I heard them once,
at twilight turn
An echo from
that secret space,
betwixt shadow and void
A song,
from ancient memory
Yet offering no melody now,
to recall
—Venerable Keeper Ensun,
The Subtler Shades of Silence,
Chapter IX
PART ONE
Tsami struggled to stay conscious as she crawled around on raw, wounded hands. The forest cave was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything, let alone her brother.
“Moth, where are you? Are you all right?” she called, her voice echoing off the damp stone walls and deep into the cave’s earthly heart.
Bats took flight in a bursting cacophony, forcing her to pull the torn, excess teal drapery of her monk’s robes up over her head. As their torrent of wings rushed past her, she recited a protective prayer to herself, over and over again. The mantra worked to soothe her while she froze, too afraid to move on from her spot until long after the swarm had passed on.
She heard a familiar groaning and moved in the direction of the noise. Her wounded fingers touched cloth and she tugged the material as hard as she could.
Moth yelped in response.
“Sorry,” said Tsami, quickly withdrawing her hand from his robes.
“I think . . . I think I’ve broken my arm,” stated Moth through gritted teeth. “I’m telling you—we’ll be cast out of the monastery for this!” He raised his head.
Tsami could make out the lines of his smeared, powdered face staring up at the cave’s daylight exit, far above the steep steps they’d fallen from.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I just let you pull me down like that,” he said.
“Yes, yes, it’s all my fault,” said Tsami, unable to rein in her agitation. “Please tell me you can still write though?”
Moth shuffled around in the darkness for a moment before pushing the Initiate’s Scroll towards his sister with his good arm. Tsami inched her hands out slowly, receiving the scroll with a kind of serious, weighted reverence for the artefact.
“But it’s forbidden,” she said, “I haven’t been trained to use it yet.”
Moth roared with laughter before immediately regretting it. The laughs tapered off into pained wheezing. “Take a look around you, Tsami,” he gasped out. “All of this here is for-bid-den.”
Sighing, Tsami unrolled the scroll on the flattest stone she could find. Moth managed to hand his side-pouch of ochre to Tsami, who dipped her index finger into the pouch before writing a single word of spelltongue on the parchment.
Light.
The word responded, illuminating their immediate surroundings.
Moth tsked. “You’ve always been a fast learner,” he said, conceding a rare compliment to his sister. “Still, we should probably have done this before entering the scary, dark cave.”
Inhaling, Tsami drew the light source off the page with her hand. It was first flat in its plane, before it expanded its volume when she exhaled, rendering it fully dimensional. It turned orb-like between her fingers.
Reclaiming the scroll, Moth brushed the ochre off with the base of his delicate palm, before rolling it up and sliding it back into the ornate holder fastened at his side.
“Shall we?” she asked, coming behind Moth to help him to his feet.
“Watch it,” said Moth as he rose, pointing clumsily with the elbow of his broken arm to the fading torchlight; the cost of Tsami’s split focus and overconfidence.
Inhaling again, she drew her attention back toward the energy within her arm and to the light by extension, then, as she exhaled, the light came flooding back until it was once again white in her grasp.
Holding each other close for support, the pair stumbled alongside a faint, trickling causeway that led them deeper into the forest cave. As the light from the entrance slipped away, glow worms began to gleam above, revealing veins of twinkling-blue starlight and weaving an intricate tapestry across the stone ceiling.
“They’re so pretty,” remarked Moth, mouth agape and sounding just a touch delirious.
Eventually the slow procession of their own wandering star came to the natural end of the cave as they passed into a large, rounded chamber.
The light from Tsami’s hand spread out, refracted off innumerable facets of jutted crystal. Her face reflected from the background of every pane, projected a thousandfold.
At the conclusion of their path the far wall best resembled a great, clouded mirror. It sat beneath a high archway of crystal, and its “glass” front ran smoothly down its surface towards the earth.
Moth wandered away from Tsami and ascended the rocky altar, curious. “Do you see it?” he asked, gently pressing upon the mirror with his finger. “There’s something moving inside. Like fog, or a gas of some kind.”
“It could just be the light playing tricks,” said Tsami, hoping for the simplest explanation. She stared down at the chamber floor blankly for a moment, before noticing an object that was laying, half-buried, amongst the dirt.
Reaching down, Tsami picked up and shook off the layer of caked earth from the object—it looked like a filthy robe. As she raised her sphere of light over its dulled, but evidently opulent, fabric, her stomach dropped.
The light fell quickly away from her and each and every one of her stunned reflections. “Moth,” she called, dropping the robe to tame her torchlight.
Hearing the urgency in Tsami’s voice, her brother came rushing back to her side. “What is it?”
Tsami pointed to the ground.
Moth picked up the robe. “This . . . this belongs to a master. Maybe even a Keeper,” he said in amazement, stroking its cloth. “My word, it’s exquisite. But what’s it doing down here?”
“I don’t know, Moth,” said Tsami. “I’m not sure I want to.”
