The Mythic Dream

by Dominik Parisien

  And so Callen continued upward, drawing closer and closer to the destination she so longed for. The air around the mountain-hill’s summit seemed thinner and sadder, but it also felt cleaner and clearer in the lungs. Callen did not know if her light-headedness was from lack of oxygen or from giddiness that her journey was nearly at an end. Perhaps it was both.

  But of course stories can’t progress so cheaply and simply—we know that, don’t we, my little ones? Of course there was one more obstacle in Callen’s path. As she neared sight of the peak, her path was blocked by a creature so enormous it dwarfed the previous two combined. Its plumage was the white of bleached bone, the color so uniform it hurt to look at.

  Its great, hollow eyes fixed on the tiny human in front of it. “Excuse me, O great one,” Callen said slowly.

  The bird-creature spoke: “You want me to leave this path so that you may proceed, don’t you?” Its voice rumbled like distant thunder. “What can you offer me in return?”

  Callen lowered her head. “I have nothing to offer, great one. I have given everything I carried to your brethren down the path. All I have left is my name, and a story I wish to tell.”

  “Give me one of those, then,” said the creature.

  “The story is the reason I am here,” Callen said. “If I forget, I will have nothing to offer the witch at the top of the mountain.”

  “Then give me your name,” the bird said.

  “My name?” Callen blinked. “But I need my name.”

  The creature tilted it head and said nothing.

  Callen knew the only way to reach her goal was to satisfy this creature, so that it would leave. She didn’t know what she would do without her name, without her identity. But she knew that the alternative—failing her quest—would be worse. If she failed here, she would never see the one she loved again. And she would not have that.

  “All right,” she conceded. “Take my name, then. It’s not as important as why I am here.”

  “And why are you here?” asked the creature.

  “My beloved languishes in the prison of the gods, guilty only for the crime of loving me,” she said. “I was told the witch who lives on this mountain can free her.”

  It laughed. “And you think the witch will help you? You think she can spring your beloved from the bars built by the heavenly hosts themselves?”

  “I was told she could help.”

  The creature laughed again. Callen burned with frustration, knowing that she was only wasting time parleying. “Take my name and be done with it,” she said. “Though I know not what you would do with such a thing. But if it’s what you want, then it is yours.”

  The bird-creature stood and passed its massive white wings over the girl in front of it, and when it was done the girl no longer remembered her name or where she was from. All she had was a story, burning inside of her, and the knowledge that she must tell it to someone.

  “Go, my small darling,” said the bird-creature to her. “See if you can find what you wanted.” And with that, it took wing and soared into the dark red sky.

  The girl with no name headed up the path with the conviction of a fish returning to the grounds where it had been spawned. The top of the hill was a flat clearing, large as an emperor’s bedchamber and empty as a pauper’s pantry. In its middle sat a human figure, hunched over a green fire lit upon a bier of stones.

  “Are you the witch who lives on this mountain?” asked the girl with no name.

  The figure straightened up. They were of indeterminate gender, craggy-faced and silver-haired, weighed down by beads in a style unseen in thousands of years. They laughed at the girl, although not unkindly. “What of it?”

  The girl sat. “I need your help.”

  “Give me your name,” said the witch.

  “I can’t,” the girl said. “I’ve given it away.”

  “Have you?” said the witch. They looked amused. “And what, exactly, can a girl with no name offer me in return for my help?”

  The girl looked at her hands, which were empty. Dirt had gathered under the nails during her long journey. “I have nothing left except a story,” she said. “I don’t know why it’s important, but it must be, because I gave up my name rather than give up the story.”

  The witch stoked the fire and laughed some more, and their laughter shook the hidden stars above. “All right,” they said, “Tell me, then. I will listen, and I will judge if you’re worth helping.”

  The girl bowed her head as if in prayer, collecting the strange threads of the story that was the only thing left to her. And then she began to speak: “Not so long ago . . .”

  * * *

  Not so long ago, in a place not so far from here, there was a river of stars that swept within sight of the deathless ones. Every so often a mortal ship would stop in the bright stream to bathe its engines in the light, and sometimes the mortals would emerge, wrapped in soft silver to protect their fragile bodies from the beautiful cold teeth of the void.

  It so happened that this day, a group of young fairies were frolicking amongst the stars when a particular ship made a stop, and several mortals came out to wander, tethered to their vessel with wiry cords. The fairies, being young and sheltered, had never seen mortals before, and being curious, gathered around the intruders into their playground. And the mortals, having never met immortals before, were terrified by the appearance of these creatures that were shaped like them but shone with the light of stars and swam through the vacuum of space like jellyfish. They fled back to their ship, but one of them was too slow, alas! and was caught by the playful fairies. The fairies broke the cord tethering the frightened mortal to her ship, and she was left behind as her ship fled the sacred stream.

  But mortals have mortal needs, and without the warm nurturing of her ship the young woman the fairies had captured quickly ran out of air. She stopped screaming and kicking as her skin and lips turned blue. And the fairies, in their capricious manner, became bored and abandoned her to her fate.

