“Sorry, darling!” Cat beamed. “I couldn’t resist.”
* * *
Eight out of the ten Twilight’s Hands had arrived. They now awaited the Elder and his attendant Twilight’s Hand – the youngest. The Elder would be the last to arrive as tradition decreed. They waited for him silently in a row upon the lonely, windswept beach. Behind them, lay the rectangular mouths of seven, dark, man-made caves, and above the caves hung a rock. Craggy and uncompromising was the hanging rock. It was as hard and arid as the heart that could no longer weep.
It was the rock upon which no tree would grow.
It was rock that had grown and reached for the sky in ragged stumps and jagged points.
And it was the rock that jutted past its brothers in its quest to see the moving water below. It hung over the first cave. This was Cypress’s Rock. It was from here, it was said, that the Dark One retrieved Cypress’s broken body from the River below.
The Elder arrived as the Sun lowered herself within a hand’s breadth of the sea. He was an old man: tall and stooping, with dull, deep-set grey eyes, and a spare frame. The Twilight’s Hand who accompanied him walked a step behind, his head bowed.
The Twilight’s Hand of the Island of Birds, who was also the Elder-in-Waiting, led the way wordlessly. He led them through the cave below Cypress’s Rock. It was dark at the back, where the Sun’s rays could not penetrate. They were approaching Night’s Lair. The home of the Dark One. It was underground, beneath the caves, reachable only by a narrow, steep tunnel.
It was dark. It was all dark. The Sun never ventured this far beneath the surface. And in the dark Twilight’s Hand led the way. He knew it well, for he had traveled this road too many times to count. He knew the location of the smallest imperfection on the smooth granite on which they walked confidently and without rest. It was a long tunnel, and it was not always straight. There were hairpin turns that must be negotiated carefully, and the smooth, gently sloping granite flooring was slippery in the damp air.
They wound their way sure-footedly until they reached their destination.
Night’s Lair.
* * *
“It’s almost time for Evening Song,” Orion said as they emerged from the semi-darkness of the Cistern into the waning light of the Sun.
“What happens at Evening Song?” they asked in unison.
“You’ll see,” Orion said. “Let’s walk.”
“Where to?” Cat asked.
“I’ll take you to LiGa headquarters,” Orion replied. “It’s a short walk from here – maybe twenty minutes. It will be a chance for you to see a bit of Pera.”
“What’s that building over there?” Cat gestured towards an enormous square building with a low-arched dome some hundred meters behind the Cistern. The white marble of its exterior reflected the sun’s light, lending it a rosy-ivory hue.
“That… is the House of Light and Dark,” Orion said slowly. “We don’t have time to go there today, but you’ll see it soon, I promise.”
“What exactly is the House of Light and Dark?” Father Griffith asked unable to take his eyes off the building.
“You might call it a church, Father.” Orion smiled. “You might think of it as a kind of cathedral, perhaps… but it is not one.” He began to walk. “And also, it is the heart of Pera.”
“I’ll understand when I see it, is that right?” Father Griffith smiled slyly.
“Perhaps…” Orion replied. “Some people have never understood the House of Light and Dark – even after years of living in its shadow. Some are born to it. Come on,” he added briskly. “Evening Song will start in a few minutes.”
* * *
They emerged out of the complete darkness of the tunnel into a space that appeared to contain points of light floating in a depth of black.
“A thousand pieces of the Sun scattered above my children,” the Elder recited, raising his arms. The Elder-in-Waiting retreated one respectful step behind the Elder. The Elder walked with a slow step towards a rectangular pool of water that was barely visible by the light of the points overhead. The Twilight’s Hands followed him. The Elder took his place at the northeast corner of the pool. The Elder-in-Waiting stopped at the southeast corner. The remaining eight lined up three to a side along the long southern and northern boundaries, while two stood along the western side, facing the Elder and Elder-in-Waiting.
In the still water before them spots of light glinted like stars.
“Dark thing, coming forth–” began the Elder in a voice like a dull, rusty blade. “Dark thing, have you seen my daughter?”
