1.
The Mirror was an imperfect square that sat atop one of the majestic columns that decorated Saeci’s chambers. In it, Saeci viewed the happenings of a realm several light years away. A long time ago, she had broken the piece off the Eternal Mirror, a portal that stood in the middle of the Eternal King’s inner chambers. ‘Stolen’ was perhaps the better word. But a goddess does not steal.
Now, she narrowed her eyes and sighed. “It is hard to protect this girl, Ni. She is of all women most moronic.”
“Yes, Majesty.” Saeci’s servant, Ni, had a voice as soft as morning dew. She was standing behind her mistress, her head bowed, fingers clasped in front of her.
“She reminds me of that other one,” Saeci continued, “the one that had five children by that hirsute beast. From four generations before, I think.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “What was her name?”
“I believe you are referring to Nwasini, Majesty.”
“No, I don’t think that was what she was called,” Saeci said. “She was very tall and had very handsome breasts. She used to weave fabric or something. There was a cleft in her chin. I used to joke about wanting to hide a rock in it. And she sang beautifully, which was what attracted the beast to her in the first place. The day he heard her voice and began to follow it, I wanted to reach into her chest and crush her vocal cords. I said that to you then. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” Ni said carefully. “Her name was… Nwasini, Majesty.”
Saeci shook her head. “Wasn’t Nwasini the one that died of…oh, yes, you are right. Nwasini.” She looked through the Mirror again. “Ifeoma knows that this man has more regard for dogs - the variety that eat shit, mind you – than for her. And yet she clings to him. Her behaviour would be easy to forgive if she was wretched. But her profession thrives. There is no reason for her to drown in this pit she has dug for herself. It worries me. I should take her life.”
Ni cleared her throat. “Please be merciful, Majesty. If it pleases you.”
Saeci chuckled. “I would never kill one of my own. Well, not again, at least. The Kameda girl’s episode was unfortunate.”
“Her name was Kanneda, Majesty.”
“Wonderful,” Saeci said. “The episode is wedged so deeply in the cracks of time that I cannot remember the details. Such luck.” She waved her slender fingers and stepped away from the Mirror. The Iridescence flickered just then.
She looked at Ni, who said nothing.
No one said anything about it. The depleting iridescence.
It was fueled by the worship of followers. When Saeci was younger, it had burned with a blinding brilliance. But things had changed. Humans, over time, venerated her father less and less. They now believed that they could handle their business themselves. They built fewer and fewer temples for him. Worship was rushed. The faithful’s numbers dwindled with each passing day. Although he never let it show, it was a source of worry for her father. There was no telling what would happen if the Iridescence ran out.
It was the life source of Celeste, their home.
It pulsed through the streets. It lit up the firmament. It ran in a straight line from every god’s forehead to their back and then branched out to their hands and feet. It was the reason they could levitate, fly, create. It had become the essence of their god-ness. She had often wondered how this came to be, how they had come to rely on the creation, so to say, of their creation. Before he created humans, surely her father was all-powerful?
Her father never wanted to discuss it. He had begun to speak of putting her in charge of Celeste and going to form new worlds in the bowels of the galaxy. A long time ago, he had created earth, but left its watering to Saeci’s brothers, Haego and Ilimg. That was why, according to him, it was full of irreverent ingrates. Saeci was his fourth child. If not for Haego and Ilimg’s shortcomings, she would have no claim to the throne whatsoever. She would be worried about an uprising from them if they had not confined themselves to the nether parts of Celeste, whiling away time in drunkenness and debauchery.
“Ni, you may go now,” Saeci said.
Ni bowed and retreated.
Saeci looked again into the Mirror. Her father’s flawed creations had always fascinated her. As the ages turned, she had taken a special interest in some of them. All women. All strong worshippers. She sent Ni to their aid sometimes; once, to take the form of a leopard and devour seven men who wanted to sacrifice her favourite to a non-existent god. Another time, to place a basket of yams in her favourite’s shack in the midst of a famine. In Nwasini’s case, Ni had gouged out the eyes of her abusive husband, a man with the body hair of a wild goat. Nwasini had a thriving weaving business and five strong children. She could have cast him away. But she had kept him, tended to him in his disability, endured his biting words in place of his physical assaults until he died. And then she had died a month after, to Saeci’s relief.
There had been four others after Nwasini: a devious queen whose schemes gave Saeci unquantifiable pleasure, a brilliant translator who remained a virgin till her death, a naïve housewife with more children than she could take care of and now, the young lawyer who had transformed herself into a doormat and lain under a cheating degenerate. Saeci watched her with pride as she spoke in courtrooms. Ifeoma -that was her name- was envied by her colleagues and respected by judges. She could move a courtroom to believe that her client had done no wrong in all their existence.
