The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (8 page)

She held her hands wide, palms up, and intoned one long note that seemed to float on the air, drifting lazily around the fire. More elves picked up this note and hummed along with the ancient elf whose hands were splayed open in welcome, as if collecting the vibrations of all within her embrace.

The five of them felt inspired and slowly, reluctantly at first, began to hum their own tunes that fit in rhythm with the others until their humming reached such a crescendo that it shivered the air around them, rippling along their flesh.

The humming faded out until the older elf on the other side of the fire was the only one still humming. As her humming ceased, she closed her eyes, and from within the sleeves of her white robe she produced two separate pouches. One she opened and sprinkled over the flames, which answered with a spark or two, and glowed softly as the she began her tale in soft, nurturing tones.

“This story begins eons ago when the Stars were old above, and the earth was young beneath. The decision started as a tremor, which became a ripple. The ripple created a rift, and from the rift came the Mikak’e, or as you humans call them the People from Beyond the Stars.”

She switched hands then and emptied out the contents of the next pouch into the fire. Again they were rewarded with a few sparks, and a more intensely glowing flame. The air was ripe with smoke by now, soft blue smoke that differed in color and density from normal smoke—blue like water on a clear summer day. Jovian felt his mind shifting, drifting on that lazy trail of smoke. And though the herbs she burned were not the most pleasant smelling, he felt as though he could completely and utterly get lost within the promises their smoke made to him, the soft headiness he got from the scent, the dizzy sense of power that was offered him, the muted clarity of the physical world.

Again she spoke:

“Air gave breath, and fire gave life. Blood from the water and dust from the earth mixed together and gave form. From the stars the Mikak’e brought the stone. They brushed First Elf’s head with the stone and gave him spirit. Upon the stone table he took first breath. And so the decision was made form.”

By now Jovian was having a hard time focusing on the elf telling the tale, and instead was seeing the story take form in the flames before him as if the fire was a curtain that separated him from the past.

Jovian watched as First Elf walked through the woods—back then they were shades of green and brown, not the white and silver-blue that he had come to know from Whitewood Haven. He watched as First Elf studied nature, and as he watched Jovian was able to see threads of light emanating from each creature, each tree, each leaf, and connected one to another. He saw this light permeate everything, and as he watched he was able to see this light grow brighter until it not only connected nature, but First Elf to that nature. Most shocking for First Elf and Jovian was the knowledge that this light not only included all things on Saracin, but also all things within the sky above, within the Ever After.

“But through all of this First Elf was alone, and he began to feel the burden of loneliness. So First Elf supplicated himself before the Mikak’e and he cried out. ‘I, too, wish to create such beauty as you have, but my body is ill-equipped for such endeavors.’ The Mikak’e saw the truth of his words, and they gave to him a female to love and cherish for all his days, but never to control; a true partner in all things, including the holy act of creation. And that is what they did; together First and Second Elf created such beautiful children.”

“Unknown to them their first born daughter was flawed, and through this flaw Chaos crept into the fabric of her wyrd. She birthed many from the temptation of others, and she took with her the children she birthed as well as those she bedded away into the night, never to return, and so the Shadow Elves were created.”

“‘But why?’ First Elf cried out to the Mikak’e. ‘Why would you let her fall to Chaos?’ ‘We did not let her do anything; she made this choice,’ the Mikak’e replied, and it was now that First Elf realized our creators so loved us that they would allow us do whatever we willed, and even provide the way and the means to do so, even if it meant us turning our backs on the Mikak’e.”

This time when Jovian saw First Elf kneel before the white table that saw both he and the elves brought into the world, it was not in peace, but instead it was in remorse and anger. When the Mikak’e came this time they were as radiant nimbuses of light, white, and brilliant as the world’s first snow alight with the glow of the full moon. There were six of them, and as if to show that they were of a higher station than those that dwelled beneath the heavens, they floated above the white stone table that the elves rightly had come to treat as holy, divine.

“This made First Elf think, and he talked with Second Elf much about this concept. If the Mikak’e, in all their wisdom, condoned such choices, then all choices must have been predetermined by the decision before anything was ever created, and being so there were no wrong and no right choices. There was only that—the ability to make a choice, and the choice to be right by all accounts.”

Now it was that Jovian’s attention was drawn away from the fire as the images began to disappear. His focus was drawn instead to another group of elves who were placing a length of pliant vine into a wooden bowl, pouring steaming water over it. The vine was steeped and then passed along the line of those gathered about the fire (which included almost all the elves) slowly making its way to him.

The old elf across the fire began to speak again.

“And the decision moved through them all, even though the universe. Through the decision they made their choices, and the choices they made were in accordance to the decision. The will of all, for how could a choice be made if it was never meant to be?

“For now we see the decision was that which created the Mikak’e, and also that which the Mikak’e gave form. The creator recreated in the creation. The Mikak’e cannot live without the minds of the elves to pay them homage, yet elves would not exist if the Mikak’e had not made the decision flesh. So it is that the decision lives on in us all, the Mikak’e and the elves, for without the decision, none of us would have form.”

As the wooden bowl came his way, Jovian felt a bit nervous. He wasn’t sure what was in it.

“Dolcium,” an elf beside him smiled, as if that explained everything.

Upon taking his first drink of dolcium, Jovian felt his head swim. Whatever it was, it worked fast. Leaning back, he looked to the heavens as his vision blurred and the ground seemed to drop away. Frantically he gripped the log on which he sat in order to keep his balance, and watched helplessly as the stars blurred and drew nearer.

As if there was an overabundance of moisture in his eyes, the stars seemed to streak light across the heavens in little trails of fire. The little trails of light created a kind of web across the heavens, and then the stars floated closer to Jovian until he stood among them.

