Santa Fe — Summer 1914
Ilex and Melia rested against the trunk of a large tree to catch their breath. They had walked as quickly as possible on their uphill journey. They preferred to travel in the moonlit calm of the early hours, visible only to those they chose to encounter. On this occasion, they had seen no one on the road, let alone in the forest. To attain the best possible view of the sky, they were headed to a clearing at the top of the hill.
“Clouds may impede our vision,” reasoned Ilex.
“Perhaps,” replied Melia. “Nonetheless, let’s proceed.”
Other than the occasional interjection for a misstep or choice of direction, the two did not converse over the remainder of the walk. They reached their destination within the hour. Together they began to assemble the equipment — Ilex manoeuvring their left arm, Melia their right. The pair had become so fluid in their bodily movements over the years that little need for discussion or instruction was required even when engaged in complex physical tasks.
“Clouds or no, I doubt we will detect anything at all. We would need to be on the other side of the world to witness even the slightest Lapidarian effect.”
“Saule requested we make our observations here.”
“To what end?” Ilex asked, clearly frustrated.
“You would deny her request after all she has done for us?”
“Of course not. I am merely questioning her choice of location.”
“To what end?” Melia asked, and their conversation ceased.
The equipment ready, crystalline lenses in place, they waited. On occasion, Melia would hold their pendant up to the sky to ascertain the time. Ilex remained still, drifting into the shadows to sleep at one point. Melia considered waking him up, insisting that he remain alert, but she decided to let him rest. If the Vulknut Eclipse did manifest, these could be the last peaceful moments she had to herself. For, as much as she loved Ilex, she often craved significantly more time alone.
The sound reached her before the sight. She did not hear it with her ears; she perceived it — a low hum vibrating within her. She could not pinpoint its source. The noise simply overcame her. She repositioned herself at the telescope, its wooden frame and crystalline lenses assembled and sturdy against the dust-encrusted rock. She scanned the horizon, the trees barely distinguishable from the sky. She saw nothing but muted tones of grey against black, the occasional ray of moonlight. Then it happened. The humming ceased. The sizzling and crackling began. She felt Ilex suddenly return to consciousness, alert, uneasy. He tried to lift their hands to their ears, but Melia knew such a move to be pointless, so she tightened their grip on the telescope.
They both saw the luminescence at once: a blue-green tinge spreading across the sky like a dye dispersing in water. Invisible to the naked eye, the colours were clearly perceptible through the alchemical lenses. They could signify only one event: the Remota Macula had succeeded.
“Three days,” whispered Melia. “Three days until the end of the world.”
“Three days to live!” said Ilex, with an enthusiasm Melia failed to comprehend. “We are free!” Did he wish to be free of her? No, that was not where his thoughts were headed. “We no longer need to hide ourselves away from the Council,” he continued. “Where shall we go? What shall we do to celebrate?” He exhibited more vigour in these few moments than she had experienced in him for the last several years. She felt him stir with arousal. Abruptly, she centred both of them into her body, its potential for excitement currently dormant.
“I feel no desire to celebrate, Ilex.”
“Hold faith in the One, my love. All will be well.”
“No, Ilex. You misunderstand. I have not lost faith in the One. I have come to fear it.”
Ilex breathed, calming himself in an attempt to intuit her meaning before offering solace. “Melia, we have nothing to fear.”
“Not a single member of the Alchemists’ Council truly understands what it means to be one with another,” said Melia. “You know as well as I — indeed, you are the only one who knows as well as I — that mutual conjunction is both difficult and complicated. Yes, we both survived the conjunction. Yes, neither of us has known the loss of the other. But at what cost, Ilex? At what cost?”
“Melia! You and I and Genevre—”
Melia lunged backward and swung around in a futile attempt to confront Ilex.
“Do not include Genevre!”
“But if ascension to the One were to occur, we three could—” began Ilex, but Melia cut him off again. She had always been able to dominate their body — all of it, even the mouth and tongue and vocal cords — when her anger flared. She literally stopped him from being able to continue his words. He had learned long ago that resistance was futile.
“Ilex, you have shared my scars. You have embraced me when I had nothing left to embrace. We have become masters of an intricate dance that we learned, step by step, day by day. We are two beings within one body. Imagine if we were three? Imagine if our child had become one with us — literally one — from the moment of conception.”
Melia paused. She waited for him to respond, but he did not speak.
“Now imagine four and then five and then a dozen, a hundred, a thousand. Imagine hundreds of thousands upon thousands of thousands of thousands. Imagine all as One. And then tell me again that we have nothing to fear.”
Council Dimension — Summer 1914
Cedar had never known Ruis to appear so gratified. When the Azoths had completed their declarations, Ruis audibly cheered. He pulled Cedar to him, pressing himself against her.
“We will reconvene in three hours,” announced Quercus.
“‘My love is as a fever, longing still,’” Ruis whispered to Cedar.