And then she would suspend her ability to think and defer to a man Saeci now called the Dog.
Just like Saeci’s father would expect her to defer to Hev when they were joined, no doubt.
Hev had been created before her. He was the only child of Dia, her father’s first consort. Dia the Rebellious. Dia the Failed Usurper. She had somehow gotten it into her head that she could overthrow Saeci’s father, and he had put an end to her with a wave of his staff. Hev might have grown up with the stigma of being the offspring of a traitor, but he had distinguished himself in combat. He was her father’s highest ranking general, even though his right to the throne had been extinguished by his mother’s treachery.
Saeci detested Hev.
He never smiled. He talked sparingly. When he looked at her, she did not see the adoration and awe that she was used to receiving from Celeste’s gods. She saw, instead, what was obtainable when Hev looked at everything else. Disinterest. Aloofness. She knew, instinctively, that he would seek to dominate her if they were ever to become one. She would never stand for it. That sort of thing happened on earth, not here.
She floated through her chambers. It was pure opulence, made of splendor beyond human knowledge. Precious stones lined the walls. The floors were fine gold. Reflective, pure. Iridescence permeated the atmosphere. Saeci herself was beauty personified, the first female from her father’s loins, and as such, the standard of which every other female god, except his two consorts, was a variant, a copy. Because of Dia’s treachery, Saeci’s mother, Ufi, had not been of elevated status. She had been created merely to carry the Eternal King’s seed and no more. She lived in the consorts’ palace a short distance away, along with about a hundred others, some without offspring, just creatures of beauty for their master’s pleasure.
It was one of the two things that she disagreed with her father on, the second, of course, being Hev.
Hev had not even seen war. Why would he? Celeste was a kingdom of the gods of the universe. Who would come against it? The army he commanded was just for show – and perhaps to discourage any further attempts at usurpation. Still, Saeci saw no reason for him to be by her side. Her father had scheduled a meeting, one of many. They always went the same way: she and Hev would sit at the foot of her father’s throne. Her father would do most of the talking. She and Hev would avoid eye contact. Then they would leave in opposite directions.
Ni materialized in front of her. “Majesty, the Eternal King has directed me to inform you that the meeting has been moved to a later da-”
“Praise the Eternal King!” Saeci exclaimed. “That is quite all right. Thank you.”
She floated back into her chambers and stared into the Mirror. Ifeoma and the Dog were lying on Ifeoma’s bed. The Dog reached for her but she did not budge. He tried again, a little more aggressively this time, and she slapped his hand away. “What is all this?” he said, in the nasal way that always made Saeci sick. The man was a mix of all things unpleasant.
Ifeoma turned to him. “Charles, look at me. Very well. No, really. Look. Good. Do I look like your shoe rag? Because that is how you treat me. You cheat as if you were cursed with it. I ignore it all because I want ‘us’ to work. But my mother did not give birth to a sheep. I will not be made a fool of any longer.”
He was dazed. “What has gotten into you?”
“And you dangle marriage like a prize before me,” she continued, ignoring his question. “Marriage. Me. What an insult. You behave as if you’re a gift I should be grateful for, a gift I am not worthy of. Well, screw that.”
Saeci’s eyes widened in glee. What had she missed? It was all happening so fast. Where had her girl found a new spine?
The Dog looked at Ifeoma as if two tusks had grown out of her face. “What did you just say to me?”
Ifeoma sat up and faced him squarely. “I am a lawyer, Charles. A great one. I have three degrees. People look up to me. In my circle of friends, I am the star. And yet I bend down and roll over to accommodate you. I cannot bend anymore. You are in the gutter and I cannot join you there. Get out of my house.”
Ifeoma made to stand up, but he grabbed her arm. His face was black with rage. Saeci’s grin died. Ifeoma did not know it, but she was in danger. Saeci tried to summon Ni, as she always did, with her mind, but there was no response.
“Ifeoma, you have gone stark raving mad and I will show you how I deal with mad people,” the Dog said.
It took a second for Saeci to make a decision. She put her finger on the Mirror, and concentrated her energy into pushing through it. The atmosphere in her chambers changed. The Iridescence flashed in blinding colors. For a moment, Saeci was lost in space.
2
Saeci stared back at two astonished pairs of eyes. The air was different. Clammy. Threatening. Why hadn’t Ni told her that the earth’s energy was this dark? It was such a small space. The little room bore down on her, threatened to compress her.
But her instincts took over. She rose to her full height, towering over both of them, her form a levitating ball of brightness. Her eyes shone white. The iridescent strip on her forehead twinkled. “Show us, why don’t you, Charles,” she said, her voice the sound of many waters. “Show us how you deal with mad people.”
