CXXIV
Abraxas
Since her frantic arrival to this tragic alien world, Raven had come to realize that the planet and its entire atmosphere had been encased within an emerald force field created by the Guardians. This powerful force field had been put in place to keep everyone out, to conceal the Maltusians' most atrocious secret from the rest of the Universe.
But the planetary orb also kept the magical powers of the Goddesses in. These divine captives were beings of extreme magical influence who could wreak a terrible vengeance upon Oa with only one single lapse in this prison-planet's defences. Even the combined might of the Green Lantern Corps would be useless against the very source of their Rings of Power.
That Bruce had been able to penetrate through this controlling barrier with nothing more than an emotional beam of love revealed the incredible power that Raven had stitched into their shared Fate with her love. There was no force in Creation that could keep her apart from Bruce… not the evil will of her father, not the immense separation of light years, and certainly not this ancient, green barrier placed around barren Maltus by these blue-skinned Guardians.
For as long as love remained, they could never be kept apart.
As she approached this final Goddess, Raven sensed the divine, invisible presence pinned upon the crucifix. As she neared closer, the emanations became stronger - emotions coursed through her so that the Goddess of the Unseen almost pushed her backwards… And then Raven heard a voice in her head!
"How nice that you have found such a love, sister."
The voice of Abraxas was nothing more than a thought within her mind. It produced no audible sound - only the one that Raven imagined, as though she were listening to a stranger read dialogue within her mind. Raven grasped what was happening… Thoughts were unseen! Which meant that Abraxas could communicate through her thoughts…
Bruce had been correct; Abraxas was a powerful broadcaster of emotion as well. Raven began to worry about what was being projected. These incoming emotions were not ambivalent. She felt the pure anger and hatred of Abraxas suddenly overwhelm her as she struggled to weather her emotional storm. This was divine wrath on a primal level, frightening and destructive… Raven took a deep breath before she replied.
"I come as your friend, Abraxas. We are cousins, you and I. Darkseid is my Uncle."
"As he is mine."
"But how can that be? You are the twin sister of Zareah… How is it that Darkseid is not your father?"
"Silly girl. Because our mother… the unfaithful Suli was nothing more than a grasping whore. Do you truly believe that dour Darkseid could satisfy her gluttonous appetite for powerful men? Your little exhibition of the earthly pleasures of flesh was but a sample of her nightly delights."
"But how could you know this, Abraxas? Weren't you taken from your mother as an infant? Why would you believe such things about your own mother?"
"I do not believe... I know this because father told me what she was... that is how I know many things."
Raven heard Abraxas giggling in her mind…There was something blatantly obvious that she had missed here. Some piece of the puzzle that she needed to spin in order to fit it into place…
"Abraxas… who is your father?"
"Sister… My father is your father. That is why we are sisters!"
The crashing waters of mystery emptied into the dark Sea of Oblivion as Raven's mind struggled to hang onto fleeting reason before it washed overboard. The piece that patient Zareah had tried so desperately to show her was now revealed. The final image of Trigon and Suli with Abraxas… The sisters were twins… Fraternal twins, conceived by different fathers! Abraxas was her half-sister by Trigon!
Stone-hearted Darkseid had sired Zareah, but it was her own father… before his life as the God of Revenge that had sired Abraxas! Power-mad brothers who had both loved and impregnated the same Goddess! And Suli had carried their children at the same time, two daughters from separate fathers…
"Do you know how my sister and I came by our tragic natures, Raven…? Why we are the twin Goddesses of the Seen and the Unseen?... We were cursed to be this way while still in our mother's womb. Suli had been the only thing cruel Darkseid had ever loved, the beautiful wife he had ached for since the creation of our Fourth World, the sole recipient of any goodness that had ever been in him…
And yet, it was striving Drax who stole her restless heart. Suli was the respected wife of the granite-faced Prince Darkseid, yet she was also the willing whore of his older brother. In her rapid intrigues, she became pregnant by both brothers. And by her arts, she knew who had fathered each child in turn.
For Zareah, she wanted the legitimate daughter of Darkseid to be beautiful, to be the only child that would be seen… but never to be heard. And thus my lovely sister was born as the Goddess of the Seen - but also a mute, never to speak a word. Zareah is cursed to show all the memories of a mind, but never to talk to another of it… so as to never reveal her mother's secret sins.
