The Comfort Of The Knife

Sleep—that state of rest, not the Court—never took me. The erratic beat of Sphinx’s heart had waged war on the very idea. Instead I stared at the void behind my eyelids. Better that than the umbral devils that danced in time to flickering hearth-light.

“Sphinx,” I nudged it with my elbow, “are you awake?”

It swiveled its head to meet mine. An embarrassed grin chiseled out of the usual emotions its face allowed a half-step to express.

“Entities never sleep,” it said.

“Humoring the behavior then?” I asked.

“Mm, more that in my experience summoners find it too terrifying to think that something as strange as myself might be watching them sleep. Eyes unblinking.”

A shudder passed through me—my forebears had the right idea. At the same time, it was a comfort. Meant I didn’t have to worry about waking someone up even as my feelings ran circles in my heart. Pain and guilt and rage flowing into an unbroken circle. A brand which wouldn’t remove itself from the flesh it took merry pleasure in searing.

I clawed at my chest. Tried to focus on the sound of my nail tugging unevenly upon my skin. It didn’t quiet what was in me. So I extricated myself from beneath Sphinx’s wing and stumble-walked to the end of the ruined hallway. When the god had fallen it all but deleted Dad’s listening room. All the records he preserved over the Changeover just gone. The only memory of its existence being the vinyl shards that decorated the earth. When I planted my feet down into the muddy soil I prayed in hope that those little pressed daggers might shred my feet. Sphinx didn’t follow me beyond the hallway though—even though it was only part cat it didn’t seem to enjoy the rain.

The rain was what I came for. My feet slid through the dirt until my toes kissed the stone of our courtyard. I moved from mud to rock and threw wide my arms to increase the area by which the storm could buffet me. See, I didn’t come for enjoyment or comfort. As rain broke on my skin and the wind pummeled me my only thought was to conjure my father to mind. That moment where I saw his skin press against his face. Could count every microfracture that flatted his facial topography. Yet, the way his eyes wouldn’t open to respond at all—not even when they had liquified and ran down his face as milky tears. I let the sky pour into me every hurt that I needed engraved into my bones. Anything that would put out the brand which even now began to render the fat from the memory. Remove all the other moments, all the other faces, everything but that moment when Melissa had looked at me with the distance of a stranger.

I don’t know when Sphinx decided to join me in the rain. At some moment the wind and wet had stopped renewing themselves upon me.

“If you get sick it won’t further either of our goals,” it said.

I rose from the flooded stone. Stood willow-loose as it seemed the storm in me and the storm outside had equalized. The coolness never came, but I would take emptiness.

I said, “You’re right. Let’s be productive. Teach me another spell.”

Sphinx regarded me, but shook its head. “That’s not our arrangement. Anyways, better understanding could be found in this moment.”

A shred of a smirk stretched my face. “Are you violating our oath to each other?”

Sphinx looked aghast. “How’ve you come to that assumption?”

“You said, ‘in turn I’ll guide you to your foes.’ Yet here I stand with not a single lead. Even worse, in asking for a spell you deny me even a metaphorical guidance.” I rose to my full height forcing Sphinx to look up. “Or is this not true?” I asked.

It clenched its eyes tight. I could feel the discussion it was having in powerful waves that lapped at my own consciousness. Not enough to make out words, but I still had impressions. There were a number of speakers. A congress of them. Then in moments it stopped. Face returned to its cool understanding and watchfulness.

“Fine. Kneel for us, Nadia, so I might anoint you,” it intoned. I could hear the rumble of pleasure at the command.

Still, I complied. My knees splashed the water that had made a pool of the courtyard. Sphinx’s face loomed above mine. Its lips dripping rainwater into my mouth. Its smile curved moon-like.

“Keep wide those eyes as I give you the power to see.”

Then with the suddenness of any well-planned betrayal, its mouth opened—hinged wider—and I witnessed the dagger-teeth that it sheathed behind such an enigmatic pout. Then I felt it’s tongue swing past my eyes. Wind carrying drops of its saliva crashed into my pupils. The burning came not long after.

