The Myth of the First Empress: Part 1
Listen. Listen as we fly down through the seven skies. Close your eyes and settle by the fire. We land upon the Kingdom of Kypria in a past layered with so much mist it is all but myth. Listen as we play this myth out, moment by moment.
Let us go to long ago and far away, over craggy hills speckled with small trees, prickly bushes and rattling snakes. Come now, to where a girl sits under the deep, evening sky, waiting for the gold and violet moons to cross with the earth and cast the land in a dark blanket. Tonight is the summer solstice and there is an eclipse.
Cam sat on a rock under a gnome tree, looking out across the hills of the Kyprian countryside, currently dotted with the spindly-legged kyrix herd she kept. She loved this time of night.
It was peaceful and quiet and the landscape seemed to sparkle under the stars in a way it couldn’t during the day when the hot sun glared down, drying out the prickly plants and patchy grasses even further. It was also her birthday, or at least, the birthday she had chosen for herself.
Cam had grown up an orphan, moving between hidey-holes in the capital of Protevo. Three years ago an old shepherd had taken her under his wing and passed his herd on to her.
Through this work, she discovered she loved the countryside best, for out here, away from all the voices, she could hear the earth itself. She could hear it sing, bubbling in the creeks which branched off the Aegis River, and the birds who hid in the prickle bushes. She could hear it in the rattle of the burrow-snakes and in the crack of the sandy soil under the hot sun.
Out here she could be away from the gangs that ran Protevo in the absence of any organized government, most of whom were off at war or kept dying before they could return to uphold their civic duties.
The Kingdoms of the Continent had been at war long before Cam was born and they were still going at it. Compared to the city, full of broken soldiers, broken families and mourning bells, the countryside continued on.
Rain still fell, flowers still bloomed and her kyrix ate all the yellow spike within sight. She had found her place at long last. A place she could rely on to never go away and even as it changed, the same scenes came around again and again every year.
She absently scratched the head of a kyrix who wandered up to her as she reflected on her years of having hiding spots rather than homes. Shepherding meant she moved around, though across much farther distances, but there was a wonderful feeling of family and home that went with the herd.
Leaning back on the rock, Cam smiled up at the night sky, in minutes the solstice convergence would begin and she would be another year older.
As the gold moon and the violet moon converged, their colours made a braid through the Aegis River which ran through the centre of the steppe where Cam had brought her herd for the past week. She stood up on the rock and stretched her hands high, gazing at the sky and basked in the solstice hour of the eclipse.
As the world went dark, it felt to Cam like the earth stilled. Like it stopped turning and held its breath for a moment. She’d picked the summer solstice for her birthday because she loved this particular feeling. This feeling of nothing but her and the earth caught in a bubble of frozen time.
Then a star shot across the sky, shattering the moment as it tumbled toward Cam. It came shrieking down in a sharp arc. Suddenly the world was loud and crashing into Cam at great speed. She was going to die.
Caught in terror, Cam covered her head with her arms and tumbled off her rock. The moment she hit the rough ground, something cold and metallic slapped into her hand and she instinctively grasped it. Then the world lit up like she had looked directly in the sun. With a roar of sound, like a crashing waterfall, the light faded into black.
A scratchy and cold nose was the first thing Cam was aware of as the world came back into focus. Sound and air and smells began to flow once more. The kyrix bleated and Cam pushed its nose away, frowning and blinking as she sat up, wondering why she was gripping something cold but hard.
Rubbing her eyes with her free hand, Cam realized she had a sword in her grasp. The sword shimmered with a silver glow. The hilt was black with metallic threads of gold, violet and white winding all around the handle and cross-guard.
The examination of the sword was enough to jolt Cam into recognition of what she held and she dropped the sword like it was burning hot. It clanged against the rock as she stumbled away from it.
Sitting on the ground, she felt two kyrix wander up beside her as she stared at the weapon that had come out of nowhere. Flown out of nowhere, into her hand.
Such things did not happen to orphan shepherds.
“Well it’s a good thing you aren’t an orphan shepherd dear,” said a woman’s voice. In an effort to locate the origin of the speaker, Cam nearly wrenched her neck.
She winced, rubbing it as she saw, sitting on the rock behind her, a woman who glowed white and silver like the sword.
“Who…?” Cam stuttered as she scrambled away from the woman.
“You’re not an orphan shepherd. Or at least, you aren’t anymore. The sword chose you, so, congratulations Cam. You are now the owner of a rather special sword. I think that’s what you humans do when something good happens?”
“How do you know my name?” Cam asked. She fingered the slingshot she kept tucked in her belt, a weapon that all shepherd’s had and that was far more sensible than some glowing sword.
She did not trust this woman, just because this woman was pretty and spoke kindly, if very oddly, Cam did not believe for a second that she wasn’t dangerous.
The woman was dressed in strange clothes that looked like nothing Cam had ever seen. Layers and layers of skirts in all shades of gold, silver and purple and a headdress made of silver and some sort black stone that shimmered with miniature rainbows.
“I know the names of all who walk across the back of the earth,” the woman said with a serene tone as she gestured toward the land around them.
