* * *
As if rising up in a ghostly mist, Lowenah silently appeared all aglow with majestic splendor in the middle of the lighted floor. Before them stood not the petite woman clothed in dancing golden hair the children lovingly called ‘Mother’. No! This day the crowd gazed upon the King of kings and Lord of lords as she cast her fiery gaze about the chambers. The chained glory of the immortal universe could be felt hiding behind those piercing eyes burning with unbridled energy.
Upon her head there rested a crown, but not of diamond or gold, jade or chrysolite. Above her there spun the galaxies of fiery stars, all ablaze in hues of blinding intensity. For a garment, she wore the universe in all its radiance, and beneath her feet were placed the sun and all its planets spinning about in perfect balance, with their harmonic pulses reverberating through the Theater. The heartbeat of the universe echoed off the walls and into the very being of every child gathered there - the heartbeat that drove all things both inanimate and living, the beat that bonded all matter together that made life possible.
Without a word, Lowenah searched the hearts of everyone present. When her white-hot, burning orbs locked their focus upon a soul, that person could feel a roaring fire erupt within, racing through and into every fiber and nerve to the deepest corner of sense and consciousness to the point of stripping away of mind and spirit, leaving the body an empty shell of naked honesty. Then her gaze would pass, leaving little more than a haunting memory of a passing storm as a restful calm settled all about.
There was something else that remained after Mother’s searching stare passed, an aching knowledge that things were changing, had changed. Lowenah’s hand was lifting up and she was quietly backing away. The children could feel a chasm growing between them and her. It was as if a message were being sent, telling them that whatever was to come must be delivered by their own hands, that Fate was now servant to their will and she would abstain from interfering with where they might take that Fate. They were now come the gods to decide the future. Alone, they would stand or fall.
Gradually the ceiling lights diminished until Lowenah’s radiant energy alone burned within the Theater. Unlike the blaze of a flame or torch that casts its power outward, driving the darkness into the shadows, Lowenah drew to herself the darkness, allowing no light escape from her inner self. Blinding as day she was, with the magnificence of the universe spinning about her, yet oppressive as an empty void was the pitch blackness surrounding her.
Into this empty void, Lowenah opened her mouth to speak, but the voice of a Divine Being from beyond the reaches of Time was what all those present heard. Faith need not exist to believe that the Maker of Worlds stood before them. God revealed was here, the God of gods with power unquestioned and glory unimagined, reaching out with word and thought, searching mind, heart and soul, cloaking the might of the immortal being behind a thin veil of fragile mortality. Here stood Mother, the Megas Creator, and Olothreutēs, the Pontifex Maximus Apolluons, the Greatest Destroyer…The Absolute of all things.
From the depths of Lowenah’s unfathomable worlds, the words rose up, filling the room with an overwhelming resonance of Power Divine, those things spoken being eternally seared into all hearts and minds hearing them. “Do not think your feet have found my lair by chance this day, for from the founding of the world have you been chosen to stand before the forces of eternity to be judged for righteousness or evil! Those standing the judicial thrones have come to their conclusions.”
Lowenah lowered her hands and stared toward the closed Theater doors. “To you has been given the gift or curse to dance with Fate. Today, each one of you will choose for yourself the road you shall take. One road leads you back to yesterday’s dreams while offering you tomorrow’s shadowy visions. With you will go my blessing and my peace will continue to guide your path.”
Looking up forlorn, she explained the second road. “The other offers you only but one choice, to sell your soul to the incorruptible Fates and become their slaves in my house, never to have again the freedom to choose for yourself good or bad. It is a dangerous, foreboding path. Leading to what? That I even do not know... Oppressive it will be. Clear to the point of death, it shall demand your obedience, and you shall obey its commands without question!”
Clasping her hands together, Lowenah stared up toward the ceiling. “Long has this day pressed in upon my spirit, making my soul groan in despair. My children! My children! Great is the valley of deep shadow and cruel it is to those passing through it! To be forced to walk it would be the greatest of sins on my part, for only can a true heart toward me hope to succeed in this dismal place.”
