Symmetry

by T M Caruana

  The houses kept falling like dominos, showing that Noah was on his way back. He crashed down against the icy ground as the guns sprayed fire, which from the icy temperature was converted into a swarm of icicles. The icicles had thrust into Noah’s stomach, on the right side of his arm, where blood was gradually seeping out as the ice melted.

  “Noah!” Kora shouted in distress picking him up under her arm. “They are hallucinations, you have destroyed the whole village. We must leave!”

  The people’s anger was understandable as they yelled in protest against the large-scale destruction of their village. No wonder the Oracle had been displeased with our visit. What would this mean to the politics between the worlds? ‘For nation shall rise against nation’. The lines from the prophecy echoed once more in my head. What had I done? Noah shook his head to try to regain control. “This will dramatically change our plans. Kora you can’t follow me to Medi.”

  “No, I can’t follow you there. My chakras would explode from inside and destroy my cells. I would be dead within an hour with such thin air,” she confirmed.

  “Then it’s Susy and I who have to go.”

  The decision was inevitable if we were to save Tarus. We had to separate and Kora had to travel back with Samuel as we only had two stones.

  “Hurry up and take Samuel out of here!” Noah commanded quickly as he regained his balance and gripped my arm.

  I had barely understood their plans since my mind had drifted off, recalling the Oracle’s words in my head, ‘It was too late to save our love.’ The sentence was important at this moment if only to assess if going to Medi was worth the risk it would impose on Noah. What did she mean by that? What was my destined fate for my future? Was it intended for Noah or was there no way that I could influence the future to change the Oracle’s verdict?

  15

  RUMOURS OF WAR

  “Woaw!” I exclaimed, letting my chin drop in admiration at the sight of the countless pyramids of shimmering gold.

  “Ah,” Noah groaned, but not out of admiration, but because of the stabbing agony coursing through his nerves from the icicles whilst he nervously paced back and forth, like Hunter usually did when stressed. He didn’t bother picking out the needles, as they would melt soon enough. The questions were: How deep were the wounds and would we need bandages when the ice melted, to stop the blood from draining?

  “Do you understand the problems you have caused?” he shouted angrily.

  Even though it wasn’t me who had destroyed a whole village, I knew what he referred to. Assessing the situation and given what a great man he was with the ability to resolve disputes, I still got the impression that his anger was genuinely based on the fact that my personality wasn’t the same as it once was. He, the king of Pixi, had lost dignity by hunting for an ingredient that would save only one man. A man, whom his soulmate insisted should be saved, since he was considered more important than himself and the entire population of seven worlds.

  “This is a wild goose chase. Where will we find this woman in a huge overgrown forest? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. All this because you neither remember who you are nor your primary duty,” he growled as he still paced up and down, holding his hand pressed over his stomach squeezing it tightly, closing the flesh around his wounds.

  I tore my gaze away from the pyramids and focused it on my shaking hands. I was frowning in concentration, but I tried not to bite my lip to give too much of my agony away. I felt too sad to face Noah’s disappointment, maybe even too ashamed. I had stubbornly been wanting to rescue a man for self-gain and had remained blind to my other duties. Noah was right. And it made me realise how great the man in front of me actually was. Even though he knew how inappropriate my actions had been, he had still done what I asked him, sacrificing everything out of his love for me. He continued with the hunt even though he knew I had lost all my reasoning and abandoned his people because of my love for another man. He was truly an unselfish hero.

  A deep sense of depression settled like a cloud in front of my eyes and a lump in my throat made it hard to hold back the tears. The gravelly ground scrubbed against my knees as I collapsed. I buried my face in my hands. I felt heartbroken. What should I do now? Would it be best to return to Pixi immediately? Or should we continue, now that we were so close? Noah looked surprised by my openly expressed feelings. He hesitated to approach me and I guessed his pride was confusing him.

