The Stone Heart's Lament
The chase is on

Fantel nodded. “We mustrescue Rashari.” She started to rise but a shooting pain like a white-hot pokerthrough her skull stole volition from her limbs, and made her catch her breathin shock.

No. Anoush’s command rang in her mind, her soul, like theroar of an oncoming avalanche, completely inescapable. The boy is lost. You must honour your promise to me.

“I will not leavehim.” Fantel was not sure if she spoke aloud or in her head. Her mind felt likea cracked nut, shell broken open and inner meat revealed. She could feel Anoushlike a thunder cloud ready to break, but she could also feel Smith, hiscloseness buzzing against the sensitive edges of her thoughts like a current ofelectricity.

Madame Fantel, Smith sounded sad, pensive, his thoughtsthrumming with worry and the tender edge of grief. We can’t go after Rashari now. Don’t you see? If DeLunde get theirhands on you and my sister it will be so much worse for all of us.

Fantel sucked in abreath. “How can it be worse than having Rashari and the empty scion stonealone? When Rashari spoke of DeLunde he made it seem that they had littleinterest in the Seraphim. They only wanted your power, not you yourself. Surelyif Anoush is in me, then she is no longer of use to them?” Fantel could feelAnoush’s thoughts twisting on that point. Anoush was just as eager to know theanswer as she was. The goddess feared much, but knew relatively few facts. Itmade the fear all the worse.

A wave of sadness, fringedwith an odd and tired hurt rose from Smith. The glow from his eyebeams seemedto dim a little before he replied. MadameFantel I was bonded to Rashari when his father started his experiments. It wasthose experiments that made me this and Rashari a catalyst. If they replace youand my sister they will kill her and make you their new catalyst. One willnever be enough.

Deep in her mindFantel felt Anoush shudder, why can theynot just extract the energy from the stone – what is this catalyst and why dothey need it?

Because power without will does not get them what theywant, Smithtold them both. DeLunde will take whatthey can from the stone –they waste nothing believe me; they will harvest thedeific power within – but that power is finite. What they want is access to theVoid. Deific energy is the power of immortal death. It is powerful because itshould not exist. It is limitless because it is a paradox. When you kill animmortal, you invite chaos, you break the natural order - you make theimpossible, possible. That is Project Pandora; the power to do anything, tounmake and remake the world. That is what DeLunde want. All they lack are thecatalysts to make it happen.

“The Void?” Fantelwhispered her breath tight in her chest and not because of the weight of theSeraph in her mind. The Void was nothingness; the infinite expanse beyond theliving world. It was the cradle of existence and the darkness at existence end.It was by its nature intangible, formless; impossible to contain or possess.

Yes, Smith said. In thebeginning the Seraphim broke free of the Void. We escaped into the world asmere spirits, bodiless and powerless, but with such a hunger for life – forsubstance. Eons passed and we evolved, we became Seraphim and forgot the emptyhunger of our birth. But the Void was always in us – the hunger only quieted.When a Seraph is destroyed the hunger of the Void is released. In its truestform deific energy is a piece of the Void brought into this realm.

“You are talking incircles,” Fantel shook her head. “You and Rashari both speak around the issue,but neither of you can tell me exactly what it is you fear. Tell me plainlynow, if you expect me to listen to another word you say.”

Yes, Anoush echoed her demand, and the impatience behind it.For the first time since the uninvited intrusion in her mind she and the Seraphwere actually in complete accord. Smythionwhat has become of you? You power is...diminished, and yet that is not quiteright. You are changed. No longer Seraph, yet you are no mere human plaything.

I am Smith now, sister. It is not just a designation butalso my nature. I was once Seraph but I am now a ghost. I died but was savedfrom the Void by the bond with Rashari. I am a ghost that was once a god. Smith said his wordsreaching both Fantel and Anoush, as if somehow Fantel’s mind had become an openforum, a gathering place for wayward Seraphim. It was almost like the daysbefore her exile, when her mind echoed with the Word of the Mother. Fanteltasted tin and static on her tongue, the taste of fear, but it was not her fearthat choked her. Is this the fate thesehumans would mete out to me? Anoush asked, the beat of her fear poundinginside Fantel’s head like the weight of wings.

