The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (62 page)

Mihai asked, concerned, “So you have played
me to proffer the great folly I have committed against my
sister-gift and all the others?”

Ma-we denied such a thing. “I said not that
I controlled you, or anyone else. Indeed! I remained true to my
word and stayed out of matters until your evil brother demanded I
enter them, but true also, I controlled the field. Did you expect
less?”

Dismayed and curious, Mihai asked, “It makes
little sense to my ears. You say that I was successful in my
failures, and that you controlled the goings on at the Prisoner
Exchange?”

“I say
‘no’
to both your
conclusions.” Ma-we waved her hands in denial. “Your failures
accomplished my purpose, thus I was successful, not you. Second, I
knew the players well, so set the board accordingly in advance of
the game.”

Mihai stood and turned to face Ma-we while
reaching out and placing her hands on her mother’s shoulders. She
began to argue. “You said that…”

Ma-we interrupted. “Look, I do know a thing
or two. Mere oppression can make one act crazy, even the wisest
among us. You know that to be true. Asotos had been playing you for
some time in order to prepare you for this day - a fact you should
have known if other emotions and loyalties hadn’t gotten in you
way, which they did. I also have little
birdies
that tell me
things I need to know. I understood the field, the game your
brother was attempting to play, and I was well aware of the mess
you were in.”

She reached up and began to massage Mihai’s
upper arms, casting her gaze at the work she was doing. “It took no
wise magician to understand what you were going through. Even my
Trisha understood it well - well enough to make you hate her in
order to take your mind off
him
. It’s one of her great
strengths, you know.”

Ma-we grinned, looking Mihai in the face.
“Then I used her greatest weakness… something I must address soon…
her ignorance of Asotos’ real power. She faced the Dragon with
fearless indignation and resolve, something I doubt the child could
have done had she known the true glory and might of that man. So,
both
you and she played to my success by manifesting your
weaknesses.”

Mihai blurted out, as if all other matters
told her were of little importance,
“You called that snake
‘Asotos’!”

Ma-we loosed her hold on Mihai and turned,
walking a few paces toward the far wall of the cabin. Staring down
at the floor, she sighed, subdued. “Yes… I guess it is so...”

Mihai watched her mother quietly standing
there in thought, she pondering the moment. Had Mother aged? No,
impossible. Ma-we was immortal in flesh and spirit. Still, there
was no question about it, she looked small, shriveled up into a
tiny little thing, tired and worn, used up and beaten, having
weathered one too many storms.

As if with great effort, Ma-we turned about,
looking into her daughter’s eyes, her hands clasped together,
shoulders stooped. A troubled smile gradually grew on her face. “I
think… I believe I finally fell out of love with the man. So long I
had hoped, dreamed, that he would change, held back the storm-winds
in hopes he would. ‘After all’, I argued with the spirits, ‘there
is time. I still have time.’ They wagged their fingers at me,
warning that pain and heartache would find me sooner or later and,
if later, would cause that much greater the pain.”

She sighed sadly. “I refused to believe
them, that is until this Prisoner Exchange, the blazing fires upon
the plain bringing me to my senses at the last moment. I finally
opened my eyes in time to see his wanton act of my little Rachel’s
rape and murder, it then occurring to me there was no hope, never
would be…” She lowered her head in remorse, her lips quietly
releasing, “never had been...”

Standing erect, Ma-we stepped up to Mihai, a
sad smile growing on her face, a tear running down her cheek.
“There is nothing left of the person I once loved, only the living
carcass of a decaying being who once shared my bed, my soul. Bereft
of heart so long I had lived, refusing to admit the emptiness
within and forgetting the loyal love I received from so many
others. Yet it took the selfish act of a child so dear to me to
show me my own selfishness. My Rachel chose a course that would
pacify her soul rather than force her to live in a world of
darkness.”

