People like to believe the Secretary General surrendered because the Muharej threatened the population. After all the Great Secret Keeper had done in Asia, people were expecting genocide.
Almost immediately after the rain moon appeared, the Pandef Tower was bombed. Four times in an hour. But Pandef was known for its fury and resilience, it was designed to fight fragments. Within hours they regrouped and in a collaborative effort with UN Peacekeepers attempted to take UN Headquarters back from Iconoclast. They were slaughtered, the rest fled. It proved what the world had always known, there was no opposing fragments. If fragments around the world answered Iconoclast’s call to arms, it really was the end. There were rumours that Pandef’s Super Black themselves stepped forward to stop Muharej but were defeated by Iconoclast herself. Other rumours said the members of Super Black were called back to their home countries by their governments to prepare for imminent attack, that certain countries knew the Muharej was coming to Polis, but abandoned us. But Pandef being Pandef, would continue to assault the UN building for days, turning central Polis Earth into a warzone. And still people flew kites and hoped beyond hope and prayed beyond prayer, that their last hope would answer them. But she was nowhere to be found.
People held marches by candlelight, just so she would hear them. Governments around the world sent out broadcasts, appealing for her to help. Children wrote letters and sent them off in the night, onto lanterns which glide across the star-bursting lakes of Koro de la Galaksio. And they do what the stories promised made her hear them, they lit candles and they spoke to the flames. If only they knew what their prayers did to her. All their hope was met with silence. She was gone, just like those who came before her, just like Orion. So there was no one to stop Iconoclast when she sent three fragments and a battalion of fighters to do the unthinkable and capture Koro. It had been days since the rain moon appeared and so days since the anniversary, but in the face of the crisis, people didn’t stop celebrating, and the anniversary of Amazing continued, Koro continued to be full, not just to celebrate Amazing, but to call the guardian, to hope that she would answer their call. They had no idea, that the more they called her, the less she was likely to come. But the Muharej heard them and did what no one in the history of humanity had ever, crossed the line no terrorist, tyrant, fanatic or hate criminal had ever done before. Iconoclast targeted our faiths, our cultures just she like she swore she would. All of them.
She took the Muharej in a new direction, she would wipe out what we held sacred, creating Rain Earth from scratch. If Polis Earth was the one place on Earth that was supposed to be safe, Koro de la Galaksio was a big part of why. Because it was sacred. Polis Earth promised people of all faiths and cultures that they could practise and share and raise their children without persecution or hate, the promise of Koro de la Galaksio, the heart of the galaxy in Esparanto, the language of hope.
Hindus who spoke of a universe that was good and just, Atheists who loved life and the world, Muslims- Sunni, Shiah, Alawaite, Sufi and beyond who spoke of kindness and education and charity, Buddhists- Theravada and Mahayana and beyond who spoke of compassion and believed everyone could grow and give, Christians who spoke of mercy and believed no one was ever alone, Jews who dreamt and loved and celebrated life, Sikhs who valued the sanctity of all things, people of indigenous faiths - Native Americans who spoke of a sacred Earth, Aboriginal Oceanans whose dreams leaked into the waking world, Quakers who spoke of peace and that life was worth living, people of the Baha’i faith who saw love in every waking thing and promised we were all one in our diversity, Shinto practitioners who spoke of a living, waking world, Janists who spoke of humility and strength in goodness and so many more, the Zoroastrianists who believed in the warmth of light and the Yazidis who spoke of a beautiful world, those who followed the Dao or were of Tao, those who brought their spirits from the Pacific and their Asharians from the north, Rastafa in the south and further, as far as the streams go and beyond, beyond terms that could be listed or words that could be gathered. Together they practised and lived and woke and brought with them more than their theology, they brought their colours and celebrations, they brought their food and words and worlds. If songfire, if the streams of life began somewhere then it began there, in the soul of Polis,
in the heart of the galaxy. Where colours spun and burned iridescent and infinite, in a thousand million ways to be and think and feel and love . A thousand million ways which proved life was full of possibility, it was our everything.
