*
Ma-we sucked in the invigorating mountain air, smiling. “My children have found this world so peculiar and riddling and yet, as with me, are ever drawn to its intoxicating delights.” She reached down, breaking away a stock of green hay, biting it off to just the right length, gripping it with her teeth. Her eyes rolled upward, half closed. “You know, even I forget just how wonderful life is. It has grown past me, taken on a power of its own, you might say. Doesn’t need Mother anymore...” She grinned whimsically. “That’s how I made it….life, I mean.”
Closing her eyes, she returned to her earlier thoughts. “My daughter, Rachel – Darla - reached out to your child by my will. She used what few tools were at her disposal. The money, gown, vision - all the things she did were with my approval, but by her own power, something she knows nothing about, nor would she believe it to be so if I told her. You see, these Middle Realms enhance a person’s spirit and mental mindset, that is if a person is in tune with the harmonics of the universe.”
She peered into Mihai’s eyes. “There are few of my children who are more in tune with the Third Element than my child RachelOchlah.” Slowly shaking her head, Ma-we mused, “I do so love that name, but my daughter chooses to use one of her own invention. I don’t know why, though I can understand her reasons for doing so.”
Ma-we wagged a finger. “You know, Rachel managed to get Ishtar out of that prison for real. Now that’s a trick! And then she got her back again - pretty good for a person who doesn’t even know her own mind…yet.” She grinned. “I’m so proud of her!”
Ma-we stopped, staring from the rise back toward the Zoheret resting peacefully nearly a league away. After a moment of silent meditation, she turned her gaze to the distant hills, pointing. “There, that’s our destination. I wanted us to be alone.” She took Mihai’s hand and started down the ridge in that direction.
After the two had walked in silence for some time, Ma-we stirred, acting as though coming out of a dream. “Child, do you want to know a secret? One I have never revealed to another of my children?”
Mihai stopped, the tone of her mother’s voice betraying a rare excitement. “Please! Yes! Ma-we, please tell your little child one of your secrets.”
Ma-we peered into the enchanted sky, filled with a rainbow of dancing sheets of mesmerizing hues of gold, green, blue and red that would remind one of the northern lights. For the longest time she said nothing, as if forgetting she had asked a question at all. Finally, as if talking to herself, Ma-we softly offered, “This is where it all began...”
Squeezing Mihai’s hand, she stared up and into her eyes through tear-filled orbs. “…the beginning of all mortal life, I mean, right here, in this Middle Realm. This place is the heart of my universes.”
Mihai’s mouth fell open, the shock rendering her speechless.
Ma-we grinned. “That’s right! This place is my secret seat of power, the Land Of Knowledge, the Great Pyramid of Wisdom, the World Beyond Law, the Fountain of Youth, Shangri-La, and every other title your brother has declared my palace on EdenEsonbar to be. Right here, under his very nose, resides everything the fool’s been seeking for so many millenniums. That’s right! He’s been prowling around a long time to discover my secrets and they’ve been right here all along.”
Resting hands on hips, Ma-we scanned the pageantry around her, nodding in satisfaction. “And the fool’s too stupid to ever understand it, even if I told him to his face. Stupid fool!” Shaking her head, she added, “Wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did believe me. Works on harmonics… the Third Element, you know.”
Regaining her senses, Mihai asked, “What is the Third Element of EbenCeruboam? The elusive elixir of life?”
Still studying the distant hills, Ma-we answered, “Your kind thinks life here mimics that of the other realms. So wrong! So wrong! Here…” She spread her arms high and wide. “This place is the jelly that holds the bread. Everything sticks to this universe, stuck to it in order to survive.”
She spun around facing Mihai, her eyes beaming. “Did you believe the Eden Stones were created in my laboratories in the Lower Realms, or possibly in my palace?” She grabbed Mihai’s hand. “Come! We must hurry. Even I cannot surrender Time to my will.”
Despite the brisk walk, Ma-we did not tire of the tale. “This world was my home long before time as you know it began. You see, time only begins… is worth counting… when you have someone to share it with. Before my mortal children, there was no need for time, for clocks, you might say. Oh Silly, yes, Silly, there was time - time to do this and time to have to do that. I didn’t invent time absolute. But time does not exist unless there is a need to recognize that it does. My children made that happen for me. Oh, well, enough…”
“This is my world, the one I chose for me and…” Mihai chanced a glance at the twinkle in her mother’s eyes. “This is the world I chose to reside in while I… er… the other universes came into existence. Oh yes, I created this place, or oversaw its creation.”
“Mother! Your riddles hurt my ears!” Mihai winced as if in pain.
