Ch. 25 Cauldron of Rebirth
From: Libitine
To: Arwen17
Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:41pm
Mab's eyes wandered over to the splintered wood. She could see it now, now that it was merely splintered wood. Good god it was so simple. She did not see the remnants of jewels or perhaps a few decorative drops of gold or silver. Before the great queen was a pile of splintered wood. Good god. It was so simple.
Her knees bent and the queen sunk to the ground, fingers sifting through the pile whilst Leah watched her intently, holding onto the crystal as if it was her own Grail. If Leah were to smash the crystal in her hand, it would weaken Mab immeasurably though at this point, Mab could feel Death pressing up against her. Everything is over, said the pile of splintered wood.
She had seen wood in this manner before, after her priestesses tore off their robes and burned her altars, after Merlin threw a chair to the wall in rage, after Mordred turned a table on its surface in malice, after Idath ripped a door off its hinges. She had seen it after the three dirty men with small chests of minerals had come to see the Baby and the Virgin and found nothing and tipped a trough over in despair that they were mere hours too late to be blessed. Yes, she had come in contact with piles of splintered wood but no pile seemed as small as this and no pile seemed as shattering.
She couldn't help but wonder, as she gazed on in wonderment of the entrancing little pile, if followers and blasphemers and children alike would look upon her body after her death –for she feared she no longer had the backing to properly fade, but simply die and lay on the earth like a mortal woman dressed up as a god- and scoff or stare for would she only be a pile of wood to them? Then materialized, and then revealed, would her lackluster form disappoint?
And there Mab remembered the importance of an empty space and there she longed for it once more. There, kneeling before a scattering of wood, Queen Mab of the Old Ways prayed in desperation for the return of emptiness.
"My god," Mab whispered, uttering a phrase she had only heard whispered in the hallway of the abbey she had penetrated to originally knock the Grail into oblivion. "You've damned us all."
The citizens knew of its disappearance immediately, as if it had already been embedded deep within themselves, like a mother or a father, and been tied to them by blood. Once it was spilt, they had nothing left to do with it but know, know of its death.
And so they rejoiced. They awoke from their slumbers and ran into the streets, an excited hysteria having come over them. They shook their children and kissed the foreheads of those finally dead and set their bodies on fire and flung them into ditches and set them to float down rivers as blazing embellishments of the Londoners' newfound disregard for Death. It was a celebration that had never before been seen and it drug Galahad from his pool of tears at the base of the pedestal and set him on a balcony from which he could see all of his kingdom.
Once the smell of the burning dead and the sight of women and children dancing down the streets and waving flaming totems penetrated the sickness which had formerly shielded his brain, he cried out in agony and clawed at his temples, sinking to the floor and pressing his forehead against the stone of the terrace.
"My sweet Lord," Galahad, Pure of Heart, cried through tears as coins with his image were flung carelessly into the river. "I implore your forgiveness, for I have damned us all!"
Aneoth's walls were shaking. Idath had not been given time enough to prepare for the influx of souls that had broken down his gates and torn his tapestries and began to beat down the door to his sanctuary, his great Cauldron room. His Cauldron, which had formerly been split in two and void of fluid, was set up again on its great platform and shone with the obsidian brilliance of twelve thousand black horses. Or of Mab's hair, fanned out against a pillow . . .
Mab.
"Mab!"
Idath sprung from his bed and stood on solid ground to peer around and see Aneoth completely healthy again. "The Grail is dead!" he yelled and burst from his chambers, running down the hallway like a child on the morn of its birthday. The moans and groans of old ghosts were drowned out from the cheers and songs of new spirits, overjoyed to be welcomed into Idath's kingdom. And the Lord of Death was filled with rapture.
Idath made his way to the great doors of his kingdom and flung them open, looking down the cliff to see what he had so longed to see, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of souls scrambling up the rocks to be received, to be kissed on the head and whisked into sanctuary and peace.
"Glorious Death!" Idath whispered, stepping back and opening his great white arms to the world of spirits beneath him. "Come to my kingdom all ye damned fools!"
"Just smash it," Mab whispered, slapping the pile and sending small pieces across the floor. "Smash it Leah!" her voice became like the sound of stone against stone. "You are so fond of smashing things, aren't you? And fonder so of my death! Smash it and watch me . . . watch me implode."
She was flooded with images, Moira, cold from fever clutching her mother's dress as she trembled, Mordred, clamoring down the hall on his mechanical pony, Merlin, gazing up at her from a linen blanket, not quite an hour old, Idath, eyes filled with wonderment the night of Moira's birth. The night of Moira's birth. He was there, at her birth.
"Oh," she whimpered, hands wrapped around her waist as she slumped over onto the floor. "It doesn't matter now. It doesn't—nothing matters for she surely must be dead and I . . . I surely must be dead."
Leah, out of shock as opposed to malice, dropped the crystal and when it hit the floor it broke in two even pieces, much unlike crystals usually do.
Mab straightened. "I would never have killed her," she said between labored breaths. "Never. I only wanted to live. I only wanted to suspend her so I could—so Idath could be gone. He was killing her Leah, don't you see? But you don't see."
