Читать книгу Claiming Her - Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen - Страница 12

CHAPTER 9

Michael, wearing a fresh white robe, sat on one end of the bench and watched the food being set out. On this day, his infant daughter would be named, and her family and their friends among the folk who lived in Eliom would witness her dedication to the Creator. Eve’s mother followed her tensely into the front room. Deianna’s long dark hair, pinned up in a great mound of tendrils and curls, bounced and quivered as she paced, her nervousness marring her tall and shapely figure and elegant face.

She rearranged a fruit compote more centrally on the long table. “Where is your brother, Eve? Why hasn’t he arrived yet? He must be present when Michael lifts the babe to the Creator.”

“Adam will arrive,” Eve assured her.

“How sad that Michael’s own parents won’t witness the ceremony.”

Michael got up, placing an affectionate arm around Deianna, hugging her. “Zoras and Heira are already deep within somnambulation somewhere along the first pathbeam. They came last night to see the baby and say their goodbyes. Leianna is already at home in their gift.”

Deianna studied the intricately carved wooden cradle holding her tiny granddaughter. “It’s beautifully crafted. Does it play music?”

“No, Mother.” Eve carried another wooden bowl, filled with slivered almonds and figs to the table. “And you still haven’t presented your own gift to Leianna, your first grandchild, whose name honors your own.”

Deianna smiled haughtily and reached for her scarpa, her cloth pouch, on the edge of the table. She took out a tiny wooden box, opening it. A gold ring crowned by a brilliant blue stone lay within. “My love is within the gem. It imparts wisdom and direction.” She handed it to Eve. “Give it to Leianna on the day she’s to be married.” She ignored the startled glances Eve and Michael gave her. “The others will arrive soon. Where is Adam?”

“Here I am, Mother.”

Adam appeared in the doorway, wearing a shortened and sleeveless blue summer robe. Handsome despite a pale complexion, his sandy hair tousled and hazel eyes laughing, his voice rang out, so silken and rounded, it irked rather than warmed the ear. “May I enter, in peace and friendship, the home of my beloved sister and her family?”

“Enter, Adam ben Mercurius,” Michael responded properly, “and share with us the spark of life.”

Adam avoided his mother’s glare, moving to the cradle and studying his newborn niece. “She’s beautiful. We’ll have to keep the boys at a distance when she grows up.”

“Only at arm’s length,” Michael answered, his words clipped and concise.

Adam picked the child up in his strong hands. She whimpered at first, then quieted as he rocked her.

His sister hovered beside him until Deianna, her finger softly brushing Leianna’s cheek, noticed her daughter was level with her own height. “Eve, you’re lifting again.”

“I’m happy,” Eve said simply.

“Even so, lifting is only for far-journeying. Talents are not to be wasted, and you know it. You have feet . . . plant them please.”

“May the House of Lucifer enter?” A new, much softer voice drew their eyes to the doorway as Eve lowered to the floor. An attractive young man with a mane of golden hair and startling blue eyes smiled warmly at Michael, receiving in return a grin borne of their longtime friendship.

Lucifer’s wife, dark golden hair piled high and fetchingly, her deep green eyes meeting Michael’s and Eve’s in greeting, stood beside him. The statuesque woman held Bael, their youngest son, firmly in her arms. The child’s small elven ears were nearly covered by his rich black hair; his piercing eyes cast curious darting glances about.

Ashtoreth, their three-year-old, his gaze shyly averted, clutched Lucifer’s hand. His hair, the same thick waves of sunlit blond as his father’s, was unruly.

“Enter,” Michael said. “Enter and share with us—always—our blessed new spark of life and the friendship which burns brightly and eternally between us.”

The family crossed the open threshold. Lucifer nodded toward his one-year-old, who yawned and burrowed his head into the crook between his mother’s upper arm and chest. “Bael’s just waking up. He slept most of the way, lulled by the sun and Affaeteres’s gentle gait.” He smoothed his elder son’s wild locks quickly into place. “Ashtoreth. Go and sit some place quietly until the others arrive.”

The boy scampered to a cushion near the kitchen entrance, hair falling in his face again. Aside from his renegade curls, his white shortrobe was spotless, as perfectly smooth as his father’s.

“Here, Ash.” Eve found a skane playball and handed it to him.

He lifted his bright aquamarine eyes up to her, the precocious patrician cast of his cheeks, nose and mouth somber, at first, then blossoming into an appropriately childish smile of gratitude. He fingered the soft clear globe. Three inches in diameter, it came to life in his hands, pulsating with glowing colors and patterns as quickly as Ashtoreth imagined them. Lavender, yellow and orange rays swirled and leaped within the tiny sphere, bouncing colorful shadows around the room. One danced across his little brother’s face. Bael reached out, trying to grasp the elusive streak. Ashtoreth laughed.