Before Moth could respond, Tsami turned to leave, but as she did, she kicked up another object in the dirt.
A stick? she thought, before doing a double-take. No, it’s something else . . . Reaching down again, she picked up the long, pointed object. She turned it over in her hands, intuiting the old grooves and knots with her fingers.
She forgot to breathe. It’s a wand.
The light in her hand snuffed out in her distraction. The chamber fell back into its natural state of darkness. When she remembered to inhale again, the clouded mists inside the surrounding crystalline landscape began to glow, pulsing an intense shade of ominous violet. It ebbed and flowed in time with Tsami’s own breath.
“Tsami . . . dear sister, what are you doing?” said Moth, who now found himself to be the unsettled one.
Turning to face the mirror wall with the wand held tightly against her chest, Tsami observed as the violet mists drew together behind the glass directly across from her. Sensing a connection, she extended the hand with a wand and watched as the mists obeyed.
The mist seemed drawn to its point, even floating away from the mirror and out across the crystalline landscape. She swung the wand in the opposite direction, pointing out to the left, and watched again as the mists crept over in pursuit.
Then, Tsami brought the point of the wand back to the central pane and the mists rushed to gather, but this time they did not linger. Instead, they swirled together in a vortex of their own volition, before transforming and crafting a shape.
Before her eyes, a figure appeared, staring and pointing its own wand back at her.
“I mean you no harm,” said Tsami, lowering the wand in her hand.
The shadow mimicked her, lowering its own, and it occurred to Tsami that she was the shadow. When this thought occurred to her, there was a moment where she felt as if she’d gone beyond the confines of her own body. It was as if she’d crossed over, through the mirror’s glass, and now stood as the shadow, gazing back out at herself.
She was connected to her shadow self—it was now a part of herself which she instinctively knew.
It was the sound of Moth’s voice in the otherwise silent chamber that broke Tsami’s strange, spiritual tether.
“Father?” he whispered.
Tsami’s perception flew back over the glass, slipping back into the familiarity of her own body. Staring back at her reflection, she observed the shadow once more. But this time they had changed, taking on the resemblance of a young man, dressed as she was in monastic fashion, looming in the background in the near imperceptible space beyond.
She wanted to speak to the man, to acknowledge him, to tell him he was seen, because she sensed somehow this was what he had always longed for. But no matter how much she tried to speak, her words would not come. So long as she held the wand in her hand as a conduit. So long as she held this bond and sought to unravel its mystery. She couldn’t seem to say what she wanted.
Then the figure spoke to her a thought, declaring itself upon her mind . . .
Step through the Crystal Doorway
Enter the first and final dream
Behold the timeless reverie,
through the eyes of the Unseen
Before Tsami could react or consider answering the call of the cryptic invitation, a whirlwind of colourful, rushing light came flooding into the chamber from behind. It surrounded Tsami and Moth, embracing them in the violent tempest and pulling at them with such force they struggled to hold their own footing before being lifted fully into the air.
All Tsami could manage was to tuck the wand into the inner pocket of her robe before being drawn out the passage, back under the glowworm tapestry, back towards the cave’s entrance and then up through it—straight into an assault of blinding daylight, and then down onto the hard reality of the forest floor.
For the second time in one day, Tsami had been thrown against the earth. The first had been no small pain, but the second struck her in such a way that she was reminded of her own mortality.
Curling on her side, Tsami’s dazed eyes adjusted to the sight of a bald, graceful figure in silver and cyan robes standing over her, holding a Sacred Grimoire.
It was then, as she rolled onto her back and stared into the afternoon sunlight breaking through the treetops above, that she understood what had happened.
“Lightweaver . . . ” Tsami whispered.
Keeper Koam nodded in recognition, then trekked over the foliage. Her skirt trailed in her wake across the crushed leaves, as she moved to Moth. He was now sitting upright, clutching the similar, albeit dirtied, robes of fabric from the cave.
“Seems it was a worthwhile venture to skip one’s practice,” said Koam, raising her brow.
Visibly sore, Moth slowly keeled over, bowing in reverence. “Forgive me, Keeper,” he said. “It was not my intention.”
Koam stared down at Moth, holding the silence for a moment longer than felt comfortable. A slight smile formed at the corner of her mouth. “You are honest,” she said, “and not the first monk to go wandering off the beaten path. Did you find anything else on your journey below?”
Moth sat up and looked to Tsami, whose wide eyes said more than they needed to.
“No, Your Reverence,” said Moth, swallowing the truth. “Though I do believe I managed to break my arm.” He held up the sling he’d formed by tucking his elbow into his sleeve. “We were in the dark for some time, you see. I couldn’t write, so we were sort of stuck there. I’m sure you’re aware Tsami is yet to receive a scroll from one of the sacred texts, so it’s not like she could perform any spelltongue, nor could I teach her. Not that I would, of course.”
