08. The Chrysalis (Vaye)¶
The sky collapsed into the shaven disc of a gibbous moon, a sliver of darkness carved off its left edge. Faint points of light twinkled within the dark crescent of its shadowed side. During a new moon, the whole surface would be covered with blinking freckles highlighting the moon’s curvature, one of many mysteries left behind by The Undone.
Vaye took in the moonlit clearing, inhaling the scent of pine needles and wet earth, wiggling her toes among the tufts of soft grass. Her mind, for once, felt clear. The only vestige of the nownow was a wavering sheen of geometric iridescence that clung to every surface. The moonlight pooled on her hands, turning them to silver as she moved them back and forth. When she looked up, Grandmother stood before her.
“High again, I see,” the goddess said, leaning forward and peering into Vaye’s eyes. She sighed, but the hint of a smile that graced the corner of her mouth looked just like the one Nashara had often worn. In Vaye’s earliest memories, the deity had seemed ancient, wrinkled like a prune and crowned with a waterfall of white curls. But as the years had passed, Grandmother had begun to look more and more like Nashara, until Vaye was no longer sure where her mother’s memory ended and the goddess began. At the time of her death, Nashara had been only ten years older than Vaye was now, a fact that was hard to fathom.
“The connection seems more stable than last time, though,” Grandmother continued. “What did you do?”
Vaye fidgeted with her hands. Being in Grandmother’s presence made her feel like a child. “I found some very high-quality nownow. I thought it would—”
“That is not the path,” Grandmother said sharply. “The journey prepares you for the destination. If you take shortcuts, you’ll arrive at transcendence unready to receive it.”
“I know,” Vaye said, deflated. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to reach the Balance Point, but it never seems to get any closer.”
“Have you been practicing the rituals? Reciting the meditations?”
“Every day. But I have no guidance, no teacher.” Vaye hugged herself. “I’m alone.”
Grandmother’s voice softened. “You’re not alone, child. I am always with you. I know you think I’m being hard on you, but you need to be prepared. The Tashiya will require every bit of strength and focus you can muster. If you attempt it before you’re ready, it will destroy you, as it destroyed those who came before you.”
“I’m not afraid,” Vaye said.
Grandmother smiled. “Not as afraid as you should be, perhaps. But death isn’t the worst thing that can happen. When sorcery goes wrong, it can leave you trapped, imprisoned in the icy darkness of eternity. Like me.”
Vaye suddenly remembered the nightmare she’d awoken from that morning, the crushing cold, the absence of everything warm and good in the world. An echo of that feeling made its way up her spine as a shiver. “Why me?” she whispered. “Why was I chosen?” She had never dared ask before, not wanting to sound unfaithful. But she wasn’t sure she had fully grasped the danger until now.
“I didn’t choose you,” Grandmother said. “You chose me when you were born. The tiny bits of scripture woven through your cells came together into the story of you, and I was written across every page.” The goddess sighed. “I wish there were another way, truly, but the salvation of our people rests on the Tashiya. And you’re the only one left who might be able to make it work.”
“I understand,” Vaye said. She wanted to be brave and confident, to live up to the immensity of this responsibility, but the reality was that she had no idea what she was doing. “I know I have to walk the path myself. But can’t you at least show me where it starts?”
“I wish I could,” said the goddess. “But I lost a great deal of knowledge when I was imprisoned. All I remember is that the ritual was encoded in one of the Teachings, most likely the Book of Shedach. If you can find an original copy, that will give us a chance.”
“I’ll try,” Vaye said, hoping that her voice didn’t betray how overwhelmed she felt. She had been hoping that the higher-quality nownow would allow her to understand Grandmother better, gain clarity somehow. But she realized now that clarity wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she wasn’t clever or resourceful enough to find the path on her own, and no amount of nownow was going to change that.
“Vaye,” Grandmother said, startling her. She looked up at the goddess, only then realizing that she had been crying. Grandmother opened her arms, smiling. “Come here, child.”
Tentatively, Vaye stepped forward, and, to her surprise, the Goddess enfolded her in an embrace. She had never done so before. Vaye would have considered it a shocking breach of decorum to even consider such a thing, but now it felt perfectly natural. Up close, the deity smelled faintly of wood smoke and sun-warmed stone, the comforting scents of Vaye’s childhood. She leaned in, finally admitting to herself how badly she had needed this. It had been so long since anyone had comforted her. So long since she had felt safe.
After a time, the goddess released her, and Vaye reluctantly stepped back. “I’m sorry for not being stronger. I want to be worthy, but I’m just not sure what to do next. Maybe...” She swallowed, afraid to ask for what she wanted, but more afraid that she wouldn’t have the courage to ask. “Maybe you could give me another gift? Like the one you gave me before.”
“This is what I’m talking about, Vaye,” Grandmother said, crossing her arms. “You want a shortcut, but shortcuts are dangerous. Don’t you remember what happened when I gave you Yetzirah?”
