Spring 46 (Minutes after midnight)
A shot rang through the night.
Valkyrie tumbled onto her side, numb.
Then burning pricks of pain erupted across her exposed arms – cold specks of rime burning like coals.
Rime covered the pavement; the tenement walls; the clinic windows now cracking under its touch.
And in the center of her vision, one fist clutched just before Valkyrie’s former position, was Alisandra.
Her halo wild as the blackest sea, twisting like waves in a slow orbit around her lashing, seafoam hair.
The Tempest released her grip, and a crushed bullet dropped to the pavement.
“A…Ali…” Valkyrie stuttered.
“One moment please,” Alisandra replied.
Then the Tempest vanished in a crack of thunder.
Belle pushed upright from the other side of the pavement, wincing at her battered side, and immediately asked, “Valkyrie! Sweetie, are you okay?!”
The high ringing of Tempest thunder itched in the girl’s bones, and she struggled to form whole words.
Was…was she so loud before?
Her fury too near the surface, Rie worried.
Belle crouched beside her, feeling for wounds.
Valkyrie yelped as she found several!
The Tempest burst skyward, releasing a thunderous boom that rattled the entire borough.
Conveniently watching the sky, Valkyrie witnessed that step yank the sky in her wake – the lazy clouds of a Spring morning dragged southeast like the back-up dancers to her overwhelming song.
Then, mere moments later, another boom sounded; the clouds met an opposing wake and broke apart; and the sky cleared.
Alisandra landed beside Valkyrie, knelt, and scooped the girl into her arms. Aloud, without looking, she asked, “Sebastian?”
“Merely exhausted, Archangel,” the angel of Witness answered.
The angel turned to regard the butler.
You did not seem in a hurry to aid them against that sniper in the dark, Witness
Cradled, Valkyrie heard clearly.
I trusted in your aegis, Archangel
Answered the Witness easily.
“We shall speak later,” Alisandra stated.
“I will attend your call,” promised Sebastian.
Alisandra glanced down at the girl in her arms and smiled. In that smile, the towering Tempest broke like the clouds overhead, and Ali shone through. “Then let us find our exhausted guest a bed.”
The angel leaped.
They soared into the frigid heights, and Valkyrie caught a puff of surprised breath.
“So this is what it feels like…” she breathed into Alisandra’s arms.
“Mind yourself,” the angel warned. She stepped, and Valkyrie’s heartbeat skipped.
Did she slow, or did the world quicken?
Did they step to the horizon across the night sky full of stars?
Or did the world unfurl itself before them so that they never moved an inch?
Truths just beyond her fingertips, the needle and the fabric joining in tandem to bind here and there for an eternal instant.
They burst into the sky above the Mishkan manor, the sea just south gleaming with moonlight.
Clinging as they fell, Valkyrie asked, “What did you do with Margaret?”
“Delivered her to Waves for judgement.”
Though she will not appreciate the restraint
Such foulness to hide behind the badge and orders
Wearing the cloak of civility over your evils
Such cowardice that it cannot even claim its deeds
Stand and fight!
Was any less demanded of me?
“You saved my life,” the girl admitted, blushing hot.
Alisandra landed on the steps before her manor. Assessing the girl, she opted to carry Valkyrie across the threshold. “Such have I sworn.”
Valkyrie giggled. “Noblette oblige.”
“Noblesse,” corrected the Tempest, bumping the door closed with her hip. The movement echoed through the manor, and her stride disturbed a thin cloud of dust from the fine marble floors.
The girl blanched, hand to her mouth. “Is this place abandoned?”
“More or less,” the angel agreed. “Ah, but once…”
Rather than complete the thought, she mounted the stairs.
Winding through a manor like a tomb, they eventually entered Alisandra’s personal quarters. Here the lights were on and the carpets clean.
“You don’t sleep in the master suite?” Valkyrie teased, daring fresh disaster.
“Behave, or I will house you in the kennel.”
Exhausted beyond what little good sense she displayed on a good day, Valkyrie raised a finger to her head and let a flicker of faerie fire form dog ears perking from her hair. “Woof?”