The world had become lilac as it burned. Uneven at first until the mouths crawled into one another. Slowly until one giant mouth remained behind which emerged my new vision. My peripherals were cleared soon after. What remained was. . . beautiful.

It had to have been midnight by now. The dark had been that oppressive when I stepped into the storm. Now, it was just faintly lilac and a gossip of shadow. Everything else I could see clearly. Even the rain. Even the wind. They all rippled like threads of silk catching the light. Yet they were hardly threads in a simple fabric. The threads were all woven in perhaps a kalpas worth of loops. Though across those loops I saw what seemed as nautical lines stretching off across the space and through time. They connected to other things and in others they connected to some other strand—an idea, maybe a Court.

“Hmm, there’s not really a name for this, but seeing as it’s the night of Omensday we can just call this the Omensight,” Sphinx said. “Once again, behold Revelation and ideally learn something.”

“I heard that,” I said. “Believe it or not, but I’m a good learner actually. Now, teach.”

Sphinx taught. “If you really are then this’ll be your new best friend. Within it is the essence of Revelation. Otherwise, you might best understand it as a method to perceive the relationships between things.”

“A marriage of fate and history,” I offered.

Sphinx scoffs, “If you need such aphorisms. See broadly and deeply, Nadia, for this will remove the panes of causality that blind your kind like you do hawks.”

I turned my head with a wide smile—there was so much elegance to this. Then I saw the house. Where the god had fallen I could still perceive its corpse. Even discorporated—even dead—it held a vibrancy that rivaled my own living corporeal body.

“Some things,” Sphinx began, “have such weight to them that they make an impression upon things. Think of it as the hand of the powerful tracing deep into the sand of the world’s memory. One day new grains will trickle in. Recontextualize the chasm into a valley. Until the fact it was a chasm isn’t known any longer. Go, examine it and find the leads you seek.”

So I stumbled toward my goal. Through the house where I did my best to not examine the ghosts in time that lingered inside the space. I climbed the stairs and then climbed again. Pushed out the window and onto the roof. My feet slid against the clay shingles. A few of them loose from the fight tumbled off the edge like rain. So I became a beast, and on foot and knee and hands I crawled. I crawled my way to the face of god. My own teary eyed face reflected in the glossy oblivion of its pupil.

“Let me see what happened,” I prayed. My gaze diving as deep as I could. Deep enough to when dark broke to light like a television sparking on.

* * *

Mom was waving away the last couple customers for the night. Some people didn’t own the tools to access the NewNet, and others were too afraid of compromising their mental defenses. That was the case for plenty of the teens and elders in town. Though seeing them now, so bereft of those nautical lines—those ties—to anyone I realized how many were lonely. Mom never stopped waving until the last one crossed the edge of the hill. Then her eyes rose as she rushed forward to the same spot Dad’s killers had departed.

I’d never seen Mom move that fast. Her shrine operational robes snapped a four beat from how the wind pulled. In that same clap-flash of motion I saw a crescent glaive pour into her hands. Color and material conjured ex nihilo filled in like a mold. Wherever my face was, I smiled, as in that one swing I saw the millions of times she showed me how to do that very motion. Guided me through the elegant biomechanics. Hips and shoulders torquing contrapposto—potential moment channeled and concentrated. When the five had exited their Staircase, Mom released.

Her body rotated back the other way. Space rippled around the force of those blows. The ontological truth that gave them density burned as fuel to rocket them toward those strangers. One of them hurriedly interspersed themselves. Their hands raised in a double hand-spell to impart as much power as possible. It proved barely enough.

The rain of flower petals burst on their arms. Scattered sedate as snowflakes around them. Bloom. Bloom. Two more broke. Then they went to work. They surrounded Mom and moved in time with her. Across the entranceway. Through the air. There was no escape. One of clapped their hands and forced Mom’s movements to a stutter. The other—the one who the attacks broke off of—clapped their hands together as if to kill a bug and pray at once. Mom had become all but still. The third attacked while the fourth hung back. Number four had the right idea.