Ma-we laughed. “I will show you all my secrets. Yes. Yes. One day I will show you everything I have done, maybe even to my child, Rachel. Yes. I will! We will travel to my eternal home, my home beyond the stars, to a world no mortal can imagine.” She laughed again. “Yes! Yes! That is why I made you…all of you. Yes!”
Ma-we sighed. “I grew up in knowledge all alone. By myself, I figured out who I was and why I was. I wasn’t lonely, never was. I didn’t know what loneliness was. How could I? Then I created life inside me, but it was real, still is. Then I made life grow until I sent it out beyond my living self to warm the dark nothing surrounding me. Oh, to make something independent of yourself and yet so full of symbiotic spirit! It’s so wonderful! And then I made…”
Ma-we stopped in mid-sentence, studying her daughter, then, as if jumping across chapters of a story, began anew. “One day I made my children, birthed them, and fell in love with them. I have stayed here with them ever since. One day I will bring them to my real home far from here, unreachable to mortal flesh. They will come to my home and light the rooms with laughter and mirth, and… and…” She frowned. “I will never be lonely again.”
As they tripped lightly down some worn granite steps, Ma-we replied to Mihai’s earlier question. “The Third Element? What a wonderful thing. You’ve studied it well. Suffice it to say that what you know of it at the moment is well enough for the good of all. One day, maybe, though you do use it so well, yes, yes, so well, you and my child, Rachel.”
Upon coming to a field filled with jepson lilies and crystal-jade butterflies, Ma-we changed the subject. “I do not like death - not of my children - and I do not wish to be alone during the coming moment. Ishtar has served her purpose well and now must shed her flesh this day to begin a new journey that will change all things for all time.”
Surprised, Mihai exclaimed in question, “You’re bringing her to us now?! In this the hour and time?!”
Shaking her head, Ma-we answered. “No! No! Not today. There will be others of her kind who will walk among us before her feet skip across my palace floor. Still, there is much the child must learn before that day. She will not sleep as many do, but I will be working with the child the many days between now and then. I will give her knowledge beyond knowledge and wisdom extraordinaire. Long will be the years before I accomplish all that is to be done with the child.”
Looking into Mihai’s eyes, Ma-we added, “Ishtar’s personality will belong to her for changing, something that I believe will test the souls of your brothers and sisters. I already feel sorry for some of the old stick-in-the-muds we have among us. She will be quite trying. Spoiled the girl is, foolish and impetuous to the point of being arrogant, the very qualities it will take for her to accomplish her responsibilities.”
Mihai was quick to ask,
“I know the river ever flows and the rain is master over all save the sun, but as the dam can break the river’s stride and the clouds can steal away the sun’s power, I know that you abide death’s glory only in its purpose served. So, as I have asked and not forgotten, why must Ishtar die such a horrid death at the hands of evil men? And why today? Are a few fleeting years of youthful life not a gallant reward for her loyal actions? Is her training so important that a little time given her to be a woman such a small thing to ask?”
Ma-we’s face clouded, her voice filling with remorse, but she spoke beyond Mihai’s question. “I mourn Merna’s death. Such a waste… But she is not the first to fall victim to the evils of that world. I will reward her with knowledge, wisdom and power. Her shy lack of confidence will one day disappear. See what the woman becomes then. Oh, and for her unborn, there will be many willing surrogates to nurture and birth the child of a king.”
She looked away toward the ground, hiding a tear. “I did not want Merna to die, not today or any day, and I do not wish to see Ishtar suffer.”
Mihai interrupted, her eyes aglow with passion. “Then why? Why will it have to be so?”
Ma-we took Mihai’s hands, kindly scolding, “Remember, it is the slower mouse that escapes the trap. Be patient and learn. True, I have the power to stop the wickedness that will soon swallow up the soul of our child. But it is my power that is being challenged. I have been charged as unfit because they say that I use my power to give gifts and rewards in order to buy the loyalty of my servants. So then, I hold back my hand to prove it isn’t true, swearing by an oath what I say is true. No sooner are the words out of my mouth than all evil is unleashed against the world of men, creating a land in which terrible things happen to innocent people.”
Waving her arms in frustration, Ma-we mourned, “Look at the tortures so many suffer - indescribable, violent! I ask you, do you think a baby driven down upon a stake, its innards skewered through, suffers more than its mother who is forced to watch it slowly die? Yes, they both suffer horribly. But what does your brother foment against me. ‘It is the will of God! It is the will of God!’ his prophets cry. Then, to my face, they accuse me of cruelty for not rescuing the innocent from the murders they commit.”
