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Sangrelysia
by Vivian Darkbloom
Flight
Once more, we walked through the picturesque archway, though this
time it was not ivy-wrapped, but of plain rough-hewn stone.
Together we climbed the mountainside, both short of breath and
light-headed with the altitude. We were way past the treeline,
but here and there a scraggly shrub defiantly clung to the rocks
with claws of obstinate determination against the bitter chill of
the hissing airstream.
We followed a spiral pathway up around an enormous pinnacle. In
my mind I was running over the summoning verse, written in
ancient Sangrelysian. Did the melody go up or down on that
syllable? Which case-ending was it, ueia or ua? My concentration
kept being jostled by the venomous fury poisoning my mind. Just
for once, can't we have something nice, without it being
destroyed by slime? Why must the worthless sleaze always triumph?
My body ached. Unfair! It's just plain wrong!
I forced my mind to refocus on the summoning spell, as we
ascended the spiral pathway.
"I'm tired," said Sylvia, intentionally stumbling and weaving
side to side along the path. "Can we rest now?"
"Soon, babe. We're almost there."
"That's what you always say."
"That's 'cause you always ask when we're just about there."
"I have to go pee."
"So go pee," I said. I waited for her while she walked around
behind a boulder. I hummed a melody to myself.
She returned, still moping. "How much longer?"
"We're really almost there," I insisted.
Right then, we rounded the last curve, revealing the summit, and
halted before her.
Yes, there she was, like a giant autumnal peacock, in shades of
copper and gold. Sheltered in the concavity of the top of the
pinnacle, crouched as a lioness about to pounce, her long neck
was curved around to gaze at us, as if she had been expecting us,
waiting patiently with an expression that crossed between
sympathy and resigned exasperation that we should find ourselves
once again in such a predicament as to require her help. Blinking
twice, she spoke a quiet cooing sound, and preened the feathers
under her wing.
I breathed a sigh of relief, because given my present state (or
absence) of concentration, I could not for the life of me
remember the last verse of the summoning spell, or much else for
that matter.
Unimpressed, Sylvia feigned weary disinterest, though I think she
was more curious than she let on. Finally, she asked, pointing
disdainfully: "Is that a Phoenix?"
"Something like that," I said. "If you want to get technical
about it, she's in the same phylum, but I forget the exact Latin
name. I think she does the burning-up-and-rising thing from the
ashes but it's only every thousand years or so."
"Whaddya mean, you forget? Don't you know anything?"
I shrugged. "Go look it up yourself." She can be such a Princess.
Carefully, slowly, quietly, I approached the majestic amber
featheriness of the giant bird, and gently reached out to stroke
her giant beak. She regarded me with skepticism, then reluctantly
acquiesced, and I touched the rough surface of the enormous
proboscis. She cooed quietly once more, settling into a more
relaxed pose.
Sylvia stood at the edge of the scene, arms folded, hair tossed
whipping about in the wind that came ripping by. Sadness stirred
profoundly within me, to see the dishevelment of her royal dress,
the festive purple trimmed in dark red and green.
From a pocket in my robes, I drew out once more the small crystal
ball.
Sylvia made a sound of disgust.
The refractive globe, now nearly opaque, glittered as the
mysterious luminescent blood-red umbra of a fully-eclipsed moon.
It seemed clearer towards the North. I turned to face Northwards.
As I gazed through the crystal in that direction, it clarified.
All at once, the darkness was gone, aside from faint cloudy
traces that lingered like drops of blood, diluted in a clear
lake.
"Just as I thought," I said.
"Why do you trust that thing?" demanded the Princess irritably.
"Gives me the creeps."
I pocketed it once more. "There, happy?"
She rolled her eyes.
"The North, land of dragons. Beautiful, enigmatic creatures." I
said. "Very little is known about them. It will be good for you,
to spend some time in a place where reality is less certain."
"I guess."
"Come over here. Caress her beak."
Sylvia rolled her eyes once more, telegraphing her annoyance with
body language that the phoenix studied with (if I am not
mistaken) a degree of amusement, as my Princess reluctantly
trudged over.
"I'll tell you a secret," I said quietly to Sylvia.
"What."
I bent over and whispered in her ear: "I love you."
She stomped the rocky ground with one foot, but I could have
sworn I saw a minuscule teardrop forming before she turned away.
Standing up close before those amazingly huge glittering golden
orbs, windows into amber infinity of the unfathomable wisdom of
ages, I noticed for the first time in her coloration, dark
crimson eyeliner around the edges, beautiful, ever-so-thin lines
in velvety fine accents.
Eventually, the Princess resigned herself to the inevitability of
the experience, and allowed me to lift her up onto the back of
the giant golden immortal winged creature. I soon joined her
sitting in front, and we took off into the air, Sylvia's arms
wrapped tightly around my waist, her tender softness and warmth
warding off the feverish toxicity that raged through my
consciousness and bloodstream.
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The exhilarating rush of the icy wind complimented the warmth of
feathery insulation, as our living chariot carried us upward,
propelled by immense beating wingstrokes, until we soared
dizzyingly, at a high enough altitude where we could hang
weightless, on the updrafts and currents.
Hours passed, as we crossed hundreds of miles in effortless
stillness, punctuated by the occasional thudding bass drumbeat of
wing flutter. Below, we could watch the landscape slowly
shifting, granite rockiness, tumbling mountains and jagged cliffs
descending into valleys jewel-studded with the occasional
crystalline turquoise spring-fed lake, until the terrain became
gradually less rugged, shaded here and there with rough patches
of trees, which eventually as we flew, merged into dense forest
that flowed like watercolor brushstrokes over rolling hills.
Birds that might twitter unreachably in the branches high above,
were far below us now, swarms of tiny black dots that merged and
parted.
Borrowed though it was, the illusory feeling of being above all
of my problems was comforting somehow.
We ascended through the grim, grey cloud cover, and briefly found
ourselves surrounded by white featureless lactescence. Quickly it
thinned, until we broke through into a warmer layer of air, to
discover that it was just about sunset.
In awe we watched from high altitude, pillowy vanilla-white
palaces like whipped cream, looking so soft, it felt like we
could reach out and taste them. Cotton-candy mists clung to the
ground beneath us, and we were surrounded by dazzling
indescribable and unique shifting carnival colors from lavender
pink to golden bronze hues spanning the sky above, as they played
like a calliope across the winding curls of cumulus that tumbled
like a slow-motion ocean below, spilling over mountainous cliffs
onto plateaus and meandering blue rivers, twisting roads, squares
of farmland.
With grim certainty of fate, the bleak grays of the approaching
night stole away the circus of colors that had danced though the
torn edges of mist, leaving behind cold ashen husks that faded
into blackness.
We arrived in the tropical warmth just after nightfall, with a
faint twilight glow fading into a glittering blanket of stars.
Our mighty bearer set down lightly on the ledge before the cavern
entrance, and once we had dismounted, took off with near silence
in feathered wingbeats, leaving us on our own once again.
Chapter 14
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