Meri (36 page)

The Meri is not reachable
by the weak, or by the careless, or by the ascetic, but only by the wise who
strive to lead their soul into the dwelling of the Spirit.

Rivers flow to the Sea and
there find their end and their peace. When they find this peace and this end,
their name and form disappear and they become as the Sea.

Even so, the wise who are
led to the Meri are freed of name and form and enter into the radiance of the
Supreme Spirit who is greater than all greatness.

— The Book of the Meri
Chapter Two, Verses 5-7

On the darkened shore, the girl froze—a wild thing in the
act of bolting. But she did not bolt. She wavered for a moment, then dropped
back to the sand, her face set. She did not see the Watcher in the waves.

Stubborn. Loyal, too, or she would not have made it
here—would not be sitting there. Stay, Sister Meredydd, you have met your Goal.

On the shore, the girl Meredydd turned her face downward
into darkness. Tiny rinds of flesh sifted down to lie on the cloth of her
tunic. She lifted a trembling hand to her cheek, stroking it with her
fingertips. The flesh crumbled and fell. She stared at her fingers, eyes wide. The
fleshy remnants clung to them and they, too, glowed.

She did not take her eyes from her hands as she rose from
the sand. Once on her feet, she rubbed at her cheeks, at her arms—her movements
desperate, fevered. Robbed of its covering flesh, the substance of her arms
gleamed gold-white in the darkness of the night, brighter than the gold-white
heart of the fire where her young companion, Skeet, lay in sodden sleep. The
girl removed her tunic, her boots and leggings, her shirt. Then, after a moment’s
hesitation, she stripped off her undergarments and stood, naked, upon the
beach. She would not be cold, the watching Being knew, for heat radiated from
her pied body, leaking, along with the light, from patches where flesh had come
away with cloth.

Ah, I remember. How well I remember.

With hands that no longer trembled, the girl continued her
task, shedding what was left of her outer self, shaking her hair to free the
flame hidden within the drab chestnut strands, until finally she was bare of
flesh, blazing and lustrous like a tiny sun—like a star.

The Watcher recalled Her own moment, a hundred years
past—Her moment of terror and wonder. She’d shed the husk to find, within, a
Jewel—a becoming vessel for the Star of the Sea, a fitting home for the Meri.

Joy, She sent the girl. And peace.

When the last scrap of slough had dropped, when the
once-girl had surveyed her new body with eyes garnet-bright with wonder, she
raised those eyes to the Sea and found the Meri’s green-white flame beneath the
waves. It filled the water with glory and washed, like translucent milk, upon
the shore. The girl stepped down to the waterline, letting the Sea lap at her
gleaming toes. She waited calmly now, her eyes sparkled, expectant.

The Meri rose, then, from water that seethed and roiled,
shedding emerald fire on froth and foam, sending it in questing trails to the
shore to kiss the toes of the gleaming Pilgrim. “Beautiful Sister.” Her voice
came from nowhere and everywhere, and filled the cloudless sky and covered the
milky waters. “I have waited long.”

The girl of gold opened her mouth, found her voice, and
though a thousand questions burned in her breast (the Meri knew), said only, “I
have traveled far.”

“I have traveled with you, Sister.” The Meri lay a welcoming
carpet of brilliance before her golden twin. “Come home, Sister. Come home. This
is that for which you have been created. Not to be Osraed, but to be the Mother
of Osraed. Not to carry the torch of Wisdom, but to light it.”

The girl bled a great sense of unworthiness through the
touching streams of gold and green. She was disobedient, inattentive, stubborn—

“You are kindness; you are compassion; you are obedience
tempered with love; you are justice tempered with mercy; you are strength of
purpose; you are faith and reason. You will be the Mother not of the bodies of
Osraed, but of their spirits—the Channel of the Knowledge of the First Being. For
this you have proved worthy.” The Meri extended radiant “arms.” She laughed
again, filling sea and sky and shore with Her voice. “Come into the water,
Sister, and do you get wet.”

The girl laughed too, then, and raised her own arms of Light
and stepped from the shore into the milky Sea. The Meri met her in the surf and
embraced her, drawing her down beneath the waves. She felt the girl’s wonder
that she could breathe here just as she had above in the air—was amused by her
realization that she no longer needed to breathe. For a moment they floated,
wrapped in luminescence—the girl’s gold, the Her own green. Great emerald eyes
locked with eyes like garnets.

Now
, Sister, said
the Meri without sound.
Now, hold the
knowledge of all that has been.

The banners of their individual radiance mingled—green and
gold—and the girl from the shore ceased to be Meredydd-a-Lagan and began to be
Something Else. When at last the brilliance separated—the gold and the
green—the two which had been One floated apart, still touching. Emerald eyes
caressed eyes like garnets.

The Lover and the
Beloved have been made one in Thee.

The Meri smiled a smile that could be felt and heard, if not
seen.
And I had wondered what that verse
meant.

Now you know.

Now We know.

The green radiance withdrew, separating completely from the
gold.

Farewell, Sister
Meredydd
.

Farewell, Taminy
.

Toward shore, she went, the green luminescence fading from
her as she neared the beach, dying as she stepped out onto the sand—merely a
glimmer now, only moonlight on wet skin and pale hair. There was a boy there,
sitting beside a fire. Waiting, with his eyes on the milky gold water. Beside
him sat a little girl with moonlit hair, and beside her was a man—a
copper-bearded Osraed—holding out a robe.

Taminy-a-Cuinn took a deep breath of winy sea air and
laughed. “Ah, Osraed Bevol! I have not breathed for a hundred years!”

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