Natalie Yacobson "Rhianon-4. Secrets of the Celestials"

“And more honestly, at least he’d said from the beginning that staying with him would ruin us both,” Rhianon blurted out, only to remember moments later that Madael had never said such words. He had never threatened or implied tragedy, but there was a sudden sense of unseen, crushing doom. Rhianon looked around anxiously. She heard the words as clearly and distinctly as if they had really been spoken by her lover.

Suddenly Rhianon was angry with the ifrit. It was as if he had spoken toВ her deliberately and as if he meant toВ do her harm. She wanted no more quarrels with him. Let him fly out ofВ the tower and have his philosophical debates with one ofВ the victims ofВ the witch plague. If he was so eager toВ bicker, he might as well do it with the people who would soon take his secrets with them toВ the grave. Perhaps, as an ex-angel, he is more attracted toВ the princess than toВ the commoners, but she no longer cares. Rhianon deliberately pretended toВ focus on something else. She noticed aВ small harp with shiny strings behind the mantelpiece and reached forВ it.

“Now go away,” she said to the ifrit. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

He understood her at once, but he was too sensible to express his anger and resentment in any way. One second his claws were nervously tearing at the decorations on the mantelpiece, and the next it was empty. Something huge and unwieldy rushed upward under the gaze of the dark dome above the hall. Rhianon knew that even if she raised her eyes high she could not see the inaccessible ceiling. It went so far up that a whole flock of such creatures could still nest beneath it. She didn’t care anymore, even if their glittering yellow eyes were watching her from the celestial darkness. She decided to do something to distract her from the unearthly philosophy of these creatures and their creeping temptations. The graceful harp beckoned her to play, and Rhianon touched the strings. Instantly the sweet sounds of music flowed through the silence. She did not think of notes or melody, but it came out by itself. Never before had she been able to play so well. Her fingers used to be awkward and sometimes she even hurt them on the strings. If strict adherence to etiquette had been observed, the court music teacher would have been happy to scold her. But she was the daughter of a monarch, and he had to keep quiet. Rhianon smiled wistfully. Such beautiful harmonies she had never heard before. She could hardly believe it was her own hands plucking something like this from the strings. The music flowed like a silvery stream and enveloped everything. The gloomy tower, which must have never listened to such sounds, was transformed. The moans and sobs that sounded like living walls dissolved into it. Strange, in the earthly kingdom where Rhianon lived, at court they used to say that all walls have ears, that was a hackneyed expression, though it meant that behind the walls there are spies, while the monolith of the fortress itself does not breathe or live. But here in the tower of Madael, each wall seemed to live on its own and, at the same time, to be an organ of a single, independent entity: this fortress. The gloomy tower seemed a sleeping giant, as lost and parched as Madael’s army. And now in the very womb of this creature, magical music sounded. Rhianon opened her lips and sang in time to it, softly but expressively. Nor could she remember any song by heart. The words flowed by themselves.

In a moment she wouldn’t even be able to remember what she was singing about, but of course the song was about the same motif as everyone else, there was passion and love and death, and of course the power of doom and betrayal.

She stopped suddenly, sensing someone nearby. The song broke off halfway through. Rhianon quickly put the harp aside and turned around at the doorway. She feared that Madael was already standing there watching her. It was as if he had caught her at something forbidden. It seemed toВ her that she should not have played inВ that tower and now she should be silenced for doingВ so.

Rhianon waited for some accusing words or aВ commanding shout, but the dark figure, frozen inВ the doorway, remained motionless. No wings could be seen behind its lean back. So it was not Madael or one ofВ his subjects. Rhianon looked closely, but could make out nothing inВ the darkness.

“Please continue, Your Highness,” the soft voice came from the darkness and sounded apologetic. “I did not mean to disturb you.”

“Arnaud,” Rhianon guessed rather than saw. He was still in the shadows. She could see the outline of his shoulders and his voice was familiar. And of course he was the only one who could address her as “Your Highness. Others in the magical world would more readily mistake her for a queen, for she was the companion of their lord. None of them would repeat to her the words she heard in Loretta. Only Arnaud did.

With aВ nod ofВ her head she invited him toВ cross the threshold ofВ the hall. He complied, but treaded softly, as if there were traps he knew would be set inВ the floor.

