Page 48 of Angel in Absentia
“What we didn’t understand was that the source of cien existed on a spiritual plane, the plane where our souls resided. It was a timeless force, trying to crawl into time, crawling into hearts, minds, and bodies. It was reaching us through our very souls.”
Tenida stopped talking and looked like a statue sitting in the light.
“But why?” she asked, and the question felt so genuine that Clea could hear the pain behind it, as if Tenida had heard a thousand patients ask it and had absorbed all of that pain. “We asked ourselves this over generations, and then at some point along the way, we stopped asking at all. That is, until we began to manifest ansra and Veilin came into being. It was actually a healer who sensed the truth of it all first. The Prince of Salanes, the City of the Soul. Back then it was the largest of the cities, the capital of Shambelin before we called it Shambelin.”
Clea remembered the mention of the fourth hero from the play in Loda and anticipated Tenida’s mention of the Warlord of Shambelin next.
“The healer sensed a force deep in the recesses of Shambelin. It was the source of all cien, he claimed. He said he could speak to it, said that as centuries passed, it was trying to manifest in our world with more and more permanence. That’s all it ever wanted. Similar to how forest beasts eat human flesh to fruitlessly regain their humanity, cien was consuming us only in an effort to try and become us.”
“Why would something like that want to be human?” Clea asked, confused by this strange retelling of history that she’d never found documented anywhere.
“For the same reason Venennin want to be human again. To live,” Tenida said with a gentle nod. “This being from another place, another realm, saw its own struggle to survive in us. In visions, others saw it, often perceived as a dark ocean. We didn’t understand why cien twisted the world the way it did. The brokenness we understood, but then why make hearts, minds, and souls manipulatable things? Why separate us from our own pieces?” she asked, and it was another question that Clea had wondered before but never thought to pursue. “Cien has us splayed out for dissection. Its nature is to separate our pieces so that it can break down and replicate each one. It is learning from us.”
“Like an experiment? It’s experimenting with us?” Clea asked, leaning forward, engaged in every word though the tale was tinged with conspiracy and madness.
“Less of an experiment,” Tenida whispered. “We believe its nature is replicated in its hosts, and so we learn about it by observing them. Venennin are curious, but more than that, they are desperate to find life again, to be human again.”
Clea sat in silence for a long moment. Cien. She tried to imagine it like a sentient being.
“Like a god,” she whispered.
She often heard cien compared to a god, but in those scenarios, its physical form was the moon, and ansra’s physical form was the sun, both forces battling over earth day and night. They were never given sentience, though, but were perceived more as natural forces.
She realized shortly after that this new and strange theory seemed to have nothing to do with the healing temple. Shevoiced that notion aloud, which only prompted Tenida to continue the same tale.
“After observing and consuming us for so long, cien, at last, was able to build a body of its own obsession. That is the only reason the four heroes were able to find and battle it. Its desire to be human became its single vulnerability, and they fought it with all of the light they had between them. The battle went on for several days.”
Tenida took a practiced sip of her cup and then set it down with a soft clink on the table between them.
Clea swallowed in the silence, taking a small sip and then mirroring Tenida’s motion as she tried to imagine what such a fearsome monster might look like.
“But they failed?” Clea prodded.
“Well, imagine fighting an ocean of darkness,” Tenida said thoughtfully. “They fought its body on a physical plane. That, unfortunately, wasn’t enough. It could still call on all of its power—all cien. In the final moments of the battle, the heroes were consumed by that dark ocean. It filled their souls like poison, transforming them with the darkness and condemning them to the lives of Venennin. The healer among them, adrift in the waves, closed his eyes, like healers do, and did not resist. In a moment of clarity, he connected with the depths of the ocean and called out to any forces beyond that might be able to help humanity in our cause. He’d had a theory. Something had wounded Cien in the beginning and sent it scrambling to our plane to escape. If we couldn’t kill it, he was certain perhaps something beyond us could.”
Clea clutched the teacup, feeling the experience through her as Tenida spoke. She could not imagine the strength it took to commune with pure darkness, the heart of cien, and though the tale was bizarre, she found herself immersed in it.
“We do not know exactly what happened after that, what aided the healer, or how he managed to retrieve himself from the final onslaught. There are illusive descriptions of the healer pulling the others from the ocean and rescuing them all from certain death. They were all infected, corrupted into Venennin, but determined to make meaning of their sacrifices before their dark natures consumed them. Vanida Regalia sacrificed herself to trap the heart of darkness and thus ended the battle until the heroes could one day return, fully defeat it, and free this world from cien.”
Tenida took another sip of her tea, finishing it at last before setting it down a final time.
“So, the great darkness is the Warlord of Shambelin?” Clea asked, trying to tie this new version of things to the version she knew.
“No,” Tenida said but didn’t offer any explanation. Instead, the woman slowly stood to her feet and began walking from the room. “The other heroes failed in their duties. They never returned to defeat the great darkness. Ruedom’s hero, Vanida, did not fail in her duties, which is why we feel no compulsion to rewrite history.”
Clea followed after her, clumsily putting her cup down and scrambling off the couch in a rush to follow. Tenida said nothing as she escorted Clea to the door.
“Thank you for sharing all of this with me,” Clea said, walking through it until she stood on the temple steps and looked back, searching the woman’s eyes for any sign she’d offended her. She still didn’t quite understand how what she’d been told had anything to do with the temple’s history.
Tenida nodded in silence, something stirring in her eyes, until at last, she asked through the cracked door, “You were meant to die, weren’t you? Were close to death for a long time?”
Clea paused, watching Tenida carefully and wondering where the question had come from.
“Yes,” she consented, despite the strangeness of the question and the abrupt change in Tenida’s demeanor. “I suppose you could say I grew up with death.”
“That was how it found you,” Tenida whispered.
Clea’s mind hung on the word, it. It?