  “Perhaps I have been a little too hard on you. I am aware that the recent events have been out of your control. It’s just so frustrating for me to look into your eyes and not find comfort in the woman I used to find in your soul,” he murmured.

  My crying ceased at his honesty and I remained quietly hopeful that he would continue with similar compassion.

  “The main thing is that I haven’t hurt anyone and the Oracle’s village will be re-built. We are actually here to save a life. I can’t blame you for being compassionate towards all life; each person is counted as equal.”

  He looked at me as I sat with both my knees on the ground, gasping for air between my sobs. The thin air made it difficult to breathe.

  “We’d better hurry if we are to get back in time,” he murmured with the hint of an apology.

  He began to move slowly towards the city and I had to jump up and run after him, as he disappeared behind the corner of one of the many golden buildings. The dusty air from the sand and gravel made me cough. I caught up, but kept my distance behind him. I didn’t want to see the misery in his eyes and I always felt uncomfortable when I was so close to his body that he shone.

  He turned down a rough-looking alleyway, not at all as golden and glorious as the next part further down the street. He continued walking towards a low, stone building with a straw roof and a sign hanging on the outside displaying: ‘The Beer Garden’. He went inside without any hesitation, so I assumed it wasn’t the first time he had come to this place.

  The half-broken doors almost split in two when he pushed them open to step into the bar. He went directly to the bar and ordered a light lager. The numerous taps with different flavoured beers surprised me in a scruffy place like this. Even stranger was that I never would have imagined him consuming anything containing alcohol. I wasn’t thirsty, and was consumed with impatience as I had to calmly sit down on the bar stool next to Noah whilst he finished his drink. Why were we here and not out there in the overgrown forest looking for a woman who might have all the answers to our problems? I wanted everything to return to normal. Noah still sat quietly on his chair and squinted as his eyes seared the bar.

  “Noah, what are we doing here?” I whispered so that Noah could barely hear me even when I leaned toward him.

  The sound of my voice was mixed into the mumble of what were only male voices and their stories of how their day had been.

  “Shush, I’m waiting for someone. Hopefully she won’t be able to resist coming,” he whispered back and looked at a cuckoo clock on the wall behind the bar.

  I was the only woman in the bar and I noticed that the men were all leering at me with lust. Maybe I was well known to them. Everyone seemed to know who I was, but I had no idea who they were. At least no one acted in anger or seemed to be about to attack us, which was something to be happy about. I looked at the cuckoo clock again. We had already been here an hour. One hour of Tarus’s precious time.

  “Shouldn’t we start moving, your friend doesn’t seem to be coming?” I said doubtfully without looking straight at him.

  “No, she will come. Without Eutychia’s guidance the tracking through the woods will take much longer. Trust me!”

  The mentioned name came at me like poisoned arrows.

  “What? Is Eutychia your friend? Is she the person we are waiting for? She’s going to kill us with a snap of her fingers. Are you crazy?”

  My voice was louder now and caught the attention of some of the men, who looked curiously at us. I winced and turned back to the bar.

  “I told you to t
rust me. She will come in disguise because she knows she has to help us find the woman in the woods. And she will help us because she needs the magical ingredients and power stones to execute her evil plans, which I am expecting she is concocting. I have assumed she hopes that the ingredients that will help Tarus are the same as those needed for the spell to transport symmetry energy. She will lead us to the woman and try to steal the ingredients from us when we return. That’s my theory. If you have any better suggestions, let’s hear it. Maybe you want to start asking the men here if they have ever tried to enter into the forest,” he snorted sarcastically as he again looked at the cuckoo clock.

  I didn’t like the sound of his idea, but right now, I couldn’t think of anything better. How long should we wait and hope that his theory was plausible and thereby lose valuable time? Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask some of the men if they have had any experience of the forest or where we could find ‘K’. Anything must be better than sitting around doing nothing.

  “I thought people from Vati couldn’t visit Medi?” I asked, worrying if Noah had really thought through his idea.