The moment number three had closed in Mom had already propped the glaive up. He skewered himself mid-run. Hadn’t even had time to fully raise a fist. Mom noticed something in the body—its vibrancy was only intensifying. She flicked the glaive and sent number three wheeling through the air. Just in time as a radiant glow pincushioned out of the body. Then exploded into a meteor of refulgent fire.

Still, Mom was frozen. I saw her call out to Dad. Where was he? Then muttered something to herself and unzipped. A perfect imitation of the divine corpse that was in front of my body—wherever that was. It stepped free of my mom’s body—its costume I realized. Then it rapidly grew to its true behemoth size. Where I could perceive a hundred hundred arms—no—just two arms. Two arms that were a hundred by a hundred in possible outcomes. They were just all at once. A fluttering through of options with each pair of arms wielding some revolutionary weapon. A machete, the first rifle, and even a molotov—how’d I know what that was? She had them all as did she sport the army of phantom dreamers that’d turn the world topsy-turvy at her back like one would a cloak. She was gorgeous. Just not my Mom.

My mom was a surprisingly short woman. With an oversized personality. A firework frozen in memory. With hair sproinging off in loose silly curls. Secrets hid behind her mouth, but she always seemed to smile at the sweetness of them. Her eyes would sparkle when she wiggled her eyebrows. That was my mom. Yet here this deity stood sober faced. Mouth at a downtilt at the bitterness of what she was forced to do. Yet her eyes blazed with the purpose of it—or at least the belief of that purpose. Then she bellowed boldly, “Come die you fuckers!”

I blinked and skipped to the end. I promise—who’d want to watch the entire thing just to reach a spoiled ending. Not me. At the end, the deity had crashed into the house. The density she had caused reality to sputter and succumb to the entirety of the moment. Lest she just shrug off all causality like a mere suggestion. It didn’t help that she was dying. Her great eye observing me while I observed her. Then I realized she wasn’t looking at me. She was Observing me.

Her mouth muttered words across weeks. “I’m sorry babygirl. Mommy couldn’t win this one. Be good, please?” she asked of me. In the same way Mom would ask me not to tell Dad that she set up a prank for him. She was my Mom.

* * *

I stumbled back from the vision. Consciousness returned to body, and sliding down in the water. Sphinx caught me with its side. I muttered a ‘thank you’ and crawled back up. I stared at the memory of my divine mother, and watched it flake away from the fabric of everything. In her place was just the pale-light shape of a crescent glaive. My Mother’s Last Smile.

Any strength left in my body was spent as I sprinted through time and back—even if only by sight. As such the wind did its best to fling me from the roof. Punishment for my causal hubris I supposed. Reality had a way of snapping back when toyed with by Sorcery. Though at the time I had no thoughts, just an overflow of feeling that flowed in rivulets with the rain. Hot emotion drawn from the red crescents my nails made across my palms joined as well.

I forced my eyes open and followed Sphinx’s laugh. It stood there wings wide and the starburst peacock eyes shimmering across its feathers.

“Tell me, Nadia, does their lie blunt the pain?” it asked.

“Fuck you, Sphinx,” I screamed. “What’s anything any more. Who’s my mom?”

“If you mean the woman who raised you, the Sovereign of Upheaval”

“Who’s my mom!”

“You have eyes. If the answer isn’t obvious then go find it yourself.”

“What am I?”

Sphinx laughed. “An orphan.”

* * *

I loomed atop the crumbling roof of the house—its status as “home” revoked when my goddess-mother’s corpse elbow-dropped through it. Eyes were bloodshot from crying. I had blinked it back on when my tears had run out. Only to cry more tears because everytime I activated it that burning sensation would come back. As if my eyeballs were being dipped in hot sauce. Sphinx told me it was a side-effect of the spell. I hoped it would get better overtime.

My Omensight was still on and so I spotted Amber before I saw her. The thread between us made slow traversal over my body in tracking where she was. Soon her motorcycle swung into view. I watched the line not move as she parked. Only to move again when she took the stairs by foot. I even watched the line dawdle a smidge when she took a glance back to town. I’d become so impatient that I couldn’t muster a smile for her.

“Temple, you couldn’t even visit a girl at the hospital?” she asked.