She shook her head in frustration. “By the use of treachery, these purveyors of evil take the very laws of freedom that I made to protect the minds and hearts of my children… the freedom that allows my children to choose without interference their own roads traveled… and then drive my innocent children upon those sharpened stakes of lies, forcing me to watch, helpless, as my children, in agony, die.”
Sadness grew on Ma-we’s face. “You must believe me when I tell you that I do not wish Ishtar to die this day or any day…and not as Legion has prepared it to be.” She paused, looked away toward the hills, and then again into Mihai’s eyes. “Yet, my hands are tied.”
She stroked Mihai’s arm. “My dear, death comes to all humans. Tell me, does it pain less to hang upon a stake than to be torn apart by a wild boar? Or does a person burning up in a fire hurt less than one torched in the emperor’s arena? Or, is a slow cancerous death better than being forced to drink of the hemlock weed? My dearest of my daughters, death through agony is common to earthly men, and Ishtar’s death by torture no more painful than what has been blessed upon countless others.”
Looking deep into Mihai’s eyes and upon seeing such sadness there, Ma-we promised, “For you, for your sake, since you have chosen to become mother to this child, I will soften her blow. Oh yes, her death will come, but I will allow you to force the contest so that your child will pass quickly, like the piercing through of the heart.” She smiled. “Your hands are not tied!”
Mihai affectionately squeezed Ma-we hands, kissing her softly on the lips. After thanking her, she gave her mother a smothering hug. “Please, my lovely One, I thank you for your gift to me, but remember, please, your loyal daughter. Never have I doubted your love and never have I seen you do one thing out of selfishness or cruelty. I trust that death, no matter how vicious, has no lasting power against the ones you love, and it seems that you have love for everyone.”
She paused, a question popping into her mind, stepping back, asking, “How could you offer Legion the gift of mercy when he has already surrendered his soul to the damned, given his spirit to the winds of the universe?”
Ma-we turned away, studying the distant hills. As if addressing an invisible host, she asked, “Has he?” Moments passed. In time, she looked around, peering questioningly into Mihai’s face. “Do you know for sure he’s gone? Who has whispered the matter into your ear? Can you see into the vast Web of the Minds to secure the answer?” Stepping back and looking down the trail, she offered, “Who is wicked beyond hope? Who is erased from the Book of Records? That, my Dear, I have chosen not to know… There are forces beyond your reach who choose what I wish not to see. Oh yes, I know the results of evil… the severing of soul and mind… but I do not do the severing.”
She took Mihai’s hand, caressing it so tenderly. “Child of mine, I built a universe upon laws that transcend heart and mind. The Third Element, my sweet child, it is that element that holds all things together…and it also tears asunder. The soul of the universe is woven into it, lives off it, exists because of it.”
“Your brother, Chrusion, departed that universe long ago, becoming a life unto himself, a dying ember cast away from the fires of spirit and life. So it is with any who forsake the Third Element. By special mightiness of personal strength and mental fortitude, the person may live many millennia before succumbing to old age and death. But it will come - in ten, twenty, a hundred thousands of years - it will come.”
Wiping a tear from her eye, Ma-we added remorsefully, “Your brother is gone. I know that. But of the others… my children… my children… I… I have held… hold… out hope for some of the others.”
Looking into the sky, she sighed. “All things are mathematical - equations painted upon the heavens by the brush of indelible certainty. I cannot change one stroke of that brush lest the universes would collapse into lifeless smoke and ash. That brush sweeps its bristles of fate across all my children, all life, comparing their artistry against the eternal pattern of itself. When it concludes the mismatch to be too great, it removes the potential threat of discord from the universes. And in the Day of Readjustment, when Gradian’s Clock chimes on the twelves, and all the universes are realigned with the Third Element, then all that is out of harmony with the final equation ceases to exist.”
Ma-we shook her head in sadness. “I need not tell my daughter these facts, for has she not witnessed them many, many times during her own existence? How great is the magnitude of species of animals that have reached the limit of cohesive genetic viability that have been swept from life, saving only their harmonically balanced relatives to rebuild a depleted universe? And is that not part of the reason you needed to pass through the depths of the Lower Realms, to bring about a saving of those people?”
Mihai was filled with questions. Ma-we was in no mood to answer them. “Another day, Child, another day. For now, listen and learn.”
“My lovely, dear, sweet, innocent child, all things are ruled over by what’s mathematical - that cruel, heartless equation based upon a furtive mind’s reasoning long before that mind understood her own heart. It is a good thing, though, for as much as that heartless equation seeks only its own logic and reason, it creates a stable environment for freedom, something that a fickle heart would be so willing to steal away to satisfy its own desires.”