“I didn’t want to disturb you…”

“What are you doing here?”

He was clearly embarrassed. Rhianon couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to get into a tower where only winged creatures, and not even birds, but those capable of flying much higher than them, could enter. One of Madael’s subjects could have brought Arnaud here, of course. Rhianon shuddered involuntarily. The young man was very handsome. Even the shabby garments he wore did not mar his handsome good looks, but she was sickened by the sight of him. She could only think of how he had come into the world. It wasn’t his fault, of course. It was silly and unfair to condemn him for someone else’s faults. Rhianon suddenly understood what Madael meant when he explained that fallen angels were not supposed to love humans, much less associate with them. Yet he himself had broken that rule. What might have been the consequences in their case? Rhianon swallowed hard and put her fingers to her thin waist. She didn’t want to think about something like that.

“I go everywhere, even to the most inaccessible places sometimes,” Arnaud smiled guiltily. “Some people say that there are no doors that can be locked from me, because I can even go through the keyhole.”

“This tower has no doors,” she reminded him reasonably.

“But there are gaps between the stones and windows.”

She didn’t quite see where he was going with that. To squeeze through a crevice is certainly impressive, but it’s hardly dexterity enough to do something like that. She could tell from Arnaud’s shabby appearance, however, that he had to use both dexterity and ingenuity to get his crust of bread. Thin and unkempt, he was, however, surprisingly handsome. She smiled at him.

“You wanted to play instead of me? Don’t worry, despite my skills I am in no hurry to take work away from the minstrels. At any court you will be welcome, even if they hear my music before you.”

“They don’t like music here,” he interrupted her. “They prefer shouting.”

Rhianon knew who he meant and nodded slowly. Heavy strands ofВ thick hair fell toВ her forehead, as if they were the shadow ofВ aВ crown. Only Arnaud did not notice the dainty hoop ofВ sapphires on her head; he reached out toВ touch the strands. Amazingly, standing far away from her, he was immediately beside her. His hand, as if reaching across the room, easily fumbled with the curls.

“They’re like golden rays,” he whispered with a quiet, enthusiastic gasp. “I wonder if he’ll have the same…”

“Who is it?” Rhiannon looked at him worriedly. Somehow she didn’t like the suggestion. At that moment footsteps sounded in the distance. A piercing echo echoed through the darkened enfilade of the hall. Madael was hurrying this way.

Arnaud could not utter another word as he sensed his approach. He quickly put his fingers to his lips to indicate silence, and then darted behind the drapery. He had already disappeared, and his pleading gaze still haunted Rhianon. Arnaud asked her not to tell anyone about him or what he’d said.

“I hope I do not have to stay here tonight?” Rhianon tried to draw Madael’s attention away from the moving drapery before he crossed the threshold.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he tossed aside his helmet, scrolls of some sort, and began to remove the steel wires around his wrists as if they were fetters or chains. He had never attempted to remove them before. Rhianon was surprised. She had thought the bracelets, so intricately wrought, had become inseparable from his flesh. But it turned out that he could just as easily have thrown them off. The skin beneath the removed hoops was not scarred. He looked at his wrists as if he’d never seen them before.

“You know, in heaven, I wished I’d worn some kind of jewelry, but everyone was equal there. Our only difference from the clouds and the ether was our beauty, not tiaras or crowns. Jewelry was forbidden.”

“And then you wove a bracelet out of the sun’s rays,” she didn’t remember how she knew that. It wasn’t like he’d ever told her about such things.

“Yes,” Madael turned to her and stared at her for a long moment, as if he thought she was someone he’d lost and known, but couldn’t.

“And it was nice to have the distinction that no one else had. It was as if you made yourself the boss, and you were allowed to?”

“I was the favorite,” Madael shrugged lightly. “Everyone’s favorite. But in the end, my jewelry became my shackles.”

“I know that,” she traced the coils of gold patterns that wrapped around his skin like a net. Until now they might have looked like tattoos or gold snakes parasitizing on a living body, but now it turned out that they were all part of a body that would have been perfect without them. He didn’t need jewelry, either. He decorated the dark hall around them with his very presence. It was enough to look at him and all fears were dispelled. Rhianon shrank back; he belonged to her, and yet he seemed so unreachable at the same time.

