Vision I: How close the All-Divine

What follows is the first chapter - the first Vision - of Visions to Heed, the story of two young girls who have been raised to believe that runaway slaves should be hunted down by gryphon riders, and who begin to wrestle with their conscience as they come up in the world.

If you want to signal typos, you can leave a comment or write to me here: lemiroirtranquille@outlook.fr . And maybe someday I will put your name in the credits for your generous help.

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Griffin from Cosmographia (1544) by Sebastian Münster

Visions to Heed

by Pierrick Simon

Vision I

How close the All-Divine

“A soul goes through life

Like a mind through a dream

Not remembering how it started

Not remembering why it will end”

The Book of Visions

The haze of summer heat hung over everything like the lid of a glass coffin, pressed shut by the furious sun. The face of this angry god – the Sun – burned every inch of the Soma valley. Its harsh light flooded the brown rocky landscape to reveal what was all too easily forgotten: this valley and its villages, nestled between two semicircular rows of mountains, stood in fact in the middle of a great crater. That of an ancient volcano of nearly inconceivable size. The volcano blew up long ago, but its fires burrowed deep. Anyone entering or leaving the land could sense the mute fury of the steep mountains looming over the path.

Almisha stared at her feet for as long as she could while walking towards one of these long rocky slopes. She was heading out, heading West to the Capital. It was visible on the horizon, between the looming mountains, but not to her, for she was postponing that very sight. It wasn’t anxiety: she reasoned that the view of that cityscape could sustain her more if she earned it this way. Indeed, she could not make the trek without this kind of nourishment. She had plenty of water, but it tasted too warm, and there hadn’t been a tree to provide shade for a little while now. Truly, only her Faith and dedication could make this journey in the scorching heat bearable.

She remembered the teachings of Father Nep, her Tutor. He had a way of talking about the All-Divine that made the idea feel alive. When he spoke, he looked around the room, or the valley, and you could tell he was seeing the Divine in all things. You couldn’t help but follow his gaze. Look at the walls, look at the grass. The way his eyes moved made it obvious: the Divine, the essence of beauty and order, was in great things like the sea and mountains all around us, but also in things as trite as sweat and dirt. Almisha was thinking about this now, as she was walking and sweating, and provoking the crunch of the hard ground beneath her feet, like a soldier. The All-Divine is a sacred presence in all things. The sun, the warm water, the rocks, herself and the animals...

In her bones, she understood the lesson implicit in the very existence of Church (the building, the books, the teachers): one can find strength and consolation in the secret knowledge of the All-Divine. But – and this was taught explicitly – to properly see it, one has to be pure. To have Faith. The Church of the All-Divine preached the Book of Purifications – the proper code of conduct for everyone – and the Book of Visions – the repository of the most arcane truths. They taught these books to everyone who could understand them. Purification first and Vision thereafter, when you were almost an adult. Yet the Book of Visions was older.

All of a sudden, she noticed shade from above. There was a tree there! Finally! Gratitude, reverence of providence, is one of the most subtle forms of purification, the New Book said, “almost a vision”. She agreed! Praise be to the All-Divine who put a tree there just for her! An evergreen oak. She veered left and plunged into the shade fully. She let herself collapse against its big root, which was sticking out of the ground. She let herself... because her legs felt like they were on fire, and because Lakka couldn’t see her. She wrapped her thin arms around that root and even pressed her forehead against it; panting. The tree felt dry and dead, though it was not. In her mind, she assented to, and even praised, the rarity of the tree. It made it all the more special!

It was time for rewards, surely. Yes, but only after one last difficulty. She drank from her waterskin. She tried to make herself enjoy it. The water from Soma was always too warm. There were fires in the belly of that land still. As she drank, she tried to see that the All-Divine was in all waters. She tried. Her duty done, she finally raised her head. The magnificent sight she had long awaited – her reward – banished all those pesky thoughts. She could see it All from here, between the mountains.

She could see the Elipsian Sea, radiant and still, and the dark ships that hunted giant sea serpents for miles. On the shoreland, she could see Sableon – the greatest city that ever was, the heart of the Empire. It had tall and majestic minarets. On top of them, the priests of the All-Divine were calling to prayer just now. The city was made of dark brown volcanic stones taken from her valley. It shipped those stones all around the Elipsian to build its colonies. And most glorious of all, right next to Sableon, she could see the Willed Mountain – impossibly tall, dark and steep – raised by a magic spell long ago.

The Pontifex of the Church of the All-Divine had performed the most powerful of miracles there, so History tells. While looking South-West with intent – across the Elipsian – and while standing between Soma and Sableon, the Pontifex had lowered her left hand and leveled the colossal Soma Volcano mid-eruption, extinguishing its fires, saving countless shoreland villagers. She had turned the volcano into the valley it is today; Almisha’s home. Simultaneously, with her right hand, the Pontifex had raised the Willed Mountain out of nowhere. Placing it at the back of Sableon, like a reminder; dwarfing the hill and castle of the Emperor. On top of this man-made peak, the Cathedral of the All-Divine was built. It was the center of the Cosmos, the throne of the “Master of All”, which was the title the Pontifex was given on the day of this miracle.

The Cathedral was an incredible presence. Its main body and landing areas were as black as the rest of the unnaturally burnt mountain. But around this dark core, its four towers were smooth marble white and shone in the sun, high above the rest of the structure. At night, the yellow and grey stained glass windows along the walls of the nave shone bright also, from torchlight within. It revealed, by contrast, massive black shapes at the centers of the windows: depictions of the Founding Saints in all their glory. Almisha loved that sight – the City and the Cathedral – more than anything in the entire world she imagined beyond. It fed her spirits truly and utterly. Especially like now, in the uncompromising sun. Every poet talked of the halo of Sableon, and this was no metaphor to Almisha. It looked like a mirage, but also like the realest thing one had ever seen. Almisha couldn’t fully understand how that could be the case. But she suspected this was the secret of its sublime appearance.

Suddenly the shadows of three gryphons and their riders passed by the path. They were flying towards Sableon, to land on the Willed Mountain. She got out of the shade to admire them. She chuckled with glee. She stretched her hands up: she would have liked to feel cold air from their wings but they were way too far up in the sky for that. Very far up. To Almisha, whose pale grey eyes were blinded by the sun, they were only dark grey feline shapes with wings. She could not see their eagle heads and beaks breaking the cloudless expanse. She could not see their furs and feathers. Maybe, Lakka – that brat – could see the details with her dark eyes, and then brag about it.