I rose to my feet and the world swayed. My limbs had gone cold in the storm. While my stomach grumbled with each unstable step toward the edge of the roof. Concern flashed on Amber’s face. She rushed over to the ledge. I disappointed her by not immediately going over.

Instead, I said, “I was going to see you today. You didn’t give me enough time.”

Amber said, “Forget it, Temple. I got myself a good constitution. I always bounce back.”

“That makes one of us.”

Amber choked her worry down. “Can be both of us if you come down safely.”

“I can come down, but I can’t promise safe.” Then I tumbled. Headfirst like a dropped doll. The glaive landed a bit to Amber’s left. I landed in her arms. She realized I was naked after she caught me. Then hurried me inside. Things became a bit black after that.

When everything cleared, I was in the tea room. A beer bottle and a bowl of what smelled like chicken fried rice placed next to my head. I slid my knees under myself. Eyes half-lidded I stared at the two items. Looked up to see Amber eating and drinking herself.

“This is Mom’s good beer. I’m not supposed to drink it,” I said.

Amber shrugged. “Someone has to now. Welcome to being a survivor.”

She pushed the bottle. Popped the cap off with her bottle. Handed me the foaming little rocket. I stared at it and took a swig. Then wagged my tongue. It was so bitter and spicy?

“Your mom had good taste,” Amber said.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “There was a lot I didn’t know. Like how I didn’t know you could cook.”

Amber lowered her bowl. “I used to do it for my siblings,” she said. “Besides, you never asked. Alls below, I didn’t get to drown your ears in any of my good campfire stories.”

“Did you tell these stories to your siblings during the Changeover?”

“How old do you think I am?” she asked with faux annoyance. She had gotten at least an attempted joke from me. Her eyes slid over her memories. “Not really. They weren’t really story people. Most of them struggled to be people people.”

I rolled the bottle between my hands. “Apparently so did my mom. She was a Sovereign.”

“That make you a princess?” she asked.

“Amber,” I said. “She lied to me. She was just a deity in a mother shape.”

“So,” she said, “most people are in some kind of shape or another. What I find matters is whether you live in it or not. From what I can tell, your mother lived in it.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Means at some point it stopped being a shape and just became her. People usually forget the difference between the shape and themselves when they live in it. Given enough time there’s no real difference. Sometimes they even like it more that way. So they take the truth of things and bury it below the concrete.”

My spoon traced the bowl for more rice and at least one more piece of chicken. “I also like the Yonick stories.”

Amber smiled, “They were pretty good. Some of the last movies made before the Changeover.”

“What was it like?” I asked.

Amber’s smile shook. She looked for any hint that I asked a different question. There was none.

“You ever been to a Declaration of Thunder festival?” she asked. “Ya know, big party to celebrate the. . .”

“Godtenders. When they declared the Changeover to be done. I’ve been.”

Amber frowned and took another swig of her beer. “Yeah, those things. Think about the fireworks.How they’d be everywhere exploding, splashing color, ripping into your memory through sheer violence. That’s what it was. Every day.”

My words struggled to come out. “But you were mainly around for the end, right? Things were nearly over.”

“But nearly over isn’t over.” She looked down toward one tragic memory of many. “Men will do a lot of bad things to get rid of that near, Temple. The Godtenders were the worst of them.”

“They’re the good guys?” I asked, not too confident in the face of a lived understanding.

“Yeah, and that was how low the bar was in those days. See, the Godtenders, if by your understanding, are kind and good just remember they had to be big enough monsters for those luxuries. Cause it takes a special kind of monster to be strong enough to tell the world, ‘we’re done,’ and the world listens.”

Together we drained our beers. Eyes locked as I asked the question that I’d have to solve if I wanted a lead. “So what’s strong enough to slay it then.”

Amber shuddered. “I don’t know. Just, why not consult whatever spell gave you those freaky eyes,” she said.

I took in my reflection around the errant grains of rice still in my bowl. I flicked the Omensight back on—I had forgotten I turned it off at some point—and gasped. My iris was gone and my entire eye was black. Save for the luminiscent lines that criss-crossed my eyes like there was a giant cat’s cradle hiding behind them.

