by Ako Emanuel
“In you the Supreme One smiles upon us all.”
He had reacted too late. The light boomed around them, blooming in soft magma bursts and harsh white streaks. They both glowed like the lovely, deadly av’lak’ka fire bird in the height of heat. He would have run, but the light entered his being and burned away all sensation of his body, filling his eyes, his mind, his soul, transfixing him. He would have screamed, but his voice had become white sound, ineffective in a world suddenly gone color negative. Living things leaped out as blazing sculptures of light, the morn-star a patch of brightness in a colorless sky. He would have tried to make sense of what was happening to him, but his mind was afloat on a sea of color.
“I take your blessing and your love, Shalgo. We are one.” The voice of Jeliya filled his immaterial ears. He was no longer corporeal, but a being half of radiant darkness and half of blinding light. Such was his soul, but what it meant, he did not know. And before him Jeliya -
Jeliya was a being of pure light, pulsing with life, a star amongst fireflies, a thing born of Av. She turned to him and smiled; he felt the warmth of her smile like a river of gold through him, filling him to bursting with joy. He moved across the distance separating them and at the same instant she moved toward him, and they met in the middle, two odd, yet perfectly matched parts of a whole. They embraced in this timeless place of ethereal things of living light, knowing no past and no future, only the present and the perfection of the instant of their joining.
And it seemed that he began to lose a part of herself/himself to her, that part that was of light - but the darkness pulled him back, kept him whole, withstood the pull of her that would surely engulf him sweetly, totally, absolutely and irrevocably...
They parted strangely, each seeming to leave a piece of self with the other. His body slowly reclaimed him, the world losing its luster, the prison of flesh closing with finality upon him. It had not been this way with Jenikia. It had not been this - intense...
A deliciously warm mouth slid silken-smooth upon his own. Arms were wound tight about his neck. Her lush body moved against him, and he held her as if his very life depended on its nearness. For a moment longer she was wondrously yielding in his embrace.
Then she stiffened and resisted, struggling a bit in his arms. Reflexively he held her tighter, her body still communicating reluctant furor. She gave a small whimper and her ribcage fought to expand. He slackened his arms. Their kiss lingered, hung suspended, as if she were not ready to give it up either. Then she jerked away, gasping, her confusion palpable.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, pushing away from him before he could stop her. Her legs crumpled beneath her, weak from disuse. He caught her in a bruising grip, lowered her to the ground.
“I - I’m sorry,” he murmured, having no way to explain their moment of passion. He settled painfully to the ground, lu’mari forgotten. “I - don’t know what came over me.”
Jeliya was very still. She watched him settle, feeling his pain in her legs, then realized with a start of fear that she was seeing the false image of herself through his own eyes, so sharp, so clear, that she might as well have been seeing through her own. And if the image was that sharp, if the sensations were that defined, then something had happened to strengthen the link between them. Something had happened...
Memories, disturbing memories, memories that could not possibly be real paraded across her vision, telling the impossible. The cold shock. The light of Av pouring molten in her... and a blazing soul that touched and mingled and separated again from hers. The joy at the union...
“What happened?” she said in a voice as cold as death’s touch, the implications chilling her. Surely not - surely they had not... But his eyes looked at her, then looked away, and she felt his reticence, a dreadful, silent confirmation of her worst fears.
“What happened!” she thundered, letting it echo down their link. He winced and actually drew back.
“What happened - what happened is... that... I brought you into the light of Av, as you requested, Jeliya. You went into lor’den last eve and I did my best to keep you warm, and then I brought you out into the light of Av as soon as it rose.”
Cold dismay rolled down her throat and settled, vile and green, in the pit of her belly. Sweet mother of wisdom, if what she thought happened had in fact come to pass...
He was not unconscious. She did not feel his personality as a part of her own, she had not absorbed him into herself. Perhaps indeed, they had not committed that utmost violation, that ultimate sin.
