The Kingdom of Ecstasy

  The Alyi weren't immune to feelings. Once more, her eight peers pressed the issue of Mokallai and his presence on her world. But Dyiij, the fourth of nine Alyi, could not hear the words of their collective spirit.

  A certain sadness filled her heart, an anxious, stressed sensation not much different than the kind of fear that overtakes Flesh Beings.

  The time was drawing near. She had told Ashenzsi that his brother had until shortly after the beginning of the Third Epoch. But that didn't mean that she, the Alyi, was prepared to witness what was nigh.

  Still, she peered into the affairs of the flesh ones of her world.

  Not all of the Alekzandyrs dwelt at the faajhier. Despite Yijuiheta's eminent growth, the family patron was difficult for them to find. That is, until they realized that Yonathael was a solitary taa, and preferred the quiet of the southern coast to the comforts and commodities of the city.

  Early that morning, Rollond was the last one to arrive at the lonesome gigantic conch that marked the southside beach. Like before, a curtain was draped over the entrance, narrowed by a thick, cob wall. The rest of his family, his sons, his wife, his brother, were already inside with Yonathael, his father. What was a jovial air swiftly became solemn once he stepped in.

  Yonathael gestured to a bowl-like seat with a soft, red cushion in it, and smiled. "So I've heard that you've been having… 'episodes'."

  Rollond took his seat, hesitant to answer. For him, it was something like shame that tumbled in his belly, because he didn't want to admit that he couldn't be left alone with Amonthe. "Yes," he said.

  "Tell me about them. What happens when these episodes begin?"

  "It's like the world around me freezes. There's this… strange out-of-body sensation, like I'm not in control of myself. It only lasts but a split second, and then everything goes blank. When I return, I've lost all sense of time, and I don't know what I've done — if I've done anything.

  "I'll go to see my son. I'll be in one place when it starts, and then I 'wake up' in another."

  "Ohh yes…" Yonathael laced his fingers and sat back. His assuring, calming grin went flat. "You're being taken over by an aelythian one."

  Rollond stared him down. "What? Who?"

  Yonathael shook his head. "An Iisae, maybe. Or it could be the one called Mokallai. Only, the latter has one terribly specific sign."

  "And that is?" Rollond asked, stress mounting in his voice.

  "Irises of polished gold. Black scleras signify the presence or use of uncanny aelyth, powers where they don't belong. But when the irises are gold, the source of that one's power is Mokallai. At that point, the aelythian one has taken them over.

  "This I know from my more recent past. I used to be an unwilling host to Mokallai. And against my volition, I murdered Arlen, who was my friend; also Mylisto, your mother, my wife."

  Rollond sat quietly. His eyes stung. "Is there some way that I can find out if — if it is Mokallai?"

  "You'd have to delve deep within. Someone with white eyes can tell you, or whomever has the capability of seeing aelyth, but ones with that kind of power are one out of an infinite pit of odds."

  "What should I do?"

  "Were I you, I'd enjoy my family, breed with my mate, find satisfying things to occupy myself with. Because once Mokallai gets a firm hold of you, he doesn't let go. It's better to be blissfully unaware of his presence than dwelling on it. Or you could consult Dyiij. As always, the choice is yours."

  Before Rollond could form the thoughts for him to express, the voice of the Alyi cracked through the room the same as thunder after the flash of lightning.

  — No, no, no!

  It was the sound of anger, of tension and stress in Dyiij's ethereal utterance that alarmed the lot of them.

  — I won't have it! Not after everything we've worked so hard to accomplish, even against the odds of Mokallai's indwelling influence — I will not see you down that path!

  All eyes settled on Rollond, who kept his gaze low while he rubbed his chin, burdened by his thoughts. He knew that Dyiij was all-knowing, and her answer was clear before he even thought to ask it.

  Yet that foreboding wickedness seemed so near to the fore of his mind that he couldn't ignore it. It was like dark fingers that raked along the inside of his skull; an unpleasant and jolting electric sensation, as if he'd wrapped his dick in tinfoil and stuck it in an electric socket.

  Finally, he shook his head. "We've defeated an Iisae," he said.

  — Yes, a Fallen Iisae, who is easily defeated by anyone having enough aelyth to overpower it.

  "Wouldn't it be the same with Mokallai?"

  — He may be broken-down, but he is still a Megynsei. They are, even at their lowest, a whole different matter compared to any Iisae. She made a gesture, something like a sigh, and descended into the room, manifesting as a bronze-skinned woman with long, copper tresses.

  Dyiij took a seat next to Yonathael, across from Rollond and Lucein.

  — You're not going to abandon this inclination of yours, are you?

  He hesitated to answer, a fruitless endeavor in the presence of an omniscient one. "You know what I'm going to say."

  — You won't. You can't. Because you think there's something you can do about him.