“What’s in the scrolls?” She asked as if casually.

“So, ancient truths,” he said. “I wonder how to break them…”

“Can I help?”

“I don’t think so,” he said in a startled voice. “No one can.”

Help him? It must have sounded silly, and yet she believed inВ her strangeness and advantage over even higher powers.

“Sometimes women can be more cunning and resourceful than men.”

“I’m not a man, I’m the devil,” he said innocently. Is he a devil? His surroundings may have made him doubt otherwise, but Rhianon remembered the other things: the tent, the bed, lily petals.

“I know you as a man,” she reminded him, “others remember you as a warrior, and no one knows the truth.”

“Not even myself. Sometimes you can get tangled up in all the things you’ve created yourself. It’s like a golden web, you’ve woven it and now you’re surrounded by it. But I’m looking for ways out.”

“I really can help. You don’t believe I’m capable of anything?”

“I don’t want to risk you,” he looked at her seriously. “This is not a child’s game, Rhianon. This is combat. Not the tiny battle you fought on earth. It can take forever, and it can become more and more complicated. It is difficult to fight forever, even with my powers. And you have such a frail body.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, so thin and delicate. With a press of his fingers he could crush every bone in them. His acquisition, made in a mortal world, was so vulnerable, it would take only a push to wipe it away, and yet he looked at his new toy with unspeakable tenderness. There in heaven he had a bracelet, here on earth a girl appeared. During the battle in heaven, the bracelet twisted from the sun’s rays in the shape of a golden crowned snake came to life and stung him with such fury that he was no longer able to clutch his sword in his hand. Maybe that’s why he lost. Maybe…” Madael lowered his head, unable to finish the thought. What would the girl bring him? His favorite with golden curls and eyes as clear as the sky, would she one day be able to strike out at the one who embraced her? Is she capable of betrayal?

“It is always the most beloved who betray,” his former assistant’s voice whispered to him from the darkness.

He did not want toВ think about that now. Rhianon may be aВ copy ofВ him inВ appearance, but only inВ appearance. He would not give her cause toВ rebel against himself. He would be very gentle with her. Though it is amazing how aВ hand capable ofВ clutching aВ sword and slashing without mercy can be gentle at all. Perhaps there is aВ romance. Strength resigned toВ beauty. Gently he lifted her face byВ the chin with his fingertips and touched her seductive lips with aВ light kiss.

“I’ll give you anything you want, just don’t put yourself in danger for anything. Don’t risk, just wait until I bring you what you want. Believe me, in time I can give you everything.”

He tried toВ put all his feelings into those words. Did Rhianon understandВ him?

She looked anxiously at the spot where the harp had recently been lying. The musical instrument had disappeared somewhere. The drapery no longer fluttered either. Then Arnaud was no longer there. Perhaps he really is capable of leaking into any crevices. Rhianon breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, Madael could have found out about everything. He would have been able to read it in her eyes, but now he was busy with his own complicated business and the intricacies of the world’s laws. So her lie passed easily. She didn’t want to explain to him about the harp or Arnaud. What if he got angry? Would his anger cost poor Arnaud his life? She didn’t want to let the minstrel down at all. Whatever he was, he deserved the right to live. Unlike the rest of her acquaintances, he had never once plotted against her or uttered hurtful words, so she could repay him in kind.

“You said we wouldn’t spend the night here,” she reminded him.

“Are you sleepy yet?”

“No,” she looked at him questioningly, as if he were planning something, or thinking of making some sort of suggestion.

“Then let’s go. If you want a new experience, I have something to show you,” he took her hand and forced her up. “You know, I’ve always wished to wander my kingdom with someone, not alone.”

Rhianon felt someone place the cloak ofВ purple damask with silver edging on her shoulders and quickly unfold it. She did not even have time toВ look back. The shadowy servant had already vanished into the darkness.

“It’s cold out there,” Madael explained.

“Is it outside?”

“It is outside the walls of that tower.”

He said it casually, as if he were used toВ being or keeping prisoners. Rhianon shuddered. The walls ofВ this place truly seemed toВ her toВ be living creatures, capable ofВ emitting moans and evil energy. She looked around, but she saw nothing strange this time. Everything around her was silent. But she already knew how deceptive that calm couldВ be.