But he had survived a similar experience with her great grandmother. And as his emotions washed crystal sharp over her she knew that he was hiding something, holding something back, she could feel it like a wave of sick, tepid water. His silence was as damning as a shouted confession. She waited for him to continue, to bring to light her worst fear. But he said nothing more.
“What else happened?” she whispered hoarsely. “Please, tell me what else happened. I must know, you must tell me!”
“Jeliya, I-”
“Tell me, Kwabana damn you, tell me!”
And, his voice welling like pooling blood, he told her.
“You began to glow. You became a being of living light. I also glowed. You turned and touched me...”
His voice drowned in a roaring that filled her ears and her thoughts shattered against the vile greenness in her belly that blossomed into putrid revulsion. Her world came crashing down around her, her life ending in a gaping hole of nothingness.
What they had done was utterly taboo, strictly forbidden in all the sacred texts of the post Yo’teng epoch, for all knew the tragedy of Jenisa and Darmad, the doomed lovers who had shared the Rite of Solu. Darmad had been lost in Jenisa, her light overwhelming him, swallowing him, leaving his body an empty shell. The first, last, and only couple to know Solu’san, the disfavor of the Goddesses through the Rite.
And she, as her foremother, had broken the taboo. She was damned, the eyes of the Supreme One turned from her forever.
Sick and dizzy with revulsion, guilt and despair, disgust and fear, she slumped to her side and wept openly.
“...We almost became one,” his voice said with awe.
“Say no more,” she choked, wishing the earth would swallow her. “Say no more!” She did not feel his startlement in the welling cage of her anguish, did not hear him urgently call her name.
“Mother, forgive me!” she wailed, hysteria slipping on like a comforting de’siki. In blind despair she pressed her face to the sweet warm earth and tore at the grass, moaning.
“Supreme One, forgive me!” she cried to the green curve of heaven above her, lifting her arms in pleading. “Do not cast my soul into the Eternal Dark! Ya’kano have mercy on me!”
He touched her. She flinched away, striking out at him. She did not feel his desperate fear.
“Do not touch me!” she shrieked, clawing at the turf to move away. “We are damned, we are both damned! Again you have brought the darkness upon my Tribe!”
Her words cut like a razor-sharp spear. He turned away, considered leaving her to herself for a while - but the hunting howl, nearer, too near, brought him up short. He moved closer to his charge, made a move to touch her. She screamed at him to keep him hands off her. He paid her words no heed, his fear that the hunting pack was at this moment homing in on their position overshadowing all else. He had no weapons save his spear-hook. He could not fend off a whole pack with just that. He looked around with fear widened eyes, tried again to make a grab at her. She lashed out at him, crawled ever closer to the edge of the bank overlooking the stream.
I must quiet her, we are in danger! he thought frantically. He caught her up and held her while she kicked and screamed, held her till she wore herself out trying to get away. Finally she stopped struggling and merely wept bitterly against his shoulder. Her misery hit him like a boulder, staggering him, crushing everything else from his mind. The lu’mari were nothing compared to this death of spirit.
He stroked her hair, his dread forgotten in the face of her despondency, crooned to her, noted with absent curiosity that tears coursed down his face too.
“Please, Jeliya,” he murmured, rocking her, “please, don’t cry.”
But the soul-wrenching sobs continued, reverberating though him, each a stab to his heart. How, he did not know. All he knew was that what had transpired was destroying her soul, that slowly her despair would consume her, leaving only an empty husk. And he was powerless to stop it.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said to the air, to the water and the earth, to no one. He knew a despondency all his own. He bowed his head and listened to her weep, his heart stone. Shifting shadows flitted among the trees, and a low laughing sound echoed from many throats. The lu’mari pack was upon them, circling a prey that could not escape, and was not even trying…
...Presence. A profound presence washed over him, a vast thing of warmth and benediction. The low laughter turned to anguished whines of dismay, and then yelps of pain that moved away quickly. Silence descended like a misting shroud, hushing the forest. He looked up.