Jovian had the feeling that within the stars was a consciousness he had never before contemplated. There was, truly told, a consciousness to everything he touched, and everything he didn’t. Now with the wyrd of the dolcium coursing through him, Jovian could feel the wyrd of everything that surrounding him and it only took a brief thought of those things
not
around him for him to feel their consciousness as well.

He thought of home—the Neferis Plantation and the fields surrounding them. Though there was no wheat here in Whitewood Haven, he could, nonetheless, feel the consciousness of the wheat back home swaying in the breeze. Jovian thought of Dellenbore, and instantly he felt the collective consciousness of all the dwarves below the ground swell up to greet him like a welling heat from below.

Everything he thought about seemed to lend unto him its consciousness, its story, its wyrd.

The consciousness from the stars was different though, almost human yet completely and utterly foreign to him. He figured this might be what the consciousness of a god felt like, but then at once knew it wasn’t what a god or goddess felt like at all.

That is when they began to appear. Jovian knew at once the figures he saw gathering just at the edge of his vision must have been the Mikak’e, for they were like nothing he had ever seen before. In an effort to get a better look at their large human-like figures, he turned his head.

But some force didn’t want him seeing them directly. As he turned his head, his concentration broke and he started becoming more aware of Whitewood Haven. All he could see was that each robed figure was indeed in the likeness of humans, with the exception that they were extremely tall and appeared to be stretched, their bodies and features much longer than they should have been. He was loathe to call them gangly, however.

Jovian quickly looked back up at the streaking starlight before he became too aware of Whitewood Haven and finally began to relax, even with the figures of the Mikak’e surrounding him.

“Don’t look, only see,” the Mikak’e spoke in unison, their voices droll, unremarkable. At first Jovian puzzled over their words, but he was not given time to dwell on them, for he was then joined by another consciousness.

“Jovian?” Angelica’s voice spoke to him, and he peered around to find her but could not.

“Where are you, Angie?” Jovian asked, and as he said these words he felt something within him separate, and another figure formed out of the substance that was before only him. Angelica’s form wavered for a moment as she came from his etheric body, and she turned to look, only to have the same warning repeated to her as her image began to fade. Jovian knew that this wavering of her etheric image meant that she was being drawn back.

“Don’t look, only see,” they repeated as Angelica came back into vivid focus.

And so they saw. In the blink of an eye the white light of the stars turned yellow. The glow darkened and became rougher, more abstract. The soft glow was no longer that, and before they knew it the serene starlight had vanished only to be replaced by a fire as intense in heat and vision as that of a forge.

From within the flames images appeared … visions.

There were three images in the fire, though they did not appear together. Instead the figures were as elusive as the Mikak’e. Three figures, seemingly shadows in the licking flames: one small, two large. Indeed the two larger ones appeared to be human—women.

Between the two women the fire parted. From within it emerged a large metal disk attached to a silver chain which floated on the heat of the fire. Before long the medallion was rotating and they could see with startling lucidity each and every line and crack in it. The way the edges were studded with metal spokes, like a small wheel; the way the center was set with an oval lapis stone, and even the intricate carvings along the edges. Three circles adorned the medallion, one encircling the Lapis, the other two framing the carvings in a larger circle at the rim of the disk. Light lavender lines of power slithered like lightning across this empty space in the center.

As the crackling wyrd crossed the surface, they felt a stabbing pain in their palms. The pain was barely noticeable at first, starting out as a dull throb, but then, slowly, it increased in intensity as the hissing wyrd increased.

In unison Jovian and Angelica both cried out as the pain lanced up their arms causing the most discomfort in their wrists where the bones felt pinched together. The sensation of needles pricked their palms, tendons tore in their wrists, and sharp, irregular bursts of throbbing pain shot up their arms.

As soon as the pain had come it vanished, taking with it the image of the medallion in the flames.

When the medallion had completely vanished, the other two forms began to take shape. After having just been shown their family medallion, they weren’t surprised to see the two female forms were their sisters.

Joya was dressed in a grand, lacey black gown like she would have worn back at the plantation. The fire did not seem to touch the flared skirts, nor the gathered fabric of the bustle. A large fan was clasped in one gloved hand, and the other hand gripped tightly to Amber’s white gloved one.

Amber was the exact opposite of Joya, dressed in the same type of gown barely held up by lace straps clinging to her milky shoulders. Her yellow eyes showed none of the malaise they had in the Foothills of Nependier, and her hair was clean, a beautiful, intricate pile of honey locks on her head held in place by diamond pins. The two sisters truly were complete opposites of one another, even down to their hairstyles. In Amber’s opposite hand she clutched a white fan identical to Joya’s black.

The two sisters smiled, but the movement of their mouths did not stop there. Angelica and Jovian felt an intense love for them that went far beyond that of siblings,
daughters,
they heard from somewhere deep inside their minds. They didn’t have time to examine the source of the voice because a horrific change was happening in the flames.

The first screams of pain issued from Amber and Joya’s mouths; Angelica and Jovian reached for each other’s hands, tears peeking out from their eyes as they watched, helplessly. The flames caught on the lacey fabric and melted it.

The flames did not stop with the hem, and instead raced with mind-boggling speed up the length of the skirts until even the girls’ hair caught fire.

With outstretched arms Joya and Amber reached for Angelica and Jovian, but the distance separated them. Instinctively Jovian and Angelica extended their hands as well, to pull them from the fire that blackened their skin, but the space between them that moments ago was so small suddenly became just far enough away that the tips of their fingers could not touch the tips of the shriveling gloves clinging in melting strands to their sister’s blistering hands.