by Orren Merton
“Do you want to?” I asked.
Vetis turned to me, his huge insect eyes almost quivering. “I would like that…very, very much.”
19
When we reached the roof, Vetis and Zaebos walked with me to a battlement above the front door of the House.
“All this,” Vetis waved his four arms in a circle, “where you can see what was formed to resemble grass and dirt and trees, is all part of the House of Keroz. There are Ruhin that reinforce the spirit of the grounds and that maintain the House. Ruhin that work for the House are allowed to live closer to its center, which gives them more access to its healing powers and helps them grow the vastness of their own spirits. If they grow enough, they can reform as Mazzikim, larger, more powerful spirits. Mazzikim both take positions inside the House as soldiers and roam the distance, acting as scouts, an early warning system against the Ruhin and Mazzikim of other Houses.”
“And you’re in charge of all of the Mazzikim?” I asked Zaebos.
“Not all the warriors,” Zaebos explained. “Only the scouts that roam in the distance.”
Vetis pointed out to the edge of what I could see, miles away. What was weird was that past the edge I couldn’t make anything out. It was totally gray. Not blurry, not foggy, not covered in shadows, just…gray. As gray as the sky above me. I raised my eyes up, trying to find the source of light. “Where’s the sun?” I asked.
“There is no sun, no planets, no moon. Remember, this is not a physical universe.”
I sighed. “So I’ll never be able to see what’s way over there?” I threw my arm out full length and tried to point to that gray area.
“Ah, that is The Nothingness. Between each House, and between Sediin and Gehenna and Merkaba, there is The Nothingness.”
“Okaaaaay….so…what’s in there? Please don’t say nothing.”
Vetis smiled as wide as his thin, lipless mouth would allow. “But there isn’t anything. It isn’t even ‘space’ the way you’d think of a physical area. It is spirit.”
“So if it’s made of nothing…how do you travel it?” I asked.
“If you know where you are going, you can get there through The Nothingness. If you can imagine where you are going, or if you know the name of the entity you are searching for and concentrate hard enough, you will be transported. If you enter The Nothingness without an idea of where you are going, or who or what you are looking for…you will be stuck there for all eternity.”
“That doesn’t sound very fun,” I swallowed.
“No, it isn’t. And in just a moment, your father shall return from The Nothingness.”
“Really? Where did he go?”
“Ask him,” Vetis said. “My lady, talking with you has been one of my day’s great joys. But now other duties call, and I shall take my leave. Zaebos shall remain with you.”
“My lady,” Zaebos said, looking up at me.
“Thanks Zaebos—and Vetis, thanks for talking to me, even though some of it was hard to hear.”
Vetis bowed low. He turned around, walked back to the door, and left the roof. Now it was just me, Zaebos, and a few teams of Ruhin who were maintaining various battlements.
As I waited, I reached down and scratched Zaebos behind the ears, then scratched his neck. He slowly exhaled a contented sigh and stood watching the Ruhin while I watched the pathway to the front door below us, waiting for my dad.
“He returns,” Zaebos said. It surprised me that Zaebos would see my dad first, since I was the one watching the pathway. I looked down at Zaebos, and he motioned toward the sky with his muzzle. I looked up, and my eyes went wide and my jaw hit the ground. There in the distance, flying out of the gray of The Nothingness, was what looked like a winged lizard with a small man-like being hunched over on top.
Was that my dad…riding a dragon?
When it got closer I could see much it much clearer. It really did look like a dragon right out of the pages of literature. It had huge purple bat-like wings that from wingtip to wingtip looked like they spanned the length of the entire roof. The wings attached to a back of a scaly purple reptilian body. It had a head like a bearded dragon, with lots of scales and ridges and knots and gnarls. Its eyes glowed red like my dad’s, and it had what looked to me like a huge brown ridge or fin sticking out of the top of its head.
My dad sat hunched over on its back, without any kind of saddle or bridle or reins, leaning forward and holding onto its neck. I couldn’t tell if my dad was tired or hurt or what.
