The World Above the Sky (30 page)

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk glanced at Henry. “He loathed and envied the happiness of The People. He—this selfish man—thought, ‘If I possess the warrior's spirit—his spirit lodged in the stones inside his severed head—I too will become worthy of the love The People withhold from me.' He tried all kinds of ways to open the head, this selfish man. Determined to find and steal its spirit. He exposed it to sun and wind, hoping it would shrink and crack. He bludgeoned it with his stone axe. He dropped it from
Kluscap's
Cliffs to the rocks on the beach below. But still it remained closed to him. He tired of the head. Determined to throw it into the sea.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk tucked Baphomet under his arm, walked toward the chapel doors.

“As he walked away,” Keswalqw continued, “back to his old ways—selfish, cruel, unhappy, and alone—the battered but still noble head rolled its eyes and spoke. It called out to him. ‘I am dead,' he said. ‘Yet loved by The People.'”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk turned, his voice the thin high whine of the selfish man. “‘You are dead but still you walk among men, walk without a body. You speak to men, though your head is full of stones. They honour you in memory. They despise me in life. How can this be.'”

A wash of sunlight flooded through the open doors behind Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. He held Baphomet before his face. He spoke his noble warrior voice. “‘You are a coward. Vain. Unworthy. Weak,' the noble head filled with speaking stones said to the selfish man. “‘You think only of yourself. You take what is not your own. You are not a warrior. Not a provider. Not L'nuk. Not one of The People. You will not be loved until you learn to give.'”

Henry stirred.

“My Lady!” Athol drew Eugainia's attention from Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk to Henry. Henry moaned, the balm of healing sleep dissolving. Eugainia was torn between her desire to serve and her desire to love.

‘You think the gifts of the Great Spirit are gifts to you alone.'” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk continued.

Henry uttered a sharp cry of pain. Keswalqw placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

“Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, please,” Eugainia pleaded. “If you know how to open—”

“In his rage the selfish man gripped the head.” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk held Baphomet against his chest, hooked his index fingers in the statue's blue eyes. He pressed the lapis stones.

“He ripped it open. Ripped it open with the strength of his own hands.”

The lapis eyes sunk back into the heat beneath his steady pressure. The Head of Baphomet cracked with a sharp click along a vertical seam and swung open.

Eugainia rushed forward. “God be praised!”

“But inside were no stones,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk continued. “No stones that spoke. Just an old grey sack.” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk extracted the misshapen bundle from the split head. He set it on the altar, and began to unknot the leather cord.

“No!” Eugainia warned. “If you touch her you will die.”

“What?”

“A fiery arrow will be loosed by God, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. It will pierce your heart. I tell you. If you touch her, you will die. You are not of the Royal and Holy Blood.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk unknotted the frail cord. “If I touch it, I will die. If you touch it, you will leave me. I would rather die then lose you and my child. This is how the tale ends. The warrior's head was opened. There were no speaking stones. Instead, a host of tiny birds flew forth, as many birds as there are stars in the sky. They seized the unworthy man, carried him begging for mercy beyond the farthest edge of the sea. He was never seen again.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk opened the bundle. Motes of dust rose and hung inert in the air. Nothing remained of the Holy Grail but rubble.

“Look, Woman with the Moon. My blood's royal and holy, and yours is ancient and honourable. No fiery arrow. No flock of tiny birds. Nothing but the wind and sun of a beautiful spring day.”

Eugainia returned to the bier. She stroked Henry's forehead.

“Perhaps a flock of birds, as many as the stars, will come and take your men away from the world of L'nuk,” said Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. “A great sleep will overcome them. They will forget the Six Worlds, and never return again. All except you, Woman Who Fell in Love with the Moon; my beloved wife and mother of my child.”

Henry gasped. His eyes opened, round with pain and terror. He struggled to speak. Athol bent close to listen.

“He says the Grail must be infused.”

“Tell him it's too late,” Eugainia answered. “There is no Holy Grail.” Sunlight flooded through the high arched window. “Tell my Lord Henry Goodbye.” Light around Eugainia lost coherence in its struggle to define her. There was nothing to reflect. Her mortal frame became insubstantial. Eugainia vanished.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk grasped Wolverine. He drew the spear point through the sweetgrass smoke and floating motes of dust. The veil between the Earth World and the Ghost World parted. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk reached into the rift and caught Eugainia's arm. He strained, determined to pull Eugainia back, all his force centred in his legs and thighs. He could not budge her. Hers was the greater power, the power of a mother drawn to her lost child. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk took the fateful step. The young God's head and torso, then his legs, dissolved. Willingly, he entered the Ghost World, not certain either he or Eugainia would ever return.

Sir Athol stood amazed. First Eugainia, and then Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, vanished before his waking eyes. A deep, agonized moan escaped the pale and dying Henry. Athol and Keswalqw moved to his side.

In the luminous world of the dead, Eugainia lay on the ground, her head thrown back and turned to the right. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk helped her to her feet.

“Morgase,” she whispered.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk followed her line of vision.

On the red beach of Apekwit, in perpetual high summer, Morgase chased a toddler, a year-old boy struggling to remain vertical, wobbling forward as fast as he could, his fat, distorted little legs pumping, his face radiant, his twisted little mouth, its upper lip cruelly cleft, squealing with delight. Morgase caught the child, raised him above her head and swung him in great circles. She carried him to the water and bathed him. The child emerged from the water, not crippled, not deformed but whole, spurting water through perfect lips, his strong legs straight and striding. He scampered beyond Morgase who, herself reborn, Eugainia recognized as the young woman who had tended her in her own infancy.