Alisandra stopped beside her old bed, staring down at the girl – fully attentive now.
Then you have fully awoken
“More or less,” slurred the girl, wobbling. Her dog ears wavered and vanished.
The Tempest considered her, gaze swirling with the clouds of her inner council.
Swirling like mists leading Valkyrie ever deeper.
Everything in here smelled like Alisandra.
“I’m awake,” Valkyrie insisted, “and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“Interesting. Yet a matter for tomorrow.” Alisandra laid the girl to rest in the bed. Tucking her in, the angel retreated to the door and paused.
“Rest well, Valkyrie. I will have work enough for you soon.”***
With the girl to bed, Alisandra strode into the sad remains of her garden by night. How could she justify flowers she never had time to enjoy when that money could save lives?
Tonight, the dead gardens reminded her: she was home.
Mad scramble of the stars behind her and the Wyrm buried for a spell longer.
The drums pounded, whispering all that had transpired with eager rumbling.
A diner burns
The greater Will survives
The Flame stirs in its hateful sleep
“How trivial it would be…” she sighed.
Not even any sport, she admitted – if only to herself – as her hair lashed.
Would she allow herself to once more be dragged into these petty issues? Spend the next fifteen years dulling her Edge to give the Wyrm a sporting chance?
Growling, Alisandra launched south for the Temple.
Rather than her private landing pad, she dropped into the center of the temple square. There waited a squad of her best guards, still obeying her last order.
Holding Margaret Dune to the ground until she returned.
“Do you gain sympathy for your victims as the knee now presses against your back?” the angel asked, striding closer.
Her guards bowed for her, praising her return, though the words flew straight past her ears.
Margaret seized that moment of weakness. In a blink she threw off her captors and stabbed a hidden knife straight for Alisandra’s–
The angel caught her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
“We both know that little blade is useless,” Alisandra noted. “You simply wish to die in defiance, do you not?”
Yet you are in my domain
And I do not see fit to grant you such an easy out
“This stain upon humanity is Margaret Dune, a constable of Ruhum,” she announced. “This night she attempted to assassinate the Wavespeaker from a darkened alley, but this is only the latest of her sins. Put out the call for the five witnesses.”
Alisandra dropped the half-conscious, twitching constable to the stones.
“Let her be judged.”
We require no dominion to consign you, Margaret. Will your confidence evaporate once removed from Angela’s protection? Or will you attempt to kill yourself in your cell?
“Make sure she lives long enough to meet sentencing,” the Tempest ordered as they dragged her away.
This new development appealed to her. Why should she terrorize junior constables and petty smugglers? Why not simply grasp the head of the snake?
Would generals so eagerly demand war when they realized that their own blood would pave its way?
“What day is it?” she asked.
“Spring 46, Holy Tempest.”
“Three days,” she mulled. An eternity by another measure. “Who watches my temple tonight?”
Banu hurried to present herself. She curtsied reverently and sang, “Welcome home, Holy Tempest!”
The entire courtyard followed suit, bowing before the god amongst their midst.
Alisandra’s hair lashed impatiently. These obsequious displays worsen by the day.
Still, she bit her tongue for the moment. After all, she would have lifetimes to shape mortal behavior once the important work was done.
“What has transpired in my absence?”
Banu outlined a few minor issues.
“How many monster attacks in my absence?”
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Her real question: How many dead?
“None, Tempest,” Banu offered, not sure if she offered news good or ill.
“None?!”
Banu shrunk away. “N-none.”
Alisandra laughed in wonder. Ah, what greater proof do we need? Jörmungandr’s rot follows him into the dark!
She should have drawn out the Wyrm and put his head on a pike five years ago! Ah, she could have saved herself such heartache!
Had she just been willing to seize her own future instead of tip-toeing around for Conclave functions!
Now is the time to turn my attention to mysteries too long buried. Her fingers tapped on the Hand of God, still warm to her touch with the memory of the Wyrm’s bellows. Where to start…
“Holy Tempest,” Banu begged, clearing her throat.
“Yes?”
“The constable you have delivered to us…she is an emissary of Ruhum.”