She appeared to be young, a woman of glowing countenance and silent steps that did not seem to touch the earth. Her presence awed him, though it brought no fear, and dimly he realized that he had not heard her approach.
Her gentle smile lightened his heart and her depthless eyes, shimmering, ethereal white, were a match for his of spangled black.
She soothed without speaking, in a voice of velveteen light. She moved forward with a step so flowing that she seemed to dance to some hidden, divine rhythm. She laid a luminous hand of mahogany and onyx upon Jeliya’s brow and murmured soothingly. Jeliya relaxed so suddenly that he had to act fast to catch her weight.
The glowing one told him that Jeliya would sleep and remember nothing, as she removed her hand.
He gazed up at her, blinked. Her fingers brushed his cheek, her touch a glory of light. He gasped.
Her luminous eyes queried that he still wept.
His tongue was frozen, weighted with the words, but they would not come. He could only plead with his eyes.
Understanding. He was afraid that Jeliya did not share his feelings in return? He bowed his head, and a small, benign, golden laugh touched his mind. She spoke. :Time is the answer, dear half-one. She fears what she feels, fears that it is in conflict with her responsibilities as Heir. The weight of duty presses heavily upon her. But as with her foremother, what is shared between you is blessed. It will be. It must be.:
“Will I...” his tongue began to work again, but without the benefit of his brain’s guidance, spilling his deepest fear before he could stop it. “Will I lose her... too...?”
The hand cupped his face. His eyes went wide, a mild rapture taking hold of him as the presence touched the very core of his being. The almost too real fingers wiped his tears away.
A wordless caress of reassurance flooded his mind, a smile of promise. It was not a concrete answer, but it was enough. It would have to be.
She stepped away. He followed her with his eyes, asking a question. Her eyes warmed even more as she smiled.
*:I am sometimes called Ya’kano.:*
“Thank you,” he whispered, looking down at Jeliya. Her face was beatific in slumber.
“Thank you,” he said again, more fervently, raising his head.
She was gone.
the light turned slowly toward mid’morn...
He gathered the abandoned desi around Jeliya and cradled her in his arms, before dragging himself to his feet. The after effects of the Rite still echoed within him, leaving him disoriented and dizzy, as if he had stayed in the light too long.
He made his way back to his abode, his hooves finding the path for themselves. He thought he heard the hunting call again as he carried Jeliya beyond the lu’mari territory, but it stayed at a distance, sounding frustrated and full of anger. Finally he reached the border of his own land, right around zenith. The protective rite opened for him. He stumbled up the path and over the door-sill into the dark, cool interior. Automatically he moved to the bedchamber to lay his burden down, then sank painfully to the floor, his skin feeling slightly roasted.
The folds of the desi fell away like the petals of a blooming flower, revealing its heart. He looked over his charge; his hands reflexively reached out to straighten her limbs and arrange her in a more comfortable position. She looked so peaceful as she slept, so innocent, so content - and yet the picture of serenity was shattered as he remembered her actions, her words. That what they shared was forbidden, and would damn them both, that they would be cast into darkness, never to become one with the Supreme One. The words troubled him, even though he knew that the exact opposite was true, that they were Goddess-blessed and that it was right. Jeliya did not know this, and as long as she did not, she would hold to her beliefs. And she would continue to avoid his touch and believe him a tainted thing, a necessary evil in her life at present.
Wearily he folded his arms and lay his head among them, feeling emotionally overwrought and careworn. What was he to do? He had never truly admitted his feelings before, had never faced them, had never given them voice, and for good reason. But now, here they were, laid bare like an open wound, and he could but stare at them in dismay. And how could she feel the same? She already cringed from him, though she tried to hide the fact. Why, he did not even know. Was his touch so unpleasant, or his appearance so repugnant to her? Apparently so. Her great grandmother had called him beautiful, but what of the great granddaughter? It was possible that she did not see him that way and he had been a fool to assume that she would. And now this.
