The Stone Heart's Lament
The Mother's Choir

Fantel had travellednon-stop through the night, racing the storm and then the stillness of theaftermath, and trudging onward as dawn’s pale light blossomed into day. Herresolve burned bright even as her limbs grew heavy with fatigue. They had leftthe plains behind and walked now through arid wastes in the shadow of a mesariddled with canyons and hollowed out warrens.

“Stop,” she toldSmith who was scuttling ahead, traversing the rough and rocky terrain with arachnidgrace. “I must rest a moment.” She sunk down onto a rock with a smooth cut-outsection, eroded to the point where it resembled a stone throne. She pushedtendrils of hair from her cheeks, licking her dry lips. Her stomach roiled andher head throbbed. The tips of her fingers tingled unpleasantly. She felt alittle short of breath. Glancing up at the sky she noted the way it seemed toglow orange above the ridge.

You feel it, don’t you, Chimera-child. Anoush purred in hermind. This is where phantasma gathers. Beyondthis mesa rests the Fault valley.

“I know.” Fantelwiped the back of her trembling hand over her mouth. She fished the twofragments of scion stone from her pocket, examining them in her palm. Theylooked like milky coins, roughly circular disks with surprisingly smoothcontours. Veins of pale pink touched the stone and Fantel did not think theyhad been there before. “Rashari said these fragments allowed him greaterimmunity to death energy. How do they work?”

Smith scuttled over,clawing his way up the rock to settle beside her. They might not work for you. He admitted. Rashari was altered by DeLunde’s experiments. He absorbs death energynaturally. You are naturally weakened by it. The fragments are pieces of myformer scion stone – they still retain a residue of trace of the Void. The Void’shunger draws in all sources of energy, but the fragments are not large enoughto shield you entirely. Smith paused, seemed to hesitate before speakingagain, and when he did it was with considerable doubt. Perhaps if we had Anoush’s Heart stone it might offer moreprotection.

It is thanks to your human that we do not. Anoush snapped herthoughts harsh with fear. He shouldnever have let himself be captured. He should have protected my stone at allcosts.

If not for my human you would already be in DeLunde’shands, sister. Smithsnapped back, his defensiveness stinging Fantel’s mind. This was only the mostrecent iteration of the argument between the so-called siblings.

“Enough,” she saidnow, with less asperity and more fatigue than she might have hoped. “We cannotachieve our goals unless we replace a way for me to go on safely. We have nochoice but to work together for our ends.” Even as the words left her mouthFantel was not unaware of the irony. It seemed impossible to her that in lessthan three weeks her life had been transformed so completely. She who had spenttwelve years a virtual recluse, an exile and a loner, shunning almost allcompanionship, and now she found herself expousing the virtues of fellowship totwo amost-gods so that together they might stop a clandestine human conspiracy.She wondered amusedly if Rashari would be shocked or delighted by this turn ofevents. He was, after all, the architect of all of the changes Fantel hadundergone.

You....are right, child of Aashorum. Anoush conceded andFantel could feel the way the Seraph seemed to deflate in her mind, settlingback so that her presence was less openly combative. I know little of these catalysts my brother speaks of. A Seraph’s stoneis both home and anchor to keep us within the mortal sphere. Without a physicalgrounding in the corporeal realm we would have no means to act in this realm.

“I am aware of theways of spirits,” Fantel pointed out, but without much rancour. Diplomacy wasno more her forte than it was the Seraph’s but Fantel was willing to meetAnoush half way at least. It was not as if she had much choice, and she wouldrather not be forced into another battle for control of her body, even with Smithin her corner this time.

Anoush bristledslightly at the tone and the interruption but notably chose not to start afight either. As I was saying, aSeraph’s stone is unique to each of us. It is invested with a piece of ourpower. If I understand my brother correctly, these human scientists have stolenalmost all of the power from these fragments, leaving the shards empty -andallowing the Void an entrance into this realm.

That is correct, Smith corrected. Though these pieces have also been altered by contact with Rashari; heis a catalyst. His power has altered the fragments -just as the piece of theVoid inside him has been changed.

A wave of irritatedderision rose from Anoush, spreading like a cloud through Fantel’s thoughts. Are you being deliberately obtuse, brother?Or do you intend to ignore the true problem?

I am doing no such thing. Smith retorted,clearly stung. Madame Fantel asked aquestion, I answered it.

“What are you talkingabout?” Fantel asked irritably. It was exceedingly annoying that two entitiesconducting a conversation inside hermind could still be so vague in their meaning.

Anoush remainedsilent. Smith bobbed nervously on his knew joints. When he spoke it was withextreme reticence. Madame Fantel youare....damaged. Your magic is....stunted. If you had magic of your own youcould use it to charge the power of the fragments, making them stronger. As itis, the fragments may not have the power to protect you much longer. Look see-the way they change colour? They are drawing the phantasma radiation away fromyou, but they will quickly become saturated as we reach the Adaline Fault.