  “No, not normally, but she most likely has a spell that can override the problem,” he replied in an effort to dispel my doubts.

  “If she knows most of the spells, why isn’t she doing it herself? Why does she need us?”

  I suspected the witch was lazy, but that couldn’t be the only thing that stopped her.

  “Because Medi’s woods are the only place in the worlds that still have remnants of the bewitched Tigers with tainted blood. Another of Leo’s tricks. If the tiger blood comes into contact with any part of Eutychia, she dies on the spot,” he replied.

  A clicking sound slowly approached us from the rear of the bar seeming to come from a shaky wooden leg hitting the planked floor.

  “Bingo,” he whispered and sat stiff as a board whilst still holding his right hand pressed firmly over the bloody wounds on his stomach. The ones on his arm he had already fixed by tightening a piece of fabric from my dress around them. I was taken aback by his choice of the word ‘Bingo’. That was the word I used when I had been right in my hunches. What relationship had we actually shared together? Before dwelling on it further an old woman, the ugliest I had ever seen, was shuffling her way to take her seat next to Noah. She stretched out her warty hand.

  “Young man, do you have a few pennies to spare to buy an old woman a glass of water, I’m so very thirsty?”

  She spoke with a husky voice that suited the vile wrinkled face. The woman searched for something in her coat pocket, making Noah stretch his torso and shoulders to cover me before he saw her bring an item to her mouth. It was an inhaler. She inhaled twice to calm her breathing. Noah glanced at me, indicating that he had been right. The witch had apparently solved the problem.

  “Of course I have and perhaps a wise lady such as yourself can advise a young man like me, how to get to the woman ‘K’ in the overgrown forest?” he asked in return.

  I was stunned that Noah had gone directly to the point and realised he was just as eager as I was to return to Pixi.

  “So you’re heading to the overgrown forest. There aren’t many that have gone into it and come back. I would advise you against such a dangerous adventure.”

  The game was evident. They both had something to gain out of the barter and both were trying to get the upper hand.

  “That is very kind of you, but we must see ‘K’; it’s a life or death situation,” he said dramatically, in an effort to speed up the process.

  “In that case I’ll try to recall what I know about the place, but you will have to forgive an old lady, my memory fails sometimes,” she said ingenuously and I could see her hand tremblingly pointing at the glass of water in the middle of the bar.

  “No problem, tell us what you know, that is all we can ask,” Noah said as he passed the water glass closer to her.

  She devoured half the contents without swallowing. If it was Eutychia, she was of course compelled to keep her water levels high whilst she was above the water surface. But what if it wasn’t Eutychia, only an ordinary old lady? How could Noah be sure? She looked nothing like the last time I had seen her, and Noah was being almost rude and sarcastic towards her. I tried to smile to lighten the mood, but no one took any notice of me.

  “Well, I haven’t been there myself so I don’t know anyone named ‘K’, but it’s said that the forest is inhabited by seven ghosts. ‘The seven lost souls’ as they are known. They are souls who were never herded to the world beyond and have been lost in time and space, wandering the overgrown forest for eternity. To be a lost soul is to be in a dimension between life and Limbo, where there is no beginning and no end. They live forever inflicted by their sins.”

  She paused to take a sip of water.

  “What do you mean by sins?” I asked curiously and immediately got an angry shove from Noah’s elbow to shut me up.

  It was apparent that he wanted to do the talking.

  “The reason they ended up in a state between living and dead is because they have committed one of the seven deadly sins. They won’t be able to move on before they have achieved reconciliation to their sins, and peace of mind. I advise you to tread carefully through the forest. The Oracle is wandering the grounds to shepherd all human souls to peace in heaven and if you cross her path, your ability to resist joining the train won’t be strong enough,” she warned, trying to use her inhaler again, but without having enough strength to depress it.

  “Shall I help you?” Noah offered politely.

