Azure stared. Swallowed. Panted. Light slowly returned, but showed nothing more than a white-silver void all around. No darkness. She lowered her spear, moving it out from the body of the phantom, and lay her head back, trying to collect herself. Briefly, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “You did this,” Azure accused, getting angrier by the syllable. “It was all bullshit. You ensorcelled me, tortured me. Why the fuck did you do this?! How could you be this cruel?!” Her eyes opened as she craned her head back up and glared. Eyes she saw clearly behind the mask, easily through the glare… monstrous and all-too-familiar, staring back calmly. Cat-like, reptilian-like, both; far more.

  The figure moved her hand to fold it back in the sleeves of her robe calmly. Her voice was oddly rhythmic, emotive, and almost poetic, flowing even between sentences. “Our world is cruel. We adapt, transcend, and overcome it. We learn who we are through its tests. If we fail, we languish, suffer, and fall, to learn; if we fall too far, we rot with the carrier crawlers. Nature, from which we sprang, is forever pitiless to the unwary and unfit. To understand it, to master it in truth, you must also be pitiless. Unlike the rest of the orchestra, I do. I am. Unlike the rest, I make no clan and claim no tribe. The lot of you hide dangers in your lies but I lay exposed as the pure and lethal truth to any who dare to test it.”

  “Spare me your jaded, preachy philosophies. Why did you do this to me?”

  “Because you asked for it. Because you needed it. Are you going to claim you didn’t get what you deserved coming here?”

  Azure didn’t answer. She just glared, still pissed and frustrated, but uncertain how to express it effectively without feeling vulgar in comparison.

  “Enlightenment certainly fits you awkwardly. Like a child in her mother’s shoes tromping around in pretend. But then, you’ve only begun on this road. Ensured the strength to survive and endure the climb. Somehow, it seems appropriate that you’ll cast aside all shoes and take it more comfortably barefoot.”

  “I hate all your stupid analogies and always will.” It just blurted out of her, but she knew it was true.

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t have to… chew me up and spit me out. Literally.” Azure shivered. The nightmares would come again from that experience.

  “There are always multiple paths to ascend. You chose my road and so you suffered my methods. Fortunate for you because the results are exceptional. You rose to the occasion, oh Sister.”

  Somehow, she had to take that compliment. The queen was not someone who’d butter it up, after all. With pained and painstaking slowness, Azure rose, using her spear as an aid. The void certainly had a ‘floor’ to it. She touched her neck and realized she was still bleeding. She took out a healing potion and poured it over the wound, staunching it immediately.

  Perks of being a drug-making master, I suppose.

  Azure breathed in and out in relief from the soothing sensations, then eyed the queen. “What makes us sisters?”

  “The Power of Threes balancing each other. What else?” She gestured with her hands. “Come. I believe it’s time you were reunited with your lover. She is well, and now you’ve served her well. Your victory together in these spaces is complete. Soon you’ll reap great rewards.”

  “I’d like nothing mo- wait. I need to ask you about this ‘road’ you’re talking about, don’t I?”

  “Do you? Have you not been dismissive of everything I’ve said to you?”

  “Emotionally. Not logically. Give me a little leeway, would you? So. You’re an oracle. Right?”

  “Yes, I am, Azure. Not of the physical realm. Not of the future or the past, not directly. That is your lover’s province.”

  “Inward, in other words. Inner truth.”

  “There are more directions to go than the mortal mind perceives or conceives. But let’s call that close. Now. What do you want?”

  “The doorway. That was real.”

  “Yes. Does it surprise you that a door connected to you will open for you, who bends everywhere?”

  “My flexibility is legendary.” Azure frowned. “So I’ve been hidden from something that was always right under my nose.”

  “Because it is the wrong path. The easy one, charging through into madness. Giving in and giving up. Another exists.”

  “If the struggle meant something, why wasn’t it the end? Because I still don’t know her? Why is the truth of her life so elusive and dangerous? Multiple forces, perhaps Fate, maybe The Lover herself, my own contradictory instincts… somehow it all conspired to keep me away. Meanwhile, a part of me burns to seek her. Why?”

  “Some of these questions are the answers you need waiting at the end. You cannot simply ignore it forever or you will cripple your potential. Hobble your walk. As it has been so far. That is what it is to not know yourself. But you have centered yourself. Faced your demons and won, thereby relieving a burden and giving you the foundation to take the terror of that truth in the high places.”

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  It hit Azure like a lightning strike. “What Samantha did. Before she rescued me. Descended and faced herself. Her greatest fears and limitations. That’s why I couldn’t go up, why it burned.”

  “Different for each, yet it is always the same who the True Magus must face first to earn that truth. And now you have. When you gaze into the mirror, you need not see a lie any longer. You’ve seized the right to truth and now you will seek it in truth. What bowed to you before will now also gaze in awe, and no doors will be barred to you. Choose them wisely, though, as there yet remains that which does not bow at all.”

