Magicland, p.27
MagicLand, page 27
He was still young, and he wondered if there was other magic he could learn, but the truth was, he had little incentive.
When he was younger, sometimes for kicks, he would hurl a small stone at a friend or acquaintance, but that was an unsatisfying way to entertain himself. As he grew older, it no longer seemed funny. As a result, he felt stuck with this useless skill.
People often called him Shage the Stone Thrower anyway, which was funny since, to him, it was a name that ought to be associated with large, athletic, burly men. Shage was overwhelmingly thin. His skinny arms were as thick at the bicep as they were at his skinny wrists.
He typically didn’t think about this kind of stuff much these days, but today, something was happening that returned him to these thoughts. He was outside picking green beans from his vegetable garden when a rock fell on the ground just to his right. From somewhere. Then another and another. He looked up at the sky but saw no hints as to their source. He wondered if old Saul next door was playing tricks on him, but he knew Saul didn’t have powers like this. Saul was more of a card shark.
The rocks continued to fall out of the sky until they built a frame. Then, inside that frame, a volley of pebbles fell and seemed to be spelling out words. They poured out of the sky quickly, and the words were completed seemingly in an instant:
You are cordially invited to the gala event of the year.
Our lovely Aurilena is turning 18 and getting married!
(to you know who)
Please join us at the Legions Auditorium as we celebrate!
“Not my kind of witches, they aren’t,” he said, and he furiously kicked at the new formation, sending the rocks and stones scattering.
4
Those in Moria who didn’t know Aurilena was marrying the Reckless from Gath soon did. Aurilena had stored up a significant amount of goodwill over the years, which her illness strengthened. This was a good thing because the reaction in Moria to her marriage to a Gath had generally not been favorable, even met with hostility among some.
Hilkiah fretted over this and wondered how to win over hearts and minds. Even Aurilena’s mother continued to grumble about the marriage whenever she had a chance, despite her witnessing Belex’s true self up close. Her father seemed hostile, too, but, as was usual with him, he was also adrift, although not as severely as before Aurilena’s illness.
Hilkiah thought a grand party celebrating Aurilena’s birthday, along with her wedding, would unite the town, but factions seemed to be forming, which was a nightmare scenario in the middle of a conflict with people as formidable as the Gath.
When he consulted with the Legions on whether the wedding should proceed, the Legions were universal in their encouragement. This surprised Hilkiah. “You have not read the sentiments of the people?” he challenged them.
The Legions spoke as one. “The only guide for countering such sentiment is love.” He nodded at that.
“Very well, then. We shall have a wedding for the ages.”
The Legions nodded, and the forum was over.
5
Sherealla wanted to upload a recording of the wedding to stoven.net so that all of Gath could see the ceremony. This was, after all, the culmination of their history’s greatest romantic cinescape. But Sherealla was also motivated by the strategic value of such a recording: it would seal the hearts and minds of Gath in favor of Belex and his bride forever. The only way to get a recording into stoven. net was for Belex to record it while he was participating in the ceremony. A view of the wedding ceremony from the groom’s eyes, Sherealla thought, would tender a remarkable volley of conversation within the collective.
“Belex will release the recording when he and Lena visit Gath,” declared Hilkiah. “Keeping the recording of the event just out of their reach, I believe, guarantees their cooperation when he arrives. Once they are married, everything from that point becomes anti-climactic.”
“The Gath may simply turn their attention elsewhere if we release it before our arrival,” agreed Belex. “And then our arrival will be a non-event.”
Marriages in Gath were quite rare and only done for amusement because the fertility-related basis for marriage had disappeared nearly two thousand years ago. But there was still interest in the romantic notions underlying ancient marriage rites, and although it had previously not been at the forefront of anybody’s thought process, that changed the instant Aurilena asked Belex to marry him.
Belex’s comment annoyed Sherealla. Not because she thought Belex was wrong but because of the reminder that she didn’t know her own people. She had been sent to MagicLand as a child, and now, as an inhabitant of stoven.net, was without a true home, mingling with a million strange voices with no frame of reference.
6
On the day of the wedding, the Legions Auditorium was so full that Aurilena wondered how everyone could fit. She was in a waiting room, of sorts, with a full mirror on one wall and another wider mirror in front of a long table and cushioned seat at another wall. The other two walls were draped in ornately woven woolen tapestries. Long strips of decorated satin hung from the high ceiling.
Her dress was a gift from her circle of immediate friends, most of whom she had been ignoring during recent weeks as she found herself consumed with crisis and Belex. She was grateful for their patience and equally grateful for the beauty of the dress they had made for her.
Her off-shoulder sleeveless gown was made of dark green satin and a rippled court train. Her hair was set with a waterfall braid that wrapped around the back of her head but was largely hidden by an extravagant headdress consisting of a red fur-brimmed hat wrapped by a gold band with inlaid topaz. Attached to the band on each side of her head were diamond-shaped silver medallions adorned at their ends with several hanging strands of pearls.