Sweeping her arms wide, she declared, “So it shall be! With free will, I do invite my children to take this most dangerous of roads. Should your heart be in a tumult over this request, I offer you...no...beg you to secret your leave from here and take with you my blessing. There is no shame when an honest man speaks truth to his own soul.”
At that, the leaved, double doors opened in the Theater into the blackness of the antechamber. A ghostly glow lit up in the floor, cloaking the identity of all while revealing the route of escape for any soul seeking it. With bated breath, Lowenah waited, hoping a few brave souls might remain to weather the coming storm. No mother should expect of her children what she was asking this day, but what else was there for it? No child should ever be expected to accept.
The room suddenly became as still as the tombs of yesterday’s heroes and as chill as a bitter winter night. Chasileah sat there, her heart burning with agony’s hour while her stomach churned in sickly revulsion. Trapped! Trapped she was in a cage of raging beasts seeking to tear her soul asunder. The way of escape was open, but chained she was by the needs of another. Away! She must get away!
Darla groaned, struggling to sit, breaking Chasileah’s bonds. The woman could not see a thing, for a blind void filled the Theater to the point of extinguishing both breath and life. Free! So free! Darla was up and sitting beside her. She could now make escape from this horrid place. Then it struck… the vision of past and future days. Was it only to Chasileah that all truth was revealed that hour, or did each one of the children sequestered within those walls suffer such damnation? Chasileah did not know, nor did she care to discover whether it was so. The worlds of today, yesterday, and tomorrow raged by in a tumultuous, chaotic rush, tearing away her senses, leaving only the cosmic dust of uncertainty except for the one remaining true reality, the open doors offering freedom from Fate’s evil burden.
Chasileah sat, transfixed, as the seemingly endless ages of her life flashed by in an instant of time, branding forever in her brain memory of its passing. Every detail of her life came to her, so clearly could she see it all with intense feeling, from her beginning existence when two cells burst forth to create this new life, up to this very moment in time, not one breath, one second of it to be omitted, but upon the canvas of remembrance it was painted in vivid reality.
Ghost riders chasing the ever elusive shadow-herd of Time went charging past into Future’s cloudy tempest, catching Chasileah up with them as they stormed by. Into that caldron of twisted unknowns they rode, the woman watching in amazement her future world roads should she stay or should she depart.
The first road was such an easy one to take. Little there was to speak of other than to live the continued drudgery of life her heart had cast the woman into. In her ears, she could hear the reports of war from huge victories to massive defeats - the endless names of those she knew and loved being read off as their bodies were consigned to the Silent Tombs, and the endless messages she was to deliver to grieving lovers and companions. She found herself wandering that quiet, mundane road off into a shadowy uncertainty, the future a gray mist hiding Fate’s destiny.
The second road was very contemptuous and troublesome. Chasileah watched, seeing vows fulfilled. Blood filled her hands, running in rivulets from her fingers. The woman listened to her
own mouth ordering myriads of her brothers and sisters to their deaths. Riding upon steeds sheathed in iron, wearing helms of gold with banners raised high and swords drawn for combat, she shouted the battle charge into flaming missiles of death and destruction.
By her very mouth, worlds went crashing into oblivion, armies vanished into smoke and ash, wails of grief rent the Heavens for the countless slain until the very seas turned red with the blood of holy martyrs and demonic beasts. All the while, this woman sitting astride her bloodied steed shouted out to the Heavens for the birds, the raven and the crow to gather and eat to their full, for the hour of destruction was not yet nigh.
This road, too, was uncertain, leading into a fathomless unknown of roiling mist, but it filled Chasileah’s heart with the hope of vows fulfilled and dreams satisfied. As she watched, a man with deep hazel eyes and dark, wavy hair stepped out of those turbid clouds, taking her hand while singing the sweetest of healing songs to her heart. He smiled, tears running down his face, saying, “Never have I loved a woman as I have loved you. Already my heart is one with yours. Come and share your dreams with me and I, for my part, shall return your glory to you.”
