“… and now you are and

i am now and we’re

a mystery which will

never happen again,

a miracle which has

never happened

before—”

~ e. e. cummings

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

                                                                 The Visit

Bright Mother Tergel, I repent for all the sins of my blood, for every thought that was unnatural, for every deed that has brought misfortune to others. Cast out the dark, I beg. In your merciful light, I—

A series of painful, lung-rattling coughs interrupted Haydn in the midst of penning his twenty-third page, inadvertently ending his sentence in a long, zigzagging dash as the tip of his quill jerked across the leaf-pulp parchment. Letting the silver-nibbed swan feather fall from his grasp, the priest covered his mouth with both hands to prevent any blood from flecking the pages. He had already stained the last two by neglecting to do as much and did not want to befoul another.

He lay back in his sickbed, waiting for the spasm to subside with a patience borne of necessity rather than anything resembling inner peace. Inside, he was anything but peaceful. Inside, everything hurt; every breath was a struggle, every heartbeat, a punishment. Fever had stolen his strength and ensured that he was either burning under his skin or shivering uncontrollably. The persistent cough that wracked him and tore at his throat until it bled was exacerbated by the congestion steadily filling his lungs. It sat heavy and deep in his chest, like a millstone slowly crushing him to death.

Wiping his palms against his nightshirt (it was already soiled with blood and worse) Haydn reached toward the small bedside table where an oil lamp, a hand-bell, a pot of ink, a wad of combed cotton, and a bottle of royal-water vied for space with a multitude of ointments, tonics, and powders. He palmed the cotton and gingerly lifted the bottle of royal-water, careful not to disturb the philters and jars crowded around it.

Hands trembling, he removed the stopper, pressed the cotton to the mouth of the bottle, and tipped it briefly, soaking up some of the solvent. With the utmost care, he dabbed at the unintended dash he had made until the ink lifted free of the parchment and then mopped it up with the dry side of the cotton. He had just thumbed the stopper back into the bottle’s neck when he another coughing jag seized him.

The bottle slipped from his fingers and rolled off his lap, shattering with a bright, tinkling crash on the bare stone floor of his cell. The astringent, nostril-biting odor of royal-water filled the air. Haydn reached for the bell, but overturned the oil lamp instead, dousing his only light and knocking a philter of tonic onto the floor for good measure.

Still coughing, he groped until he found the handle of the bell and rang it vigorously, filling the silence with its strident, metallic clangor.

No one came.

It should have come as no great surprise—it was the middle of the night in the quarantine ward of the Eye’s infirmary. Any cleric up at this hour would not be walking these halls. They would be busy tending to those who still had a chance. The quarantine ward was where they left the lost causes to bide out the remainder of their time. The bell was more of a formality than anything else, an empty courtesy acknowledging the position he had held within the Order.

Quietly, Haydn began to weep. “Please, please …” He rang the bell again and then flung it at the door in a desperate fury. “I’m not finished. I need to finish!” He clutched the book to his chest as another spasm took him, leaving him breathless and shaking.

He had started it the day Savigny had given him his prognosis. A moon to live, the head cleric had said. If he was lucky. If he was not …

At the time, the prediction had seemed absurd. He had only begun to feel the faintest trace of the fever at that point. Even Reinhardt had scoffed, dismissing it as the spiteful wish of an old bigot who had once declared the admission of a Tergish convert into the priesthood a disgrace to the Order.

There was no chance a fever so mild could fell him, not when he had just earned his robe. He may not have been born Chosen, but surely the Bright Mother loved him just as much to lift him so high. She would not desert him now. He was a part of Her destiny.

Haydn had started the book to prove it. Every night he penned a page, confessing his failings and entreating Tergel to spare him. Every morning he gave thanks for another day. Even as his health continued to deteriorate, he held firm to the belief that this was nothing more than a test of his devotion. The Bright Mother would restore his health as long as he proved himself worthy.

By the time he had penned his twentieth page, he was convinced his prayers were the only thing keeping him alive. Nothing the clerics had prescribed him had done anything to help, certainly. His deep, ruddy complexion had turned sallow and pale, his features sunken and gaunt. His dark hair hung in lank, sweat-damp strands, sticking to the sides of his face and falling in his eyes.

“I need to finish,” Haydn whispered to the dark, setting aside his book. Summoning all of his strength, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his sickbed. Though he had been sweltering moments before when he had lain beneath his blankets, he began to shiver almost immediately.

He cringed as the pads of his feet touched the floor; the cold emanating from the stone tile felt like spikes being driven up through his heels. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Haydn stood and limped forward, seeking the shuttered window on the other side of his cell. He had some sense of where the lamp, the tonic, and the bottle of royal-water lay, but he would not be able to tend to anything in total darkness.

