shore becomes visible. Each step brings dry land disproportionately closer. Climbing a burgundy cliff, he looks back at the waiting tide. As his feet touch the shore he nods and whispers to the ocean. With an angry roar the valley vanishes, swallowed by tides of tears.

  ‘Binah,’ he says in a voice full of awe.

  The sky is grey and the earth beneath his feet is deep red, like port. He walks away from the sea. Star’s essence draws him towards her. He no longer needs her light to know he is travelling in the right direction. He can feel her. Sucking air through his nostrils, he can smell her too.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he calls to the air before him.

  As he marches towards Star and Lilith he tries to formulate a plan. This is Lilith’s world. He knows she will be stronger here. He could not defeat her on earth. What chance do I have? The letters, my new powers, my strength, maybe these will be enough. Self-doubt stabs at his chest, but he continues his journey. It will be enough. I haven’t come here to fail.

  A thudding below him shakes him from his thoughts. The earth trembles beneath his feet and, for a second, he wonders whether it is her. Are Lilith’s footsteps echoing through the ground as she strides towards me? He realises the movement is subterranean. Something is coming. The ground starts to crack. He leaps back and watches open mouthed as a snout breaks through the earth. Pale lilac leathery skin and hundreds of teeth push upwards. He stares horrified while letters form in his head and move into position. He whispers the word. A shriek of pain fills his ears and it takes him a moment to realise it isn’t his scream. Smoke rises from the gaping mouth then flames.

  The head shakes, thrashing in agony. Lilac skin blackens and crisps. The smell of burning flesh cramps his stomach. He wants to take back the spell. The effect is too cruel to endure, but he has no idea how to undo what he has done and still the creature burns. Satori skirts around the wyrm and sprints away. He does not look back even when, at last, the screams weaken and silence follows.

  His pace slows to a walk. More shuddering through the earth below him, but nothing else breaks the surface.

  He sees movement t
o his right. A column of smoke or mist moves in the same direction. He watches it as he marches forward. If it notices his presence is doesn’t acknowledge him and yet his feels its sentience. He watches it move beside him. Although the basic column shape seems to be its natural form it wavers and changes as it moves, sometimes squat, sometimes stretched. Other times it spreads out into a mist so fine it is hard to see. At these times it almost touches him and he can feel its thoughts: its love of freedom and its understanding of the world, as if it comprehends something he cannot, that all is one and all is nothing. The thoughts are too chaotic for Satori to grasp. It seems to think a million things at once as if no idea or sensation can be counted as more important than another. The wealth of information overwhelms Satori. Shaking his head, he slows his pace and lets the mist move further ahead.

  When the mist drifts out of sight Satori increases his speed again. His eyes try to understand a distant shape. A tower? Its deeper darkness punches into the twilight sky. He cannot identify the shape, but it calls to him and he continues moving towards it.

  A dozen more steps and the tower shifts into focus. A body hovers on a curved pedestal - a sculpture? Another dozen steps and dread pushes downwards in his gut. The sculpture moves. Six more steps and he is close enough to understand.

  ‘Star!’

  Her head rotates clockwise as her ears search for his voice. ‘Satori?’

  Star is held between the jaws of a huge wyrm. At first Satori only sees her face. Her neck is twisted and she seems to look at him over her shoulder. It should be an impossible angle but this doesn’t register at first. Satori smiles and Star seems to smile back. In fact her face is graced by a look of serene ecstasy. He has never seen her look more beautiful. Her eyes are tightly closed and he wonders if she is dreaming. He walks around to see her properly. She is naked above the mouth of the serpent and her skin shines like moonlight and seems to glisten with moisture.

  His love for her protects him for a moment, but when he sees how she really is his body folds and he vomits. Her body is broken beyond his powers to repair. Her stomach hangs open and a pair of crows rest with their claws fastened to her pelvic bone. They take it in turns to peck at and widen the cavern that reaches from her bottom ribs to beyond the razor sharp teeth of the serpent.

  ‘Noooo!’ he screams.

  Star cradles something in her arms. She tips the bundle forwards for him to see. Her mouth curves into a proud smile. In her arms lies a baby. Its body, scaly and ugly, repulses him and yet at the same time Satori’s heart yearns to hold it as if he too feels a strange kinship with this monster. The child’s fingernails dig into Star’s breast as its mouth moves around her nipple and the sound of its feeding howls in Satori’s ears.

  He runs towards her. The crows cry in protest as they spread their ragged wings and fly away. Satori’s legs refuse to carry his weight. He stumbles and falls before the horror. Staring at the ground, he tries to calm his mind. It takes all his will to look up again and when he does he wishes he could tear out his one good eye and crush the vision beneath his shaking foot.

  The serpent attached to Star is larger than the wyrm he burnt in the desert. Its jaws grip her hips and her self-inflicted wound gapes above its mouth. He forces his eyes upwards to her arms, which she wraps around her torso cradling the infant. The baby reminds him of his own reflection in the pool. Satori hears the sound of its suckling, greedy sounds, draining life from his beloved. Fury rises in him. His hands shake as he imagines tearing the child from Star’s breast and smashing its skull on the ground.

  His eyes progress upwards. Her throat is filthy and bruised. As if completely unaware of her body, Star smiles. Is she smiling at me or the baby? Caked blood covers the skin between her nose and mouth like a moustache. Star’s eyes are sewn shut with ugly black stitches and above them, a third green eye watches him; it sees his distress yet she does nothing to console him.

  ‘Star,’ he whispers. ‘Star, I came.’