The dragon flew until it was maybe twenty or thirty feet straight above the roof, and then with a series of quick beats of its enormous wings, lowered itself until it was only a couple of feet off the roof, and hovered there.
“Wow!” I said as my dad raised his head. “I’d no idea that you had a dragon!”
“I don’t,” my dad said. His tunic looked like it had been slashed and ripped repeatedly, and he definitely looked hurt.
“Zedek is a Greater Sedu, the only one. He is a Sedu without need for a House. He serves no one, and only chooses to aid other Sedu when it suits him. He sensed my mission, and came to assist me, completely unbidden.”
My dad struggled to dismount Zedek, and dropped the short distance with a heavy thud. He doubled over in pain. I got my first close look at him and saw that his stomach and arms were cut up pretty seriously, and he had a gash across his left arm.
“Dad!” I ran over to him and reached out to help him stand. Which was silly, of course. I couldn’t hold him up if my life depended on it. I barely came up to his chest, and each of his legs was nearly as thick as my whole body. But still…my dad was in pain. I had to do something.
“I’ll be fine in just a moment,” my father winced. “Thank you deeply, Zedek. I don’t know how you knew to come, but your help was invaluable. Know that you always have a friend in the House of Keroz.”
Zedek tipped his huge head toward my dad.
“Thanks for bringing my dad home in one piece Zedek,” I added, although I wasn’t quite sure why.
Zedek nodded his huge head at me. “Said the firebird to the dragon,” it chuckled in a voice so deep I thought it might crumble the stones. “Until we meet again, dear one.”
Zedek slowly and carefully, with minute flutters of his wings, rose until he was about twenty feet above us. Then, with a single strong downward thrust of his wings that practically blew the Ruhin off the roof, it flew back into The Nothingness.
“Are you okay?” I asked, still putting my hands around him as if it might make a difference.
Dad stood up and exhaled in pain. “Thank you for your concern, Alex. It means more to me than you could know. But be comforted. My spirit is the spirit of this House. It shall heal my body quickly.”
Boy, Dad wasn’t kidding. I could see his cuts closing up and his bruises vanishing right before my eyes.
“Where were you? What happened?”
“I went to Gehenna this morning, looking for a rumam.”
I got a slightly queasy feeling. “Running low and needed a snack?”
My dad looked at me with a hint of a grin through his grimace. “Quite the opposite. I went looking for the rumam of Rabbi Norman Hirsch, to guide him to his ancestors.”
The queasy feeling went away. “You did? Why?”
“Why do you think, little firebird?”
“For…for me?”
Dad nodded. “When you needed a friend, a mentor, a parent—he was there. This was my way of thanking him.”
I nodded. “So all these wounds…were for me…” I said, wiping a forming tear from my eye. “Did you have to fight off a lot of Sedu for him?”
“No,” my dad shook his head. “He had guilt, like all humans. He worried he had failed his family, his congregation, his daughter…and you.”
“No!” I said, alarmed. “He didn’t fail me at all! He was—”
“I told him as much,” my father said, putting a huge hand on my shoulder. “And so did the multitudes of rumam who came
for him. I just had to help him concentrate on finding them, and they took it from there.”
“Did he—was Nancy one of them?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask the names of any of the souls who came for him. This was…his wife?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure his soul will find her, it just would have been, I dunno, romantic if she was the first to say hello, you know?”
“And she may have been,” my dad said.
I nodded. “So…why does it look like you went through a fight?”
“This has been the second rumam that I didn’t claim for my House, but instead guided to Merkaba. There were other Sedu out collecting, and they took this as a sign that I have given into compassion—”
“Which they would think of as a weakness,” I sighed. “And any weakness is exploited. Vetis told me all about how this works.”
And boy, did I hate it.
“You’re learning,” my father said. He was standing taller, his wounds almost completely gone. “They thought that they could pounce on me. They were mistaken.”