  “That’s a lot of truth,” Azure whispered. “I-...” she fumbled for the words, then swallowed and steeled herself. The right thing to do. “Thank you. As fucked up as everything you put me through is, and I’m not even sure you weren’t going to kill me somewhere in there, you’re still trying to make me better. And that’s what I want. I did ask for it. Sorry for being snappy and ungrateful about it. Teacher.”

  For the first time, she gave the queen pause, it seemed. For half a moment, she might’ve been stunned. “Humility? Now you’ve truly surprised me. You’re welcome. Our orchestra is a collaboration. You will disagree with me to the ends of infinity, but we reach toward the same goal. Believe it or not, it wouldn’t matter to me to go on like this. I do what I do for the principle. Seek and find; ask and receive. The tribute is the walk, and I always honor its due.” She held out her hand. “Shall we ascend?”

  Azure took a deep breath, nodded, and took her hand. “Let’s go. I’ve at least earned the right to see this sexy moon palace of yours.”

  The queen looked at her and Azure wanted to believe there was a smile behind the mask. The desire annoyed her. However ‘on their side’ she was, the oracle was a rather evil person who imaginatively tortured her and created a wilderness full of trapped souls, presumably those that failed her little ‘tests.’ Respect was one thing, admiration another.

  Surrounded by a silver aura, they floated up and with increasing speed flew up through the roots and the darkness, into the light-filled tangle, quickly passing it into the sky again. The Cat Heads dived for them, but the queen was dismissive and ignored them. When the horde got lower, they slowed rather than attacking, though still tried to approach, all eyes on their queen. Eyes of supreme obsession. Worship.

  Mewling and meowing like kittens, the beasts approached but could not get close as they were rebuffed by the aura. Their cries became panicked and pathetic, even as they fought futilely against the barrier keeping them away.

  The queen did not even look at them. Her eyes passed right through, looking up, looking ahead.

  Azure shook her head. “You truly are pitiless.”

  “Flying corpses. Zombies. The unfit and unworthy, repurposed yet to serve me. This is their portion of relevance, as suits their mettle. I need deliver no mercy in universes ever finite.”

  Azure shivered. She was curious, but a part of her didn’t want to know more. She quieted, watching the beasts passing by, unable to approach, falling behind and under. They followed still, screaming all the while.

  Eyes forever on the wrong thing. She won’t make that mistake.

  The blinding bright golden sky came, and this time, Azure felt it suffuse her and warm her. She smiled. It felt wonderful this time. It charged and awakened her. Such a subtle thing, but the comfort and peace of it was sublime, and she felt light as a feather.

  It passed far too quickly, on into the cool, silver radiance of the growing moon, which intensified, grasped her, and took her up.

  The end of this road. Finally.

  ??············???···········??

  Back in the hall of the moon queen, Sammy scowled up at the figure on the throne — after her breakdown about how she’d ‘help’ Azure. Sammy ran her tongue around inside her cheek and crossed her arms, stymying the rude things she wanted to say in response.

  Azure goes to face herself on the Path of Truth? Of course, I trust her. I just don’t trust you, lady.

  Finally, Sammy took a deep breath and decided further argument — or threats — weren’t going to get her anywhere. At least she knew Azure was alive. ‘Death’ in that place was questionable, but it was something. “Alright, lady. My first personal curiosity is whether this is really the end, or is there some other fucking test you have in store?”

  The queen looked down, somehow imperious in her stillness. “Was what you faced not enough for you? Tests are from within, whatever you think of me. There is nothing more for you to prove in this place. You evolved and adapted externally to conquer your environment and get here, and your struggle with yourself was over before you even set foot on the steps. A victory you did not allow to slip away, but stood upon as a center.”

  Sammy took a moment to take that in. “Hmm. The old me in the mirror. What I left behind. Sometimes I worry I leave too much.”

  “And lose your humanity? The mix is who you are and what the orchestra needs. What you truly miss and fear to lose is who you were to your father, and who he was to you.”

  Sammy opened her mouth and closed it once. Blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably it.”

  “We have only so many choices to make up our center. It is never an infinite space. Choose yours carefully. But it is not a weakness to anchor on the ideal of clan. Family. That is being true to your nature, so long as you realize the priority of the greater good. And I believe you do.”

  Standing there before someone with The Answers, she couldn’t resist the question that bubbled up. “Is it possible to see him again? Rescue him out of that… hole?”

  “Is that what it is?”

  “I don’t know. I just know he’s far, far away and inaccessible.”

  “You’re not wrong. Your question could be compared to the parable of the cake. Can you have your cake and eat it, too? Your father, from out of your life before, thrust into your life now, would not exist in the same way. Would you want him in Calrenazzod, your new world?”

  “No. I couldn’t do that. On top of every other madness, he’d become a target. And… I don’t have the right. It would be wrong to do that.”

  “And would you go back, if you could?”

  Sammy took another deep, sobering breath, and finally shook her head. “I can’t. Something I already settled. The greater good, right?”

  “Indeed. To have power yet ideals is to make an offering out of most of it.”

  Still sick...

  Next Chapter...

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