“You see, guilt and wantonness are measurements made by the heart seeking a balance for its own feelings. The Third Element has grown to understand those feelings, but it refuses to base its judgment upon them. It sees not the feeling but the harmonics. Too far out of harmony and Poof! - out of life. It cares not for man or beast. It cares for harmony. It must bring all things back into bal
ance…peace. It is the beast that will destroy all life if that is what it takes to return harmonic balance.”
Ma-we again faced the distant hills, lowering her head. “A necessary tool for keeping the clocks of all my universes from falling into chaos becomes the very weapon that may yet destroy all my works of life in those very universes. It is a machine run by machines. Still…when it is gathered to the heart, it becomes a weapon of life instead of death.” Looking into Mihai’s face, she smiled nodding. “A weapon for life! Yes, indeed, when gathered to the heart, an unbeatable one!”
“Let’s walk.” Ma-we took Mihai’s hand. “You see, I have never tested the limit of the Web of the Minds to know how far it will stretch before abandoning its host. For that reason, I don’t know how far a wayward child can go before all hope is forfeit.”
Mihai looked at her mother in wonder. Here was the Maker of the universes fighting her own inner demons of self-doubt and determined resolve. No, she had made the universes so that the greatest gift given her children could never be stolen from them, but that guarantee came at great cost to her, the wiles of the Fates deciding her own destiny. Forces? What forces was her mother speaking of? Were there others who ruled distant realms beyond the reach of the children and controlled the fate of their world?
Ma-we interrupted Mihai’s thoughts. “Legion crossed the line today. There is no longer a returning for him. That I know, now, it being whispered to me across the breeze of time and space. But until I heard that whisper, I found hope - hope that a spark of that Third Element might still remain living in his heart. I see now that it is gone. He is no more…”
With that revelation, Ma-we became silent, eyes cast ever down, hidden from Mihai’s own prying orbs. The two traveled on for some time before Ma-we renewed any conversation.
At length they came to a tiny lake, its blue, tepid waters beckoning them to luxuriate in a refreshing splash. Neither accepted. Upon reaching a narrow strip of sandy beach, Ma-we motioned for Mihai to sit. While staring across the glassy, smooth surface of the lake, Ma-we pined, “There is nothing else for it. The hour has come and, should I delay any longer, our daughter will not benefit from our help. I have great need of your service, for my hands are tied, but yours have not the power to do what must be done.”
Mihai answered quickly, not waiting to hear further. “Whatever it is that I can do is mine to give to you. Ask! Please! Just ask!”
Ma-we smiled grimly, a serious tone carried on her voice. “You shall think better of your offer tomorrow. I will accept it, along with my apologies. I have no other choice. My strength I shall pour into an unprepared body. You will have but little time to accomplish our purpose and then the shock on your system shall take over, making you believe your death rides upon the day…possibly wishing it be so. It may be several days before you heal.”
Mihai closed her eyes. “Your slave girl...”
“Here, take my hands and look into my eyes.” Ma-we commanded. Mihai reached out and, sitting up on her knees, took Ma-we hands, she sitting the same way. Ma-we sighed. “Your brother put me under oath long ago. I had no choice. It was the only way I could slow his interference in the Realms Below. I cannot directly intrude in this day’s events. Once your spirit leaves us here, I will be unable to return it for many hours without causing you great harm. Helpless, you will have to see the child you love torn and destroyed by the wicked acts of Legion and his infested hordes.”
Mihai smiled reassuringly. “No! It is I who am honored by your request. Better would it be for me to perish forever accomplishing your service than to live forever having neglected your smallest request. Tell me what you wish me to do.”
Tiny waves rippled across the blue-green waters as Ma-we’s harmonic tune increased in its melodious pitch. The women’s long strands of hair began to float on the gentle breeze until, like the wings of newborn butterflies, they danced and swayed to the whispering song playing on the air. Soon, all Mihai could hear was her mother’s song, it sweeping away all other senses as it, itself, took possession of her very being. In moments, she was withdrawn from her surroundings into a rainbow-filled cacophony of wild colors and heart-numbing music.
When the final, fire-red cosmic gasp passed Mihai’s eyes, the woman found herself floating free above the crowded city of Ephesus, quickly drawing close to the arena. Already she could feel her mother’s energy overpower her own will. There was no time to waste if she was to effect a coup on her brother this day.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Mihai was hurrying toward the prison gates. Though physically unable to change matters, she being invisible to all around her, with her mother’s mental powers channeled through her, she could move the world.