The Keeper’s rich, golden eyes searched Moth’s, making sense of his story. She let out an audible, disappointed sigh. “Very well,” she said, closing the open grimoire in hand. “Come then, we’ll sort this arm of yours back at my residence.”
Tsami went to stand, but quickly found she was still better off sitting. Her legs gave out, and she fell back on her bottom while reaching out with her arms; as if flailing to grab the Keeper’s attention.
“If I may, Your Reverence,” she said, finally managing to get to her feet, “how did you find us?”
Keeper Koam smiled knowingly. Tucking the grimoire under her arm, she helped Moth to stand. “Knowledge is light, and light is my knowledge, child,” she said, beginning back through the trees. “As it is for all who dwell within these sacred grounds.” She indicated to Tsami, to Moth and to the wild overgrowth of the forest around them. “I know well the Words for Finding, especially when it comes to lost students.”
That night, after dinner and after tending to the communal duties the garden monastery required of its residents, Tsami snuck along the open corridors, headed for the southern courtyard. It was well after both student and master had retired to their respective dormitories and chambers, so she placed footsteps to floorboards with the intention of a feather.
The triad moons above reflected brilliantly upon the various waterscapes of the mosaic, shallow ponds scattered about the stone garden as Tsami made her way towards the monastery exit. When she passed under the archway she turned, half expecting to see Moth standing there, ready to drag her back home.
But there was no one—just still water and silent stone.
She smiled. At least Moth is sleeping soundly this evening.
Reaching into her pocket, she produced the hidden wand and pointed it out towards the far off heart of the forest. She breathed in and felt one with the wordless, windy sigh of the trees, and wondered how she had never known such a feeling.
Against her own better judgment and in pursuit of answers, she took off back towards the forest cave, running almost gleefully into the night with the violet wand light to guide her.
I often wonder
when departing this life,
beyond the rush toward eternity,
if I could awaken again,
but a moment later,
upon the shore of some distant future
Where progeny
is ancestor
Might it turn out
we were never
quite where we seemed?
—Venerable Keeper Ensun, Meditations
PART TWO
When Tsami returned to the forest cave, the young man inside the Crystal Mirror did not appear for her. Instead, an undefined figure of shadow stood in his place, offering its instruction.
Now it was the sixth midnight. Her sixth attempt.
Obeying the shadow once more, Tsami etched a circle of violet light in the earth and stood at its centre.
The shadow reached out from the mirror wordlessly. Tsami inhaled, pointing the wand above her with precision as she drew her attention towards the ceiling. She imagined the darkness of the earth above the cavern, and far above it, the deathly silence of the forest. Beyond that, her thoughts expanded to hold the world and its own, ever turning shadow upon an abyssal sea.
When she came to an understanding of shade—of its essence beyond the confines of definition—she exhaled, bringing the wand down and pointing it at the shadow’s heart. She channelled her understanding and pulled at the figure in the crystal, commanding it out from the mirror onto the cave’s stony floor.
The shadow wailed like a banshee as Tsami drew it towards her circle, and as it cried out, so too did Tsami, vocalising her own pain in discordant unison.
But she would not falter. Not tonight.
The shadow stumbled down the rocky steps with disjointed movements, craning its body backwards. It twisted its limbs and pulled against her, unyielding.
With every tug of resistance, the shadow struck a blow to Tsami’s psyche, and one by one her mind spilled forth its secrets.
The fear of being alone.
Abandoned.
Unworthy.
As her emotions swelled, each with their own confronting crescendo, her body began to tremble and her overwhelming tiredness brought tears to the corners of her eyes.
It was only after all this that the shadow struck its final blow, emphasising how she was truly a failure for being unable to reconcile the shadow within her circle.
As the shadow breached the invisible wall of the spell boundary, it repelled with such ferocity that Tsami screamed, losing her composure.
And just like that, the ritual was over.
The shadow slipped back behind its glass prison, dissolving. She dropped the wand down towards the dirt in wild anger and absolute defeat.
In sleep, she found oblivion. No images. No words. Not even a whisper.
As the sun rose above the Forest Monastery of Okoru, Tsami rested until her heavy eyelids were a touch lighter. She glimpsed the silhouette of her brother, Moth, sitting across the bed from her, humming the nameless song of their childhood.
“There you are,” he said, smiling devilishly as he threw the blanket off her.
Tsami recoiled, almost hissing as she snatched back the bedding and drew it back over herself in a tight cocoon. Memories of the night—of failure—came back and she groaned at the thought of it all. Maybe if she looked pitiful enough, she could send her brother, and her thoughts, far away.
“I know what you’ve been up to, Tsami,” said Moth, rousing Tsami’s unease; he was speaking loud enough for the entire dormitory to hear him. “I saw you in the Garden of Waves last night. I’m not a fool. You’ve been going back to that cave. I know it.”
Tsami didn’t know what to say, but it wasn’t as if she was going to admit it. She stayed silent, hoping her brother would cease his baiting. If he left, she might dissolve again into the warmth of her blankets, at least.