“Oh. Well, I tried, but they were wearing masks. I stayed up trying to see through them. My eyes just kept sliding off. Best I got was a shape for each.” Amber handed me a pad and a little pen.

“One was a dorsal-finned ogre looking thing, heavy brow ridge. The second was smoothfaced with a curled spiraling horn and closed eyes as if it’d never been woken up before. The third was drawn back like paint was splashed into their face—riotously colorful. The fourth was a skeleton with mushrooms blooming through its eyeholes. While the fifth was the most mask-like, as if wanted you to know it was a mask, and sat over a veil that hung heavy like a curtain.”

When I finished there were five drawings in the pad. “No faces though,” I said.

Amber nodded sagely. “Give up on going through the mask. Try going around it. Maybe one of the masks saw someone with their mask off.”

So I tried. Traced the thread down to the mask. Then from the mask peered as deep as I could go. Hot tears waterfalled down my face. Until I arrived to a sight: An older woman with ruddy cinnamon skin. Eyes shut with a ballcap laid across her face. While her shaggy black tresses swung behind her. Leftover traces of red dye flecked throughout. She kicked her feet up on the desk. It had a nameplate. It read. . .

“Nemesis Khapoor,” I said. Tasting the name of my lead and my enemy.

Amber sputtered, “The regional Lodgemaster?”

“She’s one of the killers,” I said. “And she’ll die.”

I blinked away the Omensight. Amber had her eyes locked on me. She was reading something in me again. Then shook her head.

“I’ll go secure passage,” Amber said. She rose to her feet and made to leave.

“Passage for what?” I asked.

“The Summoner’s Lodge exam. Don’t tell me you already had travel lined up,” she said.

I hadn’t. Becoming a proper summoner—as in getting an entity in the first place—was a big enough trial that I’d put off considering the next steps beyond, ‘go join the Lodge.’

“Good. Anyways, I always heard if you score high enough when you join the Lodgemaster gives you an advisory one-on-one,” Amber explained. “Care to see if that rumor’s true?”

I slowly rose—tested hope. “It’d be my chance to strike?”

“Your chance to kill her.”

I asked, “Why help me?”

“You saved my life. Only fair I help you take one,” she said.

I pounced on her to pull her into a hug. Though Amber wasn’t strong and fell over. I didn’t give a single thought to the math she laid out. I wasn’t alone in this. I’d get my vengeance!

We parted for the day. I hurriedly packed and then I slowed down. Then I stopped. It was going to be my first time going to the city. Melissa and I had sworn for years we’d visit together. Probably live there for awhile as we studied at a university. We hadn’t had the heart to ask if we’d move back home, or join some collective together. Yet here I was about to leave the town—leave her—all behind.

I turned back on my Omensight. Held my breath as I searched all the ties between me and those who mattered. It didn’t take long for me to find ours. It was the color of an autumn leaf and just as wilted. I let the spell carry my vision down the thread to her room.

She was in her bathtub. From her pores flowed a green mucus-like substance. It was her mutagenic fluid—she was making a chrysalis. I scrambled to my feet.

“No,” Sphinx said. “Remember our oath.”

“I am,” I said as I tore across the courtyard to the shed. Pulled free mom’s moped. Gave it a rev—it still had battery—and mounted it.

“The oath was for me to cut her from my life. Which I have, and I am sure it is not repairable. It said nothing about not letting me say a single goodbye. Does it?” I asked.

Sphinx was silent. Then swung its head away from me in disgust. “You’d risk an easy road for a single goodbye. Fine. My wings won’t carry you.”

“I used wheels before wings, Sphinx. I’ll be fine.” I twisted my wrist and shot off for Melissa’s.

* * *

If Mom was alive she’d be crying. In my haste I didn’t properly park the scooter. Just leapt from it and let it slow to a stop before it tilted and fell. My eyes were only for the door. Then I heard the whistle of a needle on the wind. Dived to the side and watched as a cluster of knife-sized wasp stingers injected the ground. They quivered and released the acidic venom they held turning earth to a purple sludge. I looked up to see Melissa’s sisters, the five of them, lounging on the roof. The oldest one, Emma, stepped forward.