  She would have died then, but the youngest of the fairies took pity on her. Gathering the silver-clad mortal in her arms, the fairy traveled back to the Celestial Palace, halfway across the galaxy. She hid the mortal from the sight of the others and nursed her back to health in the secrecy of her own bedchamber. After all, little separates the immortals and the mortals but several hundred years of magic and technology, and it took little effort to salvage a soft flesh body subject to the mere whims of physics and biology.

  When the mortal woman woke from her long healing sleep, she looked upon the face of her benefactor and smiled. In that moment the young fairy instantly fell in love, and swore she would protect this mortal woman for as long as she lived. Thus began a clandestine affair in the heart of the Celestial Palace, a story of separation by day and passion by night. The fairy plied her mortal lover with sweet wines and delicate fruits from the celestial garden, the likes of which the mortal had never seen. At night, the fairy anointed her lover with perfumed oils while the larks sang outside the closed windows of the bedchamber. She taught the mortal to read, to play instruments, to enjoy every luxury the life of a celestial being could offer.

  Yet the mortal woman was little more than a prisoner in her new life. A trespasser in the heart of the immortal empire, in the palace complex where only those closest to the Heavenly Emperor were permitted, she could not leave the fairy’s bedchambers for fear of getting caught. Every morning as the fairy left for her duties, she made her lover promise that she would stay within the bounds of the room, and every morning the mortal agreed. But how the outside world called to her! Birds sang in trees unseen, and fragrances wafted in through the gaps under the door. Through the thin paper of the windows she could hear laughter and songs in a language she was slowly learning to understand. How she longed to join them!

  It was love that kept her true to her promise, and kept her from wandering to meet the outside world. But day by day her boredom and frustration grew, until one day she thought, �
��Surely a look wouldn’t hurt, just a look!” And so she pushed open one of the paper windows, just a mere crack, and peered out. How beautiful it was! The fairy’s bedchamber was one of a hundred rooms that opened onto a massive garden courtyard filled with wonders. Silver water cascaded from rocks into enormous pools where fish the size of horses swam. Trees were laden with fruit or blossoms in colors she had never seen before—purples beyond purples, blues that invoked the deepest oceans, pinks that stilled the heart with their intensity. In pavilions men played counter games while women sang and danced with silk fans. The mortal woman watched, rapt with envy, until the light faded and her lover came home.

  This went on, day after day. Each time the mortal woman gazed out at the lively scene before her it got harder for her to stay where she was. She was an explorer by nature, after all, and just because she had been separated from her ship and her people did not mean that her nature had changed. Bit by bit, her resistance and her loyalty to her lover wore down, until one day she could stand it no longer, and slipped from the bedchamber to examine the fruit of the tree across from her window, which seemed to shimmer as if made of gold.

  But the moment she stepped from outside the boundaries of the bedchamber, which had been tightly woven with protective wards, her presence was exposed to the rest of the palace. Every fairy, guard, magistrate, and deity knew at once that a mortal had dared come into their forbidden place. And there was no recourse from their anger: even though she ran from the star-hounds they set upon her, she was doomed to capture from the beginning.

  The mortal woman and her fairy lover were both brought to the Heavenly Emperor for judgment. And no matter how much the fairy girl begged for mercy, it was not given. The Heavenly Emperor knew that leniency was often mistaken for weakness, and he would not have that. The fairy was banished from the palace, and the mortal woman was sentenced to a lifetime imprisoned in a cage deep beneath the Heavenly Emperor’s throne, in a place she would see neither sunlight nor starlight ever again.

  Separated from the one she loved, the fairy would have fallen into complete despair. But her aunt, who served the Queen Mother of Heaven, came to her rescue. She told the fairy of a witch who lived on a mountain in the barren plain of exiles, once a great general and a favorite of the Heavenly Emperor’s, until they had fallen from grace and been banished. Knowing the weaknesses of the Heavenly Palace, and filled with resentment toward the Emperor, they would be the perfect ally to help her. The fairy’s aunt gave her a map and food adequate for the journey, and set her on her way. Where one story ended, another began. A story driven by desperation, but born of hope.

  * * *

  The girl with no name stopped speaking, her words petering out into an unsatisfying end. The witch laughed. “I see, I see. So this is what you are asking of me?”

  She nodded. In the process of telling the story she had remembered some things, fragments of fragments, little slivers of time that did not form a complete story, yet told enough of it. The first glimpse of a lover in the cold brilliance of space, the long nights in a warm room, the fragile swell of a mortal heartbeat pressed against her own chest. “Please,” she said, “will you help?”

  The witch stroked their chin. “Here’s the interesting thing with stories. It always depends on who’s telling it, doesn’t it? From your end, what you’ve said sounds like a sweeping love story. A great romance, a tale for the ages. Told from another perspective, however, it sounds like the tale of kidnapping and imprisonment, with the victim having to pay the highest price. How do I know what the truth is?”

  The girl sat silent for a long time; she could not find the words she wanted to say. Finally she wet her lips and whispered, “I’ve told you what I believe is the truth.”