Her ears held earrings made of smaller matching sets of pearls, and her neck was surrounded by a black ring that fit over her head as if someone had thrown a flattened tire over her shoulders and tilted it upward just enough to display its inlay of rare gemstones acquired from around the world. All this attention and glamor made her terribly uncomfortable, but the crowd and the man she was marrying dislodged those feelings quickly. She only wished her friend of the last seven years could be at the ceremony. She wondered what, if anything, Sherealla could witness through Belex.
The man she was marrying, she thought. She considered this as the musicians warmed up in the auditorium, and the crowd settled in while she waited for Judith and Miriam in the little dressing room. Just yesterday, it seemed, she had been a child, running up and down the hills of Moria and, as she grew, riding her horses to places away from Moria where she probably should not have been. Anything, she thought, to avoid growing up. And now, here she was, in a formal catacomb of childhood and a maturation dictated more by circumstances, like Belex’s arrival and the endless series of crises that followed, than by biology.
She felt a combination of joy and dread. Whenever she was near Belex, she felt intoxicated with love. She could not have imagined herself getting married a year ago. There were no suitable candidates, for one thing, but it was also the furthest thing from her mind. It had also been the furthest thing from her mind after she met Belex until that sudden moment in Gath where the spirit of joy embraced her heart and nudged her toward this new kind of life with another person.
Her friend, Abilene, and Judith were her primary caretakers on this day of nerves. “I’m more nervous than the day I met Hilkiah,” she said to Abilene.
“You were such a rebel soul,” said Abilene, “that I doubt you were nervous at all when you met Hilkiah.”
Abilene’s comment reminded Aurilena that Abilene had not always been an Acquirer.
7
“Isn’t this the most amazing fabric you’ve ever seen?” Abilene was unrolling a bolt of a silk and cotton blend of dark blue fabric.
“You’re so obsessed,” said Aurilena, shaking her head.
“Yeah?” Abilene replied, rubbing the fabric with her palm to flatten it on the table in front of her. “Someday, you’ll love my obsession. Someday, I’m gonna make you a fancy wedding dress.”
Aurilena scoffed and asked, “Where did you even get that?”
“Joan,” was all Abilene said, her eyes focused on her treasure.
“She’s an Acquirer? I had no idea.”
“She doesn’t brag about it. It was quite by accident.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Anyways, she says that there are ancient bolts of fabric all over the world that haven’t been eaten away by time.”
“Or in the case of silk, moths.”
“Yeah, that too. I dunno anything about it. She’s teaching me how to acquire but I’m slow, I think,” she giggled. “All I know is I want to make a dress!”
“Some people don’t need magic. For people like you, it’s all in your hands,” said Aurilena, smiling at her friend.
“I know! And someday, I’ll be able to find my own fabric and make whatever I want!”
8
“Where did you find all these tapestries?” she asked Abilene because she was the only Acquirer Aurilena knew who could possibly find such exotic fabric in such a short time. “And this dress!” she exclaimed. “How could you know it was exactly what I’d want?” She tried to think about her empathic and clairvoyant friends but couldn’t think of any with such skills.
“Silly girl,” Abilene said. “Your sister knew exactly what you’d want. So that was easy. And you know me and dresses. Your dad found all these tapestries and jewels for your headdress. On the other side of the world, Judith says. I’ll take a bow for the awesome headdress, but it’s your dad that found the amazing stones for it.”
My father, she thought, with a tear welling up in her eye. She wasn’t sure if the tear was about the efforts of her father or the effort Abilene had put into the headdress.
Aurilena was looking in the mirror when Judith and Miriam walked in. Judith nudged her mother and said, “Oh . . . look, Mom, Lena’s engaging in her favorite pastime.” The three women cackled, and Judith and Miriam embraced Aurilena warmly.
“Are you ready, little sister?” Aurilena could hear a milling crowd die down as the gentle sound of a piano added its musical fragrance to the adjacent room.
She nodded nervously.
Miriam hooked her arm into Aurilena’s elbow.
9
Belex was in a prayer room with Hilkiah, a long hallway away from Aurilena. The room, as most interiors in MagicLand, he thought, was austere. There were a couple of black leather couches that he assumed had been foraged from distant places and times by Acquirers, a small mirror hanging on the light blue wall—blue sandstone, Hilkiah had said—a couple of tall wooden chairs, each with backs high enough to hold all of Hilkiah’s height, and a small oriental rug in the middle of the breccia marble floor.
All of this would have seemed laughable to Belex just a few months ago. He would have considered the ceremony contrived and gratuitous. He guessed, if he was being honest with himself, that it still did seem so, but he felt this without the rancor he would have felt before.
“Most men think that way about these ceremonies,” said Hilkiah, pouring them both a small glass of fruit juice. “This is palm juice from the southern reaches,” he said, handing Belex a glass.
Taking it, Belex said, “Is mind reading another one of your talents?”