He had turned only twenty this past winter, but he moved slowly, bent over like an old man. The indignity of it had stung him at first—to be stripped of the resilience and vigor he had once taken for granted—but now, he considered it an acceptable sacrifice if the Bright Mother saw fit to spare his life.

Please, Haydn prayed as he threw open the shutters. Please be satisfied with that much. It was spring in the world beyond his window; he had almost forgotten. The vernal blessing festival seemed a lifetime ago. The moon was full and bright, the sky clear, the air pleasant and mild.

Even still, Haydn shivered as if it were the dead of winter. He gripped the windowsill for support as another bout of coughing shook him like a dog shaking a rabbit in its jaws, wringing every last bit of strength from his limbs. Gasping for air, Haydn sank to the floor just beneath the window, staring blankly across the moonlit cell. That’s when he saw her.

* * *

She seemed no more than a trick of the light at first, a featureless shadow cast in the shape of a woman standing in the corner of his cell. Haydn let out a startled yelp and then laughed at himself for jumping at shadows. The laugh came out watery and weak, punctuated by another long, painful coughing jag.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the wall beneath his window and waited for his breath to return. When it did, he reached for the windowsill and hauled himself back to his feet, still chuckling faintly. That’s when the woman moved.

It was a small gesture, a simple lifting of her hand as if to beckon him closer. Innocuous, really. But it was enough to steal his laughter and send a chill down his spine.

His breath coming faster, Haydn began to scour his cell, trying to pinpoint the source of the shadow. There had to be something casting it; a shutter stirred by a stray wind or a drape, or even something beyond his cell window casting a long silhouette. Perhaps the peak of a rooftop with a loose shingle flapping in the breeze. But there were no drapes around his window, the shutters lay flush with the walls, and the shadows cast by the moon beyond his window did not lean in his direction.

Haydn looked back at the silhouette, motionless once more. “Ought to be ashamed,” he muttered aloud. “Spooked by a shadow. Probably just a fever drea—”

Another spasm took him. Blood filled his mouth. Every gasp for air became a battle. A losing battle. Soon, he was no longer breathing at all, but choking, drowning on his own blood.

The room began to spin and sparkle. Haydn collapsed. Across the way, the shadow in the shape of a woman beckoned him again. Then, ever so slowly, she began to drift forward.

Fascination numbed the pain and the panic of his slow suffocation as he watched her approach, passing like smoke through foot of his sickbed. Fascination gave way to fear when the confines of his room shifted in the woman’s wake, transforming into a vast hall of pillars and starlight.

Haydn struggled upright with a strength he did not know he had and dragged himself backward, but his shoulders quickly met with the wall of beneath his window. Stop! Stay back! he wanted to cry. All that came out was a gargle of red foam.

His eyes rolled back into his head as the pain in his chest went from burning to crushing. A lifetime seemed to pass before it subsided. When he opened his eyes, the woman had come to a halt a scant number of steps away.

Now that she was closer, he could see that she was no shadow at all, but draped in a heavy grey veil. The dark, endless hall of pillars that accompanied her encompassed everything but the wall behind him and the window just above his head. Haydn kept his back pressed firmly to the wall, convinced that if he sat forward, even for a moment, it would disappear along with the rest of his room.

“Spirit,” he rasped, knowing the apparition could be nothing else. “Faer or fiend, I have no truck with you and you have no place here. Begone.”

Beneath the veil, the spirit’s head tilted. With great deliberation, she turned to study their surroundings. She looked back at him and through her veil, he thought he saw the faintest suggestion of a smile. There is no other place for us. This is all we know.

Her voice filled his mind, speaking in every voice he had ever heard, in every language he knew; a soundless orchestra so rich and piercing it brought tears unbidden to his eyes. We did not seek you out. You came to us. Just as you did before.

“Just as I—?” Nothing about the spirit or the hall of pillars encroaching on his room had seemed remotely familiar at first. But then, something shifted in the recesses of his mind, something old and well-buried in the cemetery for memories better left forgotten. “Oh no, no …” He shook his head as if to deny her words, but the memories rose all the same.

A nightmarish recollection of stumbling through sweltering darkness came over him, lost and alone, struggling to overcome the haze of confusion caused by the toxins coursing through his veins. He remembered the glowing cavern and the shrine of the Ancient Nyhilis surrounded by the skeletons of countless would-be seers that had failed their initiation. The statue.

“You,” Haydn whispered, aghast. “You came for me when I broke the statue.”

The spirit’s head turned from side to side. You came to us, just as you do now. As all souls do.