“I’m not going to scold you,” said Moth, congratulating himself, “but if you have been up to no good, then you really ought to see this.” He tore back the bedding once more, offering his hand to Tsami.
Rolling over and seeing the serious look on Moth’s face—a rarity—was enough to rouse Tsami’s curiosity. With dishevelled hair and last night’s robes thrown around her, she followed her brother along the open air corridor, into the east wing of the monastery, and into the Garden of Songs.
It was aptly named for the many bells and chimes that hung from the crossing canopies of the garden’s golden gingko trees and the gentle morning breeze that always meandered through, stirring the small instruments into chorus.
Today, the old masters were gathered with the students, both the initiates and children. As they approached the back of the crowd, Moth pointed up at the Wordtree, the proud ancient centrepiece of the garden, standing against the weathered back wall above the crowd. It had a thousand tiny, decoratively-encased scrolls tied to its branches or pinned to its trunk amongst the chimes; they held dreams that had been recalled during the half-woken hypnagogia of the monastery’s students across the years.
But it was not the scrolls that caught Tsami’s eyes, nor the crowd’s; it was the birds that were fluttering from chime to chime, looking for a place to perch. But, each time they tried, they were frightened away by the sudden jangling when they came in to land.
Something is not right with them.
Their bodies were silhouettes of glistening shadow, as if the day had come and they had remained cloaked in night. The sight of their shrouded, twilight figures moved Tsami to push through the crowd towards them, to see and to understand. Moth called out as he struggled to chase after her, still slowed due to his broken arm.
When she reached the front of the crowd, she saw Keeper Koam was already there, in her lustrous robes that seemed to glow softly with their own peculiar aura. She stood before the Wordtree with the Sacred Grimoire in hand. Unclasping it, the Keeper dipped her free hand into her side-pouch and wrote out a spelltongue phrase upon the page. Shaking off the remnants of powdered ochre, she inhaled, and the words lit up. As she exhaled and raised her hand into the sky, twin streams of light spiralled up from the page to wrap around the flock of birds, dispelling the darkness that had swallowed them and restoring their avian features.
As the light dissipated, Koam closed the grimoire and turned, meeting Tsami’s eyes directly with a cold intensity. Before she could react, Koam was advancing towards her, then grabbing Tsami’s arm and pulling her aside.
“Away,” she commanded the crowd. “All of you. Now.”
The masters gestured to the students, and the students obeyed, departing the garden. Only when the last of the students was outside of earshot did Koam speak again.
“Where is it?” she said.
Tsami scrunched her brow. “Where’s what?”
“The wand, Tsami,” said Koam, her piercing, golden eyes unflinching.
Feeling as if she had been struck physically by the Keeper’s words, Tsami stuttered as she attempted to piece together a lie.
“I have it, Your Reverence,” Moth interjected, producing the wand from the inner pocket of his robe. “Here.”
Tsami reacted, swiping her hands like claws at her brother, but Koam was too swift. She produced a cloth and wrapped the wand as she received it, as if touching it directly was somehow undesirable.
“Tsami,” said Moth, grabbing and jolting her. “There is nothing good that could come of this . . . this thing.”
Tsami groaned, tearing herself away. “You don’t know that,” she said. She dropped to her knees in front of Keeper Koam. “Please, Your Reverence. Lightweaver,” she said, then pointed up at the birds, who’d finally managed to settle atop the Wordtree’s branches. “I didn’t do any of this. How could I have?”
Koam knelt to meet her, setting aside the grimoire. “Oh, but you did, child. You just don’t know that you did, and that is the problem.”
The Keeper turned to Moth. “Stay with her today and place a Word for Provocation above her bed. She must dream of pleasantries tonight.”
Keeper Koam picked herself up, brushed the dirt off from her robes, and started out of the garden. Tsami sensed the wand’s presence slipping away from her, and as the Keeper left toward the central courtyard, its absence swelled inside her.
She turned to her brother. “How could you?” Tsami shouted, still knelt on the garden floor. “You stole from me. From your own sister.”
“I was worried about you.”
“No, you weren’t,” Tsami snapped. “You just wanted to save face with Koam. I know she’s grooming you for Keeper.”
Moth shook his head. “I’m going to act like you didn’t just say that.”
Tsami hmphed, then started chuckling to herself. “I can’t believe I let you keep the robe I found. I can’t believe I was foolish enough to bring you along with me. I should have known you couldn’t handle it.”
Now Moth was agitated. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll give the robe to Koam. After all, she knows I lied to her now. It’s the right thing to do.” He pointed between Tsami and himself. “That’ll make us even. It was playing with my head too, you know.”
“Of course you’d say that,” said Tsami. “You’re so by the book.” Tsami hung her head in her hands. “I was so close, Moth.”
Moth’s expression turned pensive. “I suppose . . . I suppose I am by the book,” he said, reflecting on her words. “But that doesn’t matter right now. Like Koam said, I’m to stay with you.”