Fantel frowned, notsure if she should be offended. “What do you mean I am stunted?” She askedlevelly.

He means that while your lack of magic made you ideal formy purposes it also means that you are doubly weakened now. You carry a wounddeep within your spirit. You have a hollow within, a place where once you werefilled with the magic of your race, and now you are vulnerable. The ghosts andshades of the Fault will sense that weakness.

Fantel flinched. “Thereis nothing that can be done for that. I am forsaken by the Mother. My magiccame from the Aldlis and she has taken it from me.”

Madame Fantel, the Mother gave you nothing save the rightof your birth. Smithtold her kindly. Chimeri have a bond withAldlis, with the land and the air and the sea and the sky. It is yourbirthright, your nature. She felt Smith’s hesitance, his carefulness as hespoke his next words directly to her. Thiswound inside you – it is of your own making. You did this to yourself.

“No, I left. I brokethe covenant...I...”

Yes, Anoush pushed her. You left. You broke your ties with your home. The Mother did not forsake you,Chimera-child. You forsook theMother.

“I had to.” Fantellurched up from the rock, nearly knocking Smith to the ground. She barelynoticed. Tears stung her eyes. She paced because she could not escape. Therewas no escape from the spirits infesting her mind or the words she did not wantto hear. “I had to,” she repeated not sure who she was trying to convince. “Itwas wrong, what we did. It was wrong. We listened without question; we did asthe Echo demanded, but it was wrong. I...no longer believed. My sisters, theelders, they told me that the Echo was the voice of the Mother, but I...I foundI could not believe that the Mother would want so much bloodshed. The Motherthat is my mother, the mother to all chimeri, is she not also the mother of thehumans too? How can a mother ask for so much bloodshed and hate?”

These questions hadhaunted Fantel for years. For want of an answer she had fled her home. The painwas the same now as it had been then. To betray, and be betrayed, by somethingshe had loved with such complete devotion felt like limbs torn off. It was arending that went to her soul. The severance had left her numb and deadened.She missed her Mother, but she could no longer trust her, and if she could nottrust the Mother who had given her life and purpose, how could she trust any ofthe gifts the Mother granted? The voice of the Mother was in all things andFantel had come to hate that voice.

Chimera, look around you. Anoush told her, ahint of impatience in her tone. Look atAldlis. See what is there. There is life, but there is death too. Look to meand my brethren – look to the Seraphim. Do you believe that we are part of thisworld, part of the Mother’s design, or not? Are you so arrogant that you do notrealise that the Mother has a billion children, each with a voice of their own?

“But that isdifferent,” Fantel blurted out. “Only the Chimeri can hear the Mother’s truevoice.”

What makes you so sure? Smith asked herkeenly. Is it that you know this, or wereyou merely told, just as every Chimera is told the same?

“But the Echo,”Fantel argued weakly. She had wondered – of course she had – but what Smith andAnoush were proposing went so far beyond her scope. She had refused to obey andaccepted the consequences of her rebellion as her due, but she had never oncedoubted that the Echo the Chimeri obeyed truly came from the Mother.

There is but one truth, Chimera. Anoush intonedgravely, her words ringing in Fantel’s mind like a heavy bell. And that is the clash of echoes; this worldis cacophony. A billion voices, a billion lives all striking against each other;making sparks; making miracles; making chaos. For every living voice there area thousand ghosts screaming to be heard. The Mother remembers her dead, hervoice is their echo. She speaks not with a single tongue but a multitude. Godand mortal, ghost and living, we are all her voice - her choir.

“Then you aresaying...” Fantel’s voice failed her, as she was beginning to realise it alwayshad.

You learned to stop listening to a distorted echo, Chimera-child,but you did not replace your voice.

“My voice?”

Yes Madame, Smith spoke up, his voice kinder, gentlerthan Anoush. He understood far more what it was to break and need help to mend.He understood that the end of one life was merely the beginning of another andthat breaking and making went hand in hand. Once,long ago, we Seraphim were the Mother’s choir. We rose above the mortals;undying we were the voice of the past to guide the future. It was the purposewe set ourselves. We were teachers, guides; we bound ourselves to mortals andsought to make marvels. But we forgot that to teach you must also listen. Whenyou stop listening, you hear only the sound of your own voice. The Seraphimstagnated; we no longer knew the answers; we did not understand the questions.We closed our ears, our song became tired, and soon we were nothing more thanrelics. Sadness hung from every word Smith spoke. No matter what happens, the Seraphim’s greatest lesson will be that offailure.