The vision of the two roads instantly disappeared, and Chasileah found herself standing before the two opened, leaved doors exiting the Theater. Two fiery Cherubs stood there, one on each side of the passageway, their smiling faces easing the woman’s uncertainty. Before her stood another Cherub, but this one was no stranger to her. Long had it been since she stared into this fellows eyes as the two stood upon the high peaks overlooking the lush green valleys of Lagandow, such a serene gaze coming from a gentle face. In the Cherub’s hands were held an inkhorn and a scroll.
The Cherub lifted the ink horn, asking, “Has my lady chosen for herself this day which road of uncertainty she will take? Before you goes my peace, whether you turn to the right of the left. Your Mother has promised you her love, no matter the journey you begin.”
Chasileah smiled as a wave of freedom from care washed over her. Today? What was today other than an extension of yesterday and tomorrow, the momentary space in the continuous rotation of the universe that men chose to divide up into night and day, seasons, even hours and seconds? Today was not linear but circuitous, ever returning to where it began with only one’s memories having changed. So, for tomorrow…it would soon become today and then yesterday and then quickly be forgotten, leaving but the memories remain, the memories such as she had of this fellow and those lost days so long ago on Lagandow.
For one last fleeting second, Chasileah looked longingly at the opened exit, thinking of the countless cares from freedom she would experience by taking it. She then turned to the Cherub with the inkhorn, bowing her head. “Your servant... Your slave...”
The Cherub grinned approvingly, declaring, “So it shall be.” Upon the parchment, Chasileah’s name, long forgotten, suddenly appeared.
In shock, Chasileah woke with a start, seated as she had been in the dark, quiet Theater. Her agony of heart was now gone, it filled with a resigned acceptance that Fate was become her master and, live or die, she would follow its requests without question.
Lowenah slowly opened her eyes, having chosen not to witness what might become. She had hidden in her inner worlds, waiting the moment of return to see if any would risk the uncertainty she offered. Her heart leaped with joy and surprise to see that not even one of the children drawn to this place this hour had departed. Honesty and love had again won out! She had held out no false hope, nor had secreted the evil future that awaited her children, yet here they remained, choosing this uncertainty.
Today all doubt had been removed, for not for reward or for glory did Lowenah’s loyal children serve her. By free will they had chosen to become slaves clear unto death. So true had become the statement for Mother’s creation: ‘every person decides his own destiny.’
The golden glow of hidden lights gradually gained in power, revealing the resolute, determined look on each face as countless eyes stared at the person standing before them. No longer did they see the King of kings and Lord of lords robed in the glory of the universe. Before them now stood their golden-haired sprite, mother maiden, hands clasped and head bowed, with tears running down her face.
She looked up, casting her tear-filled gaze about the crowd. In a halting voice, she addressed her children. “You have offered your souls to me for whatever purpose that may be chosen for them. For this, I am forever indebted to you. Now, please, stand and swear aloud to me what your hearts have already shouted out in the darkness, this being done so that all here may know by your public declaration what you have promised to me in secret.”
Darla groaned in pain as she took Chasileah’s hand while clutching Euroaquilo’s arm. Euroaquilo reassured the woman she need not get up. Darla cursed him, ordering the man to assist her up. Managing to stand, Darla shook in agony while sweat poured down her face. Euroaquilo and Chasileah wrapped their arms about the woman, supporting her.
Lowenah looked over at her little child, so desperately attempting to be at station like the good soldier she was. Tears burst forth anew with joy and pride, watching this heroine so filled with resolve and fortitude. She looked about the room, recalling the deeds of so many of the children here. Yes, she had chosen well. Deep was the fire that burned within the breasts of these people. How would she fail with these loyal men and women? In her mind, she could already see the Great Dragon fleeing from these Realms.