Koro was sacred to everyone, the islands helped create a new a paradigm, that spirituality was exploration and pursuit, it was an entrance into science and advancement. Research centres and think tanks, foundations, the world’s largest libraries, rivalled only by Alexandria in the First Country were all established whilst machinists installed workshops there to study the life streams. The University of Frontier Studies was established in the heart of the galaxy, pioneering astronomy, medicine, environmental and cultural studies. Koro bustled with markets, most notably the Suq Alnujum, the Market by Starlight. And at the centre of Koro was the Natcattira Temple, named after Deepak, it was a place for all people of all faiths to worship, particularly during the anniversary when a lot of the religious buildings would become too crowded. But that anniversary, as the wars started, people held on to hope and Natcattira didn’t empty and Koro stayed bustling, bursting at the seams. Iconoclast was counting on it.
Pandef and the Peacekeepers couldn’t stop her, not when she began the offensive. The hundreds of people in Koro became hostages and the Muharej made no demands, only that they would begin killing people in three days. Murdering them there, in their most sacred of places. She was going to take Koro, the world’s heart from it. Put out the light The world rushed to seek some kind of resolution with Iconoclast. But there was nothing they could say to her, Pandef fought fiercely, but they couldn’t get close, one of the fragments Icon had sent made that impossible.
The islands of Koro shook and quaked and chimed in awesome symphony as they rose, they rose, exploded from the water and rippled, cascaded into the air, creating pillars of ocean which refracted and reflected the colours of the sun, the stars and the rain moon, creating rainbow bridges into the sky, skyrocketing out of the Great Lakes, suspending them in the empyrean, connecting them by a network of sky rivers which shone with the imprint of twilight like stained glass. The rush of the rainbow pillars and stained glass roads sirened with the wind and light and echoed like bells. It was wondrous. People thought of Deepak. It was terrifying. They remembered Julian. It was the first public display of fragment powers since the Four Shards warred, excluding the works of the guardian. It was a show of power by the insurgents.
People prayed harder, they called the guardian, they screamed and begged on the street, but the scarlet sprinter, the maiden of revolution did not come. On the second day, a man set himself on fire. His children were on Koro when Muharej attacked, his family said he often talked about the guardian, that somehow, he would make her act, she had to save his children, she had to. Still.
Only silence met their songs and cries. And came the final hour of the last night, only an hour before midnight. The rain moon, the great ghost shone infernal.
Someone was playing a rock song by Origa of Chandrama. It was late, but the people of Polis Earth celebrated life deep into the night. They were in the middle of war, but the people of the Deepa Wali saw living as their greatest defiance. The copper-bronze young woman who didn’t believe in God liked being around it all, no matter what it did to her. But she was tired, she was so tired. She couldn’t answer any more of their wishes, bear any more of their hearts. She was just one person, she didn’t want to die, she wanted to live, even if she didn’t have much time left. She wanted to read comics and eat ice cream, walk ankle-deep in the sea and be left alone. She was in love now, didn’t that mean she was a person too, that she had the right to live too? She’d do anything to be left alone, finally be left alone. Even if it all disappeared, even if Iconoclast destroyed everything, so what, why was it her responsibility, she couldn’t defeat the Muharej anyway, she’d already lost to
the Great Secret Keeper, she couldn’t beat him, so what difference would it make if she fought the Raindance. No more fighting, no more pain. If she couldn’t block out the noise, if she couldn’t protect her own heart and mind, she didn’t have to give them her body too. These people who hated and fought and expected her to come to fix their mistakes. So what if someone set themselves on fire, she felt his pain as he did, wasn’t that enough? She blamed Deepak and Orion for leaving, for disappearing and forcing her to become the guardian, forcing her to become some hero all alone.
She never asked for this, she never asked to be the guardian, to have all her power, for flowers to stalk her wherever she went. How she hated those flowers. How she hated the lights. Then why, why was she standing there, standing on the iridescent water of the Great Lakes, looking up at the ocean pillars and bridges filled with racing stars which suspended and connected the heart of the galaxy, Koro de la Galaksio. Why. Why. Why was she there. Because the night air smelt of camellias.
- Seeking Scarlet is part of a universe of art, to support and see more stories, comics and animations, visit http://patreon.com/heistores -
Comments (0)
See all