Sunlight and Shadow (19 page)

You are a fool, Tern, I thought. What makes you think you are strong enough or clever enough to brush back the fires of hell? You couldn't even succeed your own father, claim your own birthright You will fail, for you are nothing.

And no sooner had I thought these things than it seemed to me that I understood the fires roar. It was not one single voice, as I had previously perceived, but a multitude of voices, all raised at one and the self-same time. Each crying out its own doom. But more than that, mine.

“This one thinks the Lord Sarastro will abandon his daughter in this place!” I heard one call out. And it seemed to me every single voice the fire held laughed in response.

“If so, he is an idiot and deserves his fate,” a
second observed. “For surely the lord will rescue his daughter at the last moment.”

“Rescue her, leave this one here, then marry his daughter to the man of his own choice,” put in a third voice. “That's what a smart father would do, and the Lord Sarastro is no fool.”

I am lost, I thought.

It seemed to me that the voices of the fires of hell made perfect sense. Why should the Lord Sarastro abandon the daughter he so loved to a horrible fate when he might save her? His claim that no power on earth could save us was surely a lie. A lie to trick me into putting myself in harm's way so that he could be rid of me and bestow Mina where he pleased: on Statos.

Darkness filled all my vision, my knees gave way, and I sank down. At once, the call of the fire increased. So many voices that I could not distinguish between them anymore. But I knew what they said. In my heart, I knew it, for did they not speak what my heart feared most?

There was no point in trying, for I would fail. No point in hoping, for I was already lost.

How long I stayed so, I cannot tell you, for it is a thing I do not know. I'm not even sure time is measured in the regular way in that terrible place. But, slowly, gradually, I began to hear a new sound. A sound that was not a voice of the fire, but a voice from the world above. Minas voice.

“Tern! Tern!” I heard her cry, and her voice was dry and hoarse. As if she had been calling my name over and over, for a very long time. And in her voice I heard fear. I heard sorrow and pain.

You might think that hearing such things in Minas voice would have increased the fear and pain in my own heart. But they did not. Instead, at the sound of her voice, my heart opened, just a crack. Fear receded. Love and hope returned. And in that moment, I perceived that I had misjudged hell. It was stronger and more terrible than even I had imagined, for I had thought it was a place that was simply external. I knew now that it was not, for the seeds of hell are sown in each and every heart.

Hell is pain. An agony which goes on forever. And you choose it for yourself.

I will not! I thought.

“Mina,” I gasped out. With one hand, I scrabbled at the front of my tunic. “Mina, help me. …”

“See how pitiful he is,” the voices of hell jeered at me. “He refuses to admit what must come, even now.”

With a cry of frustration, I tore the fabric of my tunic, exposing the place where the flute lay in its sheath, just above my heart.

“Mina,” I said again, and felt her hands upon mine, willing them to be still.

“It's all right, Tern. I understand what you would have me do,” she said. “But, in spite of your pain, I think the solution to this trial is for my heart to solve,
not yours. For I have watched your suffering, and longed to end it, and is that not what love does? But only if you trust me.”

“I will. I do,” I said. And I watched her smile. Her face was red and splotched with tears. Her hair was in wild disarray, as if she had pulled it in frustration. Never had I seen a more beautiful sight.

“Then let us see if I am right,” she said. “And whether I am or not, remember this: I love you, Tern.”

“And I you,” I said.

At this, with some effort, Mina helped me to my feet. And, as she did so, the fires of hell fell silent, as if they could do no more. Whether this was a good sign or a bad one, I could not yet tell. Not that it mattered, anymore.

I had made my choice. I would trust in Mina. If we failed, we would do so together, not because I had chosen my own despair, chosen hell over the woman I loved.

Mina pushed back her cloak and pulled out Lapin's bells, glowing red and gold. She cradled them in the crook of one arm, as one does an infant.

“Walk by my side, for that is your place,” my true love said.

Then she turned her face to the fire and set her foot upon the stone bridge, and, at the exact same moment, she began to play the bells.

This is the song that the Lady Mina played: the
story of our love. She played its unexpectedness, the long odds of its ever existing in the first place. She played its sweetness and its joy. She played its determination and its strength. But she played of its uncertainties, also. For not even the strongest love is proof against all fears. Had I not just proved that, myself?

And no sooner had she played of love's uncertainties than her song passed beyond any description that I can give you, for what she played was no longer just a song of love. It had become the thing itself.

Below us, alongside us, in perfect silence now, the flames of hell writhed. They reached for us with every step we took, fingers of flame curling greedily upward, held back only by the sound of Minas bells. Then, high above us, a new sound began to fill my ears. The beat of wings. I lifted my face up, and saw that all the air above us was filled with fluttering white.

Doves, I thought.

And, suddenly, I understood what it was that Mina had done. In playing love itself, she had played much more than the love for me which filled her heart. She played all the love that she had ever known, or hoped to know. Her love for her mother. Her love for Lapin. And the birds which so loved him had answered the call of the bells.

In a great flurry of white wings, they swooped down around us. And, at the beating of their wings, the very fires of hell fell back and were put out. A fine layer of ash rose into the air, so that my nose and
mouth were clogged, and my eyes watered. But it clung most tenaciously to the doves.

Now, at last, they opened their throats as well as their wings, and, at the sound of their calls, Mina stilled the voice of the bells. Together, we listened to the doves' lament for their fine, white wings. And for this reason, forever after, have they borne the name mourning doves.