“Turn right around, Nadia,” she said.

“I just, I have to say goodbye,” I yelled.

She shook her head. “You idiot. You did that last night. Now go, before we actually try this time.”

I looked from them to the point where the walls are just a suggestion and I see Melissa. The mutagenic fluid is at her neck. Her head’s turned just enough as she listens.

“I’m leaving tomorrow for Brightgate. I’ll be taking the entrance exam for the Summoner’s Lodge,” I said. I searched for anything else. “I’m sorry for breaking a second promise to go together, but I’ll never forget you.”

Her head stayed askew for a few moments longer. Then she cried and dove into the mutagenic bath she’d made. I stood there and watched as it solidified. Then I pushed the moped off the gravel and swung it around for the road. Mounted up and waved goodbye to her sister’s that would’ve otherwise been my sisters in a few months.

Amber returned later that night with our tickets. We drank another and she helped hold me until sleep took hold.

* * *

The next morning was a slow crawl. We only had a few hours before the parade—the weird assemblage of vans, bikes, and rideable entities—would be taking off. Yet, those hours never seemed to end. I checked and re-checked my bag. Made sure I had the glaive in my hand. Amber didn’t need to check anything. So she just took the last two beer cases and dropped them into spell-storage.

“Sphinx, when can I do that?” I asked.

“Who says you ever could,” it answered.

Besides that there was just little banter. Little to do, and eventually I just had Amber take me down to the parade’s launchsite. I clung to her and enjoyed the wind teasing my hair. I took my last whiff of the local leaves and moss. It was a unique perfume, honestly, but I guess everyone says that about their hometown.

While Amber finished selling her bike, I got food. Just a few grilled skewers of this and that. They were dusted with a bright red chili powder. As I ate I stared at the hill in the distance. At my home. Though from where I stood I could make out other buildings. Their own memories fluttered up into the air like a bunch of fireflies.

“The goodbyes never get easier,” Amber said.

She opened her mouth for a skewer. I fed her.

I said, “I wasn’t going to ask that.”

“My mistake,” she said. “I do find though, if you did need it to be easier, a little salute helps.”

“A salute, really?”

She polished off her skewer and stole another from me.

“The formality helps you feel like you’re not just saying goodbye, but honoring it. A thank you for all the memories, beautiful and painful.” She shrugged and walked off. “What do I know?”

The parade conductor pulled the rope on the side of the outpost. A shrill whistle cut the air. We’d be heading off in five minutes. I chuckled to myself when I knew I’d do it. Then I shrugged the glaive from my shoulders and lifted it up just like Mom taught. My heels parallel—only to slide into a perfect L. The glaive glided through the air in the path my feet had dictated. It was a glavirista’s salute. At least, that was what Mom called it. Never cared that it wasn’t a real word. Would always say, “Not with that attitude.”

I turned away from the town and the wet spots on the ground I left behind. Made my way to the rounded bus that Amber bought us passage for. As I slid through the vehicles I heard her.

“Wait!” Melissa yelled.

I turned back to town and there she was. . . flying. Large dragonfly wings a gossamer blur as she sped down the road. I noticed she was listing and her face was red from effort. My arms were outstretched ready to catch her. She saw that and turned directly into one of the cars. Kicked off it into a vault over my head. Stuck the landing without a stumble.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

She scowled, “I can’t fly all the way to Brightgate.”

“But what about your life, the collectives scouting you?” I asked.

I chased after her, but she whirled on me. The twin irises of both her eyes—that was new—lanced me by four.

“Good questions, and ones I don’t have to answer,” she said. “To my wife, it’d have been a discussion. Not so much to you though.”

She turned from me and headed toward the bus I was riding on.

Amber called out, “You’re Melissa right?”

“I am,” she said. From the tone I knew they’d probably get on well. I jogged after her with the errant hope that I could keep them from sharing too many words.

Sphinx looked down on me from its place atop the bus. “Truly we walk the beleaguered path.”