Bael’s eyes, midnight black flecked with gold, focused on Ashtoreth and the bright ball. He strained forward in his mother’s arms. “Meh!”

“No,” Affaeteres said, holding him tightly. She leaned over to lightly embrace Eve and Deianna, then nodded to Adam, smiling warmly at the newborn in his arms. “So this is our godchild.”

“Yes.” Eve took the baby from Adam, tucking her back into her cradle. “This is Zoras and Heira’s gift to her.”

“It’s lovely.”

Lucifer joined them. “The child outshines it.” His lips curved upward in amused approval. “Have your parents left?” he asked Michael.

“Yes. Early this morning. Eve’s father, Mercurius, is keeping the tally of those leaving on the transgalactic journey. I almost envy Zoras and Heira and the other elders chosen. To be helping our Creator establish a new world of sentient beings at a distant point in the universe . . .” He grinned pensively. “. . . almost worth the loss of separation from Eliom for 35 millennia.”

“Perhaps. Well, we will have to tend both the Garden and the Council in their absence, although I’m sure our remaining elders will be quick to advise us, solicited or not. But with good advice, no doubt, and many of us may rise more quickly to elder status now. Has Mercurius had a chance to see Leianna?”

“He’s been unable to visit. He sent a congratulatory message, along with a tiny skane pendant for Leianna.”

Lucifer clasped his shoulder, nodding understanding, both he and Michael watching Ashtoreth toddle over, the globe toy, now unhandled and returned to a milky white, abandoned on the floor cushion. The boy stared into the cradle, nose wrinkling. The baby, in turn, smiled up at him, her infant eyes alight with curiosity.

“What’s her name?” Ashtoreth asked, cheeks reddening slightly.

“Leianna,” Michael said.

“Ley-ahn-nah,” he imitated the formal name.

Affaeteres, one arm holding Bael, reached down to smooth her firstborn’s hair. “You see, Ashtoreth, the name ‘Leianna’ has an ‘ah’ on the end to give it the third sound. ‘Leiann,’ her little name, only uses the first and second sounds. A special name just for friends.”

“Ley-ahn,” he repeated. “Do I have a little name?”

“Yes. You have two. Ash or Ashtor.”

“I like Ash,” he decided and continued to study Leianna with an air of concentration normally reserved for frogs and bugs.

“He’s too young to take an interest in such things,” Lucifer said.

“That’s not true.” Affaeteres regarded the boy with more than a hint of maternal pride. “I’ve begun teaching him phonics and lettering while you’re away sharing your own brilliance with the Council. He enjoys learning.”

Lucifer’s pale brows rose, his lips played at the idea of a smile. “My industrious wife. But then you’ve always been fruitful with time and talent.” His smile ripened; she smirked meaningfully back at him. Michael and Eve watched their repartee, sensing a hidden layer of meaning behind Lucifer’s jest.

Eve raised her own inquiring brows to Affaeteres, who laughed goodnaturedly and said, “I suppose we should tell them.”

“Aff is with child again,” said Lucifer. He moved to kiss his wife’s cheek. Bael, in her arms, leaned forcibly outward, his parents quickly grasping him.

Bael’s chubby arm continued reaching downward, wriggling toward the cradle, the newborn within it. “Uh,” he gibbered, fingers pointing toward Leianna.

Affaeteres tightened her grip on him. “Whatever Ashtoreth finds interest in, he wants it, too. That’s Leianna, Bael. Lei-an-na.”

“Lehn!” Bael mimicked, his small hand stretching insistently toward the infant.

“Perhaps he’s in love,” Lucifer grinned.

Michael tickled the soft flesh under Bael’s dimpled bantam chin. “Perhaps.” A soft gurgling laugh erupted from the child, and a new voice sounded from the doorway.

“May we enter, Michael ben Zoras, in peace and friendship?”

Quatama, short and slight of build, wearing the unadorned brown robe of a master, waited before the threshold of the thachka, his dark eyes reflecting his illimitable patience. By his side stood a man identical in face and figure to Michael.

Michael greeted them both. “Enter, Quatama, my revered mentor. Enter, my worthy brother Gabriel. Enter and share with us the sacred gift of life.”

He held both hands out to Quatama.

Quatama clasped them in his own in a dignified but warm manner, then broke the hold. “The Creator has blessed this child,” he said, walking past him to the cradle.