She took Mihai’s hands. “In her moment of
despair, I saw not my child, but myself staring back at me from the
looking glass. The scarecrow I beheld chided me for my evil dreams
and wicked acts.
‘The road! The road!’
It cackled. ‘Why does
Rhiannon find excuse when there is none to be had? For what wanton
reason have you cast your child into the burning sea when, but for
your own selfishness, no pain would the child ever have known? Did
you truly believe he would change and suddenly become a good man?
Was your hope so great that such a thing would happen that you
risked all living things in chanced hope he might see his own evil
and turn from it?’”

“Suddenly, with the sound of crashing
thunders, the mirror shattered before my eyes just as my child fell
to the sands as if dead. It was at that instant that the scales
fell from my own eyes, and I could clearly see the hideous Snake,
deformed in all his demonic splendor, and my heart was rent asunder
and also renewed in that moment.”

Softly stroking Mihai’s arm, Ma-we
mournfully crooned, “You see, I guess we all learned something new
the other day.” She looked into Mihai’s eyes, asking, “You did
learn something, didn’t you?”

Mihai nodded, tears beginning. “Yes, yes I
did. I learned that I can no longer go it alone. My glory, if I
have any, rests in the strength and power of others. What do I do,
how do I harness that power to do my will when I don’t know what my
will is other than to see this madness end? Alone I stand now, on a
mountaintop destined not for any man to ascend to. How do I carry
the weight of the universe and all the souls dwelling within?”

“Oh, my dear child!” The Mountain Rock, the
Jahouk was returned in all its magnificence. Ma-we’s voice
resounded again with the strength and dignity of the Power Divine.
“You have learned, but not yet with the understanding needed. Allow
me this word: Three are the swords, the first you have been witness
to. Two yet remain in deep shadow, but blades of even greater might
they each possess. You are not the wielder of these swords, but
only the caretaker. By your crown, death you shall declare for your
world, but blood and slaughter will be meted out by the
declarations of others.”

Mihai moaned, “Mother, I have murdered
enough, my hands no more righteous than my forbear who was denied
his wish to build your house. Now you say I must declare the
world’s demise. Should I play the incubus to the full?”

Ma-we lowered her eyes to stare at the
floor, sullen despondency wafting upon her reply. “No my child, no,
for I released the incubus upon this world three days past. For too
long I held the demon in check, hoping beyond hope it would somehow
fade away into only fitful dreams, but it has already sired Damian,
so dreadful, so dreadful! I must now turn the tide before the moon
sinks forever beneath the sea. Damian shall be twisted into what is
to become holy so that his dark deeds deliver the new day. That is
why I have done what I have done, myself changing times and
seasons.”

She looked up into Mihai’s confused face.
“You, my dear, have only the hour to choose for the world’s demise.
The ship has sailed, its sails set, and tiller tied fast. The north
wind already is driving it onward, its stern to the biting gale.
Choose then your world’s hour of death. That is all you are to
do.”

The two fell upon each other’s shoulders and
wept profusely, they both in want of forgetfulness, a wishing for
the Elder Days when the universe was fresh and innocent. Both knew
the past could never be again, and each blamed herself for its
destruction. Yet deep within the troubled hearts of mother and
child was the understanding that this coming hour was assured to
one day come, the Fates whispering in Ma-we’s ears on the day she
revealed future secrets to them, and in all the children’s hearts
as they stood upon the ramparts of the palace, yearning to journey
beyond those walls into the unknown.

Yes, freedom of will, the very essence of
life, by its very nature, promised this day was to come. Only then,
when all knowledge was gained, and innocence was lost, could the
universe be spared again from such evil. The Whispering Spirits had
seen it, warning of its coming approach. Ma-we felt it, the twinge
of dread the day she birthed her first child, a son, into this
universe, and the children sensed it deep within their souls,
troubling visions of shadows passing in the afterglow of fitful
dream shares.

When the flood of tears had ebbed and the
embrace satisfied troubled hearts, Ma-we stepped back, taking
Mihai’s hands as she did, warning, “Your brother will strike soon,
for I have built an inferno within him. As before, you and your
brothers shall take the blow with resoluteness.”