“Right,” Cam said with a frown, not believing the woman for a second.
“You can call me Estrella,” the woman said with a hand-gesture that implied she was simply making up a name.
“I’ve got nothing of value. You’re welcome to take my herd. Actually, you can take that sword. I don’t know where it came from,” Cam nodded toward the weapon which still lay on the glowing, on the ground.
“I won’t be taking anything, least of all your destiny Cam. You need it.”
“I…what?” Cam pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t need a sword. Whatever you think, I am an orphan shepherd and a random, sparkling sword will not change that. Nor do I want it too.”
“Oh but it does. It changes everything,” Estrella said as she stood in a single movement that looked like water flowing within the night air. She stepped toward the sword, plucked it off the ground and offered it to Cam.
“Take it. It has chosen you.”
“It’s a sword,” Cam said, eying the weapon and then the woman, mentally marking her as even more dangerous due to psychosis.
“Yes, and it chose you. It is time for the wars to end and so we have sent the sword down to help unite the Kingdoms.
“You’re joking. The Kingdoms have always been at war and no number of swords has ever stopped it. One glowing weapon isn’t going to do a thing and I’d rather not be in your debt.”
“And that, dear is where you are wrong.”
“Am I? Well then, please do shine some light on my lack of knowledge. You seem to have it in spades.” Cam understood bandits and highwaymen. She understood cons and smuggling and gang fights. She understood kindness too, when it came. Like El-Joren, the old shepherd.
She’d come across him trying to pull a trapped kyrix out of a rock crevasse. But in return for her help he has taught her all she knew and then, days before he’d died, he’d asked her to look after his flock. Even kindness had a trade-off.
She did not understand this woman. Not one bit.
The woman laughed. Cam growled and crossed her arms which only caused the woman to laugh more. The woman had a laugh that sounded like bells and a waterfall combined. Even her laugh was strange and beautiful. Cam pushed up from the ground and stomped up to the woman.
“So?” She said. The woman looked up at Cam with the sort of smile Cam had only seen mothers give to the daughters. She’d never been on the receiving end and it made her more irritated. She really did not understand this woman.
“Dear, it has given you a choice. You have lived one way for all your life and now, you have the choice to change it.”
“I’m not a yellow-beaked noble’s daughter to be con’ed by such words, my lady,” Cam said, putting her hands on her hips. “Also, I like my life.”
“Do you? That’s unfortunate,” the woman shrugged as if she had just noticed the weather was rainy and cold instead of warm and bright.
Then, after a moment of Cam glaring at the woman and the woman looking back with infuriating calm, she said, “just know, that sword was sent to choose one to wield it and that sword does not choose lightly. If you ignore your destiny, know that it will not do the same.”
“Destiny isn’t real,” Cam said, leaning back to look at the stars. “Those stars are real.”
“Have you ever touched a star?”
“No, but I don’t need to. Everyone knows stars are real.”
“Then maybe everyone needs to talk about how destiny is real. Will you believe it then?”
“Everyone knows destiny isn’t real,” Cam argued. “Especially not for orphans. Destiny is for those who can afford to visit the Oracle or hire an astrologer. Kings and lords and duchesses. Why would I be destined?”
“Because you saw the falling star in the dark, because you looked at the sky, because you see the stars, because you have persisted all these years no matter the odds.”
“Because you stand tall in the dark and you welcome the silence when so many are afraid of it and will talk of nothing just to escape it. I can keep going if you’d like, but I’d rather you choose whatever reason feels right to you. That will define why you are destined.”
It was Cam’s turn to laugh. Hers was an incredulous, mocking and belly-shaking laugh and she sat on the ground, curling into her stomach as the ridiculousness of this exchange hit its pinnacle.
“No,” she said after her laugh had settled and she was sitting, legs-crossed and looking up at the woman who still sat with glowing poise upon the rock under the tree. “I’m happy here. I have finally found a home. I don’t need anything else.”
“Really? I am impressed. I thought humans struggled to feel happy. I thought humans sometimes felt hungry and tired, angry and bored. Do you mean to say, you have never felt those things? No wonder the sword chose you!”
Cam tipped her head back and groaned, “don’t you understand anything? Obviously I feel other things. I’m not a rock. Since you’re all about choice, just know that I do choose something. I choose to live here and I choose to hold to happiness. Yes, sometimes I am lonely and angry and sad, but that doesn’t make me not happy. Besides, I do better away from people. People make me itch.”
“Well then, I have done my duty. May the seventh sky be in your future Cam,” she said and then with a rush of wind, like a sudden tornado, the woman was gone. The glowing sword still lay where Cam had dropped it.
“Hey! Hey! Come back! You left your sword!” Cam groaned with frustration before she got up and kicked the sword under the tree.
Exasperated, she marched toward a couple of the kyrix who had lingered nearby during the whole exchange. The kyrix looked up at her doe-eyed and Cam sighed, before sitting beside them. She scratched one behind the ears.
“That woman was insane,” she said and that was the last she thought of the sword and the woman as she lay back on the scratchy ground and counted the stars in the sky until she fell asleep.
Check back for Part 2 next Sunday!
ARR
