The Archons of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  Some of the seraphim went about on foot, while others flew overhead on their great pinions. There were many cherubim here also, of all kinds: one was unlike any that she had never seen before, with the face of a man whose kingly beard blended into its lion’s mane. All around the otherworldly beings their city shone like diamond and ivory, its gleaming courts and towers half-enfolded in streaming clouds. It was a vision from the very morning of the world, when the oldest of all races reigned and took what forms they pleased. Tears rose in her eyes. She had seen many images of angels in books and in temples since her childhood, but these were no mere likenesses in paint and paper and stone. They were alive, although their forms were crafted by sorcery: the Archons had molded living flesh as others carved wood or stone. Yet theirs was a beauty like that of the flower in amber: unchanging loveliness that could never fade because it was outside the dominion of time.

  The Archons paid no heed to her. They were of this age, and she was not. With an effort she turned her attention back to the city. At the far end of the plateau a palace stood, its towers rising gracefully into the air, its crystal walls many times higher than those of her own palace of Halmirion. At its entrance were luminous pillars of white venudor. She walked slowly toward the exquisite structure, half-expecting it to melt away into nothingness as she approached, or else retreat like a rainbow or a mirage. But it stayed in place, and soon she could glimpse through the doors that were thrown back invitingly a softly glowing interior like that of the moon Archon’s palace in Numia.

  She passed the threshold, and stood within the entrance hall. A sweeping staircase climbed upward, and she ascended it slowly, drifting like a dreamer. She emerged at its top into a great hall, its ceiling of carved and gilded marble high above her head. She kept thinking that she saw figures out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned there was never anyone there. She also thought she heard voices, but they were indistinct and never came any nearer. It reminds me of the Ethereal Plane, Ailia thought. It has the same feel to it somehow: real and yet not real. Is this truly Arainia in olden days? Or have I left the world behind altogether, and entered the Ether?

  A new sound intruded on her consciousness—a familiar sound, so strange in this setting that she spun around. There in the corridor stood a little gray shape. As she stared at it, the cat mewed again loudly.

  “Greymalkin?”

  The gray cat turned and trotted away, and Ailia saw that it was semitransparent, as if like her it was not quite there. She made haste to follow it. The cat darted up another winding staircase and then strolled toward an open doorway, out of which a warm light flowed, flickering. Ailia stood still upon the landing.

  “What are you really? You’re a projection too, aren’t you?” she asked the cat, who was now sitting and waiting for her in the doorway. “Are you an eidolon?”

  The cat blinked its emerald eyes, and answered within her mind. Whatever that may be, it replied enigmatically.

  “But why do you take that shape in particular?” Ailia asked. “The shape of Ana’s cat? To show me that you’re a friend of hers, and are on her side? Or is it merely a form you chose at random from my past?”

  The cat yawned. You ask many questions, it said, closing its eyes. All of them the wrong ones.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The cat opened its eyes again. There—that is better! To admit you do not understand is the first step toward understanding.

  “But—”

  Your mind is like a cluttered room—full of things you do not need. Empty it, clear it, be still inside like a cat lying in the sun.

  “Empty my mind?” repeated Ailia. “Can that be wisdom?”

  No. But it is the beginning of wisdom.The cat rose and walked sedately away from her, its tail in the air. You cannot fill up a vessel that is already full, can you? If you would be filled, then empty yourself. But know that I am no mere image. I was with Eliana in Mera and in Arainia.

  “Greymalkin!” she cried. The cat turned, and fixed her with its unwinking eyes. “I thought it was Ana’s idea of a jest, to say you were her familiar. Her demon servant. But that is what you are, aren’t you: a good demon, a faerie, a spirit.”

  Power radiated from the small animal, a pulsating aura. I am, it said. At least, I am that which your people would call by such names, though I would not myself use them. The tone was amused, tolerant. I have been a dragon, and a hobgoblin, and a sphinx dreaming on the sands. I have been an eagle flying through the clouds and a glowworm glimmering through the night, and a salmon swimming in the ocean deeps. The cat curled its tail around its feet. I have been master and jester, hermit and dancing maiden. I have been many things, Princess. And it was I who comforted you in the cave.