“They weren’t scared off by Zedek flying you there?” I asked.
“These realms, they aren’t places in a physical sense,” my father said.
“Oh, right. Vetis mentioned that The Nothingness is between everything, that it’s all spirit.”
“Yes,” Dad nodded.
“Okay, so you spirit-traveled to Gehenna, delivered the Rabbi’s rumam to his crew, and then you were ambushed?”
“Correct,” he said.
I couldn’t help but get angry. “Those bastards! They didn’t win, did they?”
“They would have captured me and taken me prisoner, to torture and obliterate, if they had,” my father said, surprisingly matter-of-factly considering what a terrible fate that would be.
“I’m glad that Zedek happened by,” I said.
“He didn’t happen by. He came specifically to me, to tear apart those remaining Sedu I’d not already dispatched.”
“I’m very glad he did!” I said.
My father patted my back. “So am I. And then he took me on his back and brought me here.”
“Zedek sounds like a good friend to have. He is your friend…right?” I asked.
My father thought for a moment. “I would like to think of him as one,” he finally answered. “But one does not call on Zedek. Nobody knows where he stays. He comes and goes as he pleases, and he does what he wants. I hope he sees me as a friend.”
“So there’s no rhyme or reason to what he does? He just likes to stir things up now and again?”
“No one is certain what his powers or motives are,” my dad chuckled. “Sedu lore is that he has abilities no other Sedu does, the ability to see beyond time and our universes, to project his spirit, and legend says that he only supports the just, in just causes.”
I remembered Vetis’s words, that unlike other Sedu Houses, there is love here. Maybe justice and righteousness too?
“I don’t know if that’s true…but I do know that I never told him that your mother called you little firebird. And I’m sure he didn’t call you ‘dear one’ out of politeness.”
I let that sink in for a moment. A purple dragon I’d never met before but who might know the future and supposedly only fights for good causes knew my nickname and called me dear one.
“What do I do now?” I asked my dad.
“Do?” my dad asked as he stripped off his tattered tunic so he was only wearing his brown leggings. “Be heartened that such a noble spirit knows you. And learn to reach into your Sedu self, so that if you ever do meet Zedek again, you can do so from a position of knowing.”
“I can do that,” I said, relieved. I was kinda worried my dad was going to tell me that since Zedek called me out I had to go on a spirit quest or do battle with the forces of evil or something.
“Hopefully, Sedu self training isn’t going to beat me up like Sedu fight training,” I cracked.
My dad erupted in a hearty laugh. “While you will perhaps not be as bruised, this will be exhausting as well.”
“So how do we start?”
“Let us start at the beginning, with who you are.”
“I’m Alexandra Gold, a Seduman,” I said.
“All of this is true, but incomplete,” my dad explained. “You are also the Lady of the House of Keroz. It’s not enough to know that. You must be it, to feel comfortable as the Lady of the House. And so far, I don’t think you are.”
It was true. It still felt a bit like I was at the Renaissance faire, more a guest than anything.
“I know, but…I just got here, you know? It’s hard for me to feel like this is my house when I’m still barely settled into the guest room.”
“You are not in a guest room,” my dad insisted. “You are in your room. I created that room for you the day you were born, even though I didn’t know if we’d ever meet. Whether you came here or not, your room has always been, and always will be, the chamber of Alexandra Gold, Lady of the House of Keroz.”
“That’s sweet…but almost kinda creepy,” I said.
My dad smiled again. “Perhaps to you. But here, it was meant as a sign that our House had a lady Seduman, present or not. And that is what I mean—to the Ruhin and Mazzikim of the House, you are the Lady of the House. You were before you arrived, and you are now.”
I nodded. I understood all that; I just didn’t feel it yet.
“I wonder if everyone—”
“Anyone who doesn’t, my lady, I will deal with them,” Zaebos said, his teeth barred. I thought of the Ruhin in the workout room and felt a quick shudder.
“Zaebos here has requested to be reassigned as your personal detail,” my dad said.
