El and Onine (18 page)

When she asked what would become of me, I wanted so
desperately to tell her but instead said, “You already know, Kypria.”

I reminded her we had discussed it long ago when we
devised the plan to escape Venus. I could see her trying to recall our
meetings, our strategy to get her out from under the rule of Midan. Her
transparency gave her away and I read her as easily as I had when our flames
mixed. She wanted to know if he had succeeded in his breach of Terra, if his acquisition
of her was a success, and I assured her it was not.

“I saw you spurn their spark when you vomited on the
path.” I had no doubt the serum had worked and the torture to which she had been
subjected for three moonscapes, her submersion in the molten liquid of Venus, a
mirror to mine in the gelid nivis of Gelu, had readied her for their invasion.

“I can’t do it,” she said, as she rushed toward me.
“I won’t give you up.”

I was no longer hidden in the darkness of the shanty.
The eye’s light was drawn to me and revealed my radiance. I recalled my
encounter with Mara. It had taken place in this very spot and had changed our
worlds. I hoped it was something that would stay with me forever. El held on to
me but I had already summoned Tal. “You will never forget me, El.” I wanted to
tell her I would be with her always but I let those words remain Mara’s.

“I can’t do it—I can’t do it,” she said.

I was already gone, fused with the fire starter forever.
“You must,” I said with Tal’s voice, pulling her away from Onine’s form. “He’s
coming through the field—the wheat crumbles under his step.”

The ground shook and the shanty collapsed just as we
had planned. I looked out to the field and watched the beast hurdle over the wheat,
enticed by the Venusian spark he could see in the distance. He was the same
ugly creature he had been on my home planet, unwilling to change his form to
suit Terra’s atmosphere. The creatures from Menaleck proved adaptable to other
atmospheres, as the chameleons of our cosmos. I held out as long as I could
before I reached for El and covered her with my body, crouching down and
keeping her hidden, as the beast passed. His troop had fallen behind, their
bodies clinging to the ground beneath them and rooting in the soil. Their
transformation into trees would be complete before Midan made his leap, drawn
to the Kyprian—his enemy—the one who had stolen his queen. He was
oblivious that my form was a mirage readied for his doom.

I watched the event unfold, as El remained wrapped in
my embrace, protected from the flame, blind to the fire, and kept from seeing Onine’s
transformation. Midan grunted, as he vaulted over us, straight for the trap I set
for him. When he hit it, sparks flew across the shanty floor and out past the
collapsed walls, an explosion of green light like jade stones thrust into the
liquid of the borneo lava lands. Onine consumed Midan just as Kypria’s gold spread
over Terra’s plains, seeped into its cracks and ate up its vibrant, living
soil. The ambassador from Menaleck was burned to Venusian cinders and blown
into the wind. Never could he have anticipated such immolation since the baths
in the Temple had secretly filled his scaly form with lava from the hot beds of
our home planet and readied him for his doom.

The beast was slain, conquered by the Kyprian fire
he longed to rule. My goddess was safe and all that remained of my terrestrial
form was a tree with wax flowers. I wanted it to be our reminder of Onine and
Kypria while we lived as Tal and El.

***

“Is it over?” The sound of her voice was the most
pleasing one in the world to me. Sapient tongue had never been so inviting.

“It’s over.” I lifted her up from the ground,
holding her hand in mine, threading my fingers through hers. She had tears in
her eyes and I knew they were for Onine. I led her to the tree I had left for her
in the middle of the shanty. “Touch it,” I said.

She pulled her hand from mine and reached for the
wax petals but hesitated for the briefest moment. She closed her eyes and drew
in a breath. “Huh,” she said. “Smells different.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled a little and turned back to look at me.
“Never mind.”

The tree remained untouched, but she admired it for
a while longer and then perused the open space in front of her. With the walls
of the shanty gone, she could see farther than she ever had before. “Things are
no longer the same.”

No, my goddess, they are not
, I wanted to say but
instead, “No, El, everything is changed.”

I offered her my arm and led her away from the tree
and into the garden she had known her whole life. “I have something to show
you.”

She followed me past the rows of cabbages and onto
the edge of the wheat field at the back.

“What’s that?” She noticed the little straw hut
right away, but only saw Bendo when the goat came out from the shade. El made a
shrill sound that could only be pleasure, as she ran toward her cherished pet.
“Bendo! You’re alive!”

I laughed at the joy she had yet to see. Inside the
small straw hut were five of Bendo’s six kids. One had probably found his way
out into the field to explore the newly sprouted trees. The goat had been in
labor when her mistress found her whimpering and covered in blood.

When El noticed the baby goats, she reached for me
to steady herself. “But how?”

“Saturnia’s sister,” I said. “A gift for you.”
Kypria, my goddess, my beloved.

“She did this for me?” She looked in the direction
of the hall of stones and I knew she recalled the tree.

“Let us go see it,” I said.