  “Yes, please. It seems that the old fingers have cramps,” she answered without understanding Noah’s ulterior motives. Noah grabbed the inhaler and had no problem with his supernatural strength to crumble it into pieces with the fingers of one hand.

  The woman’s eyes widened in horror before she turned to walk out of the bar without making further comments. She had completed what she had come to achieve and most likely had to rush back to Vati.

  “Why did you do that?” I said angrily, not understanding the reason behind his action.

  “Now she can’t stay to steal Tarus’s medicine when we return,” replied Noah smugly and jumped off the bar stool holding out his hand to help me down.

  That hadn’t occurred to me and was grateful that he was so smart.

  “This adventure sounds fun, are you ready?” Noah joked.

  I liked his playful mood; it made him appealing. I wondered what my attraction to him in the past had based on. He was handsome, strong, smart, courageous…yes, he had everything a woman could wish for. There was just one minor detail missing though. My heart didn’t sing inside my chest as it did when I saw Tarus. But if I gave it time, perhaps it might?

  “If you follow the train Noah, where do you think it leads? Physically I mean.”

  I had developed an unsettling feeling in my stomach about this trip and wanted to know more about death before I ventured into the woods.

  “The Oracle comes from Sabi and her own little town called Nirvana,” he explained. “It’s where souls rest. Although, this city isn’t a physical location, more a spiritual realm before the souls arrives in Heaven. Nirvana is said to be a place where people find peace, if their soul has been good, like a paradise. The journey there, herded in the Oracle’s train, prepares you in four stages before you arrive at the final destination. In the first stage, your soul is separated from your body and stripped of all physical lust, the seven physical sins removed from your awareness and from anything related to the Universe. This process is performed in the Oracle’s walk through Medi’s forests. The second stage gives you the insight that you are dead, that you don’t exist and have become mentally strong and calm. You become free from your seven mental sins. The third stage relieves you from the seven spiritual sins and you feel harmonious, peaceful and without desire. The last stage takes you deeper into the Nirvana stage without the world’s troubles holding you back. All your positive and negative experiences and k
nowledge disappear and you get the feeling that all that you were created to do in the Universe has been accomplished. Your purpose and meaning in life are complete.”

  It was so thorough an explanation that I almost got the impression that he himself had experienced it.

  “It is then that you enter Nirvana’s paradise. This process takes twenty-one years to complete before the soul is reborn. When the soul is finally beamed down to the world and into a woman’s womb, it has had all its previous memories and experiences erased, so it can be created into a new life with new choices,” he continued.

  “And what happens if you don’t go to Nirvana and instead end up in Hell?” I asked cautiously not really wanting to know the answer.

  “Only you know about Hell Susy, nobody has ever returned to life after being condemned to it. There is also Limbo, an eternal state of nothingness. It’s a place to quarantine a broken soul, one that doesn’t deserve to go to Hell, but is too weak to be reborn. Souls that go there would be the ones who have committed suicide or perhaps a Pixi who has lost his soulmate. I requested to be sent to Limbo after I thought you were dead, but the Oracle refused my appeal.”

  He didn’t lift his head up to face me as he uttered the last sentence, but seemed lost in his memories. His voice had gone flat and he was fervently fingering the gold coin he held to pay for the drinks. My guilt over being the one to have caused his grief hit me again, and I fiddled with my bag to get ready to leave.

  <><><>

  The City of Gold, which I had looked forward to exploring, disappeared further and further behind us as we fumbled into the deep dark forest. Just as the majority of the city was made of gold, the overgrown forest was no ordinary forest. Everything was in shades of gold, but of the same texture as on Teli. The branches of the trees, the delicate leaves and spongy mosses on the stones had the same sound and felt the same as my feet crushed them. It was quiet, almost eerily quiet, and we could hear every step we made. An owl hooted from a branch before it flew out of sight. At least the animals didn’t seem to be made of gold. That would be an even stranger sight, I mused.