Night was already falling over the land when Madael took her outside. InВ the tower it was impossible toВ tell exactly what time ofВ day it was, for there was always darkness, just as inВ their celestial castle it was always dawn. Rhianon had already realized that inВ some ofВ the enchanted places chosen for the unearthly toВ dwell, time could simply stand still. It did not apply toВ the mortal world. She sensed aВ sudden change. It was indeed much colder than the last time she had been on earth. AВ frosty wind blew inВ her face as they flew into the darkness ofВ night. Above the black valley that surrounded the tower, Madael suddenly descended. Poisonous fumes whiffed inВ her face.

“What was out there?”

She spotted some creatures wriggling on the ground. The writhing bodies were naked despite the cold, and the pathetic, muddy rags that covered the sores were scarcely what they looked like. From below, cries and moans could be heard.

“They burn like you from within, though there is no fire inside them, only infection.”

“I want to take a closer look,” she saw, even from her height, that some small creatures were climbing up to the sores and gnawing into them. It was hard to tell who was squirming in the potholes on the ground: humans and nonhumans. If human, they had lost their human appearance as quickly as Madael’s angelic servants.

“It’s dangerous,” he warned. “Even immortals get infected from them sometimes.”

“So why don’t you burn them. Leave only ashes of them.”

“It is poison ashes,” he corrected. “It will scatter across the world and poison others, your beautiful fairies, for example. Besides, who told you that when we are dismembered, shattered, or even burned to ashes, we cease to feel pain?”

“But…” She thought it was too monstrous.

“Chop me up into thousands and thousands of tiny pieces, and each of them will retain all my feelings, including my feelings for you. The latter is fine. But they don’t have that feeling. They have only anguish.”

“I pity them.”

“Don’t feel sorry for them. They’ve earned theirs.”

His indifference echoed over the valley ofВ sores like aВ bell. Even she was hurt byВ it.

“But they are your army. They went after you.”

“So what is it?”

“Should you feel anything for them?”

“They chose their fate.”

“Stop!” She felt something attached to her belt snap off and fly down to the contaminated ground. It was the mirror she’d been carrying, and it must have shattered, falling from such a height, but she still wanted the golden frame back, even if it had no glass.

“Come down, please.”

He complied with her request and let her pick up the shiny object. Rhianon brushed dirt and lumps of earth from the mirror. To her joy it didn’t break or even crack. The glass must have been enchanted. She twirled it around, catching reflections of the squalid wasteland in the distance and the writhing bodies nearby. She held the mirror up to the moaning creature beneath her feet and almost dropped it in surprise. It reflected not a black, hunched-over creature, but a beautiful creature, wounded, moaning, but beautiful. Blood streaks ran down its white face and the same white wings behind its shoulders, but they did nothing to spoil it. The same two deep streaks also dissected his back at the point between his trembling wings.

“Let’s go!” Madael grabbed her arm. “You can’t stay here much longer, you might get infected.”

“And what if I’m already infected?” she was used to playing with fire, and even feeling it in her, but she found this place truly creepy.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if all the incurable diseases that existed on earth were just the remnants of the contagion that had come down to us.”

Rhianon saw the lights ofВ aВ village inВ the distance.

“What is there? Is it a place where ghosts dwell?”

“It is worse,” he drew her to him, as if to shield her from the decay around her. “Come, I’ll show you.”

He led her to the little village faster than she’d expected. It seemed that even now, as he stepped on the contaminated ground, he was not walking, but flying. The golden sandals on his feet didn’t have earth or lumps of dirt clinging to them. He clutched his companion to him as if he wanted to carry her with him through space. Rhianon marveled. She was sure that if she had walked alone, it would have taken her most of the night to reach the mud huts. She’d seen the village so far from the heath that the low, one-story houses seemed like dots against the horizon. Now she stood beside them and could even peer through the windows. It took only a few minutes to get all the way here. Yes, with a companion like hers she didn’t need speed boots. Rhianon walked through the narrow, dirty streets, leaning here and there to one window or the other. Sometimes the light inside was on. People were awake, but they looked so haggard they probably couldn’t get out of bed. The narrow bunks, soaked with the stench of disease, were not even beds.