She released Mihai’s hands and began to
slowly pace. Suddenly she turned, hand outstretched, her voice
filled with anxious defiance. “But this time it will be different!
Something beyond the fool’s wildest imaginings will happen. Rising
above the bloodied plain, three flaming swords shall sing out a
vengeful song, all my loyal children joining in its chorus. Before
him, the rage of Sharon will fill the very heavens, and he will
awaken to the dread of coming days. My children will have finally
waked, and there will no longer be found any place or hope for
him.”

Ma-we looked into Mihai’s eyes, pleading,
“Please don’t resist what the future must bring. I looked into the
hearts of the children I have delivered here from the Worlds Below
and even I could little fathom the monsters I have released upon
this world. Fearless, reckless, and full of hate they are, with a
malice so dreadful that I dare not speak of it even to you.”

She lifted a hand, shaking a finger. “Oh
yes, filled with love they are, but oh, what has been done to them
that I cannot undo without destroying their very souls! Somehow, in
some way that I must study further, they have wound the cords of
love and hatred together into a harmonic bond that resists life and
death. So strong is this bond, so perfect in its balance, it draws
the powers of the universe to it, binding them together into one
unbreakable cord. It, I believe, is the final unknown in the
equation of your EbenCeruboam, and they the progenitors of it.”

To say that Mihai was surprised to hear that
the Maker of Worlds, the very inventor of all logic - mystical,
ethereal, and material - had not known the final solution to the
secrets of their sacred mathematics was astounding, her face
reflecting such wonder.

Recognizing Mihai’s dilemma, Ma-we offered
answer waiting for no question. “Even I am not all knowing,
contrary to what many fools in the Worlds Below - and maybe a few
up here - believe. My heart could not see this world’s ending, its
violence and rebellion, and there are others things I am still
waiting on to discover. Then I made intelligence with freedom
which, in and of itself, creates uncertainty. Since, by their
creation, all the possibilities in mortal math are limitless then,
too, the evolution of intelligent thought and its effective outcome
need be the same. That being the case, how can even I be omniscient
when possibility is limitless, thus uncertain?”

She looked at the floor, quietly puzzling,
“This unknown I have not yet studied, recognizing it for what it
was only at the Prisoner Exchange, but I believe it will strengthen
the universal fabric in the end. Yet how it will change it is still
an unknown.” Ma-we shrugged. “Oh well, it is the unknown horse that
makes for an exciting race.”

Mihai did not like it when Ma-we gathered
herself to the ‘somber moods’, as she and her siblings called the
times when Mother became so self-reflective. Truth be said, Ma-we
rarely acted this way, and with only a very select group of her
trusted children. Darla was a new initiate to such revelations and
to the depths of self-deprecation Mother might sink to at these
times. But it was part of Ma-we’s nature, as it was with all her
children, even before the veil of darkness consumed their worlds.
As the Maker of Worlds had often said, “One cannot fully appreciate
the jubilation found on a mountain’s peak if he has not first
experienced the shadows of the deep chasm.”

(Author’s Note:
Some readers may find it
difficult to believe the Maker of Worlds being prone to gloomy
moods and depressive thoughts, but so true it was, and still is.
Lowenah is more human than most of us wish it to be, or should I
say that we are more Lowenah than we can fathom. True, fear of
death and injury are foreign to this person, the very reason she
did not contemplate the depth to which her math regarding it must
be executed before the equation of the whole could be satisfied.
Yet fear of failure, of having overlooked some important detail to
the harm of her children, troubled her constitution at times,
troubles her even down to these days.

We should not feel shocked at learning that
the Maker of Worlds shares our very nature of both heightened
exultation and deep sullenness. No! Our shock and surprise should
be that she so honestly reveals to her lowly creation this part of
her being, a sterling example to us all. More than that is the
truthful evidence that never did Lowenah allow her feelings to
affect her decision making to the harm of her creation...also a
good example that her children should follow.)

“Please.” Mihai quietly begged. “You are too
cruel to yourself. The best is all anyone should expect of oneself,
yet you chastise your very being with
what-ifs
and
should-have-beens
.”