Maria Isabel Pita

by As Above, So Below

  It seemed to Mirabel that it took her forever to reach the prince. She waded through an invisible river buffeted by conflicting currents—all the different opinions of her she was forced to walk straight past with dignity, her head held high. Her heart was so full battling thoughts of Dur and Loric they seemed the very nature of her pulse. But she had never seen the prince in all his splendor and her passion for him was as rough and yet as faceted with lovely feelings as the uncut amethyst pinning open the folds of his cloak. This was the man she loved and that would never change no matter what else happened.

  He didn’t touch her when she finally reached his side in her sleeveless, formfitting violet dress, her black hair woven into a thick braid. He didn’t smile at her but there was so much feeling in his eyes they shone like stars in the light from the small fire burning before them. The ceremony was brief and literally to the point. Loric unsheathed his dagger with his left hand, thrusting it into the flames, and Mirabel watched, fascinated, as they licked the blade with a fervor that perfectly reflected how she felt about him.

  Hesitating only an instant, she held her right palm up facing him and she didn’t so much as wince when he made a long cut in her skin with a swift, precise motion. The pain was hot and welcome. Its burning consumed her awareness of everything and everyone so she was aware only of his ardent stare. It was a minor agony, accepting the dagger from him with her wounded hand, but she was more concerned about hurting him with her lack of skill. She concentrated on not cutting him too deeply while still being quick about it. Once he shared in her discomfort it was mysteriously easier to bear. They pressed their palms together, merging the rivers of their blood. From now on their two lives would flow as one.

  An attendant then stepped forward and offered the prince two narrow strips of white cloth he accepted without taking his eyes off her. Gently, he wrapped her hand in one, staining her bandage with his blood, and afterward she did the same for him. Finally they smiled at each other, sensing what everyone was probably thinking—that they had drawn each other’s blood before without a sacred rite to justify it.

  The cooling sun was now half submerged in the river. It was time for the heads of each noble color to sink to one knee before the new princess. The brazier’s flames grew more fervent as the light dimmed—beautiful red-gold dancers with hot blue hearts asserting their hunger as their powerful lord retired for the night. Mirabel was torn between the fire’s stimulating energy and the more subdued yet also brilliant elegance of the lords and ladies who swallowed their opinions of her like burning coals and came to make their obeisance. Then the dark red orb vanished below the horizon and the prince lifted her up in his arms. Torches flared up one after the other, all hopelessly vying for the sun’s position. Although they could never replace the solar disc’s all-encompassing rule, they held their own over small areas, illuminating expectant smiles and wandering eyes as everyone turned back toward the keep and the celebrations that would last most of the night in the great hall. But everyone had to wait until the prince and his new bride, floating free of care in his powerful arms, made their way down the aisle of spectators and preceded them up the hill into the keep.

  *

  They had made love more times than Mirabel could remember yet now that they were husband and wife it felt different. He seemed more concerned about hurting her while cutting his hand in the ceremony had sated her hunger for his blood, at least for a while. He undressed her more tenderly than he ever had, perhaps because he did not wish to tear her wedding dress, and while his gentleness made her love him even more, it did not arouse her. They were both tired from the long day of waiting for the ritual that would join them forever and she for one was exhausted from the experience of so many eyes and minds caressing hers, most of them not at all fondly. She was glad when the prince lifted her naked body up in his arms and spread her across the bed of the room she had come to think of as her own. He slipped beneath the crisp sheets with her and it was more comfortable than exciting when he spread himself on top of her and gazed down into her eyes in the soft lamplight.

  “You are mine forever now, Mirabel.”

  “Yes, my lord, I always have been.” Yet she was also thinking of Dur.

  “Remember that,” he warned.

  “How could I forget?” she asked innocently, wondering if he had heard the rumor about her mysterious visitor.

  “I want to make love to you tonight, Mirabel, not just fuck you.”

  “Mm, yes!” she murmured, smiling and closing her eyes so he would not see her thoughts. As he rocked patiently against her, kissing her forehead and lips, she was thinking of that stormy afternoon when the three young Dragons pinned her back against a tree… Of Dur kissing her while the dark-haired Lord cut off her breath and the blond thrust his hand between her legs… Of Dur holding her in his arms that very afternoon and massaging her back in a way that made myriad tiny images flash behind her closed eyelids as if the whole world was contained in her flesh… She wasn’t lying safely in bed with her new husband making love to her—she was kneeling on her hands and knees beneath a tree while three Lords roughly had their way with her, one of them spread out beneath her, another one kneeling behind her while yet another one knelt in front of her face, all of them thrusting into her body from different directions and coming together at the very heart of her being…

  “Mirabel, what are you thinking about?”

  “Um, nothing, my lord…”

  Loric abruptly pulled out of her and rolled over onto his back.

  “Oh, no, please, don’t stop! I want to feel you come inside me.”

  “Good night, my love. We’re both tired and tomorrow’s another day.”

