Cullan walks to the center of what remains of the pool of light, the space sliding into deeper gloom. The atrium hushes when the commander raises a hand for silence. “This war is over,” he shouts. “As your commander, I swear to you that we will not spend our lifetimes burying the bones of our dead. We will not rebuild for a generation to see the rewards of our labor destroyed in a day’s passing. This is the last time we will needlessly burn the bodies of children. Any children: ours, those of the People, those who are Touched. We are Forerunners once again, called to bear out the duty our name demands and bring to life a different world.”
A few murmuring voices swell into a low, rumbling thunder, whether in defiance or agreement, I can’t tell.
“Attention!” Gannon bellows, restoring order.
Cullan faces the men and women lining the balcony rails. “You will remain silent and observe until you are dismissed.” He beckons Priest forward and yields the darkening atrium’s floor.
Priest shares a hopeful smile with my sister. Then, drawing on his faltering strength, he walks to the center of the massive space. Painfully, for all to see, he raises both arms to his sides, the strong and complete, and the withered, handless stump that conceals its vast power in weakness. The Forerunners on the balconies hiss and shout down foul threats.
His face crimson, Cullan steps forward. Priest stops him with a shake of his head. “Let it be.”
While the commander scowls, Priest’s wounded arm drops. In a slow arc, his stunted arm rises, and with each inch of height, the light in the atrium brightens. Shadows fade as golden sunlight flows like water to eddy in corners and stream down the corridors.
The giant atrium hushes. Cullan, Gannon, and the soldiers gape as a small smile creeps into the gray-headed Biter’s face. I want to laugh at the spectacle.
Yet, I hear music, a chiming of distant bells, faint as if they ring beyond the borders of the world. Other sounds slide in, a soft strumming of strings, the full play of horns, the call of pipes, and echo of drums. One at a time, they raise their voices, ordinary sounds of the world transformed, blended into strange harmonies I’ve never heard and can’t possible know. The music blooms, sublime, melodic, but textured, a tapestry of threads intertwining, colors flowing forward and receding, weaving a pure cloth of visible sound for all to see. Music fills the space, stilling all murmuring voices to silence, resounding in my chest as it grows.
Through my tears, the music evokes visions of clear streams bubbling from the earth to water the whole surface of the waste. Man rising from the dust and breathing the breath of new life. Forests with all variety of trees growing tall from the ground, fields pleasing to the eye and abundant with food. And in all this verdant garden that blooms with blessing in a broken world, there is the promise of life demanding a choice between good and evil.
The music travels its last crescendo, notes sliding serenely into reverent silence. The light swells, gathering to Priest, his body illuminated and radiating from the well of the cavernous space.
“We are all of us broken,” he says, his voice carrying through the atrium though he speaks softly. “Some of us bear broken bodies, others broken minds. Some have broken from the bond of common humanity, other have broken to the core of their souls. We are all born to a world that seems infused with inescapable anguish, teetering on the knife-edge of terrible decisions, our very survival in the balance.”
As he speaks, Priest turns, weary face raised to the balconies. “We struggle in a world torn asunder by our forebears’ deceptions, their false faith, a conviction that they could destroy the world and yet stand outside the destruction. That they could poison the land and yet take nourishment of the plants, that they could kill without consequence and not find themselves victims. They believed they could prosper in isolation while the rest of humanity suffered for their sins. I ask you, have we done any better than they?”
His eyes rest briefly on the People kneeling on the tiles. “Look what you’ve done today. How many hundreds dead?” He speaks to those on the balconies, no one free of censure, “And what have you done? How many infants poisoned for lack of a finger? How many innocents slain among the People? How many generations to make up for one day’s work? We cannot create a new future through mutual annihilation. Nor will we ensure our survival by simply battering each other until we’re too weak and fearful to fight.”
His wounded arm lifts painfully as he points to his eyes and his fingers fly open. “We must each of us
see
! We must open our eyes and cast off this righteous blindness. Or we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. We must chose life with every gesture, every word, and effort. We must work and sacrifice for it, believe that together we sound a sweeter melody than the clamor of war. We must—”
“Unbreak the world,” I interrupt. Priest turns to appraise me, a wondering expression in the cant of his head. My sister squeezes my hand and I smile at her. “Peace, Angel.”
“We must unbreak the world,” Priest calls to the crowd, my words for healing, for peace with one another. His voice continues to bare his vision for a hopeful future, but I no longer hear him, gazing instead at my beautiful sister, into my mirror, my battle over.
Every inch of my body cries with pain; my bones ache, aged beyond my mortal years. I’m soul weary, tired of fighting, sick of death. Priest will deliver on his promise of peace. Angel will unbreak the world. I’ll face Cullan’s justice, and accept my fate, come what may.
Priest’s voice rises through the tiers. “Only when the spirit of our shared humanity awakens will we save ourselves and build a future without fear. Here then, is the challenge I present you, harsh and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we finish the work of our ancestors and put an end to the human race; or shall we tear down our walls and heal our world?”
His speech to the Forerunners over, Priest sags to a low wall, exhausted. He faces us, a statue carved of obsidian, his slanted eyes glistening like pools of spilled ink.
“Dismissed!” Cullan shouts to the crowded balconies. He joins Gannon, and the two men step aside, their heads bowed in discussion while above us the atrium roars.
“You don’t need me anymore,” Angel says softly as she turns to me, her fingers brushing tears from my bruised cheeks. She radiates tranquility, the light within her brighter than Priest’s Touch, her eyes clear as diamonds. “I…I think Priest is right, Rimma. I’m not here. Or I am, but only for you, as part of you.”