I looked down. “Thanks Zaebos.”
My father continued: “I believe that you will feel more like the Lady of the House if you make an effort to take on the role. So your first exercise is to give a command to one of the Ruhin.”
“Command them to do what?” I asked. I really had no need for any of them to do anything for me. “Should I command Zogo to give me some water or something?”
“Not Zogo,” my father shook his head. “He is already assigned to be your servant as long as you need him. A random Ruhin. Look around you, there are a few teams here—” Dad swung his arm and pointed at the various teams of Ruhin reinforcing the battlements with their spirit. “Give them a command. Or a proclamation. Tell them to move to a different battlement. The important thing is that you demand their attention—as much for them as you.”
“Okay…” I said, tentatively. What was I going to say? What good would ordering one of the teams of Ruhin to move over to the next battlement do? What kind of noble was I supposed to be, a petty lunatic one?
I turned to ask my father for more details when the roof door opened and three small Ruhin walked onto the roof. The lead Ruhin had a head and body like a crow, including black feathers, but had human-shaped arms and legs. The two others had rabbit heads—complete with rabbit ears and brown fur—but monkey-like hands. They walked up to a few feet away from us and all bowed low.
The lead Ruhin spoke. “My lord, my lady,” it began. “We have outfitted the kitchen you created with the human foodstuffs as you ordered, and the chef is on call for whenever the Lady of the House is hungry.”
Dad created a new kitchen? Just for me?
“Thank you for the report,” Dad said.
“My lord, my lady,” the Ruhin said, and turned to leave.
“Wait!” I said loudly.
All three turned around. I could see the lead Ruhin trembling. I felt bad that I scared it, I didn’t mean to. I wanted to apologize for startling it, to tell it that I simply wasn’t used to issuing orders. But then I remembered what I’d been told about showing weakness, and decided not to.
“Please tell all the kitchen staff, and the other Ruhin: In person you may address me as ‘my lady,’ but amongst yourselves I am to be referred to as ‘Lady Firebird.�
��”
“Yes, my lady,” it bowed low. “I shall make sure of it. Is there anything else?”
“That will do…for now. Thank you.”
My dad shot me an approving glance.
“Let me also add,” my father said to the Ruhin, “if Lady Firebird is pleased with the food from the kitchen, just as I have promised the chef, I promise that you also will be rewarded handsomely. However, if there is anything unsatisfactory about the dishes you serve, the penalties will be…extreme.”
“Thank you, my lord. My lady…” the Ruhin said, trembling and bowing so low its head practically scraped the roof. It turned and left with the other two Ruhin.
“Well done,” my dad tipped his head when they had left. “A fine request. Perhaps even one that Zedek had foreseen.”
“Ha! That would be funny, because he put my nickname in my mind,” I said. “But since Sediin represents the firebird part of me, I think it fits.”
“How did it feel?” My dad asked.
Being honest, kinda good, actually. “I think…I think I did feel like Lady Firebird,” I said.
“As it should be…exactly as it should be,” my father nodded. “It is the first step to becoming who you are. And the next is understanding your Sedu self. First, I want you to feel what is inside you. Take my hands.”
He held out his hands, each of which was bigger than my head. I put my hands in his. They looked so small it was almost funny. I looked up into his eyes with a what-comes-now expression. I immediately felt a pulsing warmth coursing through me.
“Do you feel my spirit pulsing through you?”
“I do,” I nodded. “It feels like it’s coming through my fingers, into my chest.”
“In fact, your Sedu self is not physical, it is your spirit self, all through you. But for now, concentrate on the feeling in your chest. Try to open up that warmth with your mind, to explore it.”
I concentrated on the little circle of warmth in the middle of my chest. I tried to imagine it as a ball that I was climbing inside. As I did, I felt my hair and eyes getting hot, like they were about to ignite.
“Good,” my dad said. “Keep concentrating. You will unlock more and more of yourself as you do. Don’t be afraid.”