If the riders were flying so fiercely, it was surely that they were protected by blessings from priests of the All-Divine! Almisha laughed with delight at the thought. Smiling from ear to ear. She loved to see them fly, to know they were touched by the All-Divine so directly. They were probably slave-catchers, hunting down dimmer souls, but she liked to imagine instead that they were paladins on a more important mission, and that one day she would be escorted by them all over the World of Eladnys, to spread the One Faith!

She wondered what she would say to those far-away folks. She thought she would amaze them with the beauty of the All-Divine. She would delight them with her generosity and magnanimity. For indeed, like a gift, she would bring them the thought that their pantheons are true enough, and lawful enough, but simply fall short of the fact that all gods and spirits are partial aspects of the One Divine. She pictured them, distrustful initially, but then relieved that she was not here to topple all of their idols. They would laugh at their own ignorance as it dissipated. Of course! For gods and spirits there is Ritual, and Purifications! For the Divine that is in All, there is the One Faith! Visions to inspire and delight! She knew it would resonate with them as it already had with so many regions that submitted to the Empire. And she knew that, as a good judge of character, she would be able to tell who the brighter souls among them were.

The reverie died when Lakka, loud-footed, and clumsy, and hated, eventually caught up with her. Hearing her dragging her feet, kicking lava stones, Almisha crossed the muddy path to put distance between herself and her shade. Lakka was trying to conceal the fact that she was extremely out of breath. She was not breathing through the mouth, but through the nose, trying to be silent. Defiant silence! This made Almisha furious, but not as furious as the way Lakka looked to the horizon through the canyon, as if she was looking for the Elves; her dark eyes impervious to the rays of the sun. Lakka was a show-off and a crybaby, and it was all her fault if they were here today, walking for so long in the heat.

Almisha’s Mother would practically scream, saying « Take care of your cousin! She’s only ten! And you are fifteen! ». It made Almisha feel lied to, as she knew that Lakka wasn’t her cousin, and wasn’t even sure if she was ten. Just because the two families were close once didn’t mean that they were cousins. She felt that her mom ridiculed herself every-time she made that mistake, but everyone in the village nodded along as if using the exact words didn’t matter. As an educated lady, with Father Nep as her Tutor, Almisha knew better.

“It took you long enough.” Almisha said. She meant to criticize Lakka’s lack of composure and enthusiasm, not her lack of speed, but she did not manage to put this into words before she spoke her feelings.

This morning, Lakka had collapsed to the floor again. Tensing and shaking, arms flailing and legs kicking. Moaning half-words, with a wild look in her eyes. Of course, everyone was worried… Of course, Almisha was worried sick for that poor girl… Of course... She said she saw colours and even saw sounds when it happened. Worrying nonsense. As the two other times it happened, Almisha’s mother (since Lakka had no real parents) decided to send the two girls to Sableon with a bit of coin to find an expert priest to purify Lakka’s spirits.

Mother wouldn’t come with them. She hadn’t stepped outside the house in three months. She insisted: they had to be back soon, because there was work to do on the farm. What work? Mother, like Lakka, always made things up. And so they had to go now and come back quick. Almisha was seething. She liked to go to Sableon, but only when she had time to walk the streets and daydream without any distraction. She couldn’t do it with Lakka. Because... It just wasn’t the same.

“Oh look!” said Lakka in an impossibly small voice. She pointed to the top of Almisha’s tree. Anxiously, Almisha followed Lakka’s finger and saw two magpies, looking dark in the shade, with a slight red sheen to their feathers. There was a big one and a small one, and they looked half-asleep on a branch. Either heat-struck or cowering. Almisha could not believe she had missed them. She scoffed: “This is nothing exceptional. It’s a common red-tailed magpie. Are you seeing strange colours again? After seeing beautiful gryphons, this is what you want to talk about? Birds with ugly raspy voices?”

The younger girl looked disappointed and, shaking her head, appearing somewhat stunned, she said: “What gryphons?”

Almisha’s eyes went wide, her mouth agape. She managed to stutter: “Ah! You truly are… Completely in the clouds!” She was too exhausted to find anything clever to say. But still, what is wrong with this girl? She saw things that were not there and didn’t see the things that were. By now the gryphons had landed on the other side of the Willed Mountain, so she couldn’t see them anymore.

“I have so many blisters.” Lakka said with a whiny voice. She looked at the ground, and even glanced at the shade under the magpie tree, knowing full well this would set-off Wrathful Almisha.

“Oh no, no, no! Don’t even think about it! We all have blisters. So, no, we are not stopping, missy.” Almisha replied. And so they began walking again, away from the shade, readying themselves to go downhill. “And drink your water, please. It’s important. Otherwise you will faint.”

“It’s too warm.” said Lakka, refusing. She dreamed of Lake Avnos close-by, but knew that Stubborn Almisha would never agree to the detour, unless the sky fell and the earth shattered one last time.

As they walked down the very end of the valley, Lakka alternated between drinking the Elipsian sea with her eyes and shooting furtive glances at Almisha. All those glances were caught by the older girl, ever-vigilant and smart. Almisha looked graceful and beautiful, but boy was she visibly angry. When Almisha's eyes were trained on you like this, it meant she was very mad at you indeed. Nothing you did went unnoticed. She was a three-headed hound. Lakka understood: it wasn’t particularly nice to go on a trip like this to fix someone else’s spirits. But, thankfully, there were ways to make Almisha happy. You could always bring up certain topics she liked to talk about.

Almisha loved Church. The songs and the books. Everyone knew this about her. Having just turned fifteen, Almisha was being taught the Book of Visions. It was a little early, but she had the best tutor in town, and she was incredibly smart.

Lakka thought of something.

“Did you know, Lakka said, that some Druids transform into animals, sometimes even magpies – even though they are so common (she conceded gracefully) – and that even.. sometimes, they decide to stay that way? Forever!” Lakka knew the Book of Visions contained many descriptions of the Founding Saints turning into animals. She had seen images of this on stained glass windows.

“Ah! From silly to sinful!” groaned Almisha.

“What?” This wasn’t the reaction Lakka had expected at all. Oops.

“What you’re describing is called ‘Suicide by Immersion’, and it’s a grave sin. You shouldn’t talk about it. It’s something you would know if you had a Tutor.”