“Every child is blessed.”

“No, this child is special. But I do not know the purpose of this blessing or how it may manifest itself in her life.”

Gabriel moved stiffly over to view the infant. “This child has goodness within her.”

“As do all children,” Michael repeated, more gently than he might have, had Gabriel not been his brother.

“Not all,” Gabriel replied. “Not all with goodness centering from the core of her soul, undimmable.” He, too, wore the brown robe of a master; his bearing and tone defied argument.

“I thank you for your praise in my daughter’s name,” Michael deferred, “being she cannot do so herself. May we all benefit from that goodness.”

“It is time for this very good child to be presented to her maker,” Quatama murmured with wry amusement.

Leianna, in her infant’s robe of gossamer, looked up as he wrapped her light blanket of lambs’ wool around her and lifted her from the cradle. He held her gently, her small head resting against his chest. Her tiny mouth opened in a yawn, then closed.

The spirit master led them in ceremonial procession, Eve and Michael following side by side, and Gabriel and Adam, Leianna’s blood uncles, behind them. Deianna walked regally behind them, unperturbed by the absence of Mercurius, her one-time consort and father to her children. Behind her walked Lucifer and Affaeteres, Bael wide awake and squirming once more on his mother’s hip, her arms locked tightly about his bottom and back. Lucifer carried Ashtoreth, his head resting sleepily on his father’s shoulder, his legs dangling down.

The celestial sun, descending, filled the sky with soft hues of blue, rose, and lavender against lingering filaments of gold.

Along the cobbled road, other friends and neighbors stepped out of clay thachkas to join the procession with nods of greeting to the principal celebrants. The assemblage became a pious parade, for Michael and Eve’s cottage was the farthest from the fields and forest they now headed into, stepping onto a pathway of flat multihued stones of orange, brown, yellow and red.

The Garden’s beauty, rich with maturing summer, accompanied them as they strode, men, women and children, along the ceremonial pathway. Its stones glinted with sunset, and one lone singer, the canehya, began the evocation, her voice swelling out, her tones as dulcet as a wooden flute.

“Adenoy Dominey,

Tu laleh a bin ay,

see bashtay e nah dinay

n see dahnay e ta leh

been tah n cuwh.”

[Translation from the Eliomese:

“Oh, Creator Supreme,

the Light that guides our way,

we greet You on this day,

and we pray for Your Blessings

of praise and love.”]

Other voices threaded around the canehya’s, blending magnificently. The musical prayer travelled with them on their long trek through the Garden, its fields, meadows and forests.

They sang of using their creative powers to honor the One who gifted them with those powers. They sang of their work in the Garden, of its fruits and fibers and grains, of the life force within the sacred soil. They sang of the harvest and the energy the bounty of the harvest brought, and of their dispensing of that energy in work, in meditation, in craft, in dance and song, in love and in marriage. They sang of the most sacred act of creation: the quickening and birth of offspring, the vessel through which the spark of life grew and expressed itself.

They sang of the soul’s sojourn, maturing from childhood to adulthood, walking its own creative path, guided by the One and the teachings of parents and Elders in Eliom, the difficult journey of learning, growing wiser and applying knowledge and wisdom.

They reached Garden’s End. The canehya chanted the ending verses of the Song of Creation, speaking solemnly of the newborn asleep in Quatama’s arms, of Eve and Michael, their family and friends among the angelfolk, of the Creator blessing their child and acknowledging her eternal name.

Behind them lay the stone pathway and the cultivated lands it ran through, from which they drew their sustenance; before them stretched a large prairie, its ecology unaltered, pristine. In the far distance, a forest outlined itself against the sky.

Quatama bent down, the child nestled fast against his robe. The others silently followed his example, going down on one knee, eyes lowered reverently.

“Adenoy Dominey. See nee ha,” the spirit master intoned. His voice projected clearly in the sudden hush. “Oh, Supreme Creator. We bow to You. Having passed through the Garden, we now enter the Virginal Sanctuary on our path to the Shore of the Seraphim and the Well of Being. Guide our steps, that we do not disturb the life which Your Sanctuary protects. If any creatures within its boundaries wish to share our joy and our journey, we welcome their presence. Know of our love for You, Creator, and our joy in Your Presence and Your guidance on this Day of Naming.”

Quatama rose and led them through the bright summer prairie, a riot of wildflowers rivalling the thick swatches of tall grass. The sun’s rim caressed the horizon ahead, where flatland gave way to trees thick with foliage and dappled with equal accents of light and shadow.