  “But why in this form?” she persisted, puzzled. “When you could take any other, even a human form? Why did you choose to appear as a cat in Mera?”

  Because I wished only to observe, not interfere.

  “Are there many like you in the Ether? Did the Archons really go there, do you know—or did they all die out, as some say?” she asked.

  The gray cat yawned again. Keep asking questions. One day you will ask the right ones, and get the right answers.

  “You really are an infuriating creature,” said Ailia with a rueful smile.

  Then she heard her name being called, in a woman’s clear and melodic voice. Turning, she saw another ethereal form ascending the stairs: a woman cloaked in green. Her face was young, but her long hair was white as snow. As Ailia gazed on her, the woman’s appearance changed: she became small and shrunken, old and stooped.

  “Ana!” Ailia gasped. “Ana!”

  The old woman smiled. Like a damascene fabric whose pattern changes in different lights and angles, her form shifted from old back to young again. She stood tall and slender now, pale hair streaming down her back, her beautiful face solemn. “There is so much danger ahead, my dear Ailia. But I am with you still.”

  “Ana, I thought you were dead!” Ailia ran to her. “You were in the Ether all this time? But what must I do now? Tell me!”

  “My dear child, it is not for me to say. The answers that you seek are there, in that room.” She pointed. “Go in. You are expected.”

  She vanished, and the cat with her. Left alone, Ailia hesitated for a moment; then she entered the illuminated room. It was a large white-walled chamber, decorated with jeweled mosaics. On a marble hearth a fire burned, casting its glow on the walls, while lamps like enormous pearls in wall brackets added their pale steady light.

  But her eyes were on the woman seated by the window. She was slender and tall, clad in a mantle of blue worked with silver stars, and a white robe with long trailing sleeves. Her unbound hair flowed in a cataract of molten gold about her, like a second mantle: a light played upon it that did not come from fire or lamps. On her head was a circlet of silver. Fresh and fair as her face was, it was still not the face of a young girl. Beyond its serenity other things could be glimpsed, in the deep eyes and upon the pale brow. Sorrow, and gravity, but also joy and love. It was the face of a divinity, and yet still Ailia saw something of herself there.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized the woman. “Mother,” she said.

  Elarainia held out her hands. In one bound Ailia crossed the intervening space and was on her knees before her mother’s chair, reaching up with imploring hands, half-fearing that the glorious figure would fade away . . . But the knees in the soft folds of the white gown were solid and real as she laid her cheek to them, and the hands that stroked her hair were firm and gentle and alive.

  “My daughter,” said the soft voice.

  Ailia lifted her tear-streaked face. The eyes looking down into hers reminded her of her star sapphire ring: the irises were a pure, clear blue, with pale rays surrounding the pupils. “Oh, Mother, how? How can you be here? Are you alive, or are you a spirit?”

  “I am and always was a spirit. I was a woman in your world for a time, and then I returned. Do yo
u not see, daughter? I have never belonged to the mortal plane.”

  Ailia looked up into the young-old face, and understanding flashed through her. Angel—goddess—spirit: the words flickered through her mind. “You were never human, is that what you are saying? You are—something else. An Archon, you are an Archon. But then you can help me, for I came to find the Archons—”

  “The Archons are here. The angels, the gods, the fairies, the eidolons—the El. All of these are Archons. For the Old Ones are not what you have thought: a mortal race, like the dragons or humanity. Spirit and not matter is our true nature. We did indeed remove to the Ether, but we also came from it long ago, entering the worlds of matter—and so legend says that we forsook Heaven. But though we have intervened in your history—even loved and taken mates from among mortals—our true home is the realm of quintessence, and to it we all must return.”

  Ailia murmured, “My mother is an Archon. My mother is—”

  “A goddess?” said Elarainia softly. “Some still call us by such names, even now.”