  “The first day of the rest of our life together!” she said desperately.

  He closed his eyes. “Yes.”

  Chapter Ten

  Every night was the same in the great hall. There was an excess of food and wine, music and laughter, accompanied by a torrent of conversation that never ceased just as the river outside the keep never stopped flowing. The only thing that had changed since her wedding night four years ago was how Mirabel felt about everything.

  The more her understanding of things developed, the more their origin—and the essential mystery of their nature—deepened like the shadows in lamplit rooms and corridors. It was the whispered possibilities of the night she lived for, much more than for the day’s clear and unarguable statements, during which the sun looked in on almost everything she did and tried to get her to confess all her darkest desires with its open warmth.

  Loric was like the sun. She could not imagine life without his love and the generous spirit of his understanding. She couldn’t imagine waking up every morning without him beside her. But there were web-filled cellars and corners in the keep where daylight’s long fingers never reached to point accusingly and there was a similar part of her that did not bask in the peaceful contentment the rest of her enjoyed. Part of her never stopped spinning selfish and sensually hungry fantasies even though her life was so ideally full.

  The thought of Dur still kept her awake at night. She was haunted by his belief that her fragile backbone was somehow a bridge between the worlds and that their unification had already begun through her. Four years had passed since she last saw him and nothing had happened, yet wasn’t her happiness a very real form of magic? So much could go wrong with life that four years of healthy contentment could not be taken for granted. It was as though there was a spell on the world, for every day was full even as the years flew by. There were already four of them behind her like a flock of lovely white swans vanishing into the evening sky.

  There were two dramatically clear divisions in her life—the morning she left her childhood home at the summit of the mountain and the afternoon she met the three young Dragons. She did not think of it as the day she was nearly killed—it was simply the event that forever changed her inside. She had ceased to care whether or not her views and behavior were “right”. She had been
forced to learn the people’s laws so quickly she had never been sure she grasped them all properly, an uncertainty that expressed itself in a hesitant, childlike demeanor. But after her brief conversations with Dur, she had defiantly taken up the reins of her thoughts and perceptions without caring whose opinions she trampled on the way to exploring her nature. It was not until then that she had truly become a princess in her heart.

  She had discovered that there were obstacles on the path leading into her deepest self that had nothing to do with the people and their often petty social restrictions. Ethics and morals were metaphorical boulders in her way that she didn’t have the heart to ignore and casually walk around. And the heaviest one—the one that contained them all like a mountain—was her immense love for Loric. How much she loved her husband stood in the way of her selfish fantasies, which meant that for four years her life had stood still like a cocoon resting in a pool of sunlight. The part of her that was content was separated from the part of her that longed for something more and could not define what that was. She knew only that it had to do with the Lords and the bridge she longed to build between their world and hers.

  Mirabel was Princess of Visioncrest. Her days were filled with duties everyone considered important. She went to see women heavy with child to brighten their dull confinements with the honor of her visit even though the conversation was always strained. She comforted sick children and their parents. She officiated at funerals, christenings, betrothals and weddings, always at the prince’s side. She enjoyed these events in a superficial way but the deepest parts of her were dormant and waiting. Desperate relatives knew better than to demand her help as the Green Lady had once done. The prince had forbidden it. The incident had drained her of her own vitality and everyone understood that her health could not be endangered for the sake of anyone else’s now that she was princess. She still worked in the gardens occasionally but even her love of plants was not what it had been as her human subjects absorbed most of her fascinated and often incredulous attention.

  Mirabel still missed Megran more than she could say. The dear old lady was no longer the prince’s chef. She rested now in the western grounds. One moment she was stuffing wild mushrooms with scallions and garlic—the next she was lying across the floor looking as pale and unreal as if she had been stuffed herself for the Lords’ supper. Megran had been Mirabel’s only true friend other than Loric and now she was gone forever. It was impossible to believe, yet it was true. The prince had given his beloved chef a funeral worthy of a lady and there was no doubt that of all the keep’s inhabitants Megran was the only one who would be missed by everyone, most acutely at mealtimes. Everyone had appreciated her in the form of the dishes she prepared and dressed so lovingly, even if they had never actually seen or noticed her good-natured face.

  Megran now lay in the cold and indifferent ground, not in a Lord’s warm and loving arms. She had died just when the world was returning to life. It hadn’t seemed fair. The Lords could at least have granted her one more summer full of all the fresh herbs and vegetables she loved so much and that she combined so magically on everyone’s palate. After the extravagant funeral—when it fully hit her that Megran would never be there even if she descended the stairs into the kitchen one hundred times a day—she went into such a fit of rage that Loric had to slap her several times to subdue her. It was the first time she had ever been hysterical and he was wise enough to understand what was poisoning her very natural sorrow. “You couldn’t have done anything for her,” he insisted.

  “Yes I could have! I have powers I haven’t developed, that I’ve just ignored. I’ve been wasting my time with these symbolic rites and visiting dull pregnant women!” She tried to break free of his hold. “I could have burned the fat from around her heart—I know I could have! She didn’t have to die!”