“Yes,” replied the Elder-in-Waiting. “She is gone. Your daughter is no more.” The words dropped like rocks: inexorable and immovable. “She is no more,” he repeated.
“Tell me, Dark One. Tell us. How this came to be…” The Elder turned to face the Elder-in-Waiting.
“From the beginning,” said the Elder-in-Waiting, gazing into the dark waters.
“To the end,” said the Elder.
The Twilight’s Hand nearest the Elder-in-Waiting rolled up his sleeves slowly. He knelt by the pool and plunged his bare hands into the water and pulled out a stone. In the dim light it looked to be an ordinary sort of stone, grey, possibly, smallish, roundish. Ordinary.
“One emerged from the Silent Dark.” The Twilight’s Hand was holding the stone rose. “One was named Cypress. She was the Land’s daughter: the Dear One. She was loved and cherished by all who knew her.”
“Tell us,” they said in unison, “tell us: what did she do? What was she like?”
Twilight’s Hand held the stone aloft in both hands, and told of Cypress’s life. The first ten years of her life. The first ten years of the life of Cypress, The Daughter…My daughter, thought the Elder-in-Waiting.
“Cypress was a beautiful child,” the Twilight’s Hand recited. It was all part of the traditional ceremony. “She was kind and wise far beyond her years…”
Was she? Wondered the Elder-in-Waiting. Was Cypress wise? Had she been wise at the age of two? Five? Nine? Was she kind? He smiled inwardly. She was kind. She could be bad-tempered, too, though, he recalled vividly. She had once kicked the door when she was angry with her mother. With bare feet! What a to do that had been. Because Cypress was not to do such things…
“Cypress was graceful…”
Except when falling out of a tree branch that she climbed to follow her older brother, thought her father in the privacy of his mind. She had followed her brother everywhere… Anything he did, she must too…
“Cypress never uttered a cross word…”
Not to you, I’m sure, her father thought. But then, you never met her…
O Dark One, he thought, closing his eyes, I know there is no forgiveness. There cannot be for what I do. For what I have done…
The Twilight’s Hand had completed the ritual telling of the first ten years of Cypress’s life. He passed the stone reverentially to the Twilight’s Hand standing to his left.
This Twilight’s Hand had only to tell one year of Cypress’s life. The last year of her life. According to the telling, this child, who was unusually wise for her tender years, had accepted her fate with grace and enthusiasm. Naturally, it would seem, for she was chosen for the honor, and it must have been deeply disappointing to think for so many years that she might not be able to fulfill her destiny…
I thought it would not happen… I thought we were no longer killing Cypress. The Elder-in-Waiting remained still, with his head bowed as the Twilight’s Hand started telling the story of the Ritual…
* * *
“Why?” sang the child. “Why, father? What have I done?”
It was a small girl who sang in the Street of Shrouds, a kilometer north of Cistern Square. She stood on the third floor balcony of a slate grey stone building and the wrought iron lattice work of the balcony appeared to form a lace-like shell around her. There was even a seat emanating from the tendrils of iron, which was just the right size for a child of eleve
n, although she did not use it. The Sun’s last rays illuminated the translucent paleness of her upturned face. Her hair was hidden by a pink and white woolen hat, and matching mittens adorned the hands with which she clutched the railing, again, just at the right height for a child her age.
“How sweet,” Cat whispered.
It is heartbreaking, thought Father Griffith, listening to the bell-like, fragile voice. In her place, he imagined the child they had brought with them from the island. That one asked this question, he thought grimly. There is no good answer to this question. This is a question that should never be asked.