The Queen of the Old Ways stood before her granddaughter. "I staged your death when you were two weeks old, did you know that?" she whispered. "Moira was ill after your birth, whether or not she will acknowledge it now. She was brokenhearted over your father's death, shocked at my return, and overwhelmed at the prospect of a life full of teetering on the edge of death for if I die, she does as well. I was so very afraid of what would happen so . . . I pretended to desire your life. I knew if I did so she would panic and bring you to Merlin and there, you would be safe. I have always trusted my son, despite our religious differences."
She shook her head. "But I needed you, you Mordred's sister, when he began to deteriorate, so I brought you to me and I supposed that with Moira's advanced catatonic state that your presence might prompt some healing but she further spun into hysteria outside my control and now . . . now we are all dying."
She clasped her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. "I used to be loved!"
From: Arwen17
To: Libitine
Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 7:35pm
Sky watched her kingdom tearing itself apart. Her legs gave way and she slid to the ground as the madness continued around her.
Many souls returned to Idath. His cauldron slowly began to fill up and return to normal.
But eventually the trail of souls ended and the cauldron was still not yet full to the brim. Not even the sudden influx of suicides had created enough death to fill the cauldron up from its long state of emptiness.
Idath breathed a heavy sigh. He had been on the brink of non-existence. It would take extra effort to recover. Leah had saved him, bless her. Now he believed Leah could help him again.
Leah, shocked and overwhelmed, accidentally dropped the crystal she held in her hand. The crystal hit the ground and split into two pieces.
"I used to be loved!" Mab's dry, desolate voice whispered.
Leah joined her on the ground and pushed the two pieces of the crystal back together in a pathetic, childish attempt to fix things. But the pieces fell away from each other immediately. It was irreparable.
Mab gave a little laugh that sounded on the border of hysteria. She showed no desire to move from her spot.
So Leah didn't move either. Both of them sat in darkness, awaiting the end.
She gasped suddenly and inhaled a large of amount of stale air. Moira opened her eyes and saw the face of the Morrigan fiercely looking down at her. She gasped in surprise, but then realized where she was.
She pulled herself up and off the table in front of the stone carving. It was very dark in the shrine. Only one candle sputtered close to death in the room.
Moira examined herself and decided she still felt drained, but much better than she had been before. "Where's Leah?" was her first question to the dead air, but it did not respond.
With an effort, Moira focused her thoughts upon their cottage dwelling and winked out of existence in an instantaneous flash of light.
She appeared the next second in the cottage, breathing hard. She looked around her, but Leah was not there.
Moira waited until her breathing had calmed and then slowly allowed her senses to carefully explore the surrounding area. She had enough power to make it stretch all the way past Dustin's castle. She could not sense Leah anywhere in the vicinity. That left Moira with only one other good option. She closed her eyes and focused on...home. Moira disappeared.
Moira appeared right on the edge of the land and had to clutch at the wall because of the staggering amount of exhaustion she felt. But she breathed in the misty air tainted with the smell of magic. She only felt slightly better.
She arrived in the room and found both her mother and her daughter on the floor together. Moira blinked in surprise. Idath was there too.
Idath appeared before them all. His being glowed with a fierce light, clearly all his mighty powers had been restored.
"Leah," he spoke powerfully, "we have one more problem."
Suddenly, his face switched to uncertain as he continued to stare at her. "Leah, you seem different for some reason."
A dawning realisation seemed to strike him in the next instant and he rounded on Mab. "Mab! What did you do? You ripped my blood from her?!"
Idath glowered at Mab for a moment longer, but returned his attention to Leah.
"Leah, thanks to the prolonged deathlessness in the human world, my cauldron of souls was emptied. The balance must be restored. The amount of souls in the living world and the amount of souls in the cauldron must be the same. I have a stronger connection to people who believe in me and therefore it would be easier to take those souls. "
Idath glanced at Mab momentarily. "But I know doing that would also affect Mab since most people who believe in me are also the only people who still believe in the Old Ways."
"I'm giving you a choice Leah. You and you alone will have this choice because you were the only one that saw reason and destroyed the Grail and saved me.
I don't care which souls I take: the ones I have a stronger connection to, or the ones I have a weak connection to, but I need souls.
Which souls do you want me to take Leah?"
Idath's prophecy seemed to ring silently in the air between all of them.
"Arthur Pendragon's child is destined to finish King Arthur's noble work and destroy the Old Ways."
Leah let out a shaky breathe. "This is the end."
Mab closed her eyes with a feeling of inevitability.
"I..." Leah began, and faltered.
Leah had reached a stumbling block. She didn't know what to do. And she had yet to notice her mother was right behind her.
Leah closed her eyes and looked deep inside herself.
When she opened her eyes again, Leah wasn't sure whether minutes or hours had passed. But both Idath and Mab were staring at her.
"I'm really sick of all this fighting." Leah spoke honestly.
"I have no idea why there was a prophecy made about me. Or why my fate has always seemed to be tied to it."
