CXXIII
The Five Inversions, Part Two
As Raven gracefully flew towards the next enslaved Goddess, she wondered if Zareah and Abraxas had ever known freedom… Or had they been dutifully ripped from their tear-stained mother's arms to become crucified under the stakes of the Paix Arcana as babes?! Could it be that this really the only life her 'cousins' had ever truly known?
Approaching Zareah with sorrow in her heart, her sadness was suddenly replaced by shock and fear when she spied her. The dark image revealed within this transparent Goddess absolutely chilled her.
A foreboding skeletal man… clothed in mists of darkness that drifted through his bones, stood atop a mountain of the rotting dead as their apparent lord and emperor. Raven repeated to herself that this was only a scene within the Goddess – a revealed image of some creature from Hell - but still it terrified her. This emaciated figure was truly frightening and grotesque, a creature of bizarre nightmares…
And then she saw the skeletal creature hold something in its bony fingers… raising that claw towards her… grasping a black ring… that it was offering… to her?!
"Why do you show me this?!" Raven's fear was manifest. She just wanted the damned image to stop.
Upon her wish, the giant image of death disappeared; replaced by a memory she knew well…One that pleased her as much as the first had horrified her. It was her Wedding day with Bruce, on the back lawn of the Manor with Dick in full military attire and Alfred dressed in a tuxedo, to witness their sacred ceremony of love. The sunshine of that day shone brightly, revealing even the delicate outlines of the crystal body of Zareah - spilling rainbows of color through her like a prism.
"That was my Wedding day… Are you trying to tell me something, Zareah?"
Raven watched as the skeletal hand holding the black ring now reappeared next to Bruce's hand holding the golden ring he had placed on her finger, the very ring she still proudly wore… as Trigon appeared standing next to the Undead lord.
"You're trying to tell me this is my father's work… A Marriage… Are you saying he wants me to marry that… thing?!"
These images then faded away, leaving only the Goddess's translucent form of glass. Her shape was… beautiful. Long crystal hair flowed behind her as visible, delicate curves revealed Zareah to be as naked as Raven. The demigod watched as her divine relation nodded her head up and down in reaffirmation to her shocked question. Her despicable father had planned to marry her off to that nightmare! She was to be the bride of Death itself!
A new scene was created within this Goddess of crystal… her despicable father once again, this time murdering a strange, alien creature dressed in the outfit of the Green Lantern Corps, using only his bare hands. She shuddered at his unmerciful brutality as the poor alien struggled in vain… eventually falling in a broken lump before Trigon the Terrible. Another scene then replaced this one, but the premise remained the same. Her father had vaporized a Green Lantern alien with the Omega Beams from his eyes. Raven watched in horror as alien bones disintegrated in crimson beams.
"Trigon has broken the Paix Arcana?"
Another scene unfolded, another world revealed, another Green Lantern died at the cruel hands of Trigon. And then again... and yet again, faster each time… until Zareah became a murderous blur of red and emerald - the result remaining the same each time.
Her father was murdering the Green Lantern Corps.
Why would this surprise her? Raven had already seen with her own eyes that Trigon had goaded Abin Sur into attacking him. How often had that scene played out on other planets with other Green Lanterns? The New God of Revenge had already taken a heavy toll on the Corps even before Abin Sur had challenged him this morning.
As tragic as Maltus was - the blasphemous prison-world of the Green Lantern's mystic power - it had obviously come with a terrible price. Her father had been taking homicidal revenge against the Corps… but why?...
Had these doomed Green Lanterns only attempted to protect these worlds from her father's wanton path of destruction? Had they lost their lives only in the pursuit of their most sacred duty, to fight evil in all forms?
Or was there something darker at work here? Had Trigon actually targeted those worlds?...
While Raven pondered these questions, a new image appeared within Zareah… yet again of her father, but this time with ancient Azar. Although there were no words to be heard (as Zareah was the Goddess of the Seen) it was obvious that Trigon was threatening the grey-haired matriarch of Azarath. There was deep trouble furled upon Azar's brow once Trigon departed.
Raven held the answer to this riddle within her.
"Azar… what happened there? Did my father threaten you?"
Raven brought forth the spirit of the old woman, allowing it to flow from her physical body so that the elder soul of Azarath now appeared before her… ethereal tears flowing from its spirit eyes as it spoke in a haunted voice.
"Raven… Dearest child of Azarath... Even as I once betrayed my husband, Ra's al Ghul so that I could raise Azarath to the Heavens… I have also betrayed you in order to keep it there. What has been shown to you is an image of the day you were born; when your wicked father appeared on our doorstep. We believed… we prayed that he would claim you for his own… and at that moment, I would have gladly given you to him if he were to leave us alone, but this was never his intention.