They plan worse. My survival, such as I am, is anaccident. DeLunde will kill you sister and leave a kernel of the Void insideMadame Fantel. It is that piece of the Void that makes a catalyst.

“The wingedscorpion,” Fantel said in sudden understanding. “The creature inside Rashari isa piece of the Void?”

Yes, Smith said sadly. Justlike the Seraphim were once; it is hungry for life, energy, anything ofsubstance.

Silence then, deepand long; Fantel felt Anoush sink into the depths of her mind, almost coweringaway from Smith’s words. Fantel herself did not know what to think. TheSeraphim had never had much bearing on her life until she met Rashari. Gods andgoddesses had no place in the constant certainty of the turning seasons, or therise and fall of the Mother’s song. The Chimeri had but one maker, and that wasMother Aldlis. The comings and goings of spirits, even immortal ones whoclaimed to be gods, were neither here nor there to Chimeri. Fantel had beenreared to believe that she herself was equal in esteem to any spirit she mightencounter, as she was a vessel of the Mother, the greatest power in existence.DeLunde’s plan was horrifying. The humans had turned their spirits and theirsouls into commodities long ago, burning ghosts to heat their houses, barteringsouls to power their sky-ships. Now they would invite oblivion, in the form ofthe Void, into the world, as if they sought their own destruction as theultimate release from the mess they had made of their world.

“I do not see how thethreat of capture is worse than the factof Rashari’s imprisonment.” Fantel said, putting aside the theoretical to dealwith the actual. “He is a catalyst already. Leaving him there is not sensible.I have no intention of allowing myself to be captured, but nor do I intend toabandon him.” Fantel was growing annoyed. All this talk felt likeprocrastination to her. She fixed Smith with a sharp look. “I do not believethat you would abandon him either. You live because of him.”

I will not sacrifice my existence for one mortal boy. Anoush declarationwas borne on a wave of her power. Fantel felt her temper flare.

“You are willing torisk your life in the heart of the Great Wound, but you are too afraid to fightagainst those who would destroy you?” She snapped contempt and incredulitycausing her lip to curl into a snarl. “You claim to be a goddess, but you are acoward. The boy you refuse to saverisked everything he had to steal you from men who would use you – and now youlet your fear rule you.” Anger gave her the strength she had lacked before. Shefocused that anger on Anoush. “You have no say in this, spirit. I am done listening to you.”

Saying the words wasakin to breaking a spell, the pall of her fear burned away like early morningmist. She felt clear eyed and cool headed for the first time since awakening inthe Alraune wood. How long had Anoush’s cowardice been poisoning her thoughts?Had she really let this craven spirit control her so long? Fantel was ashamed,and shame bred anger. Anger that once again she had let a voice not her ownguide her thoughts and control her actions. Had she learned nothing from heryears in exile?

Anoush bridled. Thespectral rush of unreal wings beat against her thoughts, angry and scared, likea cornered animal. Underneath Anoush’s commands and violent displays of powerlurked a pit of pure, toxic panic that Fantel had just laid bare. Fantel stareddown the Sereph in the confines of her own thoughts and felt her convictiongrow inch by inch in the face of Anoush’s desperation. If she had to sacrificeAnoush to rescue Rashari she would do so happily. Rashari was worth his weightin dead goddesses, that and more. She made sure that Anoush knew that.

You would not dare... Anoush whispered, fear naked in thethought.

“You will replacespirit,” Fantel told her, chin tilting and the arrogance of the Chosen of theMother dripping from her words, “that it is not just the humans who would daresee troublesome gods thrown down.”

Madame Fantel, Smith exclaimed, you mustn’t do anything foolish. If they can’t use you they’ll kill you– they’ll do it in front of Rashari. They’ll use you against him. Please, do notdo anything rash.