Vaye nodded glumly. It would be a long time before she forgot that experience. Yetzirah, the Gift of Creation, had granted her the ability to peer into the hidden depths of witchglass and manipulate the unfathomably fine structures that bound it together. Yetzirah was why she could do things with witchglass that others could not, like reshaping pieces that had already been cured.
Unfortunately, the Gift had also left her unconscious for several days. Belosveka, finding a nownow pipe in her limp hand, had drawn the perfectly logical conclusion that Vaye had overdosed, and reacted accordingly. That winter, Vaye had learned the hard way that Dzharians believed plunges in icy water to be the best cure for spiritual ailments. She had yet to get over her hatred of swimming.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t go back to her normal routine and just hope inspiration would strike. She had dared it to strike her, even insulted its parentage, and it had still held back. Something had to change.
She squared her shoulders and looked Grandmother in the eye. If she needed to be ready, perhaps the first step was to act like she already was. “I can handle it, I know I can. I’ve been training hard. Please believe in me.”
Grandmother arched her eyebrow, a reminder of Nashara. “Well, when you put it that way...” She shook her head, but her eyes twinkled. “I’ve always asked you to believe in me, so I suppose turnabout is only fair. But you have to accept the risk. The Gifts are unpredictable. The repercussions might not be like last time.”
“I understand,” Vaye said, her voice wavering only a little.
“Then I will grant you the next gift. The Gift of Sympathy corresponds to the Second Sacred Point,” Grandmother said, placing her fingertip between Vaye’s eyebrows. “It enables direct connection with the mind of another. I believe it will be necessary for the Tashiya ritual, although I’m not sure of the specifics. Unlocking it now will let you study it in advance. But be warned: entering another mind is like walking into a dark forest. It’s easy to get lost, and you never know what might be lurking in there.”
Vaye nodded, swallowing her nerves. “Breathe deeply and rhythmically, as you’ve been taught,” Grandmother said. “Seek the Balance Point. To ease your transition back to the waking world, I’m going to send you into a vision after the transfer. Think of it like a numbing salve for your mind. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see?”
“Irkeset,” Vaye said without hesitation. “The Chrysalis as it once was, before it was broken. You showed me the Holy City in a dream once, a long time ago, and I’ve always wanted to see it again.”
“Very fitting,” Grandmother said, a smile in her voice. “I always thought The Chrysalis looked best by moonlight.” She paused, and Vaye felt a strange sensation of pressure, as though she were descending through a pool. “Prepare yourself,” the goddess said. “In a new year, in Anash.”
“In a new year, in Anash,” Vaye intoned in response. A rushing, buzzing sound like a swarm of insects vibrated through her, and the Gift swept in like a flash flood, bringing her to her knees. The moonlit forest fractured into rough shapes, individual trees merging into blobs of light and shadow. When she moved her eyes, parts of the scene stayed put, smearing across her vision like paint. She clutched the sides of her head as her mind was pinched and twisted like a lump of clay in a toddler’s hand.
“I grant you Ashadah, the Gift of Sympathy,” Grandmother said. Her voice had grown metallic and distorted, flattened like a tunnel’s echo.
Just when Vaye thought she couldn’t take any more, the pain subsided, smears of color gradually resolving into recognizable objects. The forest was gone, and she was no longer on her knees. In fact, she no longer seemed to have a body at all.
She floated above a city aglow: Irkeset, once known as The Chrysalis, the glory of Anash. Silvery light rained down from a lambent moon, refracting off the forest of glassy buildings. Narrow towers stroked the heavens, the tallest of them wrapped in ghostly banners of clouds. Between the rooftops, strings of pennants rolled lazily in the breeze, their colors muted, each one bearing a letter in Old Anashic. Vaye could almost make out the constellations of meaning, the words shifting and re-forming like reflections in a moonlit pond. High above, bird-like machines soared through the night, so far away that they appeared still. Snatches of prayer drifted past her ears, as ephemeral as the breeze. Her chest ached with a homesick longing, even though Irkeset had been razed long before she was born.
She soaked in the scene, trying to absorb it through her skin, but the tranquility was permeated with sadness. The prayers were dirges, the gleaming streets eerily empty, the dust undisturbed by footprints. For all its beauty, the city was a memory.
The scene began to fade, a single section of the outer wall lingering like the last puddle of a dried-up pond. A corner of a broken tower and a curve of crystalline wall a dozen paces long: that was all that remained of Irkeset.
For a moment, she luxuriated in the beauty and sorrow of The Chrysalis, the loss that colored every day as an Anashi, who now knew Irkeset by a different name: The City of Broken Glass. She waited for the mournful tranquility to gently fade out as the visions always did, washing her up on the shores of sleep.
This time, though, the dream cut off abruptly, ending with a jarring sensation like she’d run into a wall. Her eyes snapped open.
“Hello, stain,” Fihro said, grinning down at her from the darkness, his teeth gleaming like the knife he held against her cheek.
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