Almisha had a “Tutor”. Father Nep. It’s something that Almisha repeated to herself often for comfort or courage. In the entire region, and in the whole of the Sableonian Empire… perhaps even in the whole World of Eladnys… she was one of the few farmgirls who had a Tutor. A real one. A Tutor that had seen King’s Court, and could tell you all about it! One versed in the art of Philosophy, History and Diplomacy. And, one day, she too could go and find a place in the Greatest City, among the learned. Lakka admired that about Almisha, though personally she preferred not having a Tutor like that, as she would rather hear about things second-hand, from her cousin. It was more exciting.

“Sew-side?” Lakka repeated, having never heard the word.

“Suicide, silly! It’s when you take matter into your hand.” Almisha misremembered or mispoke. “You decide to kill yourself, even though the All-Divine should be the one to decide the time and the place.” She added, this time orthodoxously enough, quoting the Book of Purifications, the proper code of conduct.

“But they don’t die!”

“Yes they do. They become animals. They completely forget their old lives. Use your brains. Although not too hard, we don’t want you falling again…” Somehow, she said this mocking insult with genuine compassion. Lakka knew herself to be insulted but she also felt that it was very funny. Caught between two emotions, she repressed a chuckle.

“But…” stammered Lakka. “But...” She looked as if she was about to faint and tumble down the hill. “It’s like the Elves” she finally blurted out. “They live in the horizon forever and that’s the blessing of the All-Divine. It’s not wrong. That’s not what the Visions say?”.

Almisha frowned hard at the question. To Lakka it looked like disapproval. Disproportionate disapproval. And in a sense it was, though not how she imagined. Nevertheless, it was true that the eldest shook her head as if to dispel ignorance, as if she was being harassed by a pesky fly.

“You just don’t understand.” Almisha said abruptly, with a voice that betrayed more pain than anger. “You just do not understand at all.” she repeated, enunciating better. It was pity she was feeling, for the ignorant. “It is a lot of metaphors” she finally revealed.

Lakka had heard about those. Metaphors were like secrets. She joined her hands to show her cousin that she was listening like a student. Sharing secrets with friends was fun.

“First of all, you cannot live in the horizon, since that’s not a real place. And so that’s how you know it’s a metaphor.” Almisha began.

This made sense to Lakka.

“Second of all, the power to transform like that, it’s just to show how excellent you are. How powerful you are. But you couldn’t be powerful or excellent if you indulged.”

Lakka vaguely remembered being reprimanded with that word – ‘indulgent’ - so she concluded it meant ‘lazy’, like a lot of other words. That’s pretty much what Almisha thought too.

Almisha continued: “They are wise and pious, the Elves. They are everything mortals like us should want to be. If they transform into beasts it is to fulfill a purpose. A Divine purpose! And once this purpose is fulfilled, they shed the inferior form. They have no reason to kill themselves and their superior brains by turning into chatty magpies. It would be like being free and wanting to be a slave. It simply does not make sense.”

Almisha smiled, proud of having managed a summary after all. Lakka smiled back, proud of her cousin too.

But after this Lakka stayed silent a while, thinking about it all. She thought the Book of Visions was all about the pleasures of turning into animals, and things like that, and she thought the Heavens, the Horizon, turned those pleasures permanent. But if Almisha said it wasn’t so, she was probably right. Since she was so smart, she knew things no one else her age knew.

This morning, Lakka thought she had seen something too: she was a bird of prey, or on a bird of prey, soaring through the sky. It certainly didn’t feel like she had fallen, convulsing, and banging the back of her head repeatedly on the floor boards. It felt like she had a purpose and, most importantly, it felt like she was melding with the sunny horizon at dawn. It did feel like freedom. It was intense, loud, and orange. But then again, she was banging her head quite hard.

Almisha was uneasy with the silence, and so she felt like adding to the exposé she had started, to try to make it better: “It’s important for you to know all of this. You know why, right? A long time ago, humans found the Elves in the South-West Forest...” she began.

Lakka knew all of this already – everyone knew all of this already – but Almisha wanted to make sure that Lakka saw what it should mean for her. She continued: “The Elves of the forest were wholly focused on learning the meditations necessary to traverse the Faerie Ocean, and thus go back to their glorious cities. All Elves set apart centuries of their lifespans to learn only this; specifically, the centuries leading to their Milenar Forms, when they reach a thousand years old and it is finally time to transcend this world.”

When she spoke like this you could hear every capitalized word, which she pronounced with the emphasis of a preacher.

“Humans wanted to learn these secrets, but they didn’t have this kind of time!” Humor too, she adopted by imitating previous teachers. “To solve this problem, humans invented writing! They wrote down the Visions they had, while studying under the Elves, so that each generation may go further than the one previous. And from this, our people got the Book of Visions! Insights into the All-Divine!”

It delighted Lakka’s heart to see that Almisha cared enough to re-tell her this fundamental story. The youngest girl loved stories. Almisha could see that, and so she worried that Lakka didn’t actually get the point. But it was nothing that quoting Father Nep again could not remedy:

“The Book of Visions comes from centuries of discipline. It’s not about doing whatever pleases you. It’s about becoming holy. It’s about making your soul brighter and brighter, through discipline. Discipline that protects you from sin.” Almisha put all her confidence and mimicry in this quote. She then added, with her true voice: “This is why it’s so important, Lakka. Turning into an animal would dim your soul. There’s less light in this form. Less intelligence. That’s what purifying your spirits is all about.”

“I agree! It’s so important!” Lakka exclaimed, finding her cousin’s enthusiasm contagious. Whenever Almisha talked like this, with all these big words and glances towards the trees and skies, it all made so much sense. Sense that faded with time, but it was alright.

Almisha shook her head, still worried that Lakka did not understand, and all too aware: sense that fades is not true sense.

Finally exiting Soma for good, Lakka and Almisha plunged into the familiar forest at the end of the slope. Yet, was it so familiar? The trees exuded a strange presence, not entirely their own. They looked alive and dead. It was as if they bulged in agony under a magnifying glass made of nothing but air. Air heavy and hot; the kind that strangles you. It was grotesque. Rows and rows of dark dusty bark, drowning in vibrant sunlight.