“And?” Alisandra challenged.
Banu squirmed. “There may be…difficulties…especially without an ambassador from the north…”
“Let them scream.”
If we are lucky, they will launch a fleet and I will get my morning exercise dumping the vessels prow-first in the fields with the corn.
“As you wish.” Clearing her throat, Banu continued, “Unfortunately, in Iris, there is a–”
“I do not care.”
“Pardon, Tempest?”
“Whatever petulant display they have on offer is irrelevant. Their peace and prosperity are bought by the tip of my Blade, and I will waste no longer indulging our most spoiled children.”
How many hours had she spent cajoling and convincing these petite kings? Dragging them like reluctant mules to the watering hole?
These kinds of requests should not even merit my attention!
What purpose did her temple even serve if it could not operate without her instant attention?!
Squirming, her attendant asked, “Sh-shall I wake the spymaster?”
“Let him sleep. The work can wait for daylight.”
“As you command!”
Even Banu shivered before her tonight…
Then one voice called her name without fear.
“Ali!”
Esmie burst out of the temple, still in her shift, and threw a hug around her big sister’s neck.
“All is well,” Alisandra promised, swinging her around.
Though her hair continued to lash.
“I couldn’t feel you in my dreams,” the Maiden whispered. “You were so far away.”
“Have no fears, dear sister,” she replied, keeping her tone light. “As it turns out, space is vast.”
Vast, and vaster still
A void to swallow the screams of even angels
Esmie scowled. “You’re still kind of…”
“I will need you to assume more responsibilities here,” Alisandra interrupted. “If your tutors find this inconvenient, refer them to me."
The Maiden’s scowl deepened. Worried, she asked, “Can you at least check on Dancer for me?”
“Safe and settled in a Mishkan bed not half a bell ago,” Alisandra assured.
Esmie sighed with relief. “Good. I just had this feeling…”
“Everything will be well, Esmie. The Wyrm is back in his grave, and he will not be afforded another chance.” Despite herself, Alisandra’s voice darkened with grim purpose.
“But…”
Forcing a smile, Alisandra kissed her little sister on the forehead. “Allow me a time to order things, and we will take a vacation day to ourselves. Promise.”
With a squeeze and a wave, the Tempest leaped away to begin her patrols.
***
Esmerelda watched the lightning bolt streak away.
Her fingertips ached with frost where she had touched her Tempest sister – remnants of a voyage through dark and bitter cold…
The Maiden had just come from healing a Ruhum constable; the woman’s windpipe had been pulverized to within an inch of suffocation by an ice-cold, callous hand.
“To order things…” she repeated, dread settling in her heart.
***
Best to start close to home, reasoned the Archangel. She burst into the sky above the Bones and surveyed the wastes by weak moonlight.
The largest of the settlements beneath her feet had swelled once more; fresh construction started on a new section of boards over the grey mud. Tonight, at least, that rickshaw boulevard remained quiet.
“They must be sleeping off their drink,” she murmured, her fingers drumming up and down the hilt of the Hand of God.
Still warm and ready, aching for the use.
It did not wish to sleep again, and could she blame it? Such a magnificent creation relegated to swatting flies – much like the Archangel herself.
Indeed. I have not made proper use of my tools.
Deviating from her usual route, she leaped to Woodhaven and landed amidst the garden in full bloom.
Of course, Sebastian waited there. At her landing, he offered his usual bow.
“You were there when this Blade was forged,” she stated.
“Yes, Archangel.”
“How?”
“Do you remember the first incarnate moment?” the butler asked.
The dawn and the dusk
“A single Word split the heavens and mounted the gap with the Black Gate,” she recalled.
“Yes. A single Word, defining the order of this place. Higher and lower; pure and profane. That Word cleaved, and that act of division echoed like a supernova through the cosmos.” Sebastian smiled sadly. “Such hubris drove us.”
To render the blood of nations into the finest of nets
And with that net to bind the cutting Word
Alisandra pulled the Hand of God from its sheath, examining the length of its edge. It vibrated in her vision, restless with the recent battle. “You sought to bind God.”