  "We can at least weaken him, right? You said I wasn't his undoing, but, there must be something that can be done."

  — Rollond…

  "Prepare the way for the ones who will be his undoing —"

  — Rollond.

  "Or else…" By now, he was reasoning against himself. The Alyi's stance was clear to everyone in her presence. Yet he continued like a babbling babe, all the while, his expression worsened.

  Torrents of anguish whirled within him like an insatiable twister, and he couldn't stop it. Along with the pain there was this pull, and a murmuring voice in his ears that deafened him to all reason.

  He had to go and settle this matter, whatever it was. For, he thought, the sake of his family and his wellbeing. There was no way around it, no putting it off, no ignoring it. It was just as much his calling as the desperate urge a man gets when he knows it's time to go take a leak.

  Finally he looked at them. "What?"

  Dyiij turned her attention to Ashenzsi.

  — You go with him.

  "Yeah," Rollond said, "it'll be just like old times. Like when we raided Fylus's warehouses."

  Ashenzsi splayed his ears, as if he knew better. "If you must," he said.

  "I must." Rollond's voice dribbled with conviction. Nothing was going to persuade him otherwise.

  Now, while all this was taking place, Amonthe carefully studied his sire, Rollond, and the one who had gestated him, Sanci. He was devoid of all filial attachment regarding them. And with calm eyes like glossy opal stones, he peered into them.

  All the while Rollond and Yonathael had their exchange, his sire's aelyth was like a dark cloud. It was always like the ominous dim-to-dark gray blanket that spread across the horizon before a fierce storm. Yet in the center of his chest was a bright sphere, like the sun piercing through the thunderclouds.

  He couldn't tell what that brightness represented, or what it really was. Though he tried to get a sense of it electrically, to see if he could guess its composition, but all he sensed was flesh and more flesh: the physical constitution of Rollond's presence.

  The white-haired man had been the same, until the appearance of the Alyi, when the rolling dark of his aelyth turned into a black-silver shell, like when a man's blood hardens. Something within Rollond felt the urgent need to protect itself from the Alyi.

  While the man mindlessly babbled on about the things he felt he needed to do, despite the Alyi's admonition, she turned her head and stared directly at Amonthe.

  At that point all of them, except for Rollond, went silent, glancing at Amonthe. The weight of their collective gaze was heavier than a lead blanket four feet thick.

  — I've waited a long time to meet you, the Alyi said.

  He wa
sn't sure if the rest of them heard her voice, though they exchanged glances among one another.

  Amonthe drew breath to reply, but the Alyi shushed him with the gentle touch of her aelyth.

  — I know you see what's happening with Rollond, because you see things that no other physical person can. I know you also see me, too, the way that I really am.

  He peered into her hollow sockets and saw the boundary of her celestial domain. Not only that, but it rested in the span of a creature's hand — a colossal, elegant being, whose features were beyond his ability to describe.

  The translucent tentacles of iridescent light was merely one representation, as was whatever form she chose to manifest in.

  He splayed his ears, an expression close to a grimace taking place on his muzzle. The question of how to say what he wanted to say, or any utterance for that matter, without it being heard by everyone lingered at the fore of his mind.

  — Find the voice of your Aelyth and talk to me.

  § How am I — He jumped, and the curious looks of those around him returned. How am I able to do these things?

  — Because I made you, Dyiij said. Rollond and Sanci provided the groundwork, but everything you are within, everything you're able to do comes from me.

  — You are essential to the way that I plan to put Mokallai to shame. Everything thus far has been leading up to you. Though I truly cherish your sire, Rollond, the time has arrived just as I knew it would. I can no longer put it off.

  § What, exactly, were you prolonging?

  — Rollond adjoining himself to Mokallai. She forced a small, serene grin to her features, and Amonthe imagined that she would've glanced at the floor. Or at least, he could see her doing that if she had proper eyes.

  § So you knew that was going to happen? Why didn't you stop it, or alter Rollond from within?

  — I knew it, and I decided I wanted to use him anyway. The resulting emotional turmoil is the consequence for getting too close to someone whom Destiny has sworn to overreach. I will stop it in due time. But not at Rollond, nor by altering him to change the outcome.

  She leaned back in her seat, crossed one leg over the other, and a broad smile lit her face.

  Amonthe bobbed his head, ran his fingers along his maw.

  § And what do I have to do with you?

  — Because you come from me, you are the only flesh being in all the universe who will learn the Secrets of the Ra'ol Stones. You will come to know what I know, and see what I see. In time you will receive powers. Until then, it is enough that you are able to see and speak by Aelyth. She glanced at Rollond.

  He spoke.

  Then she turned to Ashenzsi, and told him to go with the white-haired man.

  The man and the kyusoa had a brief exchange, and at the end of it, Dyiij was gone, returned to her ethereal state. Although she was invisible to everyone's eyes, even Amonthe's with his ability to see Aelyth, her presence never left him.