Still making their soft, sad calls, they rose into the air in a great, gray spiral. Up, up, up they flew, one after the other, and then were gone. I don't know where they went to any more than I know where they had come from. But I think now as I did then, that they were summoned by the power of love.

And with their going, the first trial was over. Mina and I had crossed the bridge, unscathed by the fires of hell.

“One down, one to go,” Mina said. And through the ashes that stained her face, she smiled.

At the far side of the bridge over the flames of hell was a great cavern. In spite of its size, it had been hidden from us until now. For the fires of hell burned so hot, so bright and high, that they had obscured anything that might have lain beyond them.

“Do you suppose this is what the underworld truly is?” Tern asked quietly as we stood side by side. “A series of never-ending rooms, one after the other? A great labyrinth of trials?”

“I do not know,” I said. “I know only that we must go inside. We cannot come to the end if we do not move forward.”

But even as I spoke, I felt dismay seize my heart. For the cavern before us was as bright as day, hewn from the same white stone as the path which, all along, Tern and I had followed. And it was cold as ice. Across its great distance, I could discern a small, black opening at the far end. Along its walls stretched two great wings of darkness, one to the right and one to the left. And it was these which made my heart, so lately brave, go still with fear.

“Look, Tern,” I cried. “Surely those must be the wings of Death, himself. Perhaps he is a great, black bird. A carrion crow. I cannot play the bells in this place. For if I do, I will not beat back Death. Instead, I will summon him.”

And at this, I began to weep, for it seemed to me that I had offered only false hope. I had brought us this far only to fail, and our lives and love would be utterly extinguished by Deaths embrace. I could not win this trial.

“I think you must be right,” Tern said after a moment. “For crows are clever, and surely this is the most clever trap of all. See how the reach of the wings is almost upon us? All we need do is take a step and Deaths arms will be around us. The trial will be over as soon as it begins.”

“I don't know what to do,” I said.

“Mina,” Tern said. “Let me see your eyes. But dry them first. I cannot see truly if you weep.”

And so I did as he asked. I ceased to weep and looked into his eyes.

“Tell me what you see,” he said.

“Myself,” I answered. “And that is all. Your eyes have no color in this place.”

“And when I look into your eyes,” Tern answered, “I see myself, and that is all. Perhaps that is the answer to this riddle. In this place, we have only one another. You aided me in my fear; now I will aid you in yours.”

“But how?”

“I will deal honorably with Death,” Tern said. “I will not try to cheat him or outsmart him, for he is ready for such things. He has laid his trap too well.”

So saying, he reached inside his torn tunic and pulled out the flute that he had carved.

“The first time I played this,” Tern continued, “my father said he thought the beauty of its music would make even Death pause in his course. I will give Death an offering no one else has thought to give. I will give him beauty. Let us see if he may be charmed. But only if you trust me in this. If it is your wish, as well as mine.”

“It is,” I said, and found that hope had returned to my heart once more.

“Then stay by my side,” Tern said, his words once again echoing my own. “For that is where you belong.”

“I will,” I said. “And let us not be parted, whatever comes.”

“That is my wish also,” Tern said.

And now, at last, he raised the flute to his lips and pulled a deep breath into his lungs. The fires of hell no longer burned. The ashes their passing had left behind had all been carried away by the mourning doves. And so, in that moment, my true love pulled in a pure, true breath. And, in the next, he breathed out, and I heard the flutes song.

High and sweet was the sound it made, as high and sweet as the hopes for the future which Tern and I both held in our hearts. A future that acknowledged Death would come at the end.

Oh, Tern, I thought.

For it seemed to me, as I listened, that I understood the meaning of his song. I had played of love, of life. But Tern played of the end of these things, or at least the end as living beings may know them. His was a song that did not deny Death, but gave him his due, as all things which live and breathe must.

Accept this gift, I thought, as we will accept your embrace, one day. But for now, let us pass. For our day is not yet come.

The great wings of darkness began to quiver, and, for a moment, I could have sworn I felt my heart stop. Then, the great wings of Death fell back. The bands of darkness vanished from the cavern walls. In the opening at the far end of the cavern, a small figure stood alone.

I touched Tern's arm. Still playing, he nodded his head to show he understood. To move forward was no longer to enter Deaths embrace. And so, the flute still at his lips, Tern and I walked across the cavern which separated life from death, in the same way we had crossed the fires of hell, side by side. Until, at last, we stood before Death himself.

He wasn't a bird after all, but a small, wizened man, his body wrapped in a threadbare cloak. Still, Tern played his music. And so, I seized my courage with both hands, pulled in my own deep breath, and looked into Death's fathomless eyes.

I am not presumptuous enough to say that I understood or even recognized everything I saw there. But, where it seemed to me that Tern's eyes held all the possibilities in the world, at least for me, the eyes of Death held all the possibilities for everyone. For, sooner or later, all possibilities come down to just one thing: the moment Death finally takes us in his arms.

With my own eyes, I asked a question. And it was then that the last thing I expected happened. Death smiled. Showing a set of perfectly straight and even white teeth in that crooked old face. Then, like a rusty door hinge, he pivoted slowly on one heel and stepped aside. Together, Tern still playing the flute, the two of us moved past him and through the far door of that great cavern.

And so the second of our trials was done.

In Which Many Stoites Draw Down to a Single Close