Almisha felt very small next to those trees. She shot a glance at Lakka who looked even smaller. Her strained desire to protect the younger girl grew tenfold. They needed a shield against this strange mood. Almisha thought she could find one within herself. She did what she would always do: she looked at individual bits of nature – the bushes, the rocks, the trees, and even the two girls themselves – and she reminded herself that the All-Divine was in all of them, all the way through. She believed it, she thought. She could believe the impossible. Only problem is she couldn’t get herself to feel it quite intensely enough. She thought she had to double her efforts. But those trees were impossible. They seemed to grow in decay with every step. She could see the resemblance with the sight of the Willed Mountain under the summer sun: the bright darkness. But even that wasn’t enough. “Try to enjoy the walk” she said to Lakka, attempting to share the burden with her.

Lakka barely registered the demand, which seemed banal enough. Lakka was uneasy too with how the forest felt on this day. She wished she could think of a topic of conversation that would please Almisha, but Almisha was very particular. So instead, Lakka started to play little games in her head. The little game of the hour was to spot as many lilywizards and their towers as possible. She knew Almisha would refuse to play this one. Lilywizards are silly little lizards with grey scales and all-too-hungry bellies, and they build towers like termites. Like termites and like wizards. Mages built those to be far away from everyone when their experiments exploded. Lakka wondered why the cute reptiles did it. It probably had something to do with all the fires underneath the earth.

Her little games too were dangerous sometimes.

There was something there. Yellow eyes were upon her.

She saw it finally. It wasn’t a lizard. She had chanced a glance towards a bush to play the game and spotted something else entirely. The jet black triangular ears of the creature were facing her. She could see it was listening. Sitting. Listening. Its long bushy tail was resting in front of it, as if on display. Apart from the darker tail and legs, the fur was orange on the head and white on the neck and chest. It was a fox! A very big one. Or a very strong one.

Eyes gleaming. Tail crackling like fire. Not an unfamiliar species, but the most majestic she had ever seen. Upright and alert. Because of that, it looked like the black thicket was on fire. The fire would not stop. It would burn and never stop. And all of a sudden the great flame escaped! A dash of orange! Lakka felt vertigo as she tried to follow the escape of the apparition. Did she move too? No, she followed it without her eyes and without her feet. It is her mind that turned around. It was no use. It had simply vanished.

“A fox! A fox!” She exclaimed, too late, closing her eyes hard, as if she were in pain.

“Where?!” asked Competitive Almisha. Lakka pointed a finger where, but the dry and dead bush looked so naked without the fox that it didn’t seem like an animal could hide in it or escape unseen. Almisha concluded that Lakka made it all up because she was jealous about the gryphons earlier. “Who cares about a common fox anyway?” Almisha shrugged.

If she had seen how beautiful it was, surely she would have reacted differently? Lakka wondered if that was true. Next she wondered if she could say anything that would bring the fox back. But the air was so stuffy and her mouth so dry that she could not think of anything.

It was common knowledge among the villagers that a wolf who spots you first steals your voice with the strength of fear. What would a fox, a more cunning beast, steal from you with those eyes first unseen?

The world was spinning. And they walked for a long time.

A house.

Hidden, wooden, part of a hill.

They must have taken an unusual path by accident, because this was not a house they knew. How could it belong to the lumberjacks they knew of? It had none of the right tools. And these people were not the type to dig into a hill. But Lakka got distracted from these thoughts when she spotted a well. Her head filled up with dreams of cool water. She was so thirsty.

There was someone around here, Almisha and Lakka thought. And as they thought that, they saw him. A tall human man, broad-shouldered, and terribly silent. He was near an altar of stone, outside. His back was turned towards them. Almisha noticed that his clothes were poor, in spite of the lumberjack arms. She sprung into action.

« Good day to you, Mister!». Almisha said with utter temerity. Lakka wondered what Almisha was seeing. What made her act as horses do when they spot snakes yet unseen by their riders? She was protecting Lakka, this was clear.

At first, the man said nothing, as he was busy removing things from the altar : the carcass of an animal recently killed – a rabbit not yet rotten – as well as metal trinkets. Perhaps bracelets. He put the animal on his belt, behind him. It dangled like a tail above his pants. He turned around finally, after having made the other offerings disappear in his giant pockets. It was like seeing a mountain pivot.

« Good day to you, young girls.» he said, with a booming voice. It was not as if he was replying, but as if he were talking first, which made Almisha all the more angry.

His eyes were bright. His smile nowhere to be found in that long and white beard of his. He was old but spry.

Almisha meant to walk past him, but it did not seem possible at all. He continued talking:

« Are you alone? » His voice was deep and intense, not broken by age.

« Our father is meeting us around the bend. » Almisha lied, like her Mother had taught her.

Lakka’s eyes went wide. But the enormity of the lie prevented her from having anything to oppose to that; only a muffled noise, as if all soul left her lungs. Why would Almisha even say that? Lakka felt it was an exciting and lovely sentiment, but one with force beyond her comprehension.

« Good. » said the man.

Cautiously, without approaching too much, Almisha glanced at the altar, to know the family gods of the nearby house. But she couldn’t make out any details on that stone, though there were some. There was the faded depiction of a single entity, with an animal head.

The man replied this time :

«The Fox King.»

The girls were unsure if he was scolding them or not. His entire demeanor was very hard to read.

Almisha took a moment to think: the Fox King is one of the lesser gods (a pleonasm really) revered in this region. A waste of time to all those who seek the All-Divine directly. A pedagogical necessity to the others. Obviously, an idol to stubborn heretics. He was not one often worshiped by farmers, miners and lumberjacks, however. What good is the god of cunning in all those affairs? He is more likely to harm than to help. How could a faithful house worship something so sly? Why erect an altar to the Fox King here?

« We saw a fox earlier! » exclaimed Lakka. Almisha was so embarrassed by this she wished to be buried on the spot.

The man chuckled and conceded: « Yes. It must have been him. »

Lakka felt that this was a funny, even gentle, answer. Whereas Almisha did not like it when an adult was in a joking mood. All too often, like now, the “good-natured” jokes were meant to disarm them. They were tricks, lulling them to unwelcome sleep. It was the drowsiness that came with the deadly heat. And unlike Lakka, she had to stay vigilant. After all, she was the one in charge of protecting the coin purse.

She summoned all of her courage and attempted to leave by saying goodbye:

« Praise be to the All-Divine! » once again, it was said with her bravest tone.

Lakka repeated the phrase, not as lazily as usual. But the man did not. It was as if the warding incantation had failed to work on this Demon.