  After some time, the Alekzandyrs gave their respects to the oldest of them, Yonathael, and departed from his cob-and-shell dwelling.

  "You're not going with them?" Yonathael asked.

  Amonthe gave him a sideways glance. "I'm not inclined to," he said, his Gyuton significantly improved over the last two years.

  "Oh, to be a young xeigon again," Yonathael crooned.

  "What does an old xeirelle codger know about being a xeigon?"

  "Much," Yonathael said, rising from his seat and ducking into the kitchen. He poured himself a bowl of water, and glanced back at Amonthe. "Thirsty?"

  The xeigon nodded, and the xeirelle poured a second bowl and set it down where it was comfortable for the xeigon to lay and drink.

  "I'm a xei from before the first era. As a pair of Xeiletes — pups, you see — my brother and I were forsaken the moment we were weaned. Dyiij raised us, saw after our needs, taught us the ways of her world, so on, so forth. I didn't end up a Xeirelle until about the end of the First Epoch.

  "When that wad of metal struck Dyijan and the first humans crawled out of that old, battered husk, we had no idea just how dangerous — rather, how badly diseased — they were. We, feeling sorry as one intellectual species does for another, sought to make them viable lifeforms here on our world. You know, give them a chance.

  "Well, we came into contact with their blood. Whatever it was that was in them did a species jump to us, and devastated us to the extent that we were steadily going extinct.

  "That was when Dyiij stepped in and changed us from Xeigons into Xeirelles, and we developed immunity. Something about being humanoid helps with human diseases."

  Amonthe lowered the bowl from his lips with a satisfied grunt. "Do you miss what you were?"

  "Not at all." Yonathael was quick to say it. "Though, being that I was a xeigon, I still have those lonesome, territorial inclinations at times. And though I love Vandlorael, my identical brother, with all my heart, I find him amicably repelling."

  "And why's that?"

  "Because I can't breed him."

  Amonthe snorted. Yonathael's words were true. As a xeigon, he often felt the lonely urge to stick to his territory, and though he tolerated the presence of other intellectuals very well, he wasn't inclined to stick around them.

  If he couldn't breed'em, he didn't need'em.

  Yonathael grunted. He struggled to get up from his seat, because his spine was lagging, and the frustration was so thorough that his face had gone completely red. Anguish and self-loathing marked his face.

  "If there is any one thing that I want," Yonathael said, his voice low as he looked discontentedly at the floor. "I want to go back and be present for the birth of my sons. I've always loathed that I didn't have the will or power to abate Mokallai for that much longer. Perhaps when it is time for Dyiij to make things right, you will remember me."

  Amonthe perked his ears. "Me?"

  Yonathael took their bowls into the kitchen, rinsed them. "I noted how intently she looked at you."

  "It was just a passing glance."

  "Not for that long. I may not hear the voices of the aelythian ones, but I know that particular Alyi. You two were talking in secret." It was evident that Yonathael knew things, and was good at speculating what those things were. "Meaning that she's going to do something monumental with you."

  "I don't…"

  He shot a grinning glance Amonthe's way.

  The two xei stood in a good minute of quiet, as if knowing what the other thought.

  "There is a certain elevated, emotional take-away to the intimate knowledge of an Alyi's mysteries. It's called the Rapture of Secrets. I should know better than to try and wrap my mind around things that I'm not privy to. That includes you," he said. He passed the xeigon and gripped the rungs of the pole. As quickly as his mechanical spine would allow, he ascended into the upper level.

  There were things they both wanted to know, like the fulfillment of Dyiij's plans; in what way were they to be realized; and who was to be the final Champion? Furthermore, what kind of powers would that one be granted?

  These thoughts made Amonthe's skin twitch.

  He stayed with Yonathael until the sun settled in the north. Then he made the lonely journey around the outskirts of Yijuiheta to the faajhier, to return to his bothers.

  And for a short while there was contentment, though they lacked peace. In knowing what tormented their father, the four sons were able to abate his new indwelling inclinations as best they could.

  But for the Alyi, the silent witness of all matters, the important thing had been done: the second generation was secured, which was the whole reason for the digression from Mokallai, the entire length of time spent in Prisbeald and Ashui-hilo.

  Though now that Amonthe had arrived and was already five years old, considered grown for a xeigon, she, Dyiij, could let Rollond go. It was a matter she didn't want to know, something she wished her omniscient eyes wouldn't see, because she had an intense fondness for him, a platonic kind of love that wasn't meant to end.
br />   Just as life wasn't meant to end.

  How in the depths of her supernal heart she abhorred Mokallai.

  Succession.

  Dyinaacvas, the 22nd day in the month of Doryil;

  Because Rollond dwelt on it;

  Summer of the 8th year of the Third Epoch of Dyjian.