“We sought to distill purity of essence.”
The same goal by different names.
“In that, we enjoyed success beyond our expectations. Unmatched purity – a platonic Blade.”
“A sliver of golden essence bound into the shadow,” she murmured.
The shape of a sword wrapped around a fragment of heaven.
Like angels wrapped in flesh.
“How many did you kill for this Blade?” she asked. Clinical, two artisans comparing notes.
“Three million, six hundred forty-four thousand, two hundred seven for the chassis. Ten times that number to perfect the smithing.”
“And one girl to steal it from beneath your perfect sight.”
“I believed – incorrectly – that the Hand resisted me because I was not strong enough.”
“Truly? I would have feared the wrath of God for this.”
Sebastian shook his head. “If God desired our end, what recourse would we have?”
Alisandra paused to ponder. To war against omnipotence…
“Was it Providence that this platonic Blade could not shatter the Wyrm’s core?” the angel wondered. “Rules laid even before the foundations…”
“The Throne created our souls. An equal power would be required to break them.”
“And so we are stuck with Wyrm and Tyrant and war for all eternity.” Alisandra tapped the tip of the Hand of God against a finger, listening to it hum. “I know you are tired, Sebastian. Do you wish reprieve?”
Placid, he replied, “That Blade grants no rest.”
Alisandra sighed, sheathing the weapon at last. It groaned against the sheath, denied. “Then all I might offer you is the freedom of the tool.”
He bowed. “I am at your disposal, Archangel.”
Alisandra almost relented. Almost stepped over to hug him and release him of his duties.
If only her own fate had been at stake, she would have.
But that last contest had been too close, and she dread the thought of ignoring a tool against the Wyrm.
“Very well, Angel of Witness. If you would serve, then set your Sight to the horizon. Tell me when and where the Wyrm next wakes.”
“Twenty days hence atop the highest pillar of the Bones,” he replied immediately.
Twenty days?! Alisandra sucked air between her teeth. Not even the end of Spring?!
“Name the fool that would summon him!”
He spread his hands. “You, Archangel.”
“And for what purpose?”
“To bind him as the Tyrant was bound – for I shall teach you how to craft the Edenward.”
The Edenward? Seals strong enough to keep the Wyrm out of the Tyrant’s planet for as long as his rule endured…
“Twenty days…this date and no other?”
“Tarry, and Ruhum will invoke him first.”
Alisandra tightened her grip. “I could have left the Wyrm to ravage them, and their thanks is an encore!”
“He kills Esmerelda.”
Her world froze.
Sebastian tilted his head, eyes flickering down countless possibilities. “On every other date. On every other path. Jörmungandr strikes your weakest point.”
And finally gains the war in full he so craved
“I will flay him,” she stated, her voice cold enough to crack stone.
“Pain is just another sensation for the eternal,” Sebastian answered. “Pain is rooted in the threat of permanent damage. Scars. Death. For those woven of Light, what obstacles are these?”
Her own body had been torn to shreds and rebuilt a dozen times over. Rent and shorn, but her Will burned brighter than the mere demand of dissolution.
And it burned so good
“Twenty days hence, before Ruhum can gather its strength, we shall summon him to the Bones. To a new tomb. Any other choice is sub-optimal. Would you choose the other paths knowing the price?”
He pretended to a teacher’s indifference – a question strictly hypothetical.
But his eyes begged for the unforeseen outcome.
“Esmie still needs my protection,” Alisandra asserted.
She is not yet ready to…
This really was no choice at all.
“…what is the price?” the Archangel muttered.
“A sacrifice,” Sebastian answered, touching a hand to his chest. “Same as was paid by your father’s dearest companions in an age past.”
“To bind the Tyrant.”
“Souls are the only currency we have.”
“And you would…” She narrowed her eyes with sudden realization. “This was your gambit at the Mishkan manor fifteen years ago!”
The angel of Witness winced. “Yes. I lacked the strength.”
“Instead, you would ask me the strength to throw the door shut; and you would bear the burden within.”
“Gabriel once charged me to usher forth the greatest good. I remain devoted to that end.”