Despair danced on the edge of his mind with sharp cloven hooves to a delirious beat. Surely she did not share the feelings he had for her. Not when she endured his touch with barely concealed distaste. But if she were to remember the events that took place, she would truly hate him, she would despise him and shun his very presence. If he were wrong, and the being that called itself Ya’kano was wrong, he would lose her forever.
As if you ever had her, he thought dismally, his face clouding over. If she found you repulsive from the first, why, then she was never yours. You’d be twice the fool to believe that she would be as her foremother had been, that she would have feelings for you. That she would love you. Why would she? Why should she? Especially if she knew the story of her foremother, the real story, or as much of it as would lead her to him.
Again you have brought darkness to my Tribe... oh, she knew. She knew, but how much? Had she guessed?
The memory of their blazing souls almost touching, of her welcoming smile, of her reaction afterward flared as if in answer.
Again you have brought darkness... and what of the darkness he had seen in himself, then and now? Was she right after all? What was that darkness in himself that had drawn him back, kept him from becoming lost, from melding completely and inseparably with her? What of the being Ya’kano calling him half-son or half-one? Was he truly of darkness, or at least partly, and had he cast it on those whom he had loved? He did not know. The answer was lost in the dim recesses of his past, in the hidden memories of the time before...
The time before he found himself, cold and wracked with pain, beside a glowing wall of force, no feeling in his legs and the lower part of him feeling strange, heavy and unnatural, with gloom and unfamiliar stimuli battering his spinning senses...
Could he have been in darkness? In it and of it?
What of the words of Ya’kano? Something within him asked, that stubborn little part of him that hoped even through hopelessness, even in the face of her rejection.
What of them? he thought back, a hardness in his chest making his lungs ache. He had no proof that this being was who She claimed to be, a Deity; nothing with which to establish Her credibility, no reference with which to justify Her words as true. Yes, She had power; but were there not others of power, evil ones, not-quite-Deities? Lor’Joumbi? Lu’mari would be afraid o
f something benign and far more powerful than they were, but the same could be said for something more powerful and more malevolent.
A faint rumbling in his lower stomach reminded him that he had not eaten, and that Jeliya, whether she remembered or not, would be hungry when she awoke. He got to his feet, his heart heavy. He leaned forward and covered her, wished that he could feel as peaceful as she looked.
And that I could taste her again...
But when she would awaken and in what state of mind, he had no way of knowing. Only time would tell.
turning light, turning...
Jeliya woke slowly, struggling out of dark, distressing dreams that she could not quite remember. She felt greatly rejuvenated, though still weak. Most of the aches in her body had dulled to mere irritants, the pain behind her eyes, however, persisting.
She vaguely remembered being cold, gave an experimental shiver. Had she been in lor’den? All seemed well. The two orders of the Rite of Solu must have worked. She felt fine. Her stomach growled slightly to the contrary at her.
“Hello?” she called softly, wondering how far away her benefactor was. She considered calling him by name, but the name strangely did not seem to fit him anymore - as if it belonged to a younger, more innocent him. One that had long since melted away.
“You are awake,” the silver voice said almost immediately, a funny green tilt to it.
“Yes.” She shivered again, this time at the strange tone. “Were you watching me sleep?”
“Yes, I was. Are you hungry?”
“Very.” She sat up carefully, realized that the smell of food was already all around her. Her stomach growled again, embarrassingly loud.
His weight settled on the pallet. His hand touched hers, and she raised them to receive the calabash bowl, strangely drawn and just as strangely newly repelled by the contact. Teasingly vague hints of memory touched the edges of her mind, but would not come clear. She dismissed them as she heard the spoon dip and then touch her lips. She opened her mouth obligingly. It was rich soup with fish and tanya tubers and yellow onion and carrots and flavorful seasonings.