“Bright Mother save me,” he breathed, making the sign of Tergel over his heart. “I stand in the presence of Sokar.”

You do not stand. She gestured to the floor. And Tergel has already surrendered your soul. It will not be long before you are one with Sokar.

Haydn looked down and beheld a disjointed, strangely transparent vision of himself slumped at his feet, eyes rolled back, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He still shook with coughing spasms, but there was no sound. Only blood.

Horrified, Haydn jerked away and realized by doing so that his back had not been pressed to the wall of his room, but the base of a pillar. His sickroom in the quarantine ward of the Eye’s infirmary was gone, leaving behind only the watery reflection of his writhing body.

“Lies!” he screamed, recoiling. “The Bright Mother favors me! I have been reformed in Her light! You cannot take that from me!”

And you believe this grants you life eternal?

“I will not fall prey to your tricks, spirit! Banish your illusions and begone!”

We cannot. This is the Hall of Stasis, where all life draws to a halt. This is our essence. This is where we always have and always will dwell. There is no other place for us.

“What do you want with me?”

Nothing. As we said, you came to us.

“Then let me leave!”

You will. As soon as you surrender the flesh you once wore, your soul will be free to pass into the realm of Sokar, where all souls slumber, awaiting the handmaid of Tergel to usher them on to new lives. Her attention fell to Haydn’s hazy apparition writhing on the floor. You still cling to it quite strongly. You must let go.

“No!” He put himself between the spirit and the reflection of his body. “This is a trick! You will not break my resolve!”

Remaining tied to your flesh will not save your life. You are dying. All you will do is ensure that you will never return to Tergel.

Haydn turned away from the spirit. “I don’t believe you.”

Sokar does not require your belief any more than Tergel does. Soon, all you will be clinging to is dead flesh.

“I’m not letting go.” Fixing his gaze to his reflection, he strained with every fiber of his being to make it cease its mindless spasms and simply breathe. It went on thrashing, heedless.

It makes no matter to us. You may return to your flesh, if you wish. But know this, you will have no reprieve from your death throes and once your body is dead, you will no longer be able to find your way back here. Your soul will stay tethered to your remains until all that you are dissolves into Other.

Haydn reached for his reflection. “I don’t believe—engh!” The moment his fingertips brushed the apparition, wrenching pain filled his chest. Aghast, he swiftly snatched his hand away.

Sokar does not require your belief, the spirt intoned.

“I—I …” Haydn’s shoulders slumped. The image of his body was beginning to dwindle, its jerking movements growing less wild. “Mother help me. I’m dying.”

Yes.

He turned to look at the veiled woman. “Why?”

It is the Balance.

“But why me? Why now?”

The spirit lifted her arms slightly, almost a shrug. You absorbed the essence of an Elder from Eshu’s court. Your body could not withstand it. There is no other reason for it. Death is the end toward which all life strives. Sokar comes for all in due time. Your time is now.

“The Bright Mother’s destiny—”

Is a fable. It will never come to pass.

Haydn’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know that.”

Sokar is not a thing to be vanquished. Sokar is a divine state; its essence imbues all things. Sokar creates the Balance. If such a destiny were to occur, Tergel would cease to be. Nothing would ever live again.

“Spirits don’t die.”

Ah, but we can. And we do.

“Even you?”

Yes.

Haydn gave a bitter laugh. “Who shows up for you when you die, I wonder?”

We cannot say. It has yet to happen. There was a hint of amusement in her voice.

“That’s not very inspiring.” He glanced down at himself. Not the sad, watery reflection on the ground, but the body he currently wore. What was it made of, if not flesh? Was he even here at all? He clasped his hands together, but it felt no different from any time he had done it before. “You should know everything if you claim to be a god.”

We have never claimed to be a god. That is simply what some have chosen to call us.

“A fallacy you never bothered to disabuse anyone of.” He glared at the spirit. “My people kill for you, you know.”

Does your Order not kill for Tergel?

“The army of the Order defends the Bright Mother’s Chosen. They do not butcher innocent lives needlessly in Her name like the devotees of Nyhilis do.”

It is not needless. Death opens the road to our realm. Many have used it to invoke us. But we have never requested these audiences.

“You could tell them to stop.”

Why?

Haydn opened his mouth, preparing to expound on the long, sordid list of atrocities that had been committed in name of the Ancient Nyhilis throughout history, but stopped himself before he began. How could he possibly explain the horror of death to the handmaid of Sokar? It would be easier to explain the concept of vision to a man born blind. He shook his head and looked away, staring into never-ending darkness that stretched in every direction.

Please, Mother, he prayed. Please do not abandon me here. Cast out the dark, I beg. Bathe me in your—

What did you need to finish?

