The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (60 page)

Charles lifted his head and looked at Timothy. “I don’t understand. You’re here. I’m here. We know who we are. I have all my power.” He felt inside himself, understanding the truth of Timothy’s words, and he smiled. “I’m free, Timothy—
we
are free.
Alive
. I don’t have to wander any longer. You don’t have to wait. We are both alive: we can live, now, together. Let’s find these shards, put them back inside you, and go find a nice island somewhere to retire.”

Timothy looked sadly at his lap. “Oh, Charles. If only it were that simple.”

He stood, letting go of Charles’s hand. He held his arms out to his sides. He was wearing the golden sarong that he had worn in the tower on the night they had made love, but when he shifted, even slightly, Charles could see the Lady too, her long hair and shimmering golden dress glinting in the light of her own glow. They were the two as one, man and woman at once. They were beautiful. But they were transparent. Charles reached out to touch Timothy, and though he met skin, he realized he felt something else too, something he had felt before. Something so thin it was gossamer, lighter than air, thinner than any earthly razor could slice, but more impenetrable than any other force, known or unknown. He felt it slide between his fingers as he reached for her, and he saw her running from him in the garden once again.

The veil
. Timothy was wearing the veil.

“If I had not sent the shards,” he said, his voice a quiet, almost broken whisper, “if I had not tried to anchor, it would be gone.” Timothy lifted his hands, and Charles could see it, a glistening membrane that surrounded him.
Confined him
. “But I did not trust myself—did not trust you—and so it stayed. I did not live, quiera, not truly. Not completely. I had the yearning, but I hedged too many bets, and now I am more shattered and more broken than you have ever been. I have restored you, my beloved, and given you Life. No more will you wander the universe, littering worlds at your feet. No more must you penetrate the darkness to ease the ache in your soul.” He lowered his hands, and his eyes filled with tears. “But I am afraid you must do so without me.”

“No!” The word erupted from Charles, from the bottom of his gut, and it echoed angrily across the Void. “No,” he cried again, “I won’t leave you! I won’t have life without you! There
is
no life for me without you!” He clenched his fists at his sides. “I will find you—all of you! Every piece, every shard! I will cover the whole earth until I have them all, and then I will bring them back to you, and—”

“It is not just the pieces!” Timothy wrapped his arms around himself and looked away, a picture of perfect misery. “If it were, I would find them myself. But I have changed, quiera.
They
have changed. I do not understand them anymore. They are me, but they are not. They are as wild as the androghenie and ten times as dangerous. And the man I have become cannot understand them and cannot take them back. But without them I am not whole, and without them I cannot live.” He looked at Charles again, his eyes full of tears. “I am lost, quiera. I am trapped behind my own veils. I am Timothy Fielding, Raturjula D’lor, and the Lady, and ten thousand million shards, but they cannot be reconciled, not any longer.” The tears ran down his cheeks. “Once again, I am nothing but a womb, except this time, I know what Life tastes like, and Time, and my waiting is now eternity.” He shuddered, then added in a broken voice, “Without you.”

Charles stepped forward and took Timothy by the shoulders, curling his fingers against the edges of the veil. “I will find them, Timothy. I will find every last piece, and I will bring them to you.”

“
I do not want them
!” Timothy cried. “I do not want them anymore! I hate them!” His face twisted with fury. “Magic!
Magic
and
mystics
—foolishness! I have seen them, and they are everything I hate! The good ones are fools. The bad ones—” He broke off, and his expression was so pained it broke Charles’s heart. “I am a monster, Charles. I am not what you think I am. If you knew me, if you knew the parts of me I can see, of what I have become, of what I must be to be alive again—” He let his head fall forward, his shoulders rounding in defeat.

Charles kissed the top of his head, then let go of one shoulder and pushed his face back up. “I will find them, Timothy, and I will love them, and I will bring them home to you. I will love them no matter what they are or what they have done. I will love them, because they are you, and by our love I will reconcile you each to one another. I will bring you back to yourself, and I will rend each layer of the veil that binds you, and I will set you free.” He stroked Timothy’s cheek, feeling the membrane shiver beneath his touch. “I came back to life to be with you, beloved. There is no life for me any other way.”