Her unexpected words startle me. “Angel, no. You’re real, as real as I.”
“I’m your mirror,” she says, her voice serene. “I always have been, Rimma, a vision of who you might be, the seed of possibility you’ve always carried in your heart. I’m a woman of magic after all.”
“How can you say that?” I argue. “Now. After all this time, after all I’ve done. I won’t hear it.” I pull her hand down, gripping it to compel her to listen, but she only smiles.
In our own little world, amidst the ceaseless noise, she attempts to soothe me. “All this time, Rimma, I’ve held your hope and innocence, protected them just as you made me swear. I’ve kept them safe for you until you’re ready. Now they belong to you, as papa wished.”
“No, Angel, that’s not what he meant,” I cry, my eyes pleading to Priest for help. Near him, the kneeling woman, the lightbender, watches us. “You’re my sister, my twin, I need you. I’m the devil; you’re the angel, remember? You’ve always been the one that mattered. You’re the one he wanted to save. I’m nothing without you. Tell her, Priest.”
He says nothing, his dark eyes on my sister. She strokes my hair as my mother did long ago, her voice gentle, “I have no history, Rimma, before the tree in Heaven. I’ve no memories of my own. I only remember you.”
“But you’re real,” I insist, gasping for breath, a sob shaking me. “You’re here now. You love and are loved by others. I can touch you and see you. We all can.”
My words halt as I look around me. Everyone gazes at Angel, not just Priest and the lightbender, but Cullan and Gannon and the two kneeling men. They watch my sweet sister and her one-sided conversation with a phantom—me.
I
don’t exist. I haven’t since I crashed to the street and smacked my cheek, not since I surrendered, willing to kneel, to pray.
My head tips back and I laugh, all the frantic tension draining through me. All the anguish and pain, the killing and betrayals, dismal choices and grief for lost loves. The rage, despair, and fear. It all sweeps through me and leaves me here, now, light and free in a world with a chance at healing. I perceive my place in this twisted grand plan, this path of horror and suffering, but one that in the end brought this moment to light, brought my sister to light.
It all makes sense to me; all comes together in the end. Beneath the stark randomness of chaos, I behold an exquisite pattern and a promise of immeasurable possibility. In this bright moment, I perceive the grace of God. Not a god who cuts a willful swath through the world, but the one who grows a garden…a world I may burn or reap. As I gaze at my sister, I am unbound by desire, unchained by fear, and in their release, I am free to choose my path. I am finally and simply…love.
“Rimma?” Angel gazes at me, her eyes plagued with uncertainly at my tears and laughter, my sighs of joy and peace disconcerting.
“I’ve always loved you, more than life itself,” I tell her and kiss her forehead. Then I smile at Priest, envisioning a future transformed. I touch the hilt of my knife as I swing my eyes to the light-bender kneeling beside him. The woman nods, and around me the light ripples and bends. I toss my knife, the hilt in her hand only a heartbeat before she flings it back, pounding into my chest. Angel screams, the hilt clatters to the stones, and I’m gone.
Epilog
~Angel~
Six years have passed since my sister gave her life for me. My daughter, Bria, named for my mother, climbs in an apple tree, harvesting fruit the hard way when the ladder is far easier. She’s Rimma’s mirror in that respect, always challenging, choosing to learn her own lessons. The five-year-old resembles her father and me in every other respect, loving and kind, spectacularly enhanced though I find no flaws in her sunny brown skin. She has all her fingers and toes and a halo of brown ringlets impossible to tame. Her eyes tilt up at the corners like his but are sheets of steel gray like mine, like my sister’s.
Lately, when I’m alone in the Colony’s gardens, Rimma joins me to sit between the rows, cross-legged in her old ragwear trousers. She offers no assistance with my chores, but chatters about happier days in Heaven and speculates on the events of the past six years, the fragile peace veiling our small wedge of the world as we heal old wounds. She’s innocently hopeful, radiating tranquility.
I’ve come to the strange conclusion that I’ve always existed, perhaps stuffed in Rimma’s apron pocket when she was a child, until she needed me there in Heaven’s tree. Now, I carry her with me, still unconvinced that one of us is more or less real than the other. I realize now that we all bend light, Touch or no. We render each other and ourselves invisible to ease our choices and responsibilities. We use our selective vision and righteous blindness to overlook our ills. Why fret over something we don’t see?
On occasion, when Priest and I tuck Bria in for the night, she asks me about God, a name surfacing occasionally after Shy marvels us with her histories. Skeptical would describe my attitude precisely, though I’m attempting to be open-minded about the possibility. I give Him little thought, not particularly enamored with a God who would use my sister so cruelly, no matter His ends. I caution Bria and she grins, having heard it all a hundred times before. It’s too easy to bend light with God, I tell her, to give over our power and choices, to walk our well-lit road, versus following the harder path, the one we don’t want to see, the one we might choose if we didn’t shroud it in darkness.
She giggles at my worries, innocently claps her hands, and lights the world that we all may see.
About the Author
D. Wallace Peach lives in the coastal mountain range of Oregon amid the moss and rain and giant forests. She shares a log cabin with her husband, two dogs and Pinky the cat. For excerpts and updates on her work, visit her at
www.mythsofthemirror.com
Books by D. Wallace Peach:
Myths of the Mirror
The Melding of Aeris
Sunwielder
(2015 Release)
Myths of the Mirror sequels:
Eye of Fire, Dragon Soul: Book One
Eye of Blind, Dragon Soul: Book Two
Eye of Sun, Dragon Soul: Book Three
The Sorcerer’s Garden