Tsami jumped to her feet. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want you near me,” she yelled. “I want to be alone.”
Seizing the opportunity to put as much distance as possible between herself and her brother, Tsami sprinted out of the garden and along the open corridor, feet clomping across the wooden floorboards. When she reached the central courtyard, she cut through a class of scrollbearers in deep meditation—bathed in the open sunlight teeming through overhead—then sidestepped, hiding behind a wooden column in the far west corner.
Tsami peeked round and watched as a distressed Moth came rushing into the courtyard, scratching his head and looking about every which way. Deciding to proceed back towards the dormitories—perhaps hoping Tsami would take the obvious route—he navigated around the class on the far side of the courtyard with great care not to disturb them.
Tsami began rotating around the column until she was sure he had moved on. She slipped out from her hiding spot and threw off his search by dashing back along the northern wall and back into the Garden of Songs.
Her quick actions stirred the attention of the scrollbearers once more, much to their displeasure.
The garden was empty. All mine, Tsami thought. She approached the Wordtree, observing the joyful flutter of the birds above. How could I do something I can’t remember? What did Koam mean?
Glancing back and ensuring she was not being watched nor would she be found, Tsami climbed over the sprawling roots of the tree and came behind it. Facing the moss-coated ancient wall, she tucked herself into the comforting groove of the tree trunk.
There Tsami sat, with her turbulence and with her tiredness, while the hours of the day rolled by without her. She didn’t even bother to eat, desiring only to have that which was rightfully hers returned.
In time, the students returned to the garden, to study or simply sit about babbling nonsense. On one occasion, the masters claimed the space for discussion and Tsami listened in keenly as they spoke of Master Whisper.
He was meant to be the eldest of elders who had long left the monastery to live—or to die according to those less fond of him—somewhere along the east coast of the island. They said he could speak to storms, that he could tame them and command them with a ring on his finger. One of the masters, who purported to be close to Whisper, claimed that the ring wasn’t the only artefact held in his care, stating that Whisper had spent many years collecting curios from across the eastern continent before coming to the monastery. Not least amongst them was a jagged crown crafted from the jaws of a dragon.
Eventually, as Tsami lay there staring at the treetops and listening to the elder’s tales, her head began to hurt. After a while, her heartbeat picked up its pace, and although she attempted to calm herself, the feeling moved through and grew within her of its own accord. Before long, it swelled into a full-blown sense of panic.
All Tsami could manage was to lay there, staring up at the canopy and praying for the feeling to pass as her vision slowly distorted toward hallucination.
The Wordtree’s branches began to twist and writhe, becoming animated and beckoning with its chimes like a primordial rattle for the clouds to draw over and block out the sun. With the last of its great rustles, a single dead leaf fell from the tree, curling itself into a scroll of black parchment and gliding down on the gentle arc of the breeze to land softly in Tsami’s lap.
The clouds dissipated. The turbulence within Tsami subsided, and—in noticing the absence of feeling—a calmness that could only be found in such contrast revealed itself. Free to move again, Tsami sat up and unrolled the scroll against her tucked up legs.
The page was pitch black. It was like staring into oblivion.
There were no images. No words. Not even a marking.
Yet despite this, Tsami could not take her eyes off it. The longer she stared, the more the page invited her to look. Her eyes grew heavy with the weight of a week’s tiredness, until she was no longer a person staring at a blank page, but no person at all.
Just the deep, slumbering void.
Just experience.
And then she saw it.
Drawing forth out of the darkness, a temple as old as time with no earth to stand upon. It was terraced like two mirrored ziggurats—one pointed skyward, the other down.
A hedron of shifting stone coiled like a serpent eating itself, encased at the far border of its realm in a vast, diamond-shaped structure of crystal.
It was a strange machination from a distant age, but of yesterday or tomorrow, one could not tell.
“Awaken!”
Tsami opened her eyes. Streams of light danced in circles around her before fading. She was standing over a candlelit altar with the wand—her wand—laid atop its cloth. Her hand was suspended just above it.
She looked back and saw Keeper Koam in a nightgown, holding the Sacred Grimoire open with her free arm outstretched and directed at Tsami.
“Your brother has let you down,” she said. “I suppose it was to be expected.”
Tsami rubbed her eyes, unable to make sense of how it was she had arrived in the Keeper’s chambers. “I don’t understand. How could . . . How did I get here?”
The Keeper lowered her hand. “In the land of my Order,” she said, “to the west across the ocean, the First Enlightened call it Sapath. The Greater Night. That which moves beneath the surface of the self and that is emboldened by artefacts such as this wand you dote upon. You are here because you have entered the Darksleep, that state which it moves through.”
“I saw something,” said Tsami. “A vision. A place. I couldn’t say where . . . between shadow and void.”
Koam nodded. “There are many mirrors . . . many doorways beneath the Ethereal Isle, Tsami. They are there to tempt you, to draw you into releasing a darker power into the world. I would ask you to resist such temptation, however as you have already wandered far into its lure, I fear it is too late. So, I am left with little choice in the matter. I must destroy the Ghost Wand.”