Charles began to gulp like a fish out of water. His eyes darted from Saeci to an astonished Ifeoma. “I am sorry, I am sorry.” He dropped to the floor and prostrated. “Please spare me,” he pleaded. “I did not mean to do anything. I am all talk. Even she knows,” He gestured to Ifeoma. “Please spare me.”
Saeci was unmoved. “Get out of her life,” she said. “For good.”
“Yes,” Charles said urgently as he scrambled to his feet.
“Yes. I will never come near her, I swear it.”
“Say ‘Praise to the Eternal King.’”
“Praise to the Eternal King.”
“Go on.” She nodded at him, her meaning clear.
Charles gulped and assumed the posture for prayer. “‘Praise to the Eternal King who set forth—who set forth the seas—set forth the seas and the towering mountains. Praise to the Eternal King who-’”
“It wouldn’t even count; you are filthy. Get out.”
Charles reached for his clothes.
“Leave them,” Saeci said. “Run.”
And he ran, clad in only a pair of briefs. Now it was Ifeoma’s turn to descend to the floor, her eyes round with awe. She bowed. “All my life, I worshipped an Eternal King. I had no idea I was supposed to worship an Eternal Queen as well. Forgive me.”
“No, I have no need for your worship,” Saeci said quickly. “You know what? I’ll just-” She bent and tapped Ifeoma’s forehead. The mortal’s head swung up and light shone in her eyes. In a second, the light was gone. She fell into an unconscious heap.
The rational thing would be to get out, but Saeci delayed. She looked around the room. Ah, but it was different, viewing it in real time, in real space, not through the Mirror. How small the human essence was! Ifeoma’s chambers were tiny, dainty. Saeci could never live in a place such as this. And still…
She ran her hand over the things in the room: the table, the bed, the books on the shelf, the lamp. She opened Ifeoma’s drawers, examined her underwear, her stationery, the coloured rollers she had seen her attach to her hair on occasion. There were two spherical raffia figures on the table, made in the shape of human heads, held up by three cane stands. One was bare, and the other had a wavy brown wig on it. Saeci ran her fingers through the wig and decided that it was too smooth to the touch. She walked to the window, trailed her fingers over the flowery curtain, tapped the blinds.
The knock on the door made her jump.
Saeci contemplated it only a second before she let her feet touch the ground and walked to the door. She opened it like she had seen Ifeoma do several times: Unlatch bolt one. Unlatch bolt two. Turn the key in the lock to the right twice. Turn the handle.
She gasped when it opened. She planted herself firmly in front of the door. And then she looked at the visitor.
Time stopped.
Saeci felt a sensation so potent, it threatened to swallow her whole. Her Iridescence shone. From the crown of her head to her toes, she felt a whir that threatened to tear her apart. It made her doubt her reasoning. It made her head buzz. Her body seemed as though it was no longer hers. The sensation frightened her. No, it petrified her.
She stared at him.
He was the epitome of beauty. Small eyes regarded her behind clear glasses. His skin was the colour of rich soil. His lips were the most sensual thing she had ever set her eyes upon. He towered over her. She looked down at his fingers. They were long and slender. An artist’s fingers.
Art.
He too appeared to be smitten by her, because he stared, and stared, and stared.
Suddenly, she took his palm in hers.
She Saw
Herself, returning to the earth again and again for this man. He would touch her in ways she did not want to be touched. He would stir her, upturn her, change her. Her essence would long for him, to be with him, mate with him, meld with him.
Her reasoning would desert her.
She would leave her family, her home, her throne, for this man.
She Saw
She and he, stretched out on his bed, limbs intertwined, speaking about everything.
a.
–I love you.
-I don’t have the right words with which to explain how much I love you.
b.
-I must tell you something. I’m not human. I’m a child of the Eternal King.
-We’re all children of the Eternal King.
-No, his actual child. The third by his second consort. I want to show you something.
c.
-Are you scared of me now?
-No. The glow was very…startling, I won’t lie. I think you burnt my eyes.
-Stop.
-You know I’m just trying to manage these eyes. And yet you nearly set them ablaze. Tell me, are all goddesses this mean?
-Stop joking.
-Okay. I am not scared of you. I could never be scared of you.
d.
-I have killed an innocent.
-What?
-A woman. I was her protector. She did not ask for it. I…I helped her and she attributed it to a non-existent god and I was furious. I sent my servant to kill her. I have tried to pretend that it meant nothing to me. But it does mean something. I am ashamed of it. I regret it.
-Then that is all that matters. It is gone. I love you still.
e.
-I lied. About being the third child by my mother.