She nodded, as she stroked Bendo. The kids sensed
their mother’s devotion to her mistress and crowded around El. She petted each
of them and promised to give them names when she returned.

As we walked to the Temple, we explored the new
vista. “Where’d they all go?” El asked, meaning both the Venusian and seemingly
vanished sapients.

“I don’t know.”

My goddess and I never discussed what would happen
when Terra was remade into the planet it had been before our visitation. I only
knew that every Venusian, every Kyprian, would become a part of it. Embedded in
nature, my kin would live in the natural atmosphere. The trees, lakes, fields,
flowers, moonbugs would all hum with the vibrations of our fire. That was the
promise made in the tome. Kyprian would live and flourish in the rich, verdurous
land of its new home. Terra came alive with Venusian matter—we were the
seeds of everything terrestrial.

“What will we do now?” El said, as she reached for
my hand. We walked together along the rickety cobblestones, stripped of their
gold and covered in moss. “Everything is alive.”

I wanted to tell her I was alive too, but I was afraid
she would not believe me.

When we reached the Temple, the structure had
partially collapsed and revealed the deep pits into which the baths had sunk.
They made large holes in the ground, sinking under the pressure of their
weight. The slate tubs were heavier with the molten liquid, having been filled since
last moonscape. El pointed to the gold chains she had pulled each time she
arrived. They had dropped from the roof and were poking out of the soil like
gargantuan stalks of wheat.

“They’re not gold anymore,” she said.

“Nothing is.” It was as if the planet had swallowed
the gold and buried it deep in its core. “You have to dig to find gold now.”

The tinselly cypress and flaxen sycamores were no
more. The trees had burst from their metal coating and stood tall, parading
their thick rind and new buds. They would soon be showing off their leaves too,
reaching up to the sky and the eye’s rays, married as they were to the soil of
their new home.

When we cut up the path to reach the hall of stones,
the ground was soft at our feet and we dug in our heels to take the incline. I
held El’s hand and led her through the forest as I’d done long ago. When I
turned to look at her this time, the sensation of contact was entirely
different. I could lean down and kiss her if I wanted to. I longed for the
moment when I would feel my goddess’s lips, her skin, her heart touch mine.

“We’re almost there,” she said. “I see her.”

Saturnia’s sister stood tall above us, hanging over
the ledge of the cracked solarium I had built for my goddess. Her leaves had
multiplied and she blocked the eye from the path, shading us as we made our way
into the hall where the magic had vanished. When we stepped through the glass,
the atmosphere remained the same. We no longer floated, the bright lights and Venusian
flames were gone, and the jade stones had been destroyed with Midan. Saturnia’s
sister stood among others now. A forest of living trees had sprung up around
her, a family of saplings for the healer to tend.

“She’s still beautiful,” El said, as she gazed at
the enormous tree.

“She is.” I was overcome with emotion when I saw my sibling,
her sacrifice. I silently thanked her for it again.

“I’ll never forget her,” she said. “She was good to
me.” El stepped forward and laid her hands on the tree’s thick rind. She stroked
the surface and then threw her arms around the tree. “I’ll always cherish you,”
she said. “And so will my descendants.”

We heard a warble at the top of the tree and looked
up to see my sibling’s second gift. A delicate creature fluttered in the sky, hovering
at the tip of its maker’s leaves and dancing from branch to branch as if its
nature were established long ago.

“Did you know about this?” El turned to me with
surprise.

“No,” I said. “How could I know?”

“Didn’t she tell you before …” She searched for the
right words. “She set the plan in motion.”

“Why would I know any of this?” I wanted to tell her
I was unaware which species my goddess’s healer would bring back to life and
which she would newly invent, but I was afraid to reveal myself.

El studied me for a moment and then looked at the
tree again. “Let’s go back to the garden. I want to name the goats.” She smiled
and held her hand out to me. I took it and admired how it looked much like her
creator’s and yet she was a creature of her own kind, a new breed of being.

“Have you thought of names yet?”

“Just one,” she said.

“What is it?”

She smiled at me and reached for my cheek, caressing
it with the tips of her fingers. She caught my gaze and I recalled her as she
was on her pedestal.
Goddess
, I
repeated over and over in my mind.
My
goddess
.

“Onine,” she said.

I could barely speak, wanting to kiss her as she had
kissed me once in our terrestrial forms. “You want to name one after Onine?”

She shook her head and leaned in closer. “Onine,”
she said again.

I could see the recognition in her eyes, the change
that came over her when she looked at Tal but saw me. “How did you know?”

“Saturnia’s sister left me a final gift,” she said.

“She told you?”

She shook her head again. “Tal’s eyes were dark like
mine. Yours are violet.”

My sibling had made the switch without my knowing.
She had left the trace for my goddess to find.

“May I kiss you now?” I asked.

“Now and forever.”

I took my goddess into my arms and we exchanged
worlds properly this time, without fear of fire or clay because we were both.

The End