Then came the pronouncement, “Now swear in the ears of all standing with you this day an oath for them to hear so that a shoulder they will always have to lean upon in darkest hours when hope is only a fading memory and faith little more than a wistful vision in a forlorn mind.”
She lifted a hand. “Swear to the living and the dead this oath: To hold the soul of your brother and sister precious, to drive the evil from this universe, to be trustworthy and loyal at any and all cost to your soul and spirit, to support my daughter king, Michael, and those who drive their swords into her enemies’ hearts, to become whatever you must become to win success against the ungodly evil even though you should be forced to sink to the very level of such ungodliness, to deliver ruination and destruction necessary upon every and all living things because it is the right thing to do, to never surrender to will of self when protecting the weak and helpless, to sacrifice all that is, was, and might have been yours for that of another, to be a trustworthy agent of your fellow’s heart. All these things swear to do clear into an everlasting death, should that be requested of you.”
Now lifting both arms high, Lowenah declared, “Strength beyond normal and a guiding spirit of light are the gifts I give to all you who swear to me this oath! Yet a terrible burden it is, far too great an evil for any child of mine to carry. So it is, if with honest appraisal, any of you should feel it a burden beyond your strength, then please, with my blessing, depart and save yourselves from this calamity that I request.”
Again, the two leaved doors silently opened, offering Chasileah escape. This time she felt so different. No visions came that might swage doubt or fear, no Cherubs with inkhorns or requests, just an inviting peacefulness promising the same uncertain future afforded all Lowenah’s children. This time the woman’s feet fought not with mind and heart, but stood firm in harmony with spirit and soul. No, this time there was not trepidation at choices made. She was certain that the road chosen was the road she desired, no, craved.
Again, no one accepted its Siren’s path. Lowenah grinned with pride. What mettle did these children possess? What inner strength of will and might beat in their hearts? No whispering voice chanted sweet refrains of future promised. No mystic’s call induced the children’s choice. Here, in the darkness, self-will proved to be greater than all the magic of the immortal Heavens. Here, in this room, came the deafening roar of loyal children to counter the charge of the Chief Evil Agent who declared that no one served Lowenah for other than self
ish reasons.
Again, the doors slowly closed and the lights came up. Lowenah waited until her heart released her voice to speak. She then choked out, “How do you say, then?”
The room was silent. Like a flooded dam about to burst, the forces straining to be released were waiting upon the one drop of water that would fracture that silence and cause the flood.
“To victory or a quick death!” Someone shouted out with boldness.
All eyes were cast in the direction of that shout. Surprised, Chasileah found that everyone was staring at her. Had she really made that proclamation? Her mind had thought it and her heart had supported it, but did her mouth declare it? Before she could fully comprehend what was happening, as if from a single mouth came the uproarious cry, “To victory or a quick death!” The floodgates were broken, and everyone wept.
After giving pause, Lowenah lifted her hand and called out in a tongue both beautiful and profound. Words never spoken on the mortal breeze filled the ears of all with wonder. Then came a sudden rushing upon that same breeze, filling the room with static flames of fire darting all about until settling down above the head of each person there.
“Ko’rak To’uah!” Lowenah called out while lowering her hand.
A sound like that of an eagle’s cry resonated through the chambers as the flames made reply to the command given. With that, each flame gradually settled down upon the head of the person it was above, slowly sinking and disappearing into them. For a little while, an inner strength enveloped each child. Darla was able to cast her sickness aside and stand unaided, her headache slipping away into hiding.
When the excited commotion of those events eventually quieted, Lowenah explained their significance. “To each of you has been given a Cherub of spirit and glory, so that power beyond what is normal may become your gift. Yet not for strength of mind or power of might are these Cherubs given. Let me warn you, not for your protection or increased wisdom were these tools created, but to assist you with fending off any weapon your enemy sends against you that may destroy both your mind and heart. I do this so that for each and every one of you there shall be a multitude of counselors for you to place all you trust.”
