Amidst the towering flowers and beside an abandoned wagon, Alisandra scribbled chalk onto the dirt. This art required precision and care, and a dream turned the act of even a simple chalk circle into an ordeal of careful focus. If she lost the whole for a moment, her spell would revert to gravel and dust, and she would have to begin again.
Every night the same fruitless wagon ride taunted her. She was ready to float alternatives.
After all, it was hardly cheating to manipulate her own dream!
“Oh, that is a very nice binding, Ali,” the butterfly noted, floating overhead. “Such a precise inscription, and you managed to fit all thirty-three greater names! Such handwriting for a girl your age.”
“Get in,” the girl growled, dusting her smock. She held this particular foot of dirt in place with steadfast concentration – like holding a single grain of sand in a river.
“Where exactly?” asked the butterfly innocently.
“Center of the circle.”
“Oh? Like this?”
The insect shimmered and shifted, never quite settling on a species, even when it fluttered in place as commanded.
“Yes.” The young angel inhaled, tensed her core, and began to intone an ancient prayer. The ritual circle began to glow, flickering unsteadily.
“Baruch HaShem, dear,” the butterfly corrected. Pausing, it almost smiled. “Ali…you do know the Key is a forgery, yes?”
Ignoring the insect, Alisandra raised her voice into a squeaky shout as she intoned the last holy names. Depending on the author, these were either names of God, names of ancient angels, or the ingredients for alchemizing gold.
The ritual circle flared, casting a cage of light into the sky.
The butterfly flitted a moment inside the prison. Then its wings burst into rainbows, colors swelled to bursting against the cage, and the binding popped like a soap bubble on a cheerful morning.
“For all that is holy!” the angel swore.
“They’re just words, dear.”
“What in all the hells are you?” she demanded.
“A butterfly,” the butterfly replied loftily.
With a flick of its wings, it threw Alisandra from the dream.
The young angel tumbled through the insensate darkness of her own mind. Stray memories beckoned, rambling between one year and the next. She avoided eye contact with the figments, awaiting the next cycle of the wagon ride.
It was usually quite punctual.
A few moments (or perhaps an hour) passed, and no wagon arrived. Sighing to herself, Alisandra considered waking.
Her eyes snagged on a bubble of memory.
Suddenly, Alisandra stood amongst the black sand and gravel of the mountains. Sharp, black peaks broke the western coast of the Isle of Peace. Though they had laid dormant for hundreds of years, the scars of their fury remained.
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The precursors to Ruhum had prayed to those volcanoes for mercy. These days, the sleeping peaks were a farmer’s prosperity. They broke the Harvest wind and caught the Spring one, timing the rains for the Ruhum farms. Their volcanic silt still provided the nutrients to support a bread basket. What had been a scourge became a blessing.
“Alisandra, you must choose,” her father cajoled.
She turned her attention to the blanket before her on the rocks. Tools and tomes lay in neat rows, artifacts of times and places before her own.
“How am I to know?” she heard herself ask.
“You have Bloomed,” he said, pride rich in his voice. “Your heart will guide you.”
“It was just a dream,” she muttered to herself.
It was? Alisandra wondered. But I cannot remember. I must remember!
“Choose, Ali. You must choose and then bear that choice.”
She paced the blanket, inspecting the items. There was a mirror engraved with runes that would reveal the true face of its target; a tiara that whispered of lost history; magic rings in a dozen shades; emblems of the primal elements; books written by ancient, holy men; inks for calligraphy that could rewrite the world.
“You carry all these?” she heard herself ask in awe.
“Yes, my daughter. These and many more.” The Archangel chuckled. “They are easy to collect, given time.”
She paced twice more, still unsure. On the last round, though, a gleam of metal caught her eyes.
A cavalry saber, filigree handguard gleaming under the sun.
Was that there before? she wondered in both memory and recollection.
The blade sang to her, a promise of glory to make her father proud.
She hesitated an instant, but only an instant.
Alisandra in dream reached for the Hand of God. She grasped its hilt, and she lifted.
For a moment, a titanic weight tore at her shoulder. More than mountains, more than stars. A mantle that demanded all an angel could give.
Something caught deep inside her, and she heaved.
The Hand of God rose from the ground.
“There!” she said, breathless. Turning to her father, she smiled. “Heavy, but I can bear it.”
For a fraction of a moment, her father regarded her with horror. His hand flew to his side, as though he checked for the blade at his own hip.
“Father?”
He recovered smoothly. “An interesting choice. A heavy responsibility. Are you sure?”
The Hand of God hummed against her palm. “Yes.”
“Very well.” He hesitated. “Shall I hold it for you?”
“Hold? I have a firm grip,” she assured him. Her shoulder began to ache from the weight as though she held a sack of wet concrete.
“I do not deny your choice,” he said, oddly formal, “but artifacts exert a gravity of their own. I would bid you to train for a decade or two before you attempt to unsheathe that blade.”
On impulse, she flicked the sheath with her thumb. It yielded easily. “Unsheathe? What challenge that?”
She aimed the hilt for the dirt and slipped the blade free.
She released more than she understood, and the blade unleashed its edge.
The ground roared like any cut beast, and the mountainside evaporated in white-hot chaos.
Alisandra fell, buffeted on searing winds, and lost her grip on the Hand of God.
Shimmering Light found and wrapped her tight.
When she finally settled to the crater, safe in her father’s shields, she found him standing over the Hand of God like it was a viper.
He smiled with feigned ease. “This is a powerful blade, my daughter. A weapon, Alisandra, and more besides. We will have to…proceed with care.”
She rose from the bubble shield, standing in a fine sand where once a mountain peak slept.
A blade that thirsts to be used, whispered a butterfly from the recesses of her mind.
This was the day he announced his retirement, she remembered.
A dark, cynical corner of her wondered if the events were connected. If her father sought a way to keep her occupied as Lady Mishkan…
The memory faltered, leaving Alisandra to wonder in darkness. Still no wagon, and the shadows shuddered in time with her breathing as though she walked her own lungs.
Her memories grew darker – insults, sharp words, public mistakes – and her belly began to ache. She turned away from dour rumination, and the pressure against her stomach redoubled. An undertow rose, caught her knees, and bore her relentlessly down into a suffocating depth…
Darkness, pressure, and unbearable heat…
A drumbeat thundered through her ears, heartbeat not her own.
She fought to move, but she found no room.
She fought to breath, but tasted only blood.
She fought to scream, but her lungs could not open.
Distantly, a man shouted.
I will not accept this. There must be another way!
But she could not call, could not move, could not breathe…
As the crushing pressure continued on…and on…and on…