He wanted the woman, not the child…
He told me that while his daughter lived within our borders, Azarath would be spared from his divine wrath. But then, on the day you turned twenty-one, he would return for you… And if you were returned unharmed, having lived with us for those twenty-one years, Trigon swore to never darken our door again or to hurt us. However, if any harm had come to you, he would destroy us in your name…
I had no choice.
One thousand years of learning and peace could not be sacrificed for the sake of one child. I agreed to his terms, Raven… But then his daughter grew up to become you. I realized that you were not the child of evil we had believed. As you grew older and good, I struggled with the decision that I had been forced to make. And then I knew I could never relinquish you back to into your father's evil grasp.
On the eve before your twenty-first birthday, I had you banished to Earth. We wanted you to find some happiness in life without the constant fear of Trigon. You had to be aware of the danger, but not the details. We had surmised that your father was a being of divine vengeance… and we had not harmed you or him. We had simply set you free beyond his reach. All of Azarath prayed that our actions would prevent the evil God from claiming you for his own evil schemes, though we did not know his plans.
True to his word, Trigon returned the very next day… furious! He threatened to destroy each and every one of us. He cursed us profanely and screamed how terribly we would suffer for this treachery. He told me I had one year to retrieve you… and present you to him unharmed. And also that your mother's life would be the price of this lost year. On the day of your twenty-second birthday, if you were not given to him as foretold, all that he had cursed us with, would come to pass…
And Goddess help us…on that dark day, it did. But how could I give you to such a thing?!"
"Azar, how can you blame yourself for this?! You saved me… at the price of everything you held dear, you denied my father only to save one single life… mine. It is my greater shame that I could not save you from Trigon's murderous fate…"
"We are beings of soul, Raven. You did save us."
"Then let us unravel the mystery of what has happened here and stop my father from his path of untold destruction together. You have always been true to me, Azar."
Azar's soul flowed warmly back into Raven while she began to thank the crystal Goddess for all that she had shown her… only to have one final scene play out before her eyes.
There appeared an image of Raven, and behind her stood her mother Arella. On the left-hand side of Raven stood the crystal form of Zareah, and behind her stood an unknown Goddess whom she assumed was her mother.
"Arella is my mother, so the Goddess behind you is your mother, right?"
Zareah nodded to confirm.
Trigon then appeared in the center, between Zareah's mother and her own. Yes, she was aware who her evil father was… but then the dread image of Darkseid also appeared behind Zareah, standing beside the unknown Goddess.
"If Trigon is my father, then Darkseid is your father?!"
Which meant that Zareah and Abraxas actually were her cousins by birth, just as Metron had called them.
Zareah nodded once again.
The image of Raven and her mother slowly faded from sight. The mother of Zareah slid to the center while Darkseid and Trigon remained in their places, flanking either side of this Goddess.
In the front, coming into focus beside the crystal form of Zareah, a glowing red figure appeared. The two child-Goddesses now stood hand-in-hand.
"And this is your sister, Abraxas?"
Again, Zareah nodded… as Darkseid and Zareah faded from view, leaving only Abraxas, the mother-Goddess and Trigon.
"I do not understand… Did my father have something to do with your mother?" A vigorous nod responded to her question.
An image of Raven now appeared hand-in-hand with the crimson Abraxas, in the space Zareah had occupied earlier.
"I am related to both of you… you are my cousins. Zareah and Abraxas are the twin daughters of Darkseid and this Goddess who was your mother. Is that what you wished to show me?"
For the first time, Zareah shook her head from side-to-side. Raven watched this strange game of charades as her own image disappeared, leaving only Trigon, the mother, and the glowing Abraxas.
"Trigon has done something to Abraxas and your mother?"
Zareah slowly nodded, saddened.
"Thank you, Zareah. You have shown me so much. I will visit with Abraxas to learn of our history... I promise to free you somehow, cousin."
With a burdened heart and now perplexed, Raven departed for the fifth and final Goddess… the one that had almost cost Bruce his sanity. Yet Abraxas had enabled his emotional plea to escape the Guardians' orb so that Raven could find him from across the Universe. Zareah had tried to tell her something, but it had eluded her.
And something else now troubled her...
For the first time since she discovered this place, she wondered what a Universe without the Green Lantern Corps would be like. She had witnessed Abin Sur boldly confront her murderous father, even at the cost of his own life. And now she had been shown that hundreds of Lanterns had also fallen to her father's power. The Green Lantern Corps fought evil… And evil was destroying them.
By all accounts, the Lanterns were a force for good, and yet the source of their emerald power was the most heinous act of slavery ever perpetrated. Did the noble end justify such tragic means?
And as Metron had hinted, was there a Maltusian plan to eliminate the Gods and then impose the Guardians' vision of order upon all sentient life in the Universe? Did the cold Maltusians even value freedom and emotion… or did they consider abject slavery as the ultimate form of protection? Too many questions filled her head…
Would an invisible Goddess be able show her the light?
Author's Note: The next chapter contains one of the key reveals in the entire story… Any guesses?