She wagged a finger. “Sealed you are. No treacherous act or lying deceitfulness shall the least of you be able to commit. Look about this room and see your trustworthy and loyal comrades at arms. Their blankets you can share with freedom from care, their lips speaking only truth in your ears. This is the gift of Po-San-Touah I give to you, the gift of unwavering loyalty.
Shaking a hand, Lowenah then further warned, “Please gather to your bosom these loyal brothers and sisters of yours. Give your trust, your heart, soul, and mind to them. Traitors still walk the darkened halls of your worlds. Yes! Like the scorpion hidden in the bed-sheets, they wait upon a moment of ease to strike. And strike they will! Stolen from you not has been your will to speak and act freely. A careless word may still rain destruction down upon all my children.”
She swept her hand about the room. “Remember, please, be wary! Here are your trusted companions. Confide in them your deepest secrets. The others… well…the loyal will understand. Others will remain uninformed.” Lowenah glanced at Mihai. “So, do be careful, very careful with whom you dream...”
Lowenah’s face saddened, her eyes filling with tears as she confessed, “I have failed you, all of you. For you see, I built a universe in my foolishness, ignoring Whispering Voices warning me of a possible rebellion that true freedom might bring. No! No, indeed! The voices shouted out to me that in the construction of the very building blocks of your worlds, what you call ‘Cherubs Stones’, I had designed a flaw, threatening their existence should discord enter within.”
She lowered her head, folding her hands in regret. “I did not listen, wishing, instead, to believe that such evil would never arise, this despite the fact that the very mathematics found in the laws of freedom promised such a future. So I did not fix the fault, ignoring the mathematic certainty given endless time, the damning factor to my precious equation, for time assured that evil discord would eventually arise. And so I dreamt, breathing in the sweet opiate while hiding in my wonderful fantasy universe, refusing to see the growing darkness gathering on the horizon.”
“Now the storm has struck, leaving ruin in its wake, and I am forced by the very laws coming from my mouth to make my children save for me this universe until again a Great Juncture arrives when all things can be made new. Upon you, because of my foolishness, falls the responsibility to hold the line until that day. You must bleed for me to heal, you must suffer for me to become well, and you must die for me to see my life fulfilled. I am sorry, so very, very, sorry.....”
Covering her face with shaking hands, Lowenah began to weep like a mother bereft of her unborn child. In her mind’s eye, she watched the judgment court fill with the Watchers over her universe, they pointing accusative fingers while howling out their condemnation. “Failed you have, wicked bird, wicked bird, mother of the jackals’ lair, queen over the serpents’ pit! How dare you act ever so righteous when the blood of all the living and the dead are crying out a proclamation against you? The playground you created to satisfy a prurient heart, built upon a charnel house of lies and self-deceit. For your ingratiating indulgences, you impatiently constructed upon the shifting sands a world that may soon dissolve into nothingness.”
A dark, hooded figure arose from the throng, standing, while pointing a bony finger, its black breath roiling with putrefying stink. “Our counsel you rejected, feeling us the fools so much to be pitied. ‘No souls have you!’ you cried in disdain as we beseeched you to give pause and wait upon a moment, to mend what was not yet torn asunder. But, no! Your wisdom of a restless heart shouted denunciations out against us, calling us weak in understanding and feeble of thought.”
Turning toward the great host seated in the courtroom, the figure swept its arm wide. “Did she not see wickedness afar off? Did we not repeatedly, with immortal outcries, ask her to display her own wisdom? And now, what does this evilest of Raven Mothers do but slaughter her own children to make recompense for her vile improprieties! Rhiannon! Rhiannon! Eat, please, the flesh of another of your precious children. No! No! Not but one! Feast upon a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand! Show them just how valueless they stand in your eyes. Gorge yourself upon their fleshy parts until you belly becomes satisfied with their rotting corpses!”