Haydn turned. “What?”

The spirit stared at him intently, black eyes boring through her veil. You said you needed to finish. What did you need to finish?

“You heard me?”

We hear all souls that invoke us.

“It was a book. I thought … I thought it was going to save my life.” Haydn hung his head. He had been so certain it would. Now the idea seemed utterly mad, a pathetic fever-fueled delusion. The fervid, desperate hope of a dying man.

We could do that, the spirit remarked casually. If you so desire.

He drew back, disconcerted. “Why?”

Strange. The veiled woman tapped a finger against her lips, cradling her elbow in her hand. Almost all plead for the very thing we offer you; some do nothing but beg for it. But you, you never plead. You never beg. You only ask why. We have never been asked that question before.

“You’ve made this offer to others then?”

A smile flashed beneath the shroud. We have made this offer to all of your forebears. We make it once and once alone. Your life need not end here if you accept.

“But why? You would not make such an offer out of pity; you have no pity. Why would you make an offer like that to anyone? What could a thing like you possibly want?”

You were meant to be one of ours.

Haydn retreated another step, eyes widening in horror. “My soul is sworn to Tergel. You cannot have it.”

The spirit flicked a hand, unimpressed. As is the soul of everything that has ever lived. Yours is an intriguing light, but we have no interest in taking that which is not offered freely. However, you are among the last initiated into the cult of Nyhilis.

“I will not carry on that barbarous tradition,” Haydn spat. “Gutting animals for a glimpse of the future and drugging children before sending them off to meet death. No. I risked everything to escape that life. I will not go back to it. Never.”

We do not ask that of you. In exchange for your life, we ask of you three things: First, swear that you will restore the shrine you destroyed.

“I am no sculptor,” Haydn protested, disbelieving.

You will restore it to the utmost of your ability until we are satisfied. And on the eve of every Blood Moon, you will return and ensure that it is well kept.

“And the third?”

Henceforth, you will never again speak ill of the Unseelie or do harm to our court. Pledge your fealty by these terms and we will restore your health.

“And if I will not?”

Then your body will die. If you stay bound to your remains, your soul will wander the mortal realm. Or you can relinquish your hold and unite with Sokar.

“To be clear, what you want from me is to rebuild a shrine that almost no one has ever seen, in a cave that almost no one knows exists because it sits in a forest of fever trees almost everyone avoids.”

And pledge your fealty by the terms we have given. Yes.

“Why?”

Because it was made with love and its beauty pleased us. Because we swore by our Name to its maker that we would preserve it for all time and treat fairly with her progeny, of which you are. Because our Name is our bond and we have sworn by it.

“And what name is that?”

The veiled woman’s smile broadened. Are you so eager to surrender your soul to us after all? We thought you were sworn to Tergel.

Haydn fixed the spirit with a flat, humorless stare. “You wouldn’t dare. I would use it to make an end to you and you know it.”

A trickle of laughter echoed through the hall. You are bold for one so small. Even still, if we bestowed our Name upon you here and now, your soul would become ours. You would never again leave this realm.

“Is that why you would spare me for so little? Because you cannot leave this place yourself?”

We would spare you for the reasons we have given and charge you with the tasks we have named. But take care; what we ask is no small thing. Should you fail to uphold any of the terms we have named, your life is forfeit.

“And if I do what you want and uphold your terms? What then?”

Your life is yours to do with as you see fit until we meet again.

“And my soul?”

Is sworn to Tergel. Is it not?

Haydn stared across the vast hall of pillars and nodded slowly. “I’ll do it. Mother help me. I’ll do it. I don’t want to die.”

Then pledge your fealty by the terms we have given.

“I swear to use the utmost of my abilities to restore the shrine of Nyhilis to your satisfaction and ensure that is well kept on the eve of every Blood Moon thereafter. Henceforth, I swear I will never again speak ill of the Unseelie or do harm to your court. By these terms, I have pledged my fealty and sworn my life.”

Very well. The veiled woman stepped forward and without warning, leaned in as if to embrace him. For a moment, he saw only the darkness of her bottomless black eyes. Then she was gone. He was left standing alone.

Now place your hands upon your flesh and return to that which you were born. Her voice rang loud in his head. His gaze dropped to the watery vision of himself lying crumpled on the ground.

Kneeling, he thrust both hands into the apparition. The wrenching pain in his chest returned with the force of a mule’s kick. It made him want to withdraw, but he sank his hands in deeper. To his surprise, he met with no resistance when his hands reached the floor, but plunged straight through. Unbalanced, he fell forward, tumbling headfirst into his own misty reflection and onto the path of his ultimate ruin.