They could not leave.

“Are you from the valley up there?” he asked, nodding towards Soma.

That was a strange question.

“He is not from here” Almisha thought, with horror.

The eldest girl looked full of nerves, and so the man’s gaze shifted to Lakka, who was happily, and rather impolitely, leaning against a tree. She was letting her eyes wander to liliwizard towers nearby.

“So then… looking for the Elves, young child?” he said towards her with a chuckle. “What do you see on the horizon?”

“There’s no horizon here.” said Lakka, giggling, as if she were drunk. The dark trees, the dry bushes, and even the dirt towers of the lizards, prevented them from seeing any landscape.

“Now, now… There are horizons everywhere for the right eyes to see, as they say.” answered the man. It was a usual thing to say. Lakka thought it meant “chin up”, but she also thought she didn’t look that sad right now, so she did not understand what he meant by this. She could not see what others saw: how her face was brooding since this morning.

Almisha came to the rescue: “I was just telling her… my sister... how the horizon is an important metaphor”. She didn’t know how much this low-life could understand, and part of her didn’t care. “And how the Elves do not live in the horizon but over the horizon, in glorious cities that they return to after many… rituals.” Though evidently, part of her cared enough to dumb it down.

“No... No, that’s not true.” the man said, leaning his tall frame against a tree as well. Hearing these words, Almisha’s heart jumped in her chest. There was insolence in the air, and either he or she was the culprit, soon to be found out.

Unbelievably, he continued talking. And he did so with the tone of a down-on-his-luck farmer relating the strange birth of a two-headed calf. There was amusement in his voice, but also the seriousness, the matter-of-factness, of someone speaking only of what one had witnessed.

He looked up through the dark canopy and started to ramble: “The Elves do live in the horizon. Not beyond. In this place called the Elusive Shore… But it is not really a place... The Elves do not need it to be a place... Their bodies-ethereal, the bodies they use to walk this earth, are only a reflection of the agility of their minds, and they know to give up on them when it is time to go back to the Elusive Shore... All of this is the key to their immortality, and so the key to their wisdom.”

He shot the girls a sidelong glance, and something in the depth of his long white beard was smiling. It was the hearty chuckle of bonfire anecdotes, of doxa and dogma mixing with drunkenness. He might not have been sober. He continued: “They do not see the world as mortals do. They call it the World of Eladnys, and Eladnys means Appearance. Yet, mortals do get glimpses of the world-horizon, and so they speak, often without knowing why, of ‘looking for the Elves’. Old men like me will say it all the time… to describe how the gaze becomes distant in reflection and contemplation, retreating from the world only to plunge deeper into it.”

He looked up again at the fiery sky beyond the dark, and it was as though he was seeing something. “So you see, there is no land of the Elves, only the line of the horizon, wherever you look. They do not live beyond the Several Seas – the Elipsian and the Faerie. Any distance traveled in that famous South-West direction would be a waste of time, only postponing truth. Many a sailor have died on that useless journey, though they sometimes have tailed the immanent ships of the Elves for miles and miles and miles until those ships sank, unneeded.”

He did have the look of a sailor, now that Almisha thought about it. A sailor between jobs. They are known to be a superstitious lot.

All of a sudden, he erupted into laughter, and she got startled. His laugh was deep and insane. It shook the tree he was leaning against. “Yes! Ha ha! Do not set out to cross the Ocean without knowledge of transcendence, as the Elves would leave you stranded in the waves. And do so happily. They can be cruel and fickle. Yes, the Elves are impossibly close and impossibly far. At any moment, they are as close to visiting us as the moment before and the moment after. They live here and there, though impossible it may seem. And erm… well… They are not particularly interested in letting you know all of this...”

Dreadful blasphemy, though spoken with the tone of truth.

After a pause, the man looked at Almisha with piercing brown eyes and said, with crushing magnanimity: “But what do I know… You will read the Book of Visions one day, won’t you, and you will tell us all about it...”

Almisha stood there, branded by shame. She had read the Book of Visions already, all of it, and she had understood none of it. She had asked many questions to her Tutor, and he had answered them all, and she had understood nothing. Not a word. And what was worse, right now, is that the eyes of the tall man and the eyes of Lakka were upon her, and she could tell that they knew: Almisha had read the Book of Visions and had understood none of it. Almisha had no Faith. Almisha had no Love. Her soul was dim, and corrupt, and ugly, and evil, and she belonged in the mud like the farm girl that she was. She would never go anywhere or be anything.

She could not summon her usual rage. The tall man was too old, too big, too true.

« No, we’re leaving.» said Almisha, rudely, to the air around her. And she started walking away.

It took everything to turn her back to him. It felt like the shade of the trees was his shadow, towering above her as she tried to escape.

Lakka, wishing to stay, would have protested if she was not mute with admiration for him. But she followed Almisha.

One last time, his voice boomed threateningly behind them:

« Good luck to you two. Have a blessed day. »

Almisha shivered. « I will tell my father you said hello. » she wanted to say, but she did not dare provoke him thus. Her face was burning with shame. She walked so far and so fast, before she felt comfortable enough to turn around and see that the stranger had gone away.

« We could have asked for some water. » Lakka said multiple times, thinking of the well, hoping for cool groundwater. Not understanding.

« It wasn’t his well.» Almisha finally answered. She had a haunted expression on her face.

They walked together but nothing connected them. Almisha’s face was still burning. And Lakka was moments away from slipping completely, as she was beginning to hear melody in the screams of the bright dead trees.

“You know...” started Lakka.

“Don’t start!” retorted Almisha. She turned to face Lakka, as fast as a viper. And fork-tongued too, she continued: “I already know. You must be so happy. So happy. Over the moons happy that he said you were right about the Elves! And maybe about the magpie druids too! You always think you’re so special when you get things accidentally right! You think you see the future or something?” Her tone was full of sarcasm but her voice was trembling. The adult had said she was wrong, and she didn’t know yet how to survive this. Maybe she couldn’t.

“You know, you’re not very easy to live with!” Lakka blurted out, fed up. She had had enough of how weird Almisha was about all of this.

“We don’t live together! And I for one, am very very happy about that. Because you’re a crybaby. A chatty magpie crybaby. And everyone has to take care of you all of the time! You don’t make any effort! It’s no wonder that you have fits: you don’t make any effort not to!”