The mere suggestion of the wand’s destruction sparked defensiveness in Tsami. Then a mysterious voice resounded inside her head, provoking her.
Take the wand.
The Keeper flicked her wrist over the page of the grimoire in a flourish and tendrils of light flew forth from its pages, reaching out eagerly towards her.
Tsami snatched up the wand but, before she could react, the light was upon her, coiling and constricting her arms and legs while lifting her high into the air.
“Drop the wand, Tsami,” said Koam, moving slowly towards her. “This is the only time I will ask.”
Disobey her.
Tsami squirmed violently to free herself. When she refused to release the wand, Koam snapped her fingers and Tsami screamed as she felt the coiled light start to sear her flesh.
Yet even still, she would not let go.
In desperation, Tsami closed her eyes to connect with the wand’s presence. She recalled the shadow behind the mirror she had attempted to summon and the lessons it had taught her.
Stone…
When she opened her eyes again, Tsami inhaled, pointing the wand at the chamber wall. She thought about the deep strength of its stone, establishing a connection to its quality. She exhaled and moved the wand, pointing it directly at Koam, and, with a last-gasp effort, channelled the blended likeness of stone, its silence, and her own surrender.
The grimoire slipped from Koam’s hands. It hit the floor with a resounding thud.
Tsami collapsed too.
The vines of light dissipated. The bedchamber fell silent.
She sat up and met the Keeper’s eyes. Tsami looked on in horror as the floor seemed to reach up for Koam, capturing the long skirt of her gown, her legs, abdomen, chest and arms in a full body cast of stone.
As it reached up to claim her face, Koam went to speak, to tell Tsami something . . . perhaps even to warn her.
But there was no time. Her stunned, golden eyes turned grey and she was still.
It was the seventh night. The seventh attempt.
Unbeknownst to her whether it was guilt, cowardice, craving or the innocent need to set things right that had led her to this moment, Tsami re-etched the circle of violet light in the earth and stood at its centre, facing down the figure of shadow reflected inside the Crystal Mirror.
No hesitancy. No doubt. This was the night.
Connecting to the shadow, she began to draw it forth. The shadow resisted and, as it did, Tsami’s eyes fixated as it presented her fears to her once more. But this time, she confronted them.
I am alone, she thought. But I am worthy. I must be.
With the wand as her conduit, Tsami forced the figure to the ground in submission then dragged it crawling towards her. When the shadow breached the spell circle, Tsami lifted the wand with both hands and the shadow’s form ripped apart, transmuted into a drapery of darkness above.
Lowering herself to the earth, Tsami assumed a seated posture and brought the shadow down, enveloping her body in its shroud. Her limbs and senses fell away, dissolving into the black, until all that was left was her sight and the pale, vacant image of a man presented across from her in the mirror.
This was the one she had sought. He had coiled markings of an icy glow around his arms, ones that matched Tsami’s recent burns.
My vessel.
When the First sent me,
I brought my heart to this place
Swearing to protect
and tend to this sacred garden
But now,
this damned silence persists
and there are no more songs here
My children . . .
By the will of some wicked fate
they are gone
They are all gone
—Koam, Wordtree Dreamscroll
PART THREE
Possessing the vessel’s body was as cold and unsettling as one might expect.
With her thoughts, Tsami turned the vessel’s porcelain figure around, navigating him forward into the void of the Crystal Mirror’s landscape. The further the vessel moved away from Tsami’s body, the more the boundary of their separation began to blur. Soon Tsami could not feel her body at all, lost in the growing numbness. Only her presence remained, peeking out through the vessel’s eyes.
What is your name? Tsami thought toward the vessel.
The vessel drew in a chilled, airy breath. “Call me that which you are,” he said. “For it is by your being that I am so.”
I can’t call you Tsami though. That’ll be awfully confusing.
“Then name me from that space from which I was shaped.”
Tsami’s thoughts went to Koam. Poor Koam. She recalled what the Keeper had said to her about the parts of a person that move beneath the surface of the self. The feeling she had been called to this place not just by her own curiosity, but by something greater than her.
Sapath, thought Tsami.
“While I am of her domain,” replied the vessel, “I am not the moon.”
Tsami discarded the offered name and searched for another. Thoughts of her brother, Moth, came to mind—of that day he had seen the vessel in the forest cave and that evening when they had discussed the matter in private.
He said the vessel looks just like father . . .
“Anim, then,” said the vessel.
Yes, thought Tsami. That is his name.
“Anim. The ancestor,” said the vessel. As he accepted his name, he began to change, becoming more personable and expressive in his face. Dark hair like Tsami’s sprouted from his head. The reflected, coiled markings around his arms faded, and the colour of his flesh warmed across his body, taking on the subtle likeness of Tsami’s memory of her father. “How fitting.”
