Ashtoreth lays dying. Around her the mourning gods Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Ophelia and Dorotea channeling Demeter. She clings to Dorotea’s hand, “Blessed child, thank you for taking up arms. I will give you my spirit of courage and valor, but i urge you to return to your body. There is another at this moment wearing your skin, who has died in her own. As much as you want to help, you must fight for what is yours. If she is meant to return to life it will not be within your bones or behind your eyes.” Dorotea nods, too overwhelmed to consider Ashtoreth’s words. Ashtoreth runs her thumb over Dorotea’s forehead, saying “Go home. Gain the knowledge we entrusted to you, keep our memory alive among the Daughters of Men. The Eleusis Mystery School, the Essenes, Cathars, the Goddess Cult of the Druids and Wiccans are now yours to reignite.” Dorotea eyes flash full of light and she is gone in an instant. The invisible spirit of King Sorsos was able to swirl into eternity just as Dorotea faded into the ether.
Artemis wounded and much subdued from her normal fiery self, has Mithras on a chain like a whipped dog. She says, “What can two friends say after endless lifetimes of conversations?” Ashtoreth smiles warmly, “In truth I long welcomed this day. Life with out the treasures of acknowledgement or the stories of past deeds leads to a strange kind of living death of memories. Watching glaciers carve mountains, continents rise and fall. A million years generations of life grow and thrive and sink to the sediment, was a full life for I. Ashtoreth the warrior, the lover, the mother, the creator and the destroyer is eternal and not contingent on a conscious intelligence. I am a force of nature and after a long rest if I chose it, I will make the world anew to suit my entertainment.”
Hermes waits a moment to allow the silence to settle, “I will listen for you in the wind and see you again on the other side of eternity. As I lay in stillness I will think on our time in the fields of youth and the song of trickling water in shaded brooks. Watching the world echo your actions, and quietly acknowledge your warm sun of spring and rains of autumn. For starlight and the brightness of the moon in peril and the water on the horizon of a dying man, I remember the musical poetry of your smile and the starry wisdom in your eyes.” A tear rolls down Ashtoreth’s cheek made of twinkling stars and all the colors of reality in a dark prism.
Persephone lays defeated, in tears, chained for her betrayal. Her first words catch in her throat. She tries to calm her self and says with unsure words, “We Goddesses are but leaves on a common tree, we are the Bee and the Pollen. The wind that carries seeds. We are the teacher of songbirds and the motivation of light and air to heal wounds and guide how an infant sees the world. How can one young as I eulogize the light of the morning or the wind in twilight? These things will always rise again in the daily tragic comedy of life. Like dancing light broken by swaying of trees or the curiosity of beings watching the procession of the heavenly bodies. I will think of you and thank you for these things.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Awakening an aura of cosmic intelligence. Ophelia the noble rabbit does not speak, radiating an outside presence with psychic communication, Demeter speaks through the ether of mind. “Ah how the world must laugh at us now. Even the creators of the universe and planets created as an afterthought seemingly giggle as the old maids of eternity fall by the things we created. How foolish Mithras and Aries will feel when they realize their own day will come with out the promise of welcoming hands to guide them at the end of time. How will the tides and equinox do with out us, oh mother of time? Who had names like Minerva, Innana, Anat, Gaia, Oshun, Ma’at, Sekmet, Xbaquiyalo, Onatah, Ixnextli, Ārohirohi, Nomhoyi, Amaterasu, Yemayá, Citrasena, Bhrkuti-Tara, Prajnaparamita, Sulis, Kotisri, Preah Mae Thoroni, Hine-Tu-Whenua, Whaitiri, Potii-ta-rire. A million manifestations, Oh “Ashtar-Chemosh, Eštan, Ataksak,” of 10,000 fertility cults. Each with its own followers, rituals, traditions and rhymes. Join me in the merriment of spirit beyond the legends and mirth of life. We who invented legends and first spun the globe of time. Beguiling the ego, a cure to bruised feelings and healing to malice and spite. We who walked the rings of Saturn, shined the first chalice or flew on the wings of a butterfly. We who inspired The Rubáiyát, and bore the great God Pan of song and wine. Gave joy and hope its time, flight to the birds and sight to the blind. Walking roads of summer and singing farewells while the world turns to ice. Among the roads to paradise we offered the thunder our voice and always reclaim whats yours and mine. We who invented sunshine first discovered diamonds and decided to allow the tired to die. We too have to laugh at this ending even when childhood wonder and pride of old age comes with a caveat in eternal life…”
They all watch as Ashtoreth turns into sparkles of pollen that wafts off into the distance in the moonlight. A slow rising of wolves howls, joined by owls and mourning rabbits, songbirds, frogs and aimless spirits. Insects and lizards with no vocal chords pound tree limbs, the stars grow bright as a million sunrises streak across the sky with trails on the moon and falling stars replayed once more as the world settles into twilight. Volcanos spew steam and the ocean wails with reverberations of cataclysmic waves that die out just before upturning boats whose sails flutter from wind blowing in reverse for a time. Temples long overgrown and covered are marked by wildflowers that rise from nothing, even the moss and shadows seem to mourn Ashtoreth known as Ishtar, Dido, Astarte and Asherah. A light was lost forever.