“You’ve been nothing but mean! All day! All day, mean as all the Hells.” yelled Lakka.

“I’ve been nothing but nice! I have- been- nothing but nice! So where is that coming from all of a sudden? You’re always sulking. Always pretending you’re not mad when you’re sooo mad at me all the time! ALL THE TIME! Just because I’m not the saint everyone wants me to be.”

Lakka could not understand this at all: what could she mean?! How could Almisha think she was mad at her, and not the other way around?! Lakka had been making herself so small to avoid any conflict. Her voice, even her breath... she had kept everything small. She had probed for idle chatter only delicately and respectfully, and had gone back to being withdrawn only when it seemed chatter was unwelcome. All of that effort for nothing? All of that to be seen as broody and moping? Lakka did not know what to say. It was the greatest irony. The greatest injustice. What words could express it? Feeling utterly powerless, she started to scream at the top of her lungs: “YOU’VE BEEN NOTHING BUT MEAN!!” She believed those words, yet they were miles away from what she truly meant. Still, they were the closest thing she could muster.

Almisha was frightened by this reaction. How could she scream so loud?! Had she no pride? Almisha wanted out immediately; she waved her hands and repeated things she had heard: “I don’t want to talk to you when you’re like this! We have to rise above this, you know that!” Almisha was genuinely trying to remember what it felt like to let go of anger, but her experience was limited. However she thought she knew what it meant to rise above things and perhaps she could rely on that.

“Oh yeah? Well, I don’t want to talk to you EVER, Miss Know-it-all.” yelled Lakka, her little body shaking.

This really hurt Almisha, like a dagger, and so she fell silent. It would take her years to learn that when someone calls you a “know-it-all”, it is not that they mock you for not knowing all you ought to know. Quite the opposite. But how could she know that simple thing, her greed being what it was? A greed that she did not choose! She thought, as she always did, that Lakka could see through her. This is what hurt the most. She was the only one in the village who could. With these dark eyes of hers.

We have to rise above this. This is what her Tutor would say. But he wasn’t here today. He was with her Mother. In a very dark house.

So instead, she decided to bring Lakka low, and to be done with the pest.

“I bet you don’t even know what that man was doing earlier!” Almisha exclaimed, with the eyes of a bird of prey. “And there’s a good reason for that...”

Lakka replied nothing. She had her “closed-off” face again, Almisha thought, with anger. The one face Almisha hated more than anything in the world. She did this unsmiling face where... She looked immutable. Self-sufficient. Perfect. Perfect! As strong as the Willed Mountain but with no effort. It was the face of someone who could see through Almisha and decide whether or not to listen to her. How could she do that when she was so young?

“He was stealing from the altar.” Almisha revealed, hating herself intensely for what she was about to say next. She started to walk ahead of Lakka again, trying to look as casual as she could.

Lakka shot her a curious look, forgetting the anger. Could that be true? How could she know this?

Still while walking ahead and looking away, Almisha began to explain: “Ritual says you have to leave all the food to the gods. To the Fox King, for example. But he didn’t do that. It wasn’t his well, it wasn’t his altar. He was a thief.” Would Lakka fall into her trap? Almisha prayed she wouldn’t. But how could she resist summoning one of the rare memories of them she had?

“My parents would take away the animal even before it was rotten.” said Lakka, like a mouse, just-now-born, stepping into a killing trap.

Almisha swooped down like a hawk:

“Oh well. I suppose you can do that, if your Faith in the All-Divine is not strong enough.”

A claw to the tender heart.

Almisha heard Lakka’s loud footsteps stop abruptly behind her. She almost stopped to face her again. But she did not. She hesitated, but she knew that it would be an even greater pleasure to keep walking as Lakka choked on this. Like nothing had happened. Like she didn’t just call Lakka’s parents dim souls who deserved what happened to them. Who deserved the raid of the slave-catchers.

Lakka fell utterly silent. But – at last! - it seemed to Almisha that her silence was no longer one of immutable strength. It had been defeated. Almisha shuddered with excitement. She was walking, but she felt like she was gliding. She thought of the warrior saints and their halos of glory, blinding enemies on the battlefield. She felt like she had such a halo right now, above her head. She could almost see it.

Lakka’s silence was one of surrender. But she would disagree that it had changed in kind. For she had never meant to hurt Almisha with her previous silence. Only to give her space. All the space in the world. Because she knew it wasn’t particularly nice for a smart girl like her to have to take care of an unhealthy child. But she thought together they could make the most of the afternoon. Make it pleasant. She had chosen silence when she thought it could help, and had chosen chit-chat when she thought that could help. But apparently she was all wrong. Everything about her was wrong: her parents, her spirits, her choices. When Almisha accused her of being mad at her all the time, she was completely taken off guard, but part of her recognized a deeper truth: though she hadn’t been aware of it, Lakka had, within herself, a nearly infinite power to mess up and do wrong by people. Her body was a mirror that fed infinite evil. An infinite power to sin just by being oneself. There was nothing she could do to stop that power. Except disappear.

Almisha had no idea but, this morning, Lakka saw her from a window when she learned the news that the younger girl had fallen to another fit. Lakka saw Almisha rolling her eyes when she heard. “Yeah, yeah, yeah...” is what Almisha said then, waving her hands dismissively, answering the demand implicit in the news. Lakka had never experienced such sadness as when she saw this. It made her heart stop; and then resume its beating only lazily. And perhaps she was guilty of wearing such sadness on her face, since Almisha always caught everything. Lakka wanted to erase all of this. The memory. Her sinful nature. The sinful core at the heart of the world: Lakka. She wanted it gone.

“I apologize.” said Lakka.

A surge of euphoria captured Almisha, when she heard these blessed words. To get Lakka to apologize when it seemed to both of them that it was Almisha who should have? Almisha felt as powerful as the Pontifex, the Master of All.

Almisha looked at Lakka and smiled. “I accept your apology” she said “I’m glad you could rise above this with me.” At first it looked like she was in control of that smile, but when she tried to wipe it off her face, she found that she couldn’t. It was all too delightful. Her mind was racing with a thousand ideas of how to bask in her halo. She simply had to keep going with this. “Now, now, Lakka… Emotions have been running hot… But it’s over now. I know how to reward you.” It wasn’t her voice, it was the voice of Almisha’s Mother. “Let’s go find some cool water. What do you say? That would be nice, now, wouldn’t it?” There was a lake nearby – Lake Avnos – that one could reach at the cost of a pretty long detour, because it was enclosed by the Stone Marrows. Right now Almisha was the Mistress of that Lake, and she alone could grant access to it. It seemed her smile kept expanding beyond reason.