She heard a thread of darkness in those words, scowled, and delayed. “I will consider the offer.”
“As you will, Archangel.”
Might I truly trust the words of this broken angel? How do I know that he has not succumbed to madness?
But if he sees true…if he sees Esmie…
Gritting her teeth, she bought time to think by sweeping down the stairs to her loft.
She found the apartment door ajar, its frame shattered.
Within, the kitchen room lay in wreckage and the living room ransacked to the couch cushions. Everything of any value – from the plates to the silverware to the damned stove – had been absconded with.
“Hells,” she hissed. Of all the complications for today, she least needed more rogue mages wandering the isle!
To her chagrin and relief, however, she found her library demolished. The books hurled from their shelves, heaped on the floor, and doused in a hearty bath of her cheapest liquors. Scorch marks hinted that the hoodlums may have attempted to set a fire, unaware of her wards against such easy vandalism.
She pondered this strange behavior. Why had the criminals wasted the booze and left the books? Both could be sold.
Perhaps the market for curious tomes has dried up.
Still, the thought nagged at her.
“This is an anomaly, Sebastian.”
“Simple men direct their ire at the tools of the learning denied them.”
“A street urchin knows the value of contraband. Even if they could not sell the tomes, they could attempt blackmail.”
“They may have preferred to attack the nobility directly.”
Alisandra knelt to inspect the mess. One by one, she plucked tomes from the pile. Across the lot, she found a handful of legible lines amidst page after page of well-bled ink.
Comprehensively bled ink, soaked cover to cover.
She dug to the bottom, but the damage was complete.
Damage quite in excess to the liquor applied…
Rising, she wiped her hands on her sides. “This is the work of Occult. Fires, floods, loss…all the tools of happenstance.”
Such a circuitous exercise. If Occult desires that the secrets of eld vanish, why even allow the pen to scribble them?
“Shall I clean the library, Archangel?”
“You left it for me to find, did you not?” she accused.
“Yes, Archangel.”
“So that you might See me seeing you Seeing me glimpse the ripples of great currents.”
“Experience is the best teacher.”
“And thus you held your tongue, knowing the Wyrm would return with Lee’s face.”
Sebastian bowed. “So that you might understand the totality of this conflict. To toil in fire and blood – not once upon a generation but again and again, your whole being consumed by the fire of war.”
As was my own, once upon a time
“Every twenty days…”
Forever.
“I will accept whatever punishment should satisfy you, Archangel. What shall bring you happiness?”
“I am the sword and shield of mankind,” the Archangel declared. “My happiness is immaterial.”
Forever.
She rounded on her former tutor, frustrations long suppressed rising. “Sebastian, your eyes have been shadowed since the Wyrm’s touch. Your words no longer guide but provoke. You See so far and yet share so little. How am I to trust you?!”
Her butler laid a hand on the pile of ruined books, perhaps sharing a kinship with ruined things. “Trust is not required, Archangel. You had the right of this matter earlier. I am a tool for the use.”
Servants that would rather deliver mail. Foundations that would rather bedraggle books. Where were they while I burned?
Alisandra flexed her jaw. “Useless.”
“No, there is still one use for me.” He laid his hand on his breast and begged. “Though it will bring my ruin, I will deliver you the Wyrm.”
The Archangel weighed her options.
To follow the shade of her teacher, replete with treachery.
Or to war, burning bright and holy, until she slipped.
And everyone else paid the price.
Perhaps she could put her faith in her mother’s Work – but when would it finish? How much more of the planet must it consume?
Would she bet Esmie’s life on that Work completing within twenty days?
We needed both demons and Mother to hold the Cathedral against Jormungand’s fury, and all three fell to Reverie. Neither Mirielle nor Thea have risen anew.
The tick-tock of Time’s merciless design chewing at her heels.
He kills Esmerelda
Hers was the duty to bear the future.
“Very well, Sebastian. We shall put you to use.”
He bowed. “I shall serve, Archangel.”