Eugainia reached to touch the child running past. She recoiled when her hand passed through him. Anger clutched at her swollen heart. She looked to Morgase for comfort but found none: the young girl Morgase had become ran off laughing in pursuit of Eugainia's remade stillborn child.

“We can be with them if we let go our mortal selves.” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk lay his hand on Eugainia's belly. “If we do, we can't return to the Earth World again. Come. I've something to show you.”

At the edge of the beach on a deerhide robe sat a young woman of The People. A girl-child, in age six moons or younger, sat propped before the young mother.

“This is Muini'skw,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk told Eugainia. “This is my wife. The little girl is our daughter.”

Muini'skw wrapped coloured string around a short stick. At its head, a dry gourd filled with pebbles ratted. Threaded through a notch at the top, spruce root filaments held flat nuggets of crimped copper. They flashed and clattered against the rattle's skin. The little girl gurgled and chirped, slapping pudgy hands together, her black eyes bright, her brown cheeks round with fat.

“She's beautiful. What's her name?”

“She has none. She died before she could tell us.”

“And Muini'skw died with her, in childbirth. I remember. But now...my boy was a poor lifeless thing. Morgase dead. Yet they heal and grow.”

“Time has no meaning in the Ghost World. Look again. ”

Down the beach, a strong misshapen young man helped Morgase, an old woman now, negotiate the ragged stretch of rock where, ten moons of Earth World time before, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk had sent flat stones skipping far beyond sight in the trail of moonlight on the calm breast of the sea.

When Eugainia turned back to the deerhide rug, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's daughter, the unnamed girl-child, was a newborn infant, cradled in Muini'skw's arms, nursing at her mother's breast.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk took Eugainia's arm. “Come, Moon Woman.”

“But Morgase...my baby...”

“Will be here when you next wish to see them. I think I'll not return, though. The dead are best left in peace.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia walked along the beach. Night descended quickly, as in a dream. A full moon rose. A figure traced in silhouette against a trail of moonlight emerged from the rippling sea. Water bright with phosphorescent plankton ran in rivulets down Henry's back and shoulders. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk stood quietly behind Eugainia with his hands on her shoulders. Flocks of night birds wheeled before the moon.

Henry stood lost, afraid, uncertain.

“No, Henry,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk said. “Not yet.”

Henry turned and walked back into the sea.

Water welled in Eugainia's sky-coloured eyes.

At the head of Henry's bier, water ran like tears on the still face of the air. Eugainia stepped back from the Ghost World, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk behind her. They stood whole, complete, radiant, benevolent, at peace. The walls of the Grail Chapel, stone piled upon stone, became blocks of crystal lightly set one upon the other. The vaulted roof of oak became the thinnest of glass, bright with light as a linnet's wings. The rose windows shone with rainbow hues, their lead work light and airy. The greening world folded in upon the chapel, washed the sacred couple with pristine vernal light.

Sir Athol fell to his knees. Keswalqw wafted sweetgrass around the Two Made One.

“
Akai
,” she chanted softly. “
Akai
!”

Henry's torso flexed violently upright. He fell back, hard. A long low rattle signalled the end.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk incised his wrist on the tip of Wolverine. Eugainia held the birchbark box to the flow of Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's blood. “Enough,” he said. The blood flow stopped. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk touched his wrist to Wolverine again. The wound healed instantly, leaving neither blood nor evidence of torn tissue on his arm. The coiled tail of the serpent tattoo, the serpent tattoo circling his arm, rising up to his shoulder, showed a new ring of scales. Eugainia incised her wrist in the same manner. “Enough,” she said. The bleeding stopped. The wound closed over. No scar remained.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk elevated the birchbark grail. “This is the blood of transgression forgiven. This blood is the love of the Two Made One.” He offered the box to Eugainia.

“This is my blood, the Royal and Holy Blood of my ancestors which I freely mix with the Ancient and Honourable Blood of The People.” Eugainia elevated the birchbark vessel. “This is the love of the Two Made One.”

Keswalqw spoke softly. “Of all the Powers of all the Worlds none is as worthy as love.” She wafted sweetgrass smoke over the surface of the vessel. “This is the blood of hope and forgiveness. This is the blood of all reconciled.”

Athol and Keswalqw pricked the tips of their fingers. Blood dropped from each, rippling the surface.

“This is the blood of Keswalqw, great mother of the clan, and Athol Gunn, warrior protector.” Eugainia dipped her finger in the sanctified fluid. “Their blood and the blood of the Two Made One will heal and feed and protect the people.”

Keswalqw placed a drop of blood on Henry's lips. “Drink Henry. I have seen it. The Holy Child will be born. The Two Made One will need their Lord Protector.”

Athol stood at his cousin's head. He withdrew a small leatherbound book. He thumbed through gently, his rough hands liable, he knew, to tear its delicate onion-skin pages. He stared at the words, which swam distorted before his eyes. Athol cleared his throat. He shifted his stance first to one foot and then the other. “This is Templar lore with which, in Henry's stead... ” He wiped his eyes. “This was always Henry's job.” Athol lost his voice. Keswalqw slipped her arm through his. “With which…” Athol continued, “with which in Henry's stead I do command him.”