“Yes, thank you, Almisha.” Lakka replied, defeated.

Lakka was walking ahead of Almisha, but it was not her that was leading the way. She was moving like the dandelion that flies ahead of you as you stride towards it, when you move air with your legs and ruin your chances to catch it. She neither enjoyed nor disliked being pushed this way. Her will was not her own anymore. Behind her, Almisha – Willful Almisha – was amazed at her own power, as she was being obeyed for the first time in her life. She wondered if perhaps she had surpassed even her Tutor. She tried to recall submitting to his authority so utterly, but all she could remember was that secret hated part of herself that would always rebel. Had she found a way to kill it in Lakka the same way she wished she could kill it in herself?

The Stone Marrows were gigantic upright stones, scattered throughout the forest. They were four times as tall as an adult human. When they were close enough to one another they formed walls of jagged rocks. It was easier to follow the corridors they formed rather than to squeeze through them and find out the hard way if they hid uneven ground, and which would happen first: cutting yourself or twisting your ankle. Almisha shuddered at the sight of them: it seemed now that the dark trees were only a prelude to this darker sight. She refused to think about this any longer and she instead let her mind dwell on her victory against Lakka. Casting glances at the younger girl, she saw that Lakka was indifferent to the sights. Her searching eyes were searching no longer.

Walking like this, they reached the Lake.

Lake Avnos had an eerily perfect circular shape and its still waters ran very deep. Long ago, a volcano stood at this exact spot. It was smaller than the Soma Volcano but it was the more beautiful of the two. It wore an impossible armor of adamantine. An outer layer of dark blue ore that gleamed in the sunlight. All other mountains were terribly jealous of it. One day, the gods intervened. During a particularly violent and vicious eruption, the fiery mountain shed its armor as it collapsed onto itself. The protective plates crashed all around it. And it was not long after this calamity that mortals mined them and left nothing here but the splintered flesh of the mountain: the Stone Marrows. As for the fiery inner chamber of the mountain, it died from the collapse. The sinkhole left a deep and wide crater that filled with water over time. The utterly extinguished volcano became Lake Avnos and still today provides cooler water than the tamed Soma Volcano, whose chambers still rumble with anger.

Almisha looked around. The lake was absolutely beautiful. No one was there. There were no mussel-fishers. No one was cooling down in the lake. There was only the White Pavilion: a magnificent hunting-lodge built on a peninsula at the other end of the lake, a third of a mile away. It had no animation whatsoever. Not a soul. The blue and orange colours of its roof popped in the sun. Its white balconies, archways, and bridges bathed in the summer haze, like monumental swans. The stones were purified by uncompromising heat. The nobles would gather here only if they pleased.

Almisha loved that sight. And she suddenly understood why she loved such sights. The All-Divine was in everything, but its energy could be felt most in specific places. Sacred places. Places of power. There, it tore through the veil of confusion. Bright souls were attracted to bright places, instinctively. Those buildings, white as light, belonged to bright souls. They provided a challenge: be as perfect and beautiful as I am! The air was heavy; powerful and deadly. It increased the challenge. All the better! The colours were greater in powerful daylight but also blurred by the scorching haze. They simultaneously looked more real and less so. This was the difficulty: can you pull them out of the land of dreams? This was the same as what happened in your mind when you looked for Purification and Vision. Nothing was real until it was. You have to make it so.

And when no one was around, then no one could interrupt you! That was it: Almisha loved it when she was free to rise up to the challenge in her mind. She loved to walk the streets of Sableon alone because she could imagine anything to be the case! Perhaps she could understand the Book of Visions one day! But when she was with Lakka, she regressed. How horrible it was to be looking for an expert priest at fifteen years of age, and to be reminded that you knew no one yet in the great city! What a set-back. Of course you would end up thinking that you would never go anywhere or be anything, though it wasn’t true!

If Almisha had apologized earlier, she would have let Lakka interfere. She protected herself. She allowed her mind to be as beautiful as the hunting-lodge.

Lakka looked around too. The reflections of sunlight on the surface of the lake were blinding her. They were exploding like fireworks. Leaping at her like mythical salamanders. She averted her eyes. But it was happening behind her too. And inside her as well. The Stone Marrows were turning red hot and making thunderous noises. Lakka was seeing into the past: the moment they fell into the ground, killing the unlucky. The heat was there to kill. She saw what Almisha had admired before from the top of the slope: the sky was lowering itself onto them like the invisible lid of a coffin. A vibrant haze. It was red, and hot, and everywhere. It was beautiful. At last, she was Almisha and she was finding it beautiful. The bright colours were the loudest they had ever been. Everything blended together.

She saw the path ahead. The All-Divine was a way out. When there are so many things around you, they can all clash so painfully. But what if there were not so many things? What if you let them be... One? They tend towards the One already. All can feel it. You just have to let them be. She felt silly for not surrendering earlier. Apologizing to Almisha was the one thing she could do, the one miracle she could perform, to make the Two into One. There was Almisha and there was Lakka. There should be only Almisha.

Lakka jumped knee-deep into the water. The water was cool. A relief! A blessed relief! But the fire kept burning up above. It wasn’t enough of a relief until it was total. She started to swim further to heal the very fact of her dead friendship. She could transform it all. Almisha laughed “Alright, little mussel, but don’t go too far!” She was trying to be graceful. It was Mother’s voice again. As a parent, she couldn’t admit that Lakka swimming in her water was ruining this perfect moment for her. She was smiling a monstrous smile still. But Lakka could tell, she was becoming Almisha and so she knew: the way she broke the surface of the water ruined the way Almisha liked to enjoy the lake. As a trial of faith. As an image in her mind. She wanted to apologize again and again for all of this. But the intrusion wouldn’t take long anyway.

The older girl looked on in awe as Lakka swam very very far. Could she do the same? Could she have that much Faith in the lake? Hold on. She could tell something was happening. A transformation. The air was pregnant with sacredness. She felt regret before it even happened. Lakka’s arms started flailing. Then, all of a sudden, the ten-year-old girl sank beneath the surface, as if pulled by a devilish hand. Almisha did not have to think: she immediately knew in her bones that she wouldn’t come back.