He did not wait for her to reply, for her to pull from memory a Shakespearean response. Instead he swept her along, almost running through the corridors to his chambers. Others too appeared to be following suit. She wondered vaguely whether the Azoth Magen had someone to accompany him to his chambers. Even as she lay with Ruis, savouring what could be their last physically intimate hours together, her mind wandered away from Ruis’s touch and urgency to Council concerns. The success of the Remota Macula astounded her. If all continued to go as the Azoths intended, only three days remained until the ultimate Final Ascension. Only three days remained. Three days. As much as she loved Ruis, as much as she had enjoyed their sexual intimacy over the years, she could not abandon her trepidation about the future to remain fully in the present with him now. Instead she automatically moved her body in rhythm with his, concentrating not on insuring their mutual gratification — he seemed to be doing just fine on his own — but on her fellow alchemists, both those she had once known and those she would soon know no longer. Thus, it happened that just as Ruis collapsed in exhausted pleasure she was remembering the day Sadira had extinguished the fire in the ancient apiary. She felt mildly guilty for dividing her attentions until Ruis, having recovered his breath, reminded her they would soon be together as One for eternity. Then she cried.
“Do not cry, my love!” Ruis pleaded, embracing her. “Our ascension into One is the Sacrament of Sacraments! Embrace this ideal, Cedar! Imagine what awaits us once we have ascended, once we have returned to our Origin. Imagine existing in the originary state before division, before creation, before difference prevailed. We will no longer be mere alchemists battling for a position in the fray, tinkering with the elemental balance of the created world. We will no longer be bound by creation because we will be the Creator! We will no longer fear our end because we will be the beginning! We will no longer require ink to inscribe our texts because we will be the Word!”
“I am not you,” whispered Cedar.
He did not respond because he did not hear her. He released his embrace, turned away, and fell into his dreams.
Council Dimension — Summer 1914
With the
entire Alchemists’ Council otherwise occupied, Saule slipped away unnoticed to the cliff face. Her walk along the forest path confirmed what she had sensed earlier but been unable to articulate: Council dimension had ceased to breathe.
From the moment she had first stepped into this landscape years ago, she could feel its vibrancy, the alchemical pulse evident just under the surface. She could watch it in the breeze rocking the cedar boughs, she could touch it in the trickling stream of the channel waters, she could hear it in the tinkling reverberation of the trees in the Amber Garden, she could taste it in the sweet golden honeycomb of the apiary, she could bathe in its fragrant scent as she lay in the lavender fields. Now only the fact of the dimension remained. She walked along a path through the redwood forest, but instead of vitality she sensed only lethargy. How much longer until Saule herself became stagnant?
By the time she reached the cliff face, Saule knew with certainty that she had nothing left to lose. She pressed both hands against the rock, recited the key she had been given for the contingency plan, and, after a few minutes of unnerving nausea, she emerged into yet another forest. Only this one was bathed in moonlight, and she was no longer alone.
“Melia! Ilex!” Saule called as she stepped forward to embrace them.
“My dear,” said Melia. “As much as I longed to see you again, I hoped this particular meeting would never occur.”
“We needn’t despair. You two exist at the point of conjunction — of alchemists and rebels, of one and the other, of all three dimensions. You can choose to help me while choice remains an option, while the residual effects of the Flaw still linger. Together we may be able to stop Final Ascension, to resist the One.”
“But what of the people — the people here, the people around the world — who are to be saved in the One along with the Council?” protested Ilex.
“The Council has all but abandoned its charges, all but forsaken its vow to maintain elemental balance,” replied Saule. “The people of the outside world will suffer inexorably for the three days of the Vulknut Eclipse. And if ultimate Final Ascension occurs, all of us — alchemists, rebels, and people alike — will be annihilated. I cannot abide such destruction.”
“No, Saule. We will all be saved in the One,” said Ilex.
“And if the One is mere myth, if the One ended eternally with the Crystalline Wars, then the Flaw dimension will cease to exist, Council dimension will stagnate, and the outside world will be mired in the chaos, unbalanced and unstable forever. If you truly hope to save the people of the world tonight — all its people — then you need to listen to me.”
Ilex lowered his eyes.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Melia.
“Take me to the High Azoth of the Rebel Branch.”
“Take you to Dracaen? Saule, you risk erasure!” exclaimed Melia.
“Erasure! What is erasure compared with complete annihilation? If you take me to the High Azoth, I can offer my assistance to the Rebel Branch, help them to breach Council dimension. Together we can work to restore the Flaw in the Stone. Together we can return to the balance that has sustained all dimensions for generations.”
“I want to help, Saule.”
“As do I,” added Ilex.
“But we cannot take you to Dracaen. We have no means to open a portal to Flaw dimension even if we knew how to locate one,” explained Melia.
Saule could not respond. Ilex and Melia were her last hope. She had been certain they would be able to help her, that they would have maintained contact with the rebels.
“Unless—” began Melia.
“Unless what?” asked Saule, hope rising in her once again. She watched them carefully. She could tell that Melia wanted to speak, but Ilex was attempting to hold their mouth shut.
“Ilex! You just told me you wanted to help. Please keep your word,” begged Saule.
“A . . . contact,” said Melia. “An hour’s walk from here—”
“No!” Ilex interrupted.
“Ilex! She is our remaining link to the Rebel Branch. Consider what I said to you earlier tonight. Consider the repercussions.”