  “Then—what am I?” Ailia whispered. “Am I not human?”

  “What do you call human? You hunger for life and knowledge and love. Is this not what it is to be human?”

  “Return with me, Mother!” pleaded Ailia. “Come back to the mortal plane! Elnumia sent me to seek you. I need your help—the war—”

  “The Archons will not go to war again,” her mother replied. “We cannot force the mortal creatures to live as we wish them to. However it may hurt us to see them suffer as a consequence, we must let them be. But I will be with you in spirit. Indeed I have never been far from you, child. But once before we warred among the worlds, and your cosmos was nearly destroyed. You were born to lead that fight in our place: a child both Archon and human. It was through my aid that you summoned the power of this world before, and you can do so again. For I am the Archon of Arainia, its world-spirit. Not its ruler: rather, I am Arainia—it is to me as your body is to your spirit. Once I took a mortal form, when I loved the man who is your father—for he had called upon the goddess many times in his life. But I could not have stayed long in that form. I yearned for the Ether, and my world needed me.” She paused. “To the high El, the Elyra, the bright-burning stars are the purest things in the Lesser Heaven, and the planets mere dross. But we Elaia loved the planetary bodies, with their lakes and seas, their earth and air. We played on the winds and reveled in the waters, and marveled at the stones and the soil. Best of all we loved the gems, for their inward structure of latticework recalls to us the pure harmonies of Heaven. You saw the solid domes and spires of diamond and ruby and emerald, there on the plateau? To us they are like mansions, or rather refuges: for the Elaia desired at times to cast off their fleshly forms, be disembodied, and enter the gem-lattices as pure quintessence in order to know peace again. For that reason we made the Star Stone, a perfect crystal: it has so flawless a form that even the highest among the El are drawn to its depths.

  “It was an old conundrum of theologians, was it not: how many angels may gather upon a mote of dust? But within that small gem innumerable hosts are housed. When you bear it, you hold in your hands a little Heaven. The light that burns within it is quintessence, the sign of our presence. The bird of fire, the Elmir, is our symbol: we send it forth from time to time as a token. For the Elmir, in the old tales, is made up of many birds flying together as one. So it is with the El. We were not always many and apart, but are like rays broken from a single light: the Source of all things. Before the treachery of Modrian and those who follow him, we were undivided.

  “But even when our radiance does not shine forth from the Stone, it is still a potent thing. For it is more than a magical gem: it is the emblem of the One, the oldest and greatest of powers, by which all things were made—the El included. The Power that dwells in the Empyrean, beyond matter and Ether: the High Heaven that existed before either of the lower Heavens came to be. It was for this reason that the Elaia crafted the Star Stone in a far-off world long ages ago: as an act of worship, and a reminder of the beauty of the One that lies in all things. For as the Stone’s many facets gather the pure light of the sun and render it in rainbow hues, so is the creation a manifestation of its divine source. Every star, every tree, every pool, every cloud, every flower, every living beast and being that ever was—all these things are true expressions of the One Power, for it is infinite. Beauty, purity, strength, love: all come of it. But the creation is not itself perfect. Being mere matter shaped from chaos, it contains also the lower things: pain, and cruelty, and sorrow. That is why its symbol is the Vormir, the devouring serpent. It is not evil in itself: it merely is. But it conceals, by its very nature, the higher truth. That truth comes to the mortals of the material plane as if filtered through many obscuring veils, so that at times the good seems lost, or merely a part of the chaos that masks it.

  “But that is not true of the Star Stone. It is pure, and has no flaw: a reminder to all who behold it of their origins outside time, and the One they can no longer see.”

  “I understand,” said Ailia. “But the magi of Arainia believe that I must wield the Stone somehow, to conquer Valdur. What is the Stone’s power, Mother, and how must I work it?”