“I am afraid,” Timothy whispered. “I cannot bear to wait for you again.”

Charles fingered the edge of the veil, measuring the thickness between his fingers. The vision of his dream came back again, the nightmare he had relived for Smith so many times, but here, now, he saw it for what it was. He saw the woman running through the garden, the children he had made with her nipping at her heels, and he knew it was not the past he saw but the future. The garden was the place where they would live one day, together. He had seen it. It was true. And one day it would be.

But not this day. He had to face the wraiths again. And again. And he had to hunt her, hunt Timothy. Again.

He felt a veil, thin as gossamer, but it was layered, and he fumbled through three, four, five times—every one he lifted, there was another. He was just beginning to despair, and then, suddenly, when the seventh was brushed aside, there were no more.

“Seven.” Charles rubbed the silken barrier again between his fingers and stared at it. “There are seven veils between us.” He looked at Timothy. “Seven times I will pursue you and lose you. This is the first.” He tugged hard, and Timothy gasped, withdrawing, but when Charles lifted his hand, a thin shred of membrane remained, and he smiled. “Now there are only six.”

Timothy began to back away, flickering between the Catalian concubine and the dark-haired woman as he moved. Charles could see the war within him now, could see more clearly for the loss of the first veil. The Lady was lost and afraid. She wanted him, and she wanted him to find her, but she was afraid. She would run. She would not stay with him until he pulled the last barrier away, and she would make each one more impossible to reach than the last.

But he could see Timothy now too. Timothy, who wanted to stay.

“You have life,” Charles said to him—to her, to them both—gently, but then his voice broke, and his words were raw and vulnerable and aching. “You are my Timothy, Lady, and I love you.”

The flickering stopped. Timothy appeared and clutched his arms across his chest.

“Oh, Charles,” he whispered. “Charles, I feel so strange!” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “She is trying to make me run. I don’t want to run, not from you! But I can’t—I can’t—” He opened his eyes again, and they were full of pain.

Charles’s heart was breaking, but he did not move forward lest he scare them away. “I will find you,” he whispered back. “I will find you, and you will run away again, but I will keep coming. I will wander the earth, and I will find your shards, and I will find you, and I will claim each veil until they are gone. And then you will see, beloved, that you can trust me. That you can trust yourself. And then we
will
be together. Forever.”

“You ran from me before.” Timothy was starting to shake. It was clear he was fighting very hard to stay where he was. “You ran from me before, when I was only part of myself. Every time I reached for you, you ran. You would not let me help you. I had to fight simply to stay beside you!”

“I wasn’t whole yet, and I was afraid,” Charles replied, but as soon as he spoke the words, he knew they were the wrong ones. “For
you
, beloved—I feared what I would to do
you
!”

But this was even worse. “Ah!” Timothy held up a hand and backed farther away. “
Ah
, you see? You knew you were dangerous—and you were shattered, only a fraction of what I am!”

“I
thought
I was dangerous!” Charles shot back. “Do not throw my own weakness back at me, Timothy! I am not weak anymore!”

“But you will be. You will fall back to earth as you are, and fall you must, but you will forget. It will be too much for your human mind to bear, and most of this, even this conversation, all your devotion, you will forget. It will be an ache for a while, but then it will fade, and you will find a new life. And you will be safe, away from me.” Timothy’s eyes were glistening with tears, but they fell no longer, and his face hardened as he shook his head. “Charles, my shards
are
dangerous, especially to you. They can kill you. Nothing else on earth can kill you, but
they
can. You must be careful—that much, I beg of you, to remember. And the androghenie… Mathdu, Charles, you will restore them when you go back, and you must or they will be even worse, but though you will save them, they will be a danger too. There are so many ways, so
many
ways for you to fail—
a’, ghr’a
! Quiera, non, it is too much! Do not seek me!” He was breathing hard now, and his expression was angry. “No! I will not let you seek me. I will not let you find me.” Timothy lifted his head and looked all the way into Charles’s soul. “I love you, quiera. I will love you forever.”