“Lakka! LAKKA!!” she screamed. But it was too late.

Almisha jumped in the water after her. Frozen cold like fear. She tried to swim towards Lakka. It was too far. Full of doubt, she felt weighed down by the waterskin and the coin purse. She managed to throw them on the shore before she went too far, but as she did she felt all the seconds she wasted. Even without her belongings, her clothes were too baggy in the water. She felt so slow, like in a nightmare. In her heart she knew: I have killed her. She prayed so hard as she swam: “All-Divine, please, please, please!!” But in her heart... she knew.

She got there eventually. Too late. Muscles in agony from crossing a distance doubled by hopelessness. She dove deep to retrieve the body. Hurting her ears, and nose, and eyes. The lake was crystal clear and gave way easily. So all clumsiness could be nothing but her own. Eyes wide open, you could see the shadowy gates of the Hells at the bottom of the lake, a hundred feet beneath, sealed shut with rocks after ancient jealousy. Lakka’s body was drifting towards them. It had no soul to it. Entombed in water.

Almisha caught Lakka’s dead body and carried her to the surface. Then she slapped Lakka’s face to make her breathe. She slapped her hard. Then punched her. She didn’t know how to get a soul back, how to make someone breathe again. “Lakka please! Please! This is not funny!” She sobbed while flailing. She spoke meaningless sentences, thought meaningless thoughts, and felt meaningless feelings.

Almisha swam to the bank of the lake with Lakka in her arms. Lakka’s head would often sink beneath the water for long stretches of time while she was being moved towards the shore like this. The older girl was carrying her as best she could, but she was weak.

Exhausted, Almisha crashed onto the shore. She laid Lakka’s body on it and stayed on her knees beside her. Lakka was dead. She was blue and unmoving. Almisha prayed hard. At first, she prayed for the All-Divine to not take away Lakka. But it did not feel right. The All-Divine hadn’t done anything of the sort. It wasn’t what was happening. She, Almisha, Treacherous Almisha, had pushed Lakka into the water. She had pushed her by refusing to apologize, by insulting her parents. So she asked for something else: “Please, please, let me go back, let me take it back. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” This wasn’t true either. She meant to hurt her. To hurt her bad. And this was the result. “No, no, please. Please! I don’t want my cousin to die! This is my fault! I want to take it all back!” This was true. But this plea did not change anything. All that was said was already known.

The older girl started crying uncontrollably, her forehead pressed against the hand of her dead cousin. Eyes shut.

She heard something behind her. It sounded like the panting of a large animal in full sprint. She opened her eyes. Lakka’s corpse. But now a large shadow was cast over the both of them. It must have followed them from the forest. Suddenly, broad shoulders pushed her away from her cousin, mercilessly. She fell to the ground backwards, cutting her hands against sharp rocks. The man bent down towards Lakka. It was the man from before; the thief who stole from the altar of the Fox King!

“STOP!” screamed Almisha. The thief took Lakka’s head in his greedy hands, pulling on her neck, twisting her head backwards. “STOP!” Almisha repeated. The flat of her hands pushed against the man’s muscles as hard as she could to get him off of Lakka. They were too strong. He bit down on Lakka’s mouth and nose, grunting. Breathing hard. He was devouring her. He had many preys – squirrels and mice – hanging loosely from his belt, but he wanted more.

Almisha ran to pick a stone, hoping to throw it on the soul thief. The sharp ones were embedded in the ground. The only loose one she found was pathetically small. She turned back to take aim anyway, desperate. She froze mid-gesture when she saw what the giant man was doing. He was now pressing Lakka’s chest repeatedly, forcefully. Yet, there was a certain method to it. The man’s huge arms were moving with some restraint. It was hard to tell, but she could see it: he could have crushed her ribs so easily, yet he was making sure to avoid exactly that.

Some vomit came out of Lakka’s mouth, water and liquefied food. He turned her head to the side and fished out the food from her mouth with his huge fingers. He then tilted her head back like he had done before, and once again breathed into her mouth and nose, making sure to get as much breath into her as he could. He was giving her a soul! Lakka started to puke again, but this time her lungs were calling for air!

She was breathing!

The huge man stepped away from Lakka. Almisha ran to embrace her cousin. “Lakka, I killed you.” she said, sobbing uncontrollably. While hugging her cousin, she made sure to constrict neither her neck nor her chest, adopting some of the gentleness of the man. She kissed Lakka’s head. “I killed you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She meant every word. Lakka was back from the dead.

Everything was fuzzy for Lakka. “I should not have done that.” she said, with little breath to spare. Almisha repressed a desire to shush her. She wasn’t sure what Lakka meant. It seemed important. More important than anything else in the entire world. And she didn’t want to say anything to her ever again before she was sure. The fuzziness started to dissipate. Things started being distinct once again. Beyond the hug, Almisha saw a dark shape escape into the forest before questions caught up with it. A large silhouette, with a tail made of the dead preys that hung on his belt.

Almisha and Lakka looked at each other. Shame overtook them. But they did not look away. Shame in their entire bodies. Burning shame. They held one another’s gaze. They had broken each other. They had failed each other and the All-Divine. Silently, they resolved to be there for each other always. But in this oath, there was only despair, and no triumph, redemption, or even kindness. They wanted so badly to learn their lesson, but they did not know at all what to learn.

They had not saved each other. They had faulted, and they had been saved. And they had not yet proven they could do better than this. This could happen again. This would happen again. All they learned was the peril.

“I should not have done that.” Lakka said again. She was talking to herself. Trying to convince herself. Her body now a broken mirror.

Almisha looked towards the forest. She could not see the tall man anymore. But they could hear him move through the bushes deftly for a little while, the sounds receding in the distance. Almisha and Lakka both knew: this rescue was undeserved. But who was he? The girls looked at the lake, shining bright in the sunlight. They looked at the white hunting lodge; magnificent. They looked around. Sharp stones. A small streak of blood. Water dripping from their clothes. The giant sun. The cloudless sky. A pool of vomit. A half-empty waterskin. A torn up coin purse; emptied out by him. The rustling of leaves. The trees. Red magpies. The heat. The Stone Marrows. Sore muscles. Lakka herself. Almisha herself. The wreckage of ancient volcanoes. All this drowning. All this breathing. All of this – literally all of it – was undeserved. Undeserved.

Undeserved.

 And they would have to live with that.