From Mystic, a Serial Broadcast of Rycoia
“What are you doing?” Keltar asks, his hands clasped together against his chest as though the gesture guards him from the blasphemy he witnesses. “Why are you disturbing Mystic Ogeran’s shine?”
Wasibeth freezes in her position as though holding as still as possible will make her disappear and Keltar will have to chalk it all up to his eyes playing tricks on him. But Wasibeth doesn’t disappear and Keltar sees her, and he allows the silence between them to hang in the darkness of the park of monuments to the honored dead of Rycoia that is dimly lit by posts of light.
Wasibeth turns slowly and stands erect before Keltar.
“You were trying to steal the purple mysticisms, weren’t you?!” Keltar yells like he means the words to do physical harm to Wasibeth. “You think that you can wield the power that the Mystic Ogeran wielded? You think that you can channel the unbridled power of his mysticisms without burning yourself out?”
“I was just taking a closer look at them…” Wasibeth starts but Keltar interrupts sharply.
“You were being dumb! You are skilled at the mystic arts, Wasibeth, you are a natural, but you think too much of yourself to come out here with the moons full overhead, leaning your face into those flowers that have been in bloom since Ogeran first transplanted them to that location from the tree where they initially bloomed. The magic is awesome, it can easily overwhelm a weak vessel to unleash the awful power of the mysticisms that was tamed into the flowers long ago by the eight, may they ever be named.”
“Afare, Domari, Getyo, Ilas, Kaer, Praxtl, Rybol, Valinar,” Wasibeth rattles the names off quickly.
“Maybe the power of the mysticisms is your fate, but the time for it is not now,” Keltar continues. “Do not let your curiosity consume you, it could be the death of us all. Now come, it is time for supper.”
Wasibeth nods reverentially, to demonstrate her understanding of all Keltar has said to her. She respects his authority as an elder student who also taught lessons to younger recruits to the Mystics of Fytor compound that was unimpressive to the average citizens of Rycoia, in accordance with the vow of poverty that mystics took when they joined the ranks. She looked back at Ogeran’s shrine, at the mysticisms in a big clay vase on a pedestal, before a large pane of stained glass that depicted the Mystic Ogeran surrounded by the purple mysticisms in the scene. The eight purple mysticisms that had been in bloom for many centuries glow intensely, casting a light on the stained glass that makes it glow in the night. Wasibeth would return, she would wait until Keltar forgot all about this night and return to see the flowers close up, to see if they would choose her as their vessel because she knew that she was destined for their power and she would use it take her place among the Mystics of Fytor.
A year later…
“Do you ever sleep?” Elior asks as he enters the apartment he shares with Wasibeth.
Wasibeth is at the dining room table that is covered in open books, loose papers scribbled with words and drawings.
When she doesn’t answer, Elior walks to stand next to her chair and he is about to say something else to her, but then he sees the drawings. There are many drawings of the purple Mysticisms, some of the faces of the Mystic Ogeran and the eight.
“The legend says that the Mysticisms house a great evil that was banished by the eight,” Wasibeth explains, occasionally looking up at Elior with unblinking eyes. She is glad when he sits. “But no legend, no book identifies the great evil.”
“Why are you obsessed with this?’ Elior asks with concern.
“Since I arrived here at the compound, I have heard something calling to me,” Wasibeth says with a look in her eyes that makes Elior feel sad, like she is on the verge of tears that she is losing the will to keep at bay. “It’s not usually possible to hear it, but when I sleep or even if I’m sitting quietly, I can always hear it and I assumed that it was something very far away that had nothing to do with me. I followed it one night, expecting the call to get louder as I approached it, but it didn’t really and by the time I was about to give it all up as just a figment of my imagination, I was near the shrine of Ogeran and I noticed the glowing Mysticisms. They are impossible to resist under the moons. When the sun has set on Rycoia, their glow is intoxicating once you notice it and really look into the violet. I realized it was the Mysticisms calling to me and the collective sound of them was weak despite the strength of the glow. I couldn’t understand exactly what they were trying to say, but they seemed to know my name and they spoke a language that I didn’t know.”
Elior shakes his head and sighs audibly. “I have never heard of anything like this. Granted, I am just a student, but I have been here longer than you and in all my time, no one has ever heard a sound from the mysticisms and as far as I know there is no record of that in our history.”
“As far as you know. I said the same thing,” Wasibeth agrees, “which is why I’ve been looking so obsessively. If anyone has ever documented something like this, then maybe it is real and I can translate what they are saying. But if no one has, then I will accept my delusion and seek help.”
Elior understands and he grabs one of the ancient tomes from the annals of the Mystics on the table and starts to skim through it.
Elior wakes the next morning with his face on a closed book and Wasibeth scribbling onto sheets of paper.