A vertical corridor of ethereal white light pulsed softly in the distance. Tsami led Anim forward through the black, fixating his eyes on its alluring image, until she forgot how long they had wandered, and the light revealed the specific shape and details of the structure from which it emanated.
It was the temple she’d seen in her vision—an octahedron of shifting stone floating in the abyss. It was in constant motion, fortifying the ascending and descending terraces of its twin ziggurat exterior with huge, tomb-worthy blocks, each inscribed with hieroglyphs of glowing spelltongue.
The building’s open, central doorway stretched far above and below the imperceptible floor Anim stood upon. Beneath his feet, newly inscribed stone blocks exited from the temple’s interior, guided by an invisible hand towards their respective destinations.
Anim looked at the pyramidal height of the temple. Tsami noted that, now that she had brought him closer to its source, she could follow the trail of light out from its centre to make out the distant, euhedral border-panes of crystal that converged into a high ceiling. They held up the realm’s own sky, alive with the violet hue she had so intimately come to know.
It occurred to Tsami that she had come into this place from out along one of these borders. As she noticed the swarms of dark clouds circling around the temple like restless spirits, she was reminded once more of what Koam had told her.
“There are many doorways beneath the Ethereal Isle,” said Anim.
These . . . are shadows?
Anim made a sound indicating Tsami was correct. “They wait to be confronted. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are not. And sometimes, if they are to be confronted, they may return with an offering.”
For who?
Anim looked out toward the edge of the crystal realm on the horizon. Tsami watched as several of the shadows were summoned out, disappearing beyond doorways just like that which she had passed through. They moved across each of the colossal, triangular panes that framed the space. Other shadows flew back from the doorways carrying orbs of faint, icy flame in their barely-sculpted hands, passing overhead through the grand doorway of light and into the heart of the temple.
“You wish to follow them?” Anim asked.
I do, thought Tsami.
She led Anim into the doorway’s central corridor. Looking between the walls on either side, Tsami observed the pulses of light that trickled down the countless, neatly etched rows of cryptic spelltongue.
The corridor ended, expanding out into the main temple chamber; a rising steeple of zig-zagging stone and a cascading labyrinth of ever-darkening steps beneath the invisible floor.
Tsami guided Anim forward towards the chamber centrepiece to stand before the source. In front of them was a gigantic, celestial orb of pure energy, suspended in the air like a small sun, yet radiating the cold dullness of a long forgotten moon. It rotated on its axis in a constant, predictable rhythm, but each time it rolled over, a ghostly figure of energy would emerge and dart along a preordained path. When each being came to the end of their respective roads, they conjured—seemingly out of the collective imagination of the space—blank blocks of stone with their white hands.
The shadows who had entered the temple chamber floated over to meet their contrasting counterparts, handing their icy flame offerings over to the ethereal ones before fading into the empty backdrop. The scions of the sphere began to draw out from the flames a substance to inscribe upon the stone blocks—like ink to parchment or ochre to an Initiate’s Scroll—before sending them floating away to join the exit procession below.
Though Tsami couldn’t tell what was written or why it was, she sensed each spelltongue symbol was worthy; tales of great importance immortalised.
And then Tsami heard it.
In the backdrop of such a dazzling scene, the nameless song of her childhood. The one her brother had sung for her when they had first been brought to the monastery. The one he had learnt from their father, the real Anim, that he had learnt from his father before him, whoever their grandfather had been.
Beneath the celestial sphere, three figures, cloaked in twilight like the birds Tsami had transformed back within the Garden of Songs, knelt upon a triad of facing altars, arms chained to the floor with an object laid in front of each of them. Their faces were locked, staring up into the sphere light.
Their voices were engaged in harmonious singing.
The one with the mace threaded the bass line, a descending, cosmic unravelling.
The one with the short sword wove the melody, born of ancient memory.
The one with the chronicle finished the tapestry, guiding each refrain toward ascension.
It was the third—the aeon with the chronicle like Koam’s Sacred Grimoire—that caught Tsami’s attention. As soon as she honed in upon their presence, she felt compelled to lead Anim forward.
“Here is your moon,” said Anim, with a touch of jest reminiscent of Moth.
Though the aeon was chained, their captivating voice made Tsami their prisoner because her curiosity made her impressionable.
Perhaps they can help me? I didn’t mean to hurt Koam. To do what I did. I want to fix things.
She came up the steps of its altar and stood at the aeon’s side.
The triad stopped singing. The aeon nearest her turned their head to face Anim’s. Their bright eyes, looking like spiralling starlight, saw straight through him to bear witness to the secret presence of Tsami’s soul.
“Free me,” they said, in a chord emboldened by the voice of the other aeons. The aeon tilted their head like an owl. “I can help your friend, your Lightweaver.”
Can you? thought Tsami. How? It was you that turned her to stone, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t do something like that, not by choice.
The aeon heard her questions but ignored her accusations. “The Ghost Wand,” they said. “Reach for it.”