Silence filled thespace in her head when the words faded. It was noticeable that Anoush did notobject to her brother’s fatalism, but instead seemed to echo the sentiment withher silence. Fantel shivered. She did not know her own mind well enough to giveit voice. She did not really understand what the two spirits had told her. Theenormity of it was too much; the weight of responsibility too great. She hadnever imagined that she owed the Mother more than mute obedience. The thoughtthat she had failed another duty when she fled sat heavy on her. If she hadstayed in Aashorum and argued against the old ways, if she had found a way tomake herself heard over the Echo, might she have changed her clan for thebetter? It seemed impossible. One voice set against centuries of changelesstradition would be drowned out.

The answer was thatthere was no answer. The question was more important than its resolution. Itwas more important to seek truth than to replace it, because once you did, youbecame closed to all other possibilities. What was true today might be fallacytomorrow, and in a world where that was so all things were possible. Fantelthought that perhaps this was the world Rashari lived in, a world where achild, horribly changed by accident and misadventure could reinvent himself dayin and day out. She wondered what Rashari might have to say to Aashorum’s Echo.Her soul rang with silence and long forgotten words, repeated by rote, but hissoul was alive with ideas, more perhaps than he could handle. It made Fantelsad that she could not imagine ever feeling so full of hope. She walkedheedless of direction, doing her best to close her thoughts to Anoush andSmith. It was difficult to accept that so much of her misery was because of aself-inflicted wound - one she still did not know how to fix – but it felttrue. She had been angry and lost for such a long time.

She wove her waythrough a narrow passage in the ridge. The rock hummed with the ache ofphantasma and Fantel was careful not to touch the sides as she eased her waythrough. She breathed a sigh of relief when she came out onto a narrow ledgeoverlooking a deep pit. She still held the scion fragments in her palms and shecould feel the buzz of cold hunger against her skin. When she opened one handthe piece of stone was a deep blush pink, bright and gently pulsing. There wasnoise coming from below her. She heard the sharp ringing of pickaxes strikingagainst stone. Cautiously she approached the edge, swallowing against thechurning vertigo in her stomach brought on by the presence of phantasma. Agroup of strange looking children wielding pickaxes and singing as they hackedat the blackened rock face of an open quarry greeted her.

The children wereDjinn. Fantel recognised that instantly. There were perhaps ten of them, theirskin and clothes covered in grey dust, their white hair shorn close to theirscalps. Fantel estimated their ages to be between seven and thirteen. Theirsinging was disturbing. The children were not all singing the same hymn. Theywere not even singing in the same language. The strands of disparate melodytangled together, forming something of the cacophony Anoush had spoken of.

One of the children,an older male, hacked off a chunk of rock to reveal a shiny red hunk ofphantasma crystal. Fantel sucked in a breath of alarm but could do nothing butstare as the child reached out boldly, grasped the crystal in his hand and absorbedthe death energy from the crystal. Fantel’s view was obstructed, she could onlysee the child’s back and his outstretched hand, but she saw clearly how theveins burned black under his skin, and how the pulsing light within the crystalfaded like a doused ember until the crystal was a dull, smoky red. The childthrew his head back and released an undulating cry – almost a wail. The highkeening echoed off the rock face on all sides, and seemed to bounce and echo,before being swallowed into the discordant racket of the other children’ssinging. The boy dropped to the floor, legs up to his chest and skinny armswrapped around his knees. He started rolling around on the ground, not in agonybut in ecstasy. He was grinning and shaking, tears pouring out of his eyes,which burned a cold, brilliant blue. When he next opened his mouth the voicethat issued forth was that of a woman, a woman singing in the human Dushkuilanguage.

The other childrenhad stopped work to watch. One or two picked up the boy’s tune and joined in,their voices strange and alien. Others threw back their heads and howled, orcawed like birds. One child, the smallest and probably the youngest, dropped ontoall fours and started careening around the clearing like an over-enthusiasticpuppy, making odd garbled barking noises. Fantel, unnoticed on her ledge,stared in open shock. An adult djinn wearing a face mask and grey uniformrushed out of one of the tunnels dug through the quarry walls and yelled at thechildren, snapping a long whip on the ground. The children gave up their wildchorus and picked up their axes, returning to work.

Fantel was sotransfixed by the strange scene that she did not notice the approach of anotherdjinn behind her. He came out of the passageway onto the ledge and stopped inshock, boots scuffing on the rough stone. Fantel whipped around, eyes wide, andthey came face to face.

“Intruder!”

The djinn recoveredfirst, a snarl in his native tongue escaping from behind his respirator. Hewhipped his staff up in an arcing sweep aimed for Fantel’s head. She dropped toher knees, awkwardly ducking the first strike. Below her the children picked uptheir singing as Fantel warded off another blow from the djinn’s staff only totake one backward step too many. Her heel slipped through empty air and shefell from the ledge into the phantasma quarry.