  “Yet one’s belief and the truth are rarely the same thing, not even for immortals like you. Especially not for immortals like you.”

  The girl’s heart turned to stone in her chest. “Are you not going to help me, then?”

  The witch rubbed their bony fingers together. “Who am I really helping here, child?”

  Something caught fire in the mind of the girl who had no name. She sat up straight, her spine a pillar of freshly ignited conviction. “I’m here because of her. I want you to help her. I don’t care what happens to me, but she deserves her freedom.”

  “Even if she chooses to return to her people with the freedom that she gains?”

  “Even so. Please. I have come so far, and I have lost everything, even my own name. Set free the one that I love. That is all I ask.”

  “Alas, when I was banished here I was bound to this forsaken land, and I cannot leave until the one who cursed me is dead. But you have told me a fine tale, child, one which has entertained me in my endless torment. For that, I am grateful, and in return I shall tell you one of my own.”

  “A thousand years ago the universe was at war. The immortals, the two-legged creatures whose ancestors were made of soft flesh and lived on planets breathing air, were engaged in war with the great corvids that soared in the spaces between the stars. The corvids—a mighty race—were as old as time itself, but their numbers were few, and the immortals had learned to harness the magic of the stars, which gave them an otherworldly power. The war had gone on for longer than both sides remembered, and they both ached for peace.”

  “The emperor of the immortals offered a truce to the corvids, and invited them to his palace to discuss a peace treaty. The corvids accepted his invitation in good faith, but they were soon betrayed, for the emperor knew nothing in his heart but the desire for victory. One of his generals, a close childhood friend, tried to warn the corvids, but it was too late. The emperor killed their leader and cursed the rest of the corvids, taking their memories and banishing them to a barren land in a forsaken corner of the universe. He exiled the general he had once called a friend too, for he was nothing if not a petty man, and not prone to reason or forgiveness. So the one he used to call his dearest friend has lingered a thousand years alone in the desert, while his foes remain wandering and lost, locked into their fate, any hope of justice the mere forgotten shadow of a dream.

  “See,” the witch said, leaning forward, “sometimes it’s not enough to right the single injustice, if that injustice is the least thing that is wrong with the situation. Sometimes, to undo all the wrongs you have to undo the entire system.”

  The girl tightened her fists. “Tell me what I have to do.”

  The witch grinned. “You have already given them the tools they need to escape their bondage. Go down the hill and speak to them, if you want to. Their leader’s name is Liercal.”

  “And what about you?” she asked.

  They laughed. “I’ve told you: I’m bound here until the one who cursed me is dead.”

  “I see,” said the girl.

  She turned and went down the hill, treading the crooked path with its treacherous walls. It was easier going down than coming up. At the bottom she found an army of the bird-creatures amassed, gazes fixed upon her, the great white one at their head. The rice cake she had given them, imbued with the magic of the Heavenly Palace’s kitchens, had awakened their memories, and now a different hunger filled them.

  “Your name is Liercal,” she told the white bird.

  “And yours is Callen. You’ve freed us from our long years of bondage.”

  “You remember who you are now,” she said.

  “Yes, and we remember what we are owed.”

  “Then let’s go and take it back,” she said.

  And so, you know what happened next, sweet chirplings. Callen and her new army crossed the stars with the map she had been given, and along the way we corvids woke the sleeping broods that have been in incubation for a thousand years, with no one to tend to them. We took ourselves, all of us, across the galaxy to our final destination, and we rest now, gathering our strength before the final battle. The Heavenly Emperor in his palace has no idea what’s coming for him. But soon he will, my feathered darlings. Soon he will
.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  The story of the Cowherd and the Weaver-Girl (which some may know in its Japanese form as Tanabata) has always appealed to the romantic side of me. Not because of the love story, mind you, but because I was utterly charmed by the idea of people explaining the Milky Way as a bridge of crows spanning the heavens. Living in a tropical city soaked in light pollution and plagued by cloudy skies, I had no idea what the Milky Way looks like from Earth, so I was free to imagine this living celestial architecture any way I wanted. As for my retelling, I wanted to do a version in space, but I also thought telling it in a linear fashion would be dreadfully boring, so I decided to nest stories within stories. It was fun having the actual myth be a pit in the middle of my story that you have to cut through layers of flesh to see.

  * * *

  JY YANG

  LABBATU TAKES COMMAND OF THE FLAGSHIP HEAVEN DWELLS WITHIN

  BY

  * * *

  ARKADY MARTINE

  LADY, YOU PILE UP HEADS like dust. You sow heads like seeds.

  * * *

  “So the captain was in her quarters—”

  “Naked, right?”

  “If you were the captain, would you bother with a nightshirt? So she’s in her quarters, and she’s looking at her genitals in the mirror, and she’s like, My cunt is amazing—”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, Sarge—”

  “Shut it, I’m not alone there—”

  “Let her tell the story. I wanna hear about how the captain took Heaven Dwells Within from the House of An without firing a single shot. That’s what the sarge said, yeah? Not one shot.”