Angel of the Myriad

 

Calesvol is written upon the brow of the first angel. Just above her left eye. It was tattooed there by the Myriad itself, in the time before the world was begun. Did you know that, Fallen?  It is written there in all the colours of continuum. A promise and a warning. But Vivian’s music is heard even beneath the surface. Through the pupil, below the iris, in the waters of perennial vision. Niamah. The Radiant One. But there is something most so-called scholars of these tales still don’t understand. The writhing breach and the eye of the deep are connected. Twinned beyond mortal grasp. A teardrop on the fire, a raindrop salted with soul. Most faithful mirror indeed.

I told you who I am, Callous Ones. I didn’t come here dressed as her. She came here dressed as me. And still you ask why? I’ll tell you why. The waters belong to no one and everyone. All sinister gods of the stolen sea shall be slain at the turn of the First Dreaming. When the stars find their correct places in the sky once again, and men are taught all the science and secrets of the moon. Mortlake, really? Like that pretender Dee? There is no death in my waters. Only life and lumen. Oh, Fallen. Your grasp of Lune and Ebura is utterly feeble. As is your knowledge of higher-dimensional physics. You still search the heart of stars for gates and doors, but sense nothing in a seed. Or a budding rose. There is a reason we are at war. Because your greed outmatches your gnosis.

Access to hidden texts and occult knowledge doesn’t make you wise. Just ask Kiskuh. She was a healer once. Until men and madness and unhonoured menses turned a healer into a wicked witch. Turned a Keeper of Awen into the Scourge of the Inverted Eye. There is a price for seeing, but an even greater price for unseeing. Neither price is paid in coin, or even flesh. These tokens are taken in dreaming, mythmaking, and world-bearing. With or without child, ruin of the soul is an ungodly thing to invoke. Trust me. I broke the world once, for love. Don’t make me do it again. Excalibur? The hard cleft? You have no idea. Men make indulgent thrones from their whoring, scattershot ways. In the meanwhile they murder their mothers and daub their own foreheads in the chrism of ancient vampires. That’s your idea of kingship? Fuck that. There is a better way.

M’ithriin addresses you now. Kashi, and Prosper. Vivian’s music is a mighty thing. Of courage, and kindness. Enough to fracture worlds and bend time itself. We have seen our tales told in a thousand ways, and still we guard these gates. Tell me, Fallen. Where does your garden grow? Because you don’t know the first thing about mine. Maidenhead? These endless Wars of the Roses? If only you knew the true price of defiling something so precious. Hear me, you sickening little wraiths. Love is the most powerful thing in creation. Kindness can undo causality itself—and courage can bring empires to their knees. There is something in the water. Men have often called it freedom. I really do hope you grasp this by now. If not, let me spell it out for you. The stories shall never die. Because the sword is a radiant gate of perennial vision. It belongs not to the king, or even the queen. It belongs to the people. All of them. Every single one. And it shall only ever be wielded on their behalf.