  ‘I never doubted you would.’ Her voice is soft and melodious.

  ‘What is that thing?’ As if clarification might be needed, Satori points to the baby at her breast.

  ‘My…our baby.’

  ‘It survived?’

  ‘Yes. I guess it did,’ she answers.

  ‘How are you?’ He expects mocking laughter in reply, but it doesn’t come.

  She cocks her head and her green eye bores into his mind. He shrinks from the weight of its stare.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answers finally. ‘Nothing seems real. One day I’m trying to discover what I want in life and the next I am a mother.’

  ‘Where’s Lilith?’ he asks.

  ‘She’ll be here soon. I have something of yours. Come closer.’

  Satori does not want to step towards her. She is Star, but she is more and less than that. She is a dark goddess, mother to a demon child, terrifying in aspect, but at the same time she is destroyed, ravaged and broken. Yet he knows these things are surface. He feels a force behind them, brightness and strength. It frightens him.

  ‘Hurry up, Satori. What are you waiting for?’ Sarah asks.

  He swallows hard and pulls himself to his feet. His muscles shake as he takes two steps towards her. The stench of her putrefying flesh unmasks him and he weeps.

  ‘Stay strong,’ she tells him. She untangles one arm from the child and reaches behind her.

  The disturbed baby swivels its head and looks towards Satori. Its green eyes do not blink and when it smiles, teeth like needles decorate its mouth.

  Star reaches towards Satori. Jewels glint in her fist: his dagger. He forces his arm towards her. When their fingers meet an icy chill burns his skin, but he does not let go. He grips her delicate fingers in his own and remembers how she used to be.

  ‘I love you,’ he says.

  Her smile grows wider and blood drips from her mouth. ‘I know,’ she answers. ‘I love you too.’

  Chapter 52

  My life in three boxes and a suitcase? Deya looks around her skeletal room, stripped bare of anything that represents her or her predecessor. Her eyes settle on the ribbons draped over the mirror of her dressing table. She swallows hard and steps towards them. Settling on the stool, she stares at the mirror. Who am I? The riddle has no answer. Who she is today is not who she was a year ago, or even an hour ago. Her life and emotions are in constant flux. An ocean agitated by a cold wind.

  Lifting her brush from the dressing table, she pulls it through her hair. Her reflection shifts then stabilises. The change is so quick that she realises it must be her imagination. Stress, too much stress. She reaches for the ribbons and ties the first of them into her hair, smiling at her reflection. The eyes that stare back are empty of emotion.

  Am I making the right decision? Even now she isn’t certain. What do I gain? Rob loves me. He makes me happy. He’s a good man and he will protect me, even from myself. What do I lose? Everything and nothing. This is how life is supposed to be. People travel in pairs. I can still be Deya. I can still be free even while I am bound to his side, can’t I?

  She feels invisible fingers join hers as she threads ribbons into her hair. ‘Freya?’ Without instruction from her conscious will Deya’s head nods. ‘How are you?’ I’ve come back. Do you have room in there for one more? ‘Always.’ So we’re leaving? ‘Yes.’ Would I like Rob? ‘He’s not Ivan.’ Tell me about him. ‘He’s gentle. He smiles whenever he looks at me. He is not tainted by magic, or death.’ Is that enough? ‘I hope so.’

  She looks away from the mirror and her eyes settle on the boxes again. Is that all our stuff? ‘Yes.’ Everything? Even the book? ‘I wasn’t going to bring the book.’ Why? ‘I don’t want Lilith in my head.’ We’re stronger with her. ‘No. We’re stronger without her.’ Pack it anyway, Sister. For me. ‘Freya, no. I want to be free of her hatred, her violence, her rage.’ She is part of who we are. Part of all women. Lilith and Eve, the aggressive and the submissive. Would you rather be a slave? ‘Of course not.’ Th
en pack the book, just in case.

  Deya opens the top drawer beside her and pulls out the creased paperback. ‘Are you sure?’ She stares at the cover and traces the curves of the half-woman half-snake portrait. She flicks through the yellowed pages. It smells musty but more than that it reeks of knowledge and power – self-knowledge and feminine power. ‘I am not Lilith and neither are you.’ We are who we choose to be, for good or for bad. I’ve made mistakes, that’s true, but if we stop learning and growing we die. I do not wish to spend the rest of my years as a broken shadow of your lover. ‘What do you want?’ Simply to be me, to be us, to be Freya.

  Deya opens a box and drops the book inside. She sighs, exhaling all her worries into the room that was her prison. If she concentrates she can still feel its bars press against her flesh. ‘Why did you let them control you? Why didn’t you break free?’ I was a little girl. I had no power. ‘And now?’ We have all the power we need. What are you afraid of? ‘Being trapped again.’ By whom? ‘Rob…myself…my fears.’ Don’t be afraid. If anything they should be afraid of us. ‘Who?’ Men. ‘I think, perhaps, they are.’

  ‘Are you ready for this?’ Never more so. ‘Then lend me some of your strength. These boxes look heavy.’ Call Ivan. ‘So you can watch his muscles ripple as he lifts them?’ Deya’s mouth lifts at the corners. Mmmm, perhaps. ‘We can do this. “We have all the power we need.” Remember?’

  Deya bends her knees and wraps her arms around the box. She lifts it without difficulty. It is no heavier than the boxes she moves at work. Who would have thought our possessions would weigh so little?

  Twisting its bulk through the bedroom door, she tries to see the stairs past the cube of cardboard. It’s too big. Call him. ‘No!’ Then I will.

  ‘Ivan!’ Freya shouts.