***
The angel of Witness led the Archangel back to the Bones. Here was a fertile field for their work, replete with the resonance of angelic history. Once settled on bleached monster bones, he explained the principles behind the Edenward.
“At its core is the binding, identical to that used by mortals to delay angels. Like any binding, it requires sympathy. Yet, as angels, we must recognize the phenomenon which mortals might call sympathy as instead the self-evident effects of an alternative geography.
“As the body must exist within Malkuth, the soul too resides within the Sephiroth. Its location might be mapped; its path traced; its movements restricted.”
For all must be named, and each name a note in Song
Each note a leaf upon the tree
Shake the branch and shake the leaf
He reached out a hand into ethereal worlds and plucked an invisible string.
Alisandra gasped as her body and mind resounded to the call.
Archangel
“As you are named.”
Angel of valor
“As you name yourself.”
Tempest
“A title inherited and now born.”
“Why would the Wyrm deign to harbor such vectors for attack?” she challenged.
“For the same reason that all living beings echo. To be without name is to be without form. Without form and thus without volition.”
To change the world you must take part in it
How many angels abandoned such pretense and float, invisible and unmoored, in the far reaches?
Wandering inner worlds, the lost ghosts of Yesod
Even we do not know
Alisandra crossed her arms. “Geography; distance; action and reaction. Divine physics. Thea would be overjoyed.”
The angel of Witness continued. “Mortal bindings must fade; the Gate demands it. Stronger mortals might delay the call, but you begin to understand the many cunning manners in which the Rules might nudge such a soul home.”
“Find a mortal strong enough to defy the Gate, and the universe shall conspire all the stronger?”
“Precisely. Furthermore, mortals are unpracticed in raw Will and pre-occupied with their own Guardian. Such conditions are ill-suited to a ward that must etch itself upon the cosmos.” Much of this they had learned in building Eleos, but that oubliette could not contain the Mighty. “Like the aspect of an angel or your Blade, an Edenward must carve a singular totem upon the heavens.”
“Like the Foundations.”
“Yes.”
Leaning back, she considered. “The unifying principle is ownership. The ability to seize and define a fragment of Song.”
“Correct.”
“We could say the same of mortals, though. Though their time is brief, they seize the note of their own story…”
Her echoes added the words she would not admit.
For what little that is worth
“I have another concern,” the Archangel stated.
“Yes?” Though he knew of what she spoke.
“Father gave himself to the Foundation of Freedom. That no binding last eternal.”
“Yes, Archangel.”
“You would oppose him?” she asked sympathetically.
“I have opposed him many times, Archangel, both before and after I bore the Blade. Disagreement need not be discord.”
“Then serve, Witness, as you are able. For our brighter future.”
Sebastian bit back tears of gratitude. That she understood and embraced the pain of necessity. That she honored him with this role even after his omissions. That even the Hound of Eden might find new purpose.
“I will, Archangel.”
For our brighter future
“What materials do we require?”
He explained how she might hear the whisper of ancient fragments. Bits of worlds devoured; fragments of dreams destroyed; all the detritus of the Wyrm’s long rampage would form the best chains.
Other totems would be required as well. Symbols of hope that defied him: the well-loved toy rescued from Lumia’s fires; the crutch worn smooth by the lame that refused to surrender even when broken…
All would be consigned to fire and Light to form lock and key.
Tumblers thirsty for blood and primed for their martyr.
Vision fixed to the horizon, the Archangel never asked why blood and not Light. When the time came – when necessity called in all its cruel fullness – she would have the strength to grasp it.
Sebastian delivered the last instructions and watched the Archangel bolt away. She would be hard pressed by the search – light years of distance spent chasing the faintest whispers, all while she clung to the fading embers of her mortal life.
Hard pressed, but victorious.
“Ah, Ali,” her tutor mourned. “How we wished for you to know peace and plenty!”
Yet the Song demanded much of the eternal.
“Cheers to us, Archangel,” he toasted. “Cheers to the prisoners of Malkuth, one and all.”
Cheers to our future, stretching forth unbroken
And hail to the smallest of evils
Hail to the least cruel of the Mighty
Hail our Tempest ascendant
May she reign forever