“What a miserable place this is!”

“They’re all sick,” Madael said. His voice echoed through the dull silence with an unusual golden echo, bringing a kind of magic to the darkened alleyways. Even the pestilence and epidemic vibes that danced there seemed to stop for a second.

“Death was already dancing on these logs, walls, thatched roofs, but people didn’t die for long. And anyone who wanders in here is also infected. After a while, no one will be alive here, and anyway, if, centuries later, anyone who wanders in here accidentally or on purpose and seeks adventure, the same thing that happened to them will happen to them. You can’t clean a place like this.”

“But your tower is untouched by the pestilence, built at the very heart of the pestilence,” she blinked when she realized what she had said was foolish. Of course his tower could not be affected by the disease, and neither could he.

“Why did this village seem so close to your land?” She asked instead.

“You see that mountain range there in the distance,” he pointed ahead. “They call it the Dark Spit, and you don’t want to go near it. There’s a lot of strange and dangerous stuff up there, except for the Ifrit up there, who’d throw stones at anyone, but there’s a lot of gold up there, too. Precious ores, stones, gems, everything valued by mortals, are found in such abundance in that black hole as nowhere else. One day a stranger in a black robe came to the village and showed the people a handful of gold nuggets. He succeeded in awakening their greed and luring them closer to the Dark Spit. He said that he had mined it all there himself and would now live like a rich man, and that there was more treasure left for them in the mountain womb. Enough to make several countries rich, let alone a single village. In a ring of mountains, closing in the shape of a sickle, he suggested that they build a mine. So the peasants abandoned their ploughs, cattle and homes and decided to settle close to the mountain range. No warnings from spirits or ghosts had any effect on them. They even built a village here. The houses turned out so miserable because before they could set them up, the epidemic had already done its work.”

“Dark Spit. Is that the name of those mountains?” Rhianon squinted, staring at the massifs drowning in darkness. She couldn’t see much in the dense darkness until gold sparkles flickered before her pupils.

“They curved in the shape of a braid, you see?”

Now she could really see. AВ slight glow began toВ illuminate the darkness inВ front ofВ her. InВ spite ofВ the sparks, everything around her remained gloomy, but at the same time it was clearly visible. Was this really how Madael saw the night, dark but full ofВ clear outlines and stars?

It is very much like the scythe of death,” he grinned. “If you like, I can take you above them and let you see for yourself.”

“Better not,” she thought of the altitude they’d have to fly to get around the mountain tops and felt sick with fear. Or rather, it was not the murderous fear of heights that she had felt before, but only a slight tremor. Even that, however, was rather unpleasant.

“I’d rather walk on the ground.”

Even if it’s contaminated, she added to herself. As Madael had put it, death was dancing in every nook and cranny, but Rhianon didn’t see it, and she wasn’t afraid of it. She peered through the windows, noticed the sick, and then moved on to the next house. Everywhere the same thing, only once she dared to go inside. The door was ajar, and the candle’s light attracted her. It smoldered faintly, like a life already departing.

Madael followed her in, wings almost touching the doorjamb. It looked as if it should have left a fiery imprint, but there was none. Rhianon saw another angel-like creature sitting by the dying girl’s bedside. She suddenly wanted to hold a mirror up to it, as she had done the first time, and see how it was reflected in it, but there was no need. The tattered wings and bruised face were still beautiful. The bright white wasn’t black even on the feathers, but it wasn’t ghostly either. More like the color of chalk or paper than a ghostly sheen. Rhianon stopped. The bruises under her eyelids gave the impression that the angel was crying blood. Or maybe he really was crying. The sores-covered girl in the narrow bunk did not wake up. She could not see that a strange guest was sitting by the barely lit candle, as if to catch her last breath.

“Sethius!” Madael froze on the threshold and looked sternly at the man sitting by the candle.

Rhianon was about toВ ask him why this angel still kept an attractive appearance, but then the head with ruffled curls lifted and the bruises on his face suddenly became sharper, along with them came the burns and bruises. AВ moment more and he lost much ofВ his attractiveness. The light arcs ofВ his eyebrows turned black, something disgusting that resembled bugs crawled across his skin. Sethius could have been mistaken for aВ work ofВ marble, so white he was, were it not for these glaring imperfections.