The celebrants walked in silence now, journeying through the grassland and into the forest beyond. Tall and regal branches of oaks offered parallel salutes as the procession trod beneath their overhang. Shadows of true dusk deepened moss-flecked trunks and the angular faces of the elvenfolk appeared in the gloom, as they crept from their recessed nooks hidden beneath tangled tree roots.

A young hare scampered over, hopping excitedly alongside Eve, a recognized friend, no doubt, who had helped her or kept her company when she tended a row of lettuce, giving it its leafy share to take back to its burrow and feed its family. It stood up to greet her. Eve stroked its soft head, and it kept pace with her in scuttling spurts on the mossy woodland path. A small raccoon ran beside Michael as he walked. Michael smiled at it, and extended his arm. The raccoon followed uncertainly, then sped up and jumped, scampering along Michael’s sleeve to sit on his shoulder, enjoying the ride for a bit before jumping to the ground and scurrying off.

Woodland birds, sparrows and thrushes, chittered a soft song on the tree branches above. An occasional flutter of wings beat a soft patter.

The solemn eyes of a young elf met Michael’s. The elf raised a wine gourd, and his eyes and his mouth indicated its rich contents. Michael nodded, his own lips curling upward in appreciation as he passed. The elf followed him, joining the procession.

The forest gave way to more open prairie with a slight rise visible in the distance.

On the plains, an eclectic mix of animals appeared, flanking the celebrants. Mares, stallions and their colts trotted along, kicking up small swirls of dust. A pack of wolves padded silently after them. Snakes, scales rippling hotly in the last vestiges of sunset, slithered by. Two prides, of leopards and of lions, moved majestically to the left; two herds, one of slow-moving elephants, the other, fleet gazelles, followed the lions. On the right, a clan of bears lumbered past a flock of ambling pheasants and peacocks, tails dragging. Above the whole procession flew bright formations of birds, a graceful V of geese high up, flocks of blue jays, sparrows and seagulls swooping and soaring further below against the colorful sky, a profusion of wings.

Angelfolk, elvenfolk, and animals now climbed the rise, surmounted it, and began their descent to the Shore of the Seraphim.

The midnight blue waters rushed against the scalloped edges of the shoreline, a soft golden foam flickering and coating the sand as each spent wave receded into the sea. The gold and blue waters also circled around the Well of Being, further up the beach, its weathered stones glistening not only from the spray that leaped upon it, but from the glimmering substance of the foam.

Neither its height nor its width were impressive, roughly three to four feet high and five feet from center to rim. But it was not a well of water. Swirling vapors emanated from its shaft, wisping in trails above its rim. Its nebulous mist drifted beyond the shoreline, creating a haze of fog.

The celebrants traveled down the slope to the beach and the Well of Being. Quatama, Leianna in his arms, stood on the seaward side of the well at its centerpoint, facing it. Michael stood to his right, Eve, to his left.

On Michael’s right stood Gabriel, then Adam, then Lucifer, holding his son Ashtoreth, staring wide-eyed at the well and the throng around him. To Eve’s left stood Deianna and Affaeteres. Bael, still held fast against her, for once remained quiet, staring at the vapors rising from the well shaft.

Across from them, four other Elders, the young male elf holding the wine gourd, and an older female elf filled in the opposite side of the well. Tendrils of mist floated and swirled in the air.

A space still existed between the parallel half-circles of celebrants around the well. Fair-sized gaps remained, the circle unclosed.

From the packs, herds and flocks of animals that had joined the procession came a rustle of movement. A tawny lion emerged, strode over to Affaeteres’s left, and sat quietly on the sand. A small sparrow flew gracefully upward against the vaporous currents of the Well and fluttered down, lighting between the lion and a portly bald Elder.

To Lucifer’s right, a strong grey wolf padded softly over, his tongue lolling in a wide lupine grin, and stood proudly and attentively. A gazelle bounded down the slope, slowed to a canter, and took her place to the wolf’s right.

No spaces remained around the well.

Quatama lifted the infant in his hands, holding her over the well shaft. The mist increased, obscuring the child within the thickening cloud.

“We present this child to You, our Creator. She is named Leianna, first born of Michael and Eve, niece to Adam and Gabriel, godchild to Lucifer and Affaeteres. We offer her to You, that she may know You, that You may recognize her, the special spark within her born of the eternal Flame that lit Your universe. Commune with her, Creator, that she may know her place within it.”

Quatama released the child, slowly spread his arms, and empty-handed, stepped back. None seemed alarmed for the child’s safety. They waited serenely, unmoving, with an obvious certainty that she would soon be returned to them.