After a slight pause Leah continued, "I can't swear I would never destroy the Old Ways because, in the right circumstances, I might actually do it. I think in the right circumstances there are a lot of things I would do that I would never think possible. But that's just human nature."
"I am Arthur's daughter, but I am also a child of the Old Ways. Two opposing forces created me and exist inside me and yet I am not destroyed."
"These two warring sides exist within me and yet I feel no pain. Why is that?"
"I think...I believe it is because they are not fighting. My mother laid with my father in an act of passion and love, not hate. So my two halves do not fight against each other. They live in harmony and there is no pain."
Leah finally stood up. "I want the balance restored in the world, as if it were just like my body. The Christian side has grown too powerful and unchecked."
Idath smiled. "I knew it." he whispered softly.
"What?" Mab snapped.
"The cauldron did not grant me the final part of the prophecy about Leah until she smashed the Grail." Idath explained.
"Britain belongs to the one in whom the old ways have joined the new."
Idath's cauldron was filled to the brim. He was now dogging Mab's every step and flirting.
Mab hadn't yet kicked him out of her kingdom so she must have been in a much better mood to be so tolerable.
Moira watched with amusement at her father's attempts to get her mother's attention.
"Leah.. come here." Moira called Leah over to her.
Moira placed a necklace around her daughter's neck. A pendant of a bird with a emerald set into it hung from the chain.
"You found it?" Leah asked with some surprise.
Mab happened to pass by the pair of them, Idath still following her.
Mab, still scowling at Idath, noticed Moira for a moment, then her eyes fell upon Leah's necklace. Mab paused suddenly and Idath almost ran into her. Her eyes flickered up to Leah's face and it seemed like Mab was about to say something, but then she moved on without comment.
Leah gazed after her with some agitation. Mab had yet to say anything to her since Leah's little speech. Mab and her mother had talked in private a few days ago. But Mab still hadn't said anything directly to Leah yet. Her mother was in as secretive of a mood as Mab.
Moira's cool hand was on the back of Leah's neck and she relaxed into her mother's loving caress. Momentarily forgetting about all of their troubles.
From: Libitine
To: Arwen17
Posted: Sun Sept 6, 2010 9:04pm
In the dark quiet of the crystal cavern Mab brooded. She was alive, so she might as well brood. She was angry, so she might as well brood. She was surrounded by incompetence, so she might as well brood. Though she was alive, she was terrible frustrated. The behaviour Leah had displayed the past few weeks had not at all prepared her for the outcome they had experienced. The child had made it abundantly clear that she was not aiding the Mistress of Magic in her survival against Christianity.
On top of which, Mab certainly would not have broken her countenance as she did before Idath and Moira had arrived in her land. She had cried. By the gods, Mab had cried before her ….her granddaughter. Those words sickened her.
Sky awoke on the balcony of her castle, black flakes of ash stuck to her eyelashes. The city below her was in ruins, buildings crumpled and bodies strewn in the streets. She pulled herself up, peering down below the stone balcony and into the streets, where she saw not one movement to indicate life. It was as if everything was suspended in Death, as it had been before, only, only she knew it was not supposed to be. This twisted uncertainty pulled her eyes from the golden city.
"Galahad," Sky said, "We must go to town and heal-"
Sky was alone on the balcony, and that feeling of loneliness settled in her stomach like a poison, spreading to her heart and filling her lungs like tar.
"Galahad?" she whispered.
"Mab," he whispered, entering the room from a break in the crystals. Her cavern had suffered in the midst of the activity and confusion that had befallen the rag-tag group as of late. She looked as he remembered her, or rather, as he had trained himself to see her. Her skin was perfect milky white and her hair was pin-straight and darker than the night. She had eyes round as the moon and green as the first blades of grass in spring. Her fingers were long and curved like the branches on some strange tree, the strange tree you spend summer days underneath and lead lovers to and carve sweet poems into the trunk.
"Idath," she answered despite herself. He looked refreshed, so she noted when she finally turned to face him. She looked angry, or had looked angry. She changed her expression once she saw him to better compliment his mood. She hadn't cared enough to do that in nearly a millennium, as pathetic as it sounded. She used to take great care in her mood and appearance in his presence, but stopped doing so when she allowed him to see her in pain.
"It is good to see you," Idath said softly, coming towards him. "It is good to see you are still managing to make it through, to survive. I don't think you'll ever stop surviving."
Her face fell; it fell not in a melancholy way but rather in way one's face does when one has realized something extraordinary.
"I doubt I'll ever have to stop fighting to survive," she said in a whisper, looking up at the cracked crystals around her. "But if you can name me the lucky bastard who doesn't have to fight, I'll submit to whatever the people, or the gods, or you, Idath, have to throw at me."
"This is a personality I haven't met," Idath teased, crossing his arms as a father might do to a child. "Where have you pulled this can-do attitude from? Who's life source have you drained to adopt it?"
She took the jest surprisingly well, for herself, stepping towards him. "I am tired of running from my fate. If I am to disappear, so be it."