-Oh?
-I am the fourth. My eldest brother, Hamav, lived a long time before me. Millennia, in human years. He was sent by my father to guide humans, so to speak, along with my other brothers, Haego and Ilimg.
-What happened to him?
-He fell in love with a mortal. Lay with her. My father banished him. He was stripped of his powers and he became mortal. His name was blotted from our history. It was as though he never existed. He died a broken god.
-Your father is a mean old being.
-Don’t say that!
-What has he ever done for anyone, really? And he expects us to worship him blindly. You, at least, have made an effort. You’ve directly helped people. He sits there, absorbing our worship, doing the barest minimum-
-Stop-!
-More worried about keeping the balance of good and evil in the world than actually helping his creations. And he can do that. He’s a fucking god!
-Please, stop talking.
-You’re better off here, with me. You will feel things. I’ll always protect you. I will never allow any harm come to you. Be mine. Please. Talk to me. Saeci? Saeci.
-You are forgetting something.
-What?
-A goddess needs no protection from a mere man.
Presently, Saeci released a deep breath and bent over at the waist. She was shaking. The human reached for her, steadied her, his voice full of concern as he asked what was wrong.
“I am fine. Please let me go.”
He left her and took a step back, worry on his face. “I am… sorry. I came to collect Ifeoma’s share of the electricity bill. I live upstairs. Are you her sister?”
“Yes,” Saeci replied. “She’s asleep. I can’t wake her.”
“Oh. Okay. I can always come back.” He started to walk away, but then he stopped and turned. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help? I’m more than happy to-”
“Surely you have no wish to be struck with blindness.”
3
“You must wonder why I have summoned you.” Saeci was sitting in the room just outside her chambers. General Hev stood before her, two steps below her gilded seat.
“I do not appreciate your choice of words,” he said flatly.
This was the first time that Saeci had allowed herself to really look at him. He was a wonderful specimen of a god. His dark skin shone. His eyes were intelligent and quick. He looked like he could run through a troop – or run a troop through- and not break a sweat.
“Why, General Hev?” Saeci asked. “I am next in line to the throne of Celeste. You are a general. It is within my power to summon you.” She looked him in the eye. “I have summoned you.”
“Very well.”
“Majesty,” she said, her eyes still firmly on his. “You will address me as is customary.”
His face betrayed no emotion. “Very well, Majesty.”
“Good. General Hev, I do not wish to be joined with you. You know this.”
“There are few things that are more apparent. Majesty.”
“I could choose to honour my father’s wishes. But I would frustrate the rest of your existence. You would wish to cease to exist. I am Saeci.”
The first hint of emotion showed on his face. His jaw worked. “YouareSaeci.”
“You know about the Iridescence problem.”
His face was blank.
Saeci rolled her eyes. “This is not a diplomatic meeting, General Hev. We must be honest with ourselves and with each other.”
“What about the Iridescence problem?”
“You must find a way to solve it.”
He arched his eyebrow. “Me?”
“Yes. You pride yourself on being brave and strong. I would like to assume that you are wise as well.”
“The Eternal King is wise.”
There were two possible interpretations to this. The first was that, in true Celeste fashion, he was expressing modesty by deferring to her father. The second was that he was stating that if her father, in all his wisdom, could not solve the problem, how could she expect him to?
His expression was inscrutable. Saeci decided to take the first interpretation. “If you solve the Iridescence problem, I may be favourably disposed to a compromise in our relationship.”
“’May’?”
“May.”
“What sort of compromise?”
“Companionship.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“I would be more than happy to enlighten you. It means that you shall be a consort, of sorts.”
He did not like that word, she could see. His gaze was cold. “I will not be a servant.”
“Was your mother a servant?”
His eyes burned now. It filled Saeci with some sort of feral excitement.
“Do not speak of my mother.”
“A goddess cannot be dictated to.” Saeci stood up and sashayed to him. “I know that you wish you could thrust me through with that…spear of yours,” she whispered, her index finger on the tip of the spear that he held. The finger made slow, circular motions. General Hev’s nostrils flared, and Saeci smiled. “But there are worse things than this arrangement, don’t you agree? This way, you can prove yourself worthy.”
“My abilities have never been questioned.”
“Says the general that has never been to war.”
That hung between them. General Hev’s eyes grew cold again. “In the true sense, my mother was a servant. As is-”
“Pick your next words very, very carefully.”
He fell silent.
“I cannot lie with anyone I consider a servant, General Hev. If that puts you at ease.”
He cleared his throat. “I shall think about it and give you my answer as soon as I am able, Majesty.”
“Do not think too long. A goddess has several options.” She nodded him away. “You may go.”