Tsami was reminded of her own body, of one thawing into two; of duality. That she sat, occupying this deep state of meditation within the bowels of the forest cave, housed in a protective cloak of her own shadow. That there was a wand in her hand. That she could extend her arm, and her vessel’s too, in unison.
The Ghost Wand appeared in Anim’s hand, like a hazy mirage reaching beyond the physical plane for the first time.
Then she stopped.
They want me to free them. . .
Sensing her reluctance, the aeon seized control of Tsami and Anim, and commanding them like a puppeteer, pointed the wand at the source of it all—the celestial sphere. Tsami could only watch as the strength of the sphere was linked to the chains binding the aeon and they dissolved, parting into fine mist.
The aeon released their psychic grasp, brought their hands together and bowed. “Thank you,” they said, on their own this time.
They reached for Anim’s left hand, holding his palm outstretched. Then, with an icy glow illuminating their index fingertip, the aeon began to etch a symbol. Their touch both froze upon Anim’s palm and prompted a faint burning feeling upon Tsami’s.
Two triangles, their points meeting and reflecting each other like an hourglass laid on its side with a vertical line straight down through the middle.
The celestial sphere stopped turning on its axis and began to rumble.
What have I done? Koam and Moth were right. I should never have touched the wand. I should never have come here.
The cold permeating the temple chamber turned to intensifying heat as the sphere shook, spitting out violent, energetic bursts of red flame. The ethereal workers stopped inscribing, fleeing back into their source and causing the sphere’s heat to swelter further.
Then, like breaking free from an egg of molten iron, a majestic bird of feathered fire screeched as it drew its plumed head out from the inferno. Clawing itself out desperately, it rose high into the air above the sphere, flapping its huge, draped wings, which were lined with precious gemstones and glistening with a rainbow sheen.
Tsami turned Anim to face the aeon, but they were gone.
Run
The bird shrieked as Tsami led Anim sprinting out of the temple chamber, back through the entrance hall, and past the spelltongue walls. As she tossed Anim out the temple doorway and back into the void, the great bird swooped past, twirling up into the air above before letting out a cry so shrill, so deafening, it reverberated off each of the far panes of crystal.
Anim collapsed to his knees, overwhelmed by the echo’s power. Tsami forced him to stand again, and as he stumbled forward from side to side, she realised the sound had weakened her connection to him.
“There is no need to run,” said Anim.
What are you talking about
Anim laughed with a lightness unfitting for the situation at hand. “You cannot kill an Unseen. Tsami picked Anim up, forcing him forward with what little focus she had left.
That’s great, but I bet I’ll still feel it
The bird cried out again, and Anim keeled over once more as it dove down from the height of the sky.
Tsami looked ahead towards the doorway, towards home.
“Let go, Tsami.
Like an arrow of lightning, the bird passed through Anim, leaving a blazing trail in its wake. Columns of flame burst up, engulfing his figure, and as Tsami released her attachment to the memory she had conjured, the mask of Anim’s persona melted away.
What was left of the empty vessel’s figure collapsed into a burning pile of embers.
But Tsami couldn’t detach completely. A part of the agony of perishing travelled with her severed connection as it flew back across the Crystal Mirror, smashing her physical body over like a fireball, shattering her protective spell and boiling her blood toward fever.
Remnant ashes of broken shadow floated about the forest cave ceiling.
The Ghost Wand slipped from Tsami’s fingers.
The weight of insurmountable hunger descended upon her like a millstone, and when she rolled over to observe the aeon’s symbol etched on her left palm, she noticed the bony frailty of her arms, the healed scars of the burns coiled around them, the several silver streaks of excessively long hair laid at her side.
A young man with a familiar, pale face rose from his makeshift, spell-lit desk, brushing back his own shoulder of fine hair.
As he gathered the skirt of his opulent robes and rushed to Tsami, kneeling over her, she observed Koam’s Sacred Grimoire belted at his side. In the background behind him, two plainly made beds and an ornate, open chest were set against the cave wall, with a leviathan’s jaw crown sat atop an assortment of treasures.
“Ensun,” he yelled. “She’s returned. Come quickly, Ensun.
The young man jumped to his feet, unclasped the grimoire, flung it open, and with prodigal speed skipped around Tsami. He scrawled a resplendent stream of light to form a circle, brought his hand and breath high up above her at its centre and exhaled softly to form a cone of rejuvenation.
A sun-weathered, sagely old man with a bald head and wispy beard entered the room, joining the young man at his side. He took the time to lower himself with great care to the dusty cave floor before revealing his elegant hand from the loose sleeve of his worn, earthly robe. He placed it over Tsami’s heart.
“I made. . . a mistake,” said Tsami. A lone tear slid down her cheek. “Koam. . .
“We are seldom masters of ourselves. Especially when we are young.,” said Ensun. “Now rest knowing your Moth keeps close.
The last thing Tsami remembered was the gentle wind in the old man’s words and the mischievous twinkling of the most remarkable, bronze ring on his finger.