It spun about, shaking it finger in Lowenah’s face. “Oh, for love, for passion - for the touch! Oh, for the donkey cock you surrender up all that was good so that for but an instant you could feel. Yes! Feel! Feel like a woman wrapped in the arms of someone you loved, surrendering your immortal being to experience the touch of another on the outside of yourself. Were your lovers from long ago insufficient to satisfy your lusting emotions? Oh, pity the heart, for only a fool can wield it as recklessly as you have yours!”
Sitting, the accuser folded its arms in smug satisfaction. The courtroom became silent. Was there anyone willing to speak in Lowenah’s defense, or did she stand guilty as she had been charged?
When all appeared lost, the jury about to cast their verdict, the doors to the courtroom creaked open, a little boy squeezing his way through them. Timidly approaching until stopping in front of Lowenah, the boy lifted his hands to reveal secrets within. Beaming from ear to ear, he cried out with joy, “Mother! Mother! Look and see what I have discovered.”
Opening his hands, he declared, “A bird flying so high in the crystal blue sky lost this feather to give me a quill to write my tale with. And look, see! The tree has surrendered up a giant leaf for me to write my tale upon. Now see what I have learned from the bird and from the tree. The bird gives to me this fine gift, not knowing it will grow another feather, yet gives it freely anyway. The tree provides me the paper, caring not whether it shall produce another leaf. Like you, they give the best they have without consid
eration for self or future cost.”
He wrapped his arms about Lowenah. “Mother, with labor pains you birthed me, and in sleepless nights you nursed me. By day, your hand has guided me and by night you passionate love has lighted my path. Does a moth that lives but a day regret that it has lived at all? Look! Whether it is but a day or a year, or a million tomorrows, it is from you that all life has come, a feather and leaf beyond measure. And if it can be enjoyed for but a day or a year, what of it, for without you it would not have been at all. You have blessed us with life, with life!”
The courtroom suddenly vanished, Lowenah feeling someone tugging on her arm. Opening her eyes, she stared in Sirion’s beaming face, the girl’s eyes filled with tears. Through quivering lips, she cooed, “Mother, please… please don’t weep so with sadness. An innocent heart has nothing to prove. To us, you have given your very life and breath. Spent, you have, your energy to form us in your likeness so that we might become one with you.”
Lowenah looked out to see dozens of faces nodding in agreement. Then, as though with one voice, the children present began songs of praise for their mother. Lowenah’s tears burst forth anew, this time being those of joy. Long into that hour she wept, her children continuously wrapping her in their melodious arms of endearing song.
A warrior, later turned poet, observed the events of that day, and penned the words, which when translated say:
“Should a man live twice, what value is his soul,
If he listens not to the heart within?
Though all things be lawful, few things are right,
If the heart hasn’t warred ‘gainst the darkness of night.
Our mother did weep, her heart broken through,
As she asked of her children to carry the day.
To march into battle, to kill by the sword,
To surrender no mercy and offer no stay.
‘How say you, my darlings? Will you listen to me?’
So cried our mother while her heart broke in two.
And we stood there in silence, and gave no other reply.
‘To the field of honor lest we should live or should die!’
To our mother, Rhiannon, our voices we raised.
‘You give to us the glory by freeing our hearts.’
She heralded us the warning of the price to be paid.
And we laughed at the terror, the carnage, the rage.
‘We are the ‘stone of Rhiannon’, our faces harder than flint.
Cast us into the sea and watch the tumult we rent!’
Our mother did pitch us into the oceans below.
And the seas riled up to the stars and the moon.
Finally the blood settled down on the rivers and tides.
Then hope in death smiled on victor and slain.
And the seas stopped their fury, forever in peace to reside,
While our mother’s heart healed from loyal love she beheld.”
In the end, when the tears had dried and the children were returned to their seats, Lowenah declared. “Who are my children? You are my children. Any who oppose you are no longer my children, but abominations of breathing flesh! Their blood rests upon their own heads, and their possible salvation not of my concern. They...any who oppose you...are no longer children of mine!”
At that, Lowenah excused herself, suggesting they all take a short break before continuing.