For the illegitimate daughter of Drax, she only wished for this one to disappear. I am the embodiment of my mother's shame… the child she tried to hide from jilted Darkseid. I have no true physical form… only the secret of an affair that could never be known. I am nothing more than thought and emotion, sister. And so I became the Goddess of the Unseen."
All that Abraxas knew of her mother had been tainted by the lies of Trigon… Raven was sure of that. But that meant… Oh Dear Goddess No…
Trigon had already been here!
How else would her cousin Zareah have known of the monstrosity that her deplorable father had wanted as Raven's groom? Zareah's visions could not extend past the seal of the emerald dome! She had viewed those memories from Trigon himself! As Raven had watched the sweeping murders of one thousand Green Lanterns within her crystal cousin, she had been witnessing the bloodied memories of the Scourge of the Universe…
Trigon had known exactly what the Five Inversions were…
And he knew Abraxas was his own daughter...
There was no Paix Arcana…
There was only revenge.
"Abraxas… Oh God No…did you?!... Did you wish for…?"
The weight of that realization made Raven's entire Universe crack, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces as the true tragedy of its demise now dawned upon her. Each broken piece became an entire world that Trigon had destroyed… each fracture a single life of the thousand Green Lanterns who had hopelessly perished in Trigon's bloody wake. A trillion souls had been devoured as the God's price. His own daughter had been enslaved by the Guardians for Eternity since the time of her tragic birth, and the father had used her unspeakable tragedy to further his own power…
"It was my wish, Raven-sister. Would you deny the only happiness I have ever truly known? Each and every Goddess that hangs upon these cursed crosses also longed for it in their bitter hearts, but only Abraxas had the conviction to give her father the right to take our revenge. How could you deny my vengeance against the tyrants who so willingly crucified newborns and made us slaves?"
"What was done here… what was done to all of you… it's not right, Abraxas… An unspeakable crime, unforgivable… but you must forgive them, sister! He has taken one trillion lives… one trillion innocent lives across a thousand worlds…all in your name."
"Are our jailors so abundant?"
"No, sister… These lives had nothing to do with your enslavement. Do you understand? They would have never wished for you to be this way… They were innocent... He's using you, Abraxas. He's using your desire for revenge to destroy the entire Universe, not only the Lanterns, but everyone! Trigon could have confronted the Guardians on Oa long ago… He could have ended this, but that is not his true desire."
"But these innocents would just be reborn into the Source."
"No Abraxas… These were not Gods, these blameless victims of revenge were mortals. Their memories and souls become separated when they die. All that they have ever known, all that they have ever felt, were lost to the Sea of Oblivion… Nothing but pure light is carried back to the Source. Do you know what a mortal is?..."
"Father has used the term before, but I do not comprehend it. He says you are half-mortal… Does this mean that you will not be reborn from the Source, Raven?"
"I will not, sister. I have but a single life. I will die and be lost to the Great Sea."
"Is it such a terrible thing? Death would be a welcome friend for me. I do not wish to be here anymore."
"You deserve to be FREE Abraxas! You belong among the Gods of New Genesis and Apokolips, not as the slave of the Guardians. You all deserve to be free."
"Father has promised he will free me when you marry the King of Darkness. I asked him why I could not marry the King of Darkness instead of my sister… I am the first-born Princess of Apokolips, the Goddess of the Unseen, would I not make the perfect Queen of Darkness?! But he laughed and told me I could never be married because I have no body..."
"You have a soul, Abraxas… Which is more than our father has. With true love, it is the souls that marry, not the flesh."
"...Father says love is weakness."
"He does not even know what love is, Abraxas… Love requires that you accept the way someone is, not the way you wish them to be."
"Acceptance... My mother could not accept me. She did not love me. Would you accept me sister - for all that I have done?"
"Yes sister, I will... But you must also accept what you have done. You must end this hatred and desire for revenge before it destroys you. You were an innocent, snatched from her home and bent to the mad desires of a monster. Your painful wish has been granted but he has not told you of the terrible, final cost. His promises are pretty illusions, crumbling into fool's dust when the last payment is made. Then, he will destroy all that you are and everything around you…"
The evil voice that interrupted from behind caused Raven's throat to suddenly constrict… She realized that Trigon had not separated them simply to punish her husband...
He had sent Bruce to this planet so that Raven would follow him. So that Raven would meet Abraxas...
"Have you been filling my favourite daughter's head with jealous lies… daughter?"
Next Chapter: The Worst Father in the Universe...