Phantammeron Book One Page 14
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Flying on her ebony wings, the Shade wound her way through the lonesome corridors that lay beneath the Lands of Midnight. She had returned to her father’s lands. Down into the catacombs of his labyrinthine halls she flew, until she arrived at his massive tomb. But as she stood before her father’s empty grave, she heard a distant voice coming from the depths below.
She then walked forth and down the great steps to the place where she had heard the pitiful cry. Like the wailing of a lonely specter haunting a forgotten grave, its lonesome sound had risen forth from the strange sewers below. There the dark waters of a mysterious stream had once flowed, pouring forth from some undead well of the underworld that once had fed it.
As she searched the sewers, she saw floating in the black water a lonely figure. It was her father, frail and wounded, yet somehow alive. He had called her from afar. But seeing his daughter again, the Endless Night reached out to her.
Pulling him from the dark water, the Shade knelt beside her father, holding him in his last fateful hour. The Endless Night then said to her, “I have waited for you, my child, holding on to the last light of hope that you would return to me. For my life is almost spent.”
As he looked upon his daughter’s face, he saw within her eyes a secret sorrow she had hid deep inside herself. He looked into her heart and knew then of her love for Agapor. “I had hoped that love would find you. For so little of it has been given in this world,” he told her. He then touched her face as her tears fell upon his hand.
The Shade then said to her father, “Father, your son took your powerful wings and tried to destroy the child called Ana. For in her dwelt some mysterious water whose purpose he alone had understood. But he has failed, Father, for Phantaia yet lives. And the pool that died has now been reborn. She has given Phantaia new life. For the great tree that grows there draws forth some strange new light from its well. It now bathes the world in everlasting twilight, Father.”
The Endless Night smiled. He then asked the Shade if her brother yet lived. “He is gone, Father. For the light that shined briefly in the tree has burned him to ashes.”
The Endless Night then looked away, saying, “Your brother had come under the powers of a terrible spirit, one which I had spawned. Yet strangely in the end, he had embraced its evil rather than resisting it, his heart filling up and brimming with deep hatred for the world.”
He then looked upon the Shade with fearful eyes, saying, “Though your brother is dead, I yet hear his spirit calling. Do you not hear it?” The Shade looked at him in doubt.
He then asked, “Does the witch yet live?”
The Shade said, “I do not know Father, as she has disappeared. I fear this creature, as I feel she has betrayed my brother.”
The Endless Night then spoke with introspection, saying, “Her spirit came to me, long ago, from a dark place beyond this world that none might ever find. I cared for her, and she for me. But I had discovered too late that she lived for a purpose most devious that she would never reveal. And yet I spared her life from the destruction of my brothers. For I loved her truly.” The Endless Night then looked down, deep in thought again. For he could not tell his daughter a painful truth.
The Endless Night was near death. And he looked into his daughter’s eyes with great love and admiration for her. But she saw a deep sadness yet in them. He then said to her, “My daughter, long ago I defied the Essence Eternal, my Father. And so had I destroyed this world, seeking to gain power for myself, driven by greed, desire, and pride. You alone, my child, must go and redo what I have undone.
“Soon a blessed child shall be born into this world, one who, by his vast creative powers, shall place within the Heavens the Star-Maidens. By the lights of these Children of Heaven, bound to the mantle of the night, shall be made known a new message of hope for those yet to come. With the remaking of the Sacred Pool, once again, shall a new generation of children, more joyous and at peace, soon enter this world. For them alone have our many works and labors been granted by Him,” said the Endless Night.
He then said, “The time has come for my last labor to be completed. Return to my tomb and shatter the dark crystal of my thrown. Hidden inside it lies the Wings of Night. For I had kept them there safe from all evil until the time when you would return. These wings the Essence Eternal had given to me, left over from a fallen world, so that you my daughter might reforge the Heavens anew.”
“Go with haste!” said the Endless Night. “With the Wings of Night you must form the midnight mantle of the Heavens. By the shade of those wings shall the night skies then be remade for the star-children to dwell therein. Under their guidance shall the Children of Shadow and the Children of Shining someday dwell in peace in Phantaia. The beginning of this new age shall be heralded by their beacons. And so must the mantle be made so that the shining splendor of their hope-filled lights endures.”
“Father, I shall fulfill your wish,” said the Shade. The Endless Night then looked upon his daughter’s compassionate face. His heart was now at peace.
She held him close to her in his final hour. The Shade then wept for him and all that she had lost. The Endless Night then passed away in her arms, crumbling into a dark dust that fell through her fingers. But as she looked up into the heights of the cavern, she saw his silver spirit flying free, gliding with great gossamer wings upon the night winds, until he disappeared in the darkness high above.
The Shade came before her father’s massive throne in the great tomb where he had lain. She then shattered the black crystal of that mighty chair, tearing away the rocks with her bare hands. There, within the stone, lay a pair of small silver wings—the mighty Wings of Night given to her father by the Essence Eternal.
They shined out with a divine radiance, yet drew unto themselves her dark and silken shadows. Within their shining feathers shone the promise of a million sparkling stars and worlds, yet unborn. The Shade then drew them forth, gazing with reverence at their transcendent beauty. With great humility, she placed them upon her form, opening them wide before her. Something miraculous and purposeful then stirred within her heart. She now understood all that had been given to her, and all that had been lost. And she felt the divine grace and mercy of the Spirit Divine, and his secret purpose for her.
The Shade flew out beyond the Veils of Night, soaring upon the cold night winds. On her black wings she soared, high up into the sky, until she reached the Arch of Heaven. There she untied her silken sashes, letting the sails of her argent wings unfurl. She stretched the Wings of Night wide before her, until their bright cloak had filled the skies. They then changed from light to dark. And the true nature of their nighttime sheet was revealed to her. The Shade and her mighty wings were then drawn up into the Arch of Heaven. And there she became one and inseparable with it.
The heights of the Heavens were thus remade and bound unto the Shade, whose spirit forever after held its dark mantle in her loving arms. The children of Phantaia would often look upon her beauty and wonder, gazing upon the stars she held so dear to her and their star-children yet to come. But with the darkening of the skies to perpetual night were the Gates of Heaven forever closed to them. Never again would the children of Phantaia see the grandiose Mountains of Heaven that towered beyond the Arch, nor speak of the mysterious Lands of Mist which lay beyond them.
And so was the first age of the forging of the world now complete. The Anakra, first Dreamtime of the Great Mother, had now passed.