  “The Stone is not a weapon, child: it is your protection. When you wear or carry it the El are with you, and no evil can touch your mind. It has no power to affect the material plane, nor can it save your mortal frame from being destroyed. Its only power is that which it wields over your heart and soul: a reminder to you—and all mortals—of the pure and sacred realm from which your spirits came, and to which that part of you still belongs. Do not lay it aside, even for a moment! Valdur desires to take this consolation from you and from all mortal-kind, and bind it to his own brow once more as a trophy of your defeat and ours—for he has not the power to destroy it. And its benign influence no longer affects him: his heart is hardened against it.”

  Ailia sat with eyes cast down for a time, absorbing all these things. At last she said, without glancing up: “Why did the El leave the mortals, if they were at the mercy of matter? Why did you not stay to help, and instruct them as before?”

  “The Elaia had to leave this plane, Ailia. We were becoming too drawn into its affairs. There were Valdur’s followers, of course, taking and using as they pleased, seizing worlds for themselves and enslaving their peoples. But the truth is that all the El were growing too attached to this realm, and to the mortals themselves. Especially we Elaia, the El who love matter. There was too much interference with the living creatures—under our reign they could not grow. Now we manifest only when asked to by a mortal, and only when all the El are in agreement that it is both right and necessary. I could come, you see, because the Elei summoned me. I could not have come on my own. That is the way the Pact works—it can be broken only at the invitation of a mortal. We cannot call to them—they must call to us first, and then we may answer.

  “If any of us should choose to dwell for a time in the Lesser Heaven now, then that Archon must take on mortal form. And if we should wish to remain there, then we must become mortal in truth, and know death. For this plane is now to be for mortals only: our claim on it is ended.”

  “Ana—she is one of you?”

  “She is. Eliana is the Archon of Mera—Elmera, as she was once called—and Greymalkin is one of the many minor Elaia spirits that serve her. She took a cat’s form long ago for her material incarnation, but she has taken many others.”

  “So she said.” A shadow touched Ailia’s heart then, and she looked up. “And you say Valdur is an Archon too.”

  “Valdur was lord of the Elyra, the high Archons. After our war he was imprisoned within his own sphere, a self-consuming black star. Athariel, the great Elyra whom you call the Archangel, fought him in the upper air of Mera many eons ago, and struck the Star Stone from his diadem. Valdur fled then, forsaking his seraph form for that of a mighty dragon, while the Elyra pursued him across the Great Night. From star
to star they sped, and world to world, until at last the Dark One retreated to his own celestial domain. There Athariel fought him one last time, and cast him into the depths of his black star. There is no escaping such a place: it is a void within the void, devouring light and matter. He cannot ever leave Vartara—the Pit, as you call it—either as quintessence or in material form. But his thoughts can still enter the Ether, and the minds of mortals. And he has many servants who are his limbs and tools in Talmirennia, while we are bound by the Pact we created and swore to uphold.” The goddess’s voice was low and sad. “It is not for us to intervene, even now.”

  “And yet I am allowed?”

  “You asked me long ago, since we cannot descend in strength to save their worlds, if there was no other way to save mortals. Do you remember?”

  “Remember?” Ailia frowned, searching her thoughts. “Now that you say it—yes, I do recall saying something of the kind, once. But when was it? Where?”

  “It was here—in Hyelanthia. In this old city, long ago. It was then, as we stood together, that you asked me that question. And do you remember how I answered?”

  She rose and went to the window and Ailia followed her. Evening had fallen, and Hyelanthia’s many towers gleamed amid the wisps of cloud, as though they floated on air—all blue-silver under the light of Arch and moon. Ailia saw a slim and graceful form on the stone terrace below, looking out over the sea of clouds: it was her mother, or one as much like her as to be her twin. But this figure had wings of white edged with gold, and she was much taller. Her fair flowing hair bore a chaplet of lilylike flowers, and her gown was white. At her side stood another form, but this one was insubstantial as an ethereal projection: a wavering woman-form with just a hint of wings, like a pale reflection of the goddess at whose side she stood.

  “You and I,” said her mother in her ear as she watched. “This is a scene from long ago that you see, from a time before you learned to take a material form.”