“Did you sleep?” he asks and stands to stretch. Elior is muscular for a mystic, but he is a member of a younger generation that is more active than the older Mystics of Fytor who had been active in their youth, but had become more meditative in their older age. The middle-aged students and mystics of the compound generally stayed at the compound caring for the needs of the elder mystics, and Elior and Wasibeth’s generation left the compound everyday to help others with their magic. They always left on foot and they braved rough terrain over Rycoia, from the mountains to the seas, sometimes on journeys that lasted for months before returning to the compound to share their experiences with their elders with the hope of advancing and being bestowed with more secrets of the mystic order.
“A little, but I may have found something,” Wasibeth says. Her eyes are bloodshot and it is obvious against the dark complexion of her face. “Eight names, the ones that the eight banished…”
Elior stands so fast that his chair falls over behind him. “You found their names? I thought they were never written down. You have to burn whatever book printed them.”
“I didn’t find the names in any book, but this one describes them so that if future generations encounter them, they might know what they are hearing. And I realize that the language the Mysticism are speaking isn’t a language, but names. Eight names.”
Elior backs away from Wasibeth with every word she utters and by the time she is done, he is ready to leave the apartment altogether.
“You have the names of the Ajogun in your mind and that alone is enough to bring dark clouds over you. I am sorry Wasibeth, I cannot be here any longer and you must seek the counsel of a mystic immediately. I will give word to the elders to expect you. May the sun rise on the darkness that is gathering, Wasibeth.”
With that, Elior leaves, moving quickly out of the door, leaving Wasibeth alone feeling very troubled.
“Is there any truth to these dramas,” Wielar asked Lorv as they sat watching the serial on a large screen in the bedroom the two shared. The nighttime cycle had started and the inner screens of the ship’s outshell broadcast a realistic twilight. They were fully clothed in the bed, they each had places to be on Top, functions of the ship to oversee and sign-off on, but they made the time to watch serials together because they both worked very hard and deserved a break every once and a while. Because they lived on Top, it was hard to create a healthy work-life balance, but even if they did sometimes work hours on end, they made it a point to meet regularly to spend time together.
“They’re dramatizing the history of Rycoia usually,” Lorv answered. “Like, there really was a Wasibeth who was the last mystic to claim a connection to the mysticisms, though she lived long ago and there is no way to be sure if she had these conversations. But she did almost release the Ajogun from the mysticisms.”
“The Ajogun are the death gods of Rycoia, right?”
Lorv lifted her brow and her eyes widened, like she knew something that she would not share even with her companion, Wielar. “Yeah, something like that.”
“What does that mean?” Wielar asked, having noticed the look on her face. “Why are you always so cagey about Rycoia? You never talk about your time with the Mystics.”
“I told you I was sworn to secrecy,” Lorv said, never taking her eyes from the serial on the screen, hoping Wielar would lose interest in their conversation and go back to the show. But he did not.
“You tell me everything, though,” Wielar said, not really angry, but genuinely curious. “You told me about the disease that king contracted on that obscure planet that was really religious. No one knows how he actually died but you and me. Everyone else believes he died of shock at the loss of his spouse.”
“This is different,” Lorv tried to explain without actually explaining. “For all intents and purposes, I am a Mystic of Fytor. That doesn’t require me to pledge fealty to Fytor or Rycoia, I am loyal to my sisters, to you, to the Fonlands, and Endla. If the things I keep from you somehow threatened those things, I would definitely tell you. But it isn’t a matter of life and death. I keep my vow of secrecy as a show of confidence to the Mystics. The secret, I will tell you, isn’t really important to anything, unless things somehow go horribly wrong, which I can’t foresee happening.”
Wielar looked at Lorv through scant eyes. “Now I will insist that you tell me,” he said after a moment. “If you don’t, we will never be intimate again.”
Lorv looked at him pointedly. The last time he threatened that, he made good on his word for much longer than she imagined he would and it was very unpleasant for her. She liked the warmth of him next to her.
“The Ajogun are from the Fonlands,” she blurted out like she feared physical retribution for holding out any longer.
“That can’t be,” Wielar said. “Rycoia never made contact with the Fonlands before you arrived.”
“Most Rycoians don’t realize the Ajogun that the eight, may they ever be named, faced were actually from the Disc of Lêgba. They had a hand in the creation of the Death Witch Coven, gave Quietus and Detritus the knowledge they needed, and did a lot of other things that made the Vodun angry. They were banished from the Fonlands long ago, not on purpose, the Vodun meant to kill them, but somehow they ended up on ancient Rycoia to eventually be trapped in the mysticisms by the eight. That’s why they glow purple, they contain immense Death Magic that is not easily unleashed. Though Wasibeth gave it her best effort.”
“Why is this a secret?”
“Because, like I said, it’s about the confidence of the Mystics, we share secret knowledge that doesn’t really impact anything to know, and it maintains the story that Pultine was the first Fonlander in this realm which adds to her legacy.”
Wielar shrugged and turned his attention back to the show. “Yeah, I’m sorry I made you tell me. Turns out, I really don’t care.”
Lorv was annoyed. Wielar would never tell anyone, none of the Mystics of Fytor would ever know that she had told the closely guarded secrets of their order, but she would always know.
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