“I was your rose, your brightness. It was all lightness…”
* * *
“Cypress did not understand her father’s ire,” narrated the Twilight’s Hand responsible for telling the last year of her life. “She pleaded with him, but he would not listen…”
Cypress did nothing of the sort, thought the Elder-in-Waiting indignantly, recalling the few months before the Ritual. An unbearable few months. She did not plead, he thought, remembering the conversation… the only time he had spoken to her of the Ritual. He had taken her for a walk away from the houses, and the cypress trees nestling between them and the sea. They walked along the beach during the time of Evening Song. The air was warm. It was as though the entire world around him held its breath, waiting for his words…and Cypress had walked beside him, gravely. There had been no childish spring in her step that evening. And she was silent, her thin little hand clasped in his…
He did not seek to comfort her, because it would not have been honest. He walked beside her and told her the tale of the Land and his daughter. She already knew the story. It had been a disguise, the telling of it. It masked the truth of their walk.
Just as it is now, he thought, keeping his eyes on the still, dark waters, listening to the toneless voice of Twilight’s Hand recounting a tale, an ancient, emotionless story. Emotionless because it had been encased in myth.
Did it not happen to a real, living child? To somebody’s daughter? Who threw a defenseless, innocent child off a rock? It was you! He thought. The rage was rebellious fire, but he kept his head bowed. He remained silent. It was me… he thought. Although I did not physically push her off the rock… I sent her to her death. She could have died…
Cypress had been… silent, stoic? According to the telling by Twilight’s Hand. She had been accepting of her fate…
But you did not accept, daughter! He thought of how she must have struggled against the wind and the waves, with a broken arm, and the rage took his breath away. Rage… redder than the red heat of the Sun, colder than the Dark One’s icy breath.
And this is wrong, he thought with equal parts anger and revulsion. This, in the here and now… What we do now… this is the ceremony of the Silent Dark, which is supposed to be the telling of the truth. It is meant to be the echo of the Dead One. The whole of her, not only the parts we can bear to speak. He did not raise his eyes or make a movement.
You are wrong! The Dark One had said to the Land.
I did not break the Sun in a thousand pieces.
The Sun is not gone…
You are wrong!
And there is blood in the water to remind us of this wrong.
This unforgivable wrong.
“Cypress’s mortal heart is no more,” announced the Twilight’s Hand holding the stone. He knelt by the water and gently slid the stone into the darkness. He rose.
“One has returned to the Silent Dark,” said the Elder in a reedy voice.
“It is time to welcome Cypress’s immortal heart,” the Elder-in-Waiting replied.
“As the Dark One wills,” they said in unison.
Slowly, they followed the Elder-in-Waiting out of Night’s Lair, through the tunnel and out of the cave. The Sun, they saw, was no longer on the horizon. The sky had turned a middling shade of greyish blue as the Sun found her rest in the River.
* * *
They remained rooted in place as the child stopped singing. There were others in the street, all looking up at the small figure on the balcony. They watched as the child’s father opened the glass door to the balcony to call her in to dinner.
“Well done, love!” someone cried out in the street.
“Thank you,” said the child shyly before running inside.
“This happens every evening?” Father Griffith asked, astonished.
“Yes. And now Night is here, it’s time to get back to LiGa headquarters for a spot of dinner.” Orion said. “Come along. I’m sorry to hurry you, but I have work to do…”
* * *
Near the cypress grove that grew by the cluster of houses, the hole was dug in the semi-dark. The breeze whispered through the leaves of the cypress trees that nestled in the shelter of the sheer, white rock face that kept them safe from Lodos’ many-tentacled icy blasts. The entire community was present. All one hundred and twelve persons stood silently in a semi-circle facing the trees. In front of them knelt Cypress’s mother. Her brother stood, together with the remaining Twilight’s Hands, a step behind his father, the Elder-in-Waiting, who was next to the Elder beside the hole in the ground into which a thin, small sapling was placed. Cypress’s father knelt by the fragile new tree and drew the earth protectively around her. He touched her few young leaves gently.
It was a short ceremony as the new tree, the youngest Cypress, took her place among her immortal kin.
“Cypress is welcomed by her sisters,” announced the Elder, raising his bare, skinny arms to the sky.
“Cypress is safe,” said the Elder-in-Waiting, rising to his feet.