“No!” Charles cried, reaching for him. “
No, Timothy, no
!”

But Timothy had already turned away. A silver door appeared behind him, and he stepped inside it. Charles followed him, shouting, calling him, begging him, trying to catch him, but even as he did this, he knew it was too late. The door shimmered and vanished as he reached it, and he stood there in the darkness once again, alone. He looked down at the shredded veil in his hand, so soft, so light, and yet so heavy. He clutched it to his chest, holding it tightly, letting it catch his tears.

“I will find you,” he whispered. “I will find you, beloved. And after the seventh veil, you will not fear me or yourself anymore.”

Charles Elliott Perry, Lord of all Creation, lifted the shredded remains of his lover’s veil to his lips and kissed it. Then he pressed it to his heart, shut his eyes, and fell, weeping, back to earth.

Chapter Seventeen

Ê’gir Shiral’a

The Seven Veils

One is the root, the spark of life.

In two the self knows sex and strife.

Three is ego, the thirst for power.

Four is the heart, where love may flower.

Five has a mouth; here seeds are sown.

Six is the eye, where all is known.

And seven is the crown, where love comes home.

Far below, in a different darkness, Emily Elliott moved slowly away from the shining edges of the closed door and turned into Stephen’s waiting arms. They stood there for a long time, holding one another, but soon Emily pushed gently against him, and he let her go. The light from the edges of the door began to swell, and they saw, at last, that they were not alone. The ghosts were everywhere around them, but they did not glow. They were thin and pale and gaunt, and they stared at the sparkling door with dead and haunted eyes.

“Mother,”
one of them whispered. There was pain in the word, and it whispered throughout the great underground chamber, over and over again until it was a wave. They were weeping, Emily realized, but they had nothing left in them with which to grieve. They could only say her name.

Then as one they turned to Emily.
“Mother,”
they said again.

For a moment, Emily faltered. Like the wind, the power filled her, moved through her. It stunned her both by the force of it and the knowledge of what her receiving it meant.
Gone
. Timothy was gone. The Lady, the Goddess, was
gone.

Emily turned to Stephen, confused and terrified, but even as she turned to him, she realized he could not help her.
No one
, not he, not anyone, could help her with this. She shut her eyes and let the strange sorrow fill her, the pain of knowledge, of loss, as the myths she had known all her life blew away like leaves in the wind. For Emily saw: she saw
everything
. She saw the “garden,” which was no garden at all but vast, empty darkness. She felt the weight, which was not the pleasant rustle of skirts in her vision but the weight of earth. She felt the power, the hugeness of it, but she saw that it was not a freedom but a prison. All the power in the universe centered in her breast, but she was helpless to access it or to use it. Not without shattering. Not without cost. Emily fell to her knees, clutching her chest.
So heavy
! And so lonely—oh so, so lonely! Like Charles, she saw the womb of Life, but she saw it from the inside, and it was not a wonder but a jail.
Her
jail. And inside it she would wait…and wait…and wait.

“Mother,”
the androghenie cried again, their voices plaintive, pleading.
“Mother, we are afraid!”

Emily shut her eyes tight, and if she had possessed the strength to lift her hands, she would have covered her ears. Oh, and
this
! The
prayers
! “Goddess save me.” “Goddess bless.” “Please, Lady, spare my child.” “Lady, bless my crops.” Endless!
Endless, endless
pleas, most of them no more than
whining
, but she was bound, despite her sorrow, despite her pain, to answer every one.
Every. One
. Some would give her offerings, but most would not. But nothing would matter, because she was always alone. Always, forever alone.

And
these
. These before her, her own children. She had given them life like no other. She had given them
him
! And they had repaid her with his death. Oh,
them
! She loved them, yes, because she was their mother.

But she hated them too. Oh, she hated them most of all.

So lonely
. The androghenie continued to whine, to plead and cry, and Emily’s hands remained heavy, and she heard them all, and she began to weep too.
So lonely. I never knew the Goddess was so lonely.