By: Thenidiel Posted on: January 07, 2006
She felt the scream pierce her, blunt metal against soft flesh, the wrenching of
a thousand restless souls about her as she fell effortlessly into darkness. Her
lungs and throat and mouth opened forth and the scream gushed out, unyielding
and desperate, as if it were a strangled hope of resurrection. White-hot pain
seared her every nerve, cold ice against sore flesh, hot fire against tender
skin, the decay of a thousand venomous bites. There is no emotion, no feeling
so strong as Death. She fell into the eternal spiral of silence and felt her
soul weep, for the loss of the friends and the world she had held so dear.
A light appeared, so blindingly white that it could not be avoided at any turn.
She glanced about, terrified, trying to work out where she could be. She had
died, of that she was sure, and yet she stood here on this cold ground, naked
as the day she was born but whole, her body pristine and free of the wounds
that it had once been carelessly littered with. The accursed light disappeared,
and she found herself in a long, seemingly never-ending tunnel. Her pointed ears
twitched, as she looked about, suddenly afeared. There was a strange, eerie
feeling about this place - a queer hissing sound that at close watch sounded
like a thousand voices, whispering quiet prayers for salvation. She felt
humbled, somehow, as if there were a great presence hanging over the air.
Taking a cautious step forward, she stepped under a great archway and into the
tunnel. A sudden whooshing sound alerted her to some movement at her left, and
she span round violently, almost falling over in her panic. To her left had
appeared what she could only presume to be some sort of tear. The very wall had
opened up into a gaping hole, the sides of the wall that remained almost
fluttering like silken tatters. Almost a wormhole, but not quite - it was more
like someone had punched through the very fabric of existence. She heard voices
coming from the rip and cried out, recognising them at once, her father and
mother and her two beautiful daughters.
'Tismia! Melsia!' she shrieked, voice hoarse, and dived towards the rip, as if
she could fall through it and into the arms of her children. But as soon as she
dived forward the rip disappeared, leaving her thrown headlong at the brick
wall, wincing in pain as she connected with it. What was this place, this
torturous teasing of Life? She was wracked with a dry sob, clattering to the
floor in mourning of her two daughters that were lost to her. She recalled
their births, that pain that was just like dying, the joy that was like no
other as she held their fragile, bloody bodies to her heaving chest.
Some force guided her to stand up, walking again down the corridor, looking
into the eternal tunnel of stone walls that lay ahead of her. She had not gone
more than ten paces before that whooshing sound came again, and she let out a
moan of pain, frustration and sadness. Hardly daring to cast her eyes upon this
rip, she waited for the coming noise. But there was none - her curiosity piqued,
coating her fear in inquisition, she lifted her head and looked to her right at
the place where the rip should be. This time, however, it looked quite
different - there was a great swirling whirlpool of colour, the waves of
rainbow light slowly twisting round into what she could see was going to be a
picture.
It formed, and was the most beautiful sight that she had ever laid her mortal
eyes upon. Sunlight poured down through the tall, proud trees of the Aalen
forest, and below the forest floor flourished in a cacophony of greens and the
gleaming brown palette of mushrooms. Behind she saw the sparkling stream
leading to the lake that she knew lay not far to the east. The ground was
littered with the vibrant purple flowers of the Echinacea plant, tamed only by
the unruly Myrrh bushes surrounding it. Her grove, in all its Springtime
splendour, looked grander than she had ever seen it look. A tear ran down her
cheek as she felt remorse for all the times she had ever taken her grove, that
gift of unrivalled generosity from Lady Gaia, for granted.
The picture disappeared as quickly as it had come, falling into a weave of
colour before melting back, leaving only the stone there once more. She stood
there for a moment, wishing with all her heart that she could go home, back to
her forest where she could lie amongst the flowers with her two daughters and
be happy. Sighing, she turned away from the now blank wall and began to walk.
Her feet dragged, her homesickness growing more and more, the thought that she
would never see any of it again overpowering her.
Walking along, head hung low, counting the cracks in the wooden floor as she
walked, she did not see the huge door that loomed before her. Instead, she felt
it - a confused mixture of intense fear and comforting warmth. It was this
strange feeling that bade her look up, and when she did she stepped back in
shock, for looming up before her was a great mithril door, closed with a giant
shimmering bar, which lifted up as she stepped back in surprise. Moving quickly
to the side as the huge door creaked towards her, she looked in fear and
amazement as she stepped into what could only be described as a huge room.
'Child of Mine, enter and approach Me,' boomed a voice that shook her very
being to the core. Obeying at once, she stepped forth and looked on the
overwhelmingly incredible presence of the Lady Maya. From here she could not
see Her face, but felt that strange mixture of warmth and fear grow stronger as
she looked upon Her. The Great Mother spoke to her, of knowing all, her every
thought and action. She felt humbled, a mouse amongst dragons, a fish amongst
eagles. Her nerves felt almost on fire with nervousness as they had with pain
so recently.
Then the Mother spoke of Good and Evil, and she felt herself cower. In an abuse
of power she had stolen to give her children the gifts they had wanted for
Logomas - she had killed one who tried to attack her friend when in fact she
should have negotiated. She had offended those who were higher than her. Most
of all, she had neglected her grove. It was not truly as she had seen in the
spiralling picture. It was overgrown, the plants bore no herbs and no animals
would go near it for fear of her Golem, who had grown old and senile,
preferring to attack anyone rather than only her enemies.
She sighed, and turned to leave, knowing that she did not deserve the blessing
of Life. Yet even so the Lady Maya took her upon Her great hand and held her to
Her gaze. She felt the dark gaze of the Great Mother sear through her soul like
a Magi's staff and began silently to cry, out of gratitude and guilt, as the
Lady softly intoned the word ‘Grow', and she felt herself ebb out of this
being, all feeling and presence disappearing from her, almost as if she were
turning to dust.
Her soul's hourglass existence rematerialised in what she saw to be a cave,
with damp walls and only a single candle floating in the middle of the room.
She took some cautious steps forward, and with breath held tense she stepped
out into the glorious light of the Sun as its rays burst across the skies,
splitting the clouds with streaks of gold. Elation surged through her - she
almost leapt for joy, streaking out from the cave to the forest, where she
hurled herself to the ground and fell through the rustling leaves to the
gleaming redwoods of the Aalen forest. With new vigour, she gave her plants
fertility, welcomed back the animals of the forest and tended to her overgrown
trees. She summoned a comforting rain to make them glisten with water and
watched as they became strong and tall, until the grove looked just like the
swirling picture she had seen in the Halls of the Lady Maya.
It was to this Divine that she knelt and uttered a short prayer of thanks, and
vowed to make it her duty to make sure that she made the most of her life, the
greatest gift that she had ever been given. As she finished her prayer,
blessing the ground before her, her pointed ears pricked up at the sound of two
young voices coming from the stream. The rain that sat upon her cheeks like
tears flew about her like a storm as she leapt up and ran to the silhouettes
upon the horizon, replacing the rain with true tears. She threw her arms about
her daughters and embraced them with more devotion than she had ever done
before, her chest heaving with sobs as she stroked her hands across their
heads.
'Promise me,' she said in a voice that was almost a hoarse whisper, 'promise me
that you shall never take anything in this life for granted. For if we do, we
are not worthy of it.'
With that, she pressed a kiss first to Tismia's forehead, and then Melsia's,
before taking their hands and leading them home to their village in the
treetops.