Smith’s words brokethrough her anger and Fantel’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t pretend tounderstand it, but just as she knew she would risk much to rescue him she alsoknew that Rashari risk just as much to protect her, even if that meantreleasing the winged scorpion. There was a bond, and a weight of obligationforming between them. If Fantel was a different (braver) sort of person, shemight have called it friendship, but as it was she thought perhaps theirmeeting had been fate - that all that had happened was meant to be. She’dbelieved once that serving the Mother was her purpose but it had not been so.Perhaps this was the reason for herexile, for all her years of loneliness? Perhaps the Mother had meant for her toleave and follow a different destiny? Maybe it was her destiny to stop ProjectPandora. It seemed a far worthier task than the life she had abandoned inAashorum.

“I will not give in,”Fantel warned. “I agree that we must be cautious but that is all. We will gonorth. That is where the tracks lead. Once we know where Rashari is being heldwe will replace a way to free him.”

I will not give these humans the satisfaction of mydestruction. InFantel’s mind Anoush’s spirit rose like a plume of smoke, spreading outward andtaking the form of huge and beautiful moth wings, decorated with two deep andhollow eyes. The fear was still there, but in lieu of courage her desperationwas its own sort of strength. I wouldsooner make my own end than let the humans do it for me.

Sister, Smith spoke up sounding concerned. You speak of death either way. I assure youthe Great Wound does not offer a better end. Drowning in shades within theWound will be a slow and painful demise. Life is always better. No matter theform.

Anoush turned herattention to Smith. Fantel felt something like sadness and revulsion in thebeat of those spectral wings. I do notwish to become as you are now, Smythion. You are a being without a place; youare neither god nor mortal. You are a child’s toy; a human’s fancy. You havebecome what we all fear becoming – a slave to a human, when it should only everbe the other way around. If this is the end of our kind, then I choose to drown.If you were still Seraphim you would understand.

Smith flinched, metallegs jouncing on their hinged joints, underbelly scraping the ground andeyebeams flashing hurt and shame. Fantel felt the last of her patience burnaway like smoke up a chimney.

“You speak as if youhave a choice,” she snapped rising to her feet, shaking both Smith and Anoushout of her thoughts with a strength of will she had forgotten she possesseduntil now. The foolishness of humans and spirits alike galvanised her in waysshe had not thought possible.

What are you doing? She felt Anoush try and tug on hermagic, yanking on it like it was a string connecting directly to her heart, toher nerves, and her muscles. Fantel clenched her teeth, remembered that onceshe had been equal to any wandering spirit that came her way – and yanked back.“I am done with this foolishness.” She told Anoush, and Smith, and the humanscientists of DeLunde she had yet to encounter in person. She felt like aperson reborn, suddenly alert and awake for the first time in too long. She didnot know if it was fate, or merely the stupidity of those around herresponsible for this change, but she felt a gathering sense of impetus. Therewas a path laid ahead of her, and for once she knew with certainty that it wasthe right one to follow.

“I am going to replacemy friend.” She said the weight of the word felt right on her tongue.

(It felt a littlelike freedom, and a little like courage.)

She bent down toscoop Smith up into her arms. The vehicle tracks in the grass were dark andugly green crystal melting into colourless slush. She could taste the lingeringodour of something sickly-sweet and rotting on the air. It was probably herimagination, but she could almost hear the Mother whisper in her ear, tellingher once again to hunt down and rid her land of yet another despoiler come toruin the Mother’s perfection. It was a strange feeling, an eerie remembrance,and a call to battle that Fantel had sorely missed.

The threateningstorm, gathering for hours, finally broke above her head. The sky was sunderedwide by a lance of lightning and a roar of thunder. Rain came down in a solid curtain,a furious deluge that soaked her through in moments and welled up in the grovesof the track marks scouring the ground. The rain washed away the stain ofdeific exhaust, melting it away like sugar in a bowl of water. Fantel raisedher head and tasted the rain, tasting the magic and the promise. The chase wason, and she was a skilled hunter. These humans did not stand a chance.