“More like sentiment reading, young friend. Sentiment sniffing might better describe it. Like a dog sniffs that out a variety of odors and can respond to each, I do the same with sentiments. Alas, there are no mind readers here in MagicLand. I would know it if there were,” he chuckled. One eye glinted at Belex as if sharing a secret. “It is tradition for the groom to drink a glass of palm juice with the giver just before the wedding.”
“The giver?”
“That’s me.” Hilkiah lifted his glass higher. “And this is the palm juice. And you, my young Gath friend, are the groom. Drink.”
Belex drank it all in one gulp.
“Outstanding,” said Hilkiah, who did the same. “And now, I shall give you to the bride.”
“I’m not sure the word “give” is an appropriate word,” Belex said with a guilty smile. “My presence here has exacted a heavy toll.”
“Nonsense,” said Hilkiah. “I shudder to think what would have been the results had they sent someone else. A Gath of no character, for example.”
“That’s probably the strangest compliment I’ve ever had, but I’ll take it on this day.”
Hilkiah bowed and led Belex to the ceremony.
10
The full auditorium held 20,000 people. The large stage in the middle was accessed by small sets of stairs on each side. In the middle of the stage was a large, inked circle etched into the wood floor. Two long aisles approaching the stage from opposite directions cut through the seated crowd. The musicians had transitioned from piano to strings and were now giving way to the crowd, which had begun singing in adagio, almost like a twenty-thousand-person a cappella slowed down for a long romantic interlude.
When the couple appeared along their respective aisles, the crowd’s only reaction was the crescendo of their shared song. Belex thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. It was more magnificent than anything he had heard through stoven.net, which, even though most of its musical efforts were a farrago shaped by the collective’s maze of discordant creative minds, managed to offer the occasional masterpiece. But nothing like this. This sound shot into his spine and reverberated throughout his body.
Aurilena was mesmerized by the sound of the audience, and the tighter grip she felt on her arm testified to her mother’s response, as well. They strode forth, a mother leading her wayward child into the arms of the enemy, it seemed to many, but it was a song worth finishing because there were forces far stronger than those who seemed insistent on this destiny.
11
A long-robed man and woman stood waiting for the couple in the middle of the circle on the stage. Hilkiah and Miriam brought Belex and Aurilena together onto the stage. The couple clasped hands and walked the short distance to the priest and priestess as Hilkiah and Miriam returned down their respective aisles amidst the continued singing.
Aurilena tilted her head and noticed her father nodding at her in the front row. Just then, a Turillion scarf appeared around his neck underneath the wide grin on his face. When Belex recognized the scarf from his early wanderings, his heart filled with joy.
The couple faced the priest and priestess, Belex in front of the man and Aurilena in front of the woman. Belex smiled at the man, Aaron, who had originally been introduced to Belex in a prisoner intake role. Aaron nodded politely. He wore an elegant robe of green and blue, with an intricate insignia, shaped as a letter Belex didn’t recognize, overlaid over a large circle with a cross in the middle. The robe’s wide sleeves were trimmed with a gold band.
The priestess’s robe was identical. When they had rehearsed a day ago, the role of the priestess had been played by one of Aurilena’s friends, so this was the first time Belex had seen her. She was an older woman. Belex couldn’t guess her age, and since he was now more fascinated than horrified by old age, he wanted to take a DNA sample from her to determine her precise age.
His fascination took him into the process of examining the lines and grooves on her face. She had crow’s feet around the corners of her eyes, and her cheeks were grooved with thin lines that acted as thoroughfares for a network of thinner, smaller routes that spread across her face. Her lips ended at upturned corners, each splashing into a handsome dimple.
Belex began to understand something that had eluded him his entire life—simply because he had not been exposed to age. There was illustrious beauty in the wisdom reflected in a face such as hers, whose name he had learned yesterday—Ha-Kodesh—because it was said, she could talk directly to the spirit of the Great Shepherd, something not even Hilkiah had done. He had learned she was rarely seen in MagicLand, or, as he now referred to this land, Moria.
Her presiding over his wedding was either a great honor, he thought, or he was in a lot of trouble. He glanced over at his betrothed, stunned by her almost perplexing beauty, and decided whatever trouble he might be in would be worth enduring.
Ha-Kodesh took Aurilena’s hands and began to recite a canto from a long poem written by one of Aurilena’s friends. When she was finished, she said to Aurilena, “Are you prepared to journey with this man to the ends of the earth and for eternity?”
“I am,” said Aurilena quite solemnly.
“Are there any obstacles that can prevent you from fulfilling your destiny with Belex Deralk-Almd?”
“No,” she said.
Aaron then asked the same questions of Belex, who answered the same. He was then directed to face Aurilena. “You, Belex Deralk-Almd and Aurilena Kingston, are now the bride and groom of God and Heaven for eternity,” the priest and priestess said together. Belex got down on one knee and Aurilena extended her hand to him, which he took in both of his.
“Thank you for the honor of being my bride,” he recited with truth in his voice. This was a traditional Morian wedding with an untraditional groom, but he was playing the part perfectly, thought Aurilena adoringly. And it’s the happiest day of my life. They walked off down one aisle together, as the congregation burst into more festive song.