“We do not even know if she is still—”
“I know, Ilex. I know where she lives.”
“Who?” asked Saule.
“An outside world scribe,” said Melia. “Years ago, Dracaen requested we train her. We worked with her for almost forty years alongside Dracaen, teaching her all that we recalled from our days as Council Scribes. She may still be in contact with him.”
“We don’t know whether she’s in contact or not,” said Ilex. “We’ve not spoken with her for months.”
“Why not?”
“Last year we learned of a decision she and Dracaen made together without our approval,” explained Melia, her resentment clear. “We vehemently disapproved. Their choice and its repercussions created additional risk for us.”
“And for them,” added Ilex.
“But current circumstances necessitate taking the risk,” said Melia. “Who other than us would care to look for her now? The Vulknut Eclipse has provided virtual certainty that no one from the Alchemists’ Council will be searching for any of us.”
“Let’s go then!” urged Saule.
Within minutes, they had emerged from the forest. Within the hour, they had arrived at a small adobe structure with a quaint courtyard visible in the moonlight. Saule was surprised to see an indoor light suddenly brighten the window as they stepped onto the walkway. Moments later, she heard the door being unlatched. They had no need to knock. Perhaps outside world scribes had more intuition or alchemical abilities than Saule realized. A woman ushered them into a spacious central room with eclectic furnishings.
Ilex and Melia hugged the woman. When she stepped back from them, she shook her head and sighed. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Saule,” said Ilex. “Allow me to introduce you. This is Genevre. Genevre, this is Saule, Lapidarian Scribe of the Alchemists’ Council.”
At first, Saule merely smiled politely and extended her hand. But something pulled at her — something that she would have recognized immediately if the extenuating circumstances had not been so dire. This woman was not merely an outside world scribe trained by the Rebel Branch. This was Genevre — the Genevre. No wonder Ilex had resisted Melia’s suggestion that they meet with her tonight. She could tell by Genevre’s demeanour that she did not recognize Saule. Why should she? They had not seen each other since Saule had taken her to the outside world family who would raise her. And though Saule had maintained periodic contact with Ilex and Melia over the years, they had purposely avoided discussion of Genevre. They could not risk inadvertently exposing her to Council.
But time suddenly slowed, collapsed in that room. Listening to Genevre’s voice, recognizing the significance of this reunion, the Vulknut Eclipse itself was temporary eclipsed for Saule. If they were all to die in three days, she would die having had this one moment of happiness. And if they did not die, if she could help the rebels restore the Flaw in the Stone, Saule would ensure that Genevre came to work for the Council, that her name was indeed inscribed in the right manuscripts at the right time, that her scribal skills were confirmed by outside world documents. For although she had not heard her name uttered for years, Saule knew beyond doubt that Genevre could provide a conduit among dimensions for many years to come. And no one on Council other than Saule herself ever need know the truth of her origin or the extent of their alchemical bond.
Flaw Dimension — Summer 1914
The rebels gathered around Dracaen awaiting response. If there was ever a time they required guidance from their High Azoth, it was now. As much as Kalina had wanted to leave, she realized she needed to stay. If the Rebel Branch could not restore the Dragonblood Stone within three days — the time it would take for the residual effects of Dragonblood to dissipate — complete annihilati
on would be their fate. The entire Flaw dimension would disintegrate, the rebels along with it. They must choose wisely now or live an eternity with no choice at all.
“Breach! Breach!” Dracaen cried. And the others soon followed, the rallying cry echoing through the chamber in the hollowed absence of the hallowed Stone.
The Third Rebellion had begun with Dracaen’s call to arms.
Though their time frame was severely limited, Dracaen insisted on protocols, maintaining that they could not breach Council dimension without a means, that they must take the time to formulate an infallible plan. He met for three hours with the Rebel Elders to strategize. Kalina waited impatiently with the Scribes and Readers. The chamber droned with hushed voices. Small groups of rebels speculated on manoeuvres, conjectured the details of the Elders’ battle plan, readied their literal and figurative swords.
Finally, Dracaen and the Elders emerged. They did not appear as the rebels had imagined they would. They looked drawn, fatigued, and, worst of all, older. They were now literally surviving on borrowed time — second by second, molecule by molecule, the Dragonblood Elixir in their veins fragmented in the absence of the Stone. Kalina and the others remained silent, fists closed, wrists crossed, heads bowed, awaiting word from the High Azoth, ready to reply, prepared to make their choice.
“Victory requires two steps,” announced Dracaen. “A portal and a sacrifice. We have one but not the other.”
Kalina lifted her head. She then realized that Thuja had already stepped forward, marked by the blood-red shawl upon her shoulders as a martyr to the cause. Kalina tensed with guilt, tears brimming. This woman, whom she had known as long as she had known Dracaen, had offered herself as the sacrifice. Larix too stepped forward then and kneeled at Thuja’s feet, lowering his head to the ground as a gesture of utmost respect. After all the rebels, including Kalina, had done the same, Dracaen too lowered himself to the floor. The High Azoth honoured the one willing to be sacrificed for the sake of all.
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