  “You think you can take the power of life and death into your own hands?” he asked harshly. “I loved her too, you know!”

  But two years later Mirabel still felt she was wasting herself. Developing her healing skills was only a part of it however, an increasingly small part of the power she lusted after. More and more she saw no point in denying it to herself. She couldn’t talk to Loric about it because on the subject of her unknown nature he lost all objectivity. She could discuss everything else under the sun with him but this most vital issue of her unexplored dimensions only made him angry. She remembered what he had told her the night they first made love, that the two worlds could never be one. He firmly believed this, so in a very real sense she betrayed him whenever she longed for what Dur had said to be true.

  *

  Mirabel was in the burial grounds sitting beside Megran’s grave. All around her people’s loved ones were buried only this one particularly wide plot affected her. Her heart felt like a seed buried in the soil with Megran, struggling to break free into another realm where the dirt of the grave did not darken every thought.

  Only lords and ladies sought to preserve their forms a while longer in the earth. Servants were burned almost immediately after their last breath and their ashes either kept by relatives or dispersed over the river at sunset—Mirabel’s favorite ritual. It was during her silent visits with Megran that she was most honest with herself and today she fully realized why she enjoyed the sad rite of the ashes so much. It was because she never lost hope of catching a glimpse of Dur standing amidst the trees. Every shadow, the slightest flutter of white blossoms, captured her breathless attention, even as she kept glancing at Loric where he stood beside her. She admired the forceful elegance of his gestures and the expression on his face that made all his subjects feel he grieved for them personally. His sword was a vital part of almost every ceremony, for it symbolized life’s narrow path between birth and death, its implacable edge defending one existence by bringing another to its end.

  The prince’s sword stood for so many things that the shining metal never lost its sensual appeal. Whenever he drew it from his jeweled scabbard, his skilled yet passionate gesture killed any restless dissatisfaction she was feeling and left only her respect for him and a painfully deep love sharpened by pride that he had chosen her above all women. Of course, there was no one else like her and only a moment later she was restlessly searching the shadows of the foliage on the other side of the river for Dur…

  “Oh, Megran!” she sighed. “I had no idea life would grow so complicated. I wish you could have stayed with me. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.” Her throat felt hot. She had to continue the conversation silently in her head yet there was nothing more to say, especially since the “real” Megran would have scolded her for her constant thoughts of Dur. She would not have understood. Mirabel didn’t really understand them herself. It was not a sexual desire. In this sense the prince completely fulfilled her. Her daydreams of the young Dragon were at once more subtle and more shamefully obvious—it was his power she longed for.

  Although they weren’t as abundant in the cemetery, there were noble old trees everywhere on Visioncrest’s grounds. Mirabel imagined that the ancient oak closest to her dear friend was busy wrapping her bones in its strong fingers, appreciative of how much nourishment she had to offer, although it was terrible to think of how richly worms and other insects had feasted on her.

  She sighed again, this time exasperated by her own stubbornness. Everyone else learned to accept death and old age while she wasted her time trying to figure out which was worse when she couldn’t do anything about either one. Yet that was exactly the problem—she wasn’t sure she couldn’t. Would she turn out to be like the statues around her? They were forever handsome and lovely but they were still somewhat vulnerable to the change of seasons. Their stones bodies remained strong even as their smooth flesh eroded in places from the sensual friction of wind and rain and sunlight, cracking into a semblance of old age. Would she also remain in the body she wore now for longer than was natural or even desirable? Would she age and yet not age like these carvings of youths and maidens that were ideal reflect
ions of the skeletons lying at their feet?

  She shuddered at the thought and hugged herself against the cold. Megran lay under dead grass at the moment, unconcerned about the dirty sheet that made up her eternal bed. A storm was brewing, the first snow of the year’s longest season, judging by the somber gray sky and the frigid wind caressing the golden fur lining her black woolen cloak. She loved to wrap herself in it, let her long hair down for added protection, and huddle into a formless shadow on the hilltop beneath which her old friend lay forever. The view of Visioncrest from this vantage point was another reason she made the long trek up to Megran’s grave as often as possible, apart from the fact that she always enjoyed walking and getting away from everyone and everything.

  It seemed to Mirabel that the black towers expressed all she felt and could not define. She loved the way they thrust forcefully out of the earth straight toward the sky. She could see ant-sized people moving around the massive bases of the towers and the river winding around them and away. She had not yet visited the keeps that lay south of Visioncrest, including the infamous Blackroot.

  “I’ll be back soon, Megran.” She rose slowly, stiff from sitting out in the cold for so long, and started reluctantly walking down the hill, pausing again for a moment beneath a tree, its naked branches clear and meaningful as a mysterious script against the parchment-white sky. One of her first tasks as princess had been to learn how to read and write, yet she could much better understand the tree’s wordless lines. She could almost grasp what the branches were whispering as softly as a dying breath.