Cypress’s mother rose from her prone position and quietly joined the Elder and her husband by the Immortal One. She sank to her knees before the young tree, and closing her eyes, prayed to the Dark One for her daughter’s immortal heart. It was pure, that heart, and unblemished, as He wished. Cypress’s mother smiled as she opened her eyes and gazed lovingly at all the trees around them. Her Cypress was at rest. She was safe. She was the River’s guest. Forever.
The Elder-in-Waiting stood back and regarded the tiny sapling, surrounded by a mound of fresh earth. He raised his eyes to the darkening sky in which a few stars were already visible.
“The Dark One watches over her.” The familiar voice startled him. He had not expected the Elder to speak to him now.
“Yes.”
“The Dark One is pleased.”
“Yes.” Are you sure? He wondered.
“Come…” The Elder commanded with a small flick of his wrist. “Walk with me.”
He remained a respectful half step behind.
“I know now that you are worthy,” acknowledged the Elder. His face wore a beatific smile. The Elder-in-Waiting said nothing.
“I was concerned … once…” the Elder continued.
The Elder-in-Waiting remained silent. Watchful.
“Do you remember?” The Elder insisted.
“Yes.” After the pirates left…
“Do you think we are too isolated?”
The Elder-in-Waiting did not reply.
“Do you think we are too isolated?” The Elder repeated, enunciating each word carefully. “I think you thought so at one time…”
“As the Dark One wills,” the Elder-in-Waiting evaded.
“So it is. So it shall be…” They walked in silence for some moments. “Our isolation could end,” the Elder said at last.
“I see,” said the Elder-in-Waiting cautiously. What did he mean? Yes, it had been discussed in years past… he had been of the thought that a little openness would not hurt. But the Elder had disagreed…
“Is that not what you wanted? All those years ago? Even a year ago… it was what you wanted, is it not?”
“I? I want nothing,” the Elder-in-Waiting replied levelly. “I want only to fulfill the Dark One’s wishes to the best of my limited abilities. This is all, and it is the only thing.”
“And that is correct. It is the Dark One’s wishes
that we cease our continued isolation. I was wrong… It has been revealed to me.”
The Elder-in-Waiting said nothing. He recalled the day they had gone to the mainland. A year ago…Almost a year ago, to the day. All the Twilight’s Hands had gone, but he had spoken most, and had been encouraged to do so by the Elder…
“You were right,” the Elder continued. “I have been misled… I was wrong. But I have seen these errors.”
“I do not presume…” The Elder-in-Waiting said, for he had presumed far too much a year ago. Had trusted too much.
“Will you not ask how this will be? How will we embrace the outer world?” The Elder took a deep breath.
“How?” the Elder-in-Waiting asked cautiously.
“Not through Pera…” the Elder replied, turning to face him for the first time. The Elder-in-Waiting knew that he betrayed no trace of emotion on his face. “I do not understand,” he said.
“I know. It is hard to understand. I too, have struggled…”
They faced each other in silence.
“It is time to look… beyond the Veil…” the Elder said.
The Elder-in-Waiting remained impassive. Beyond the Veil? The Light Veil? Could that be what the Elder meant? He did not speak.
“This island is the closest point,” the Elder continued, gesturing around him, “To the Veil.”
“It is the closest point.” The Elder-in-Waiting acknowledged the truth of this statement.
“It is my belief that there are many beyond the Veil who would welcome us…After all, does the Dark One wish for us to live like this? In complete isolation?”
“It is not for us – for me – to know the Dark One’s wishes…” said the Elder-in-Waiting, respectfully.
“We are not welcome in Pera. Is this not true?” the Elder continued.
We do not bring welcome, the Elder-in-Waiting thought. “No,” he said.
“Pera does not …” The Elder’s voice trailed.
Follow the Dark One’s path? thought the Elder-in-Waiting. I know that is what you mean. It is the familiar… It is the reason we show for shunning the mainland. “How?” he asked. The pirates are gone, he thought, and Patron would never take us beyond the Veil. “How are we to cross the Veil? The pirates?”
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