Four Firsts remain, and with high-purple words, they call out, “Leave our sister alone.”
An ordinary day has become remarkably strange.
The First talk among themselves with touches and small scents, hiding their thoughts from everyone, including their oldest, most trustworthy children.
Secrecy is rare among the coronas, and unsettling.
But more urgent is the old female flying in that savage realm. Monsters rule that other world. Some monsters are tiny, clinging to the pale cold forests and scampering along the ring-shaped reef. Others are enormous—roaring machines built from corona flesh and corona bones, each buoyed up with gas bags and pushed forwards by little, oxygen-starved fires. The little tree monsters ride the huge gas machines. Which monster is in charge, the tiny or the vast, is a matter of some debate. But machine and flesh work together, killing coronas so their bodies can be sliced into little pieces that they will stitch together and fuse together to make new machines—a state of affairs that has existed forever, nearly.
That second world is thoroughly, appallingly mad.
There is no doubt in that pronouncement.
Yet the cold has value. Cross into that thin, nearly useless air. Let frigid winds flow past blood and furious hearts. Even a giant body like the First’s cools rapidly. Muscles slow and thoughts slow, and the wandering corona passes into near-hibernation, time stretching out and out until each moment feels endless.
There is peace to be found inside that horrible second world. Clarity can arrive before the monsters, and most of the coronas survive the journey, the strong and worthy almost always spared.
A good chill strengthens the good soul, it is said.
Fly beyond the shimmering barrier, and the true world goes on living without you. The furious hot haste of jungle and words pass unnoticed. More than not, the pilgrim returns home energized, refreshed, more capable and self-assured. Some claim that the emptiness is a spiritual sanctuary—a place to be tested by solitude and monsters. But the old ones, particularly the Firsts, maintain that every place is a sanctuary. The monster realm mirrors some lost Creation, nothing more. On rare occasions, the Firsts describe days when both worlds were young and the coronas flew higher than anyone flies now. Back then, curious heads led the bodies up into that slow-growing forest, and they peered into the darkest reaches, and they ate creatures of every sort, just to know the taste of alien bones.
In those times, no monster dared battle against the coronas, much less abuse their glorious bodies. That second world was theirs too, and the little red-blooded beasts could do nothing but cower in the high branches or scramble into the sharp crannies of a younger, much smaller reef.
The Creation used to be a better, richer place.
The Firsts claim so, and perhaps they believe what they say. But the Firsts are subject to many beliefs, and they refuse to speak about times and realms from before the Creation.
The youngsters talk about every subject, and they watch the ancient female fly and glide through air that she hasn’t tasted for a very long while.
Her body emits a weak golden light that normally means, “Help.”
Against orders, several foolish bodies drag their souls through the barrier.
She tells them to leave her.
“You’re asking for help,” they point out. “We are helping.”
“You don’t understand,” she warns. “The ‘help’ is not for me.”
Baffled but compliant, they carry away their embarrassment.
Various monsters approach, mechanical and meat, but these enemies are still distant when the exhausted First returns to the true world.
“Not now,” she says. “The proper moment still comes.”
“Proper for what?” the youngest ask.
“Be quiet, and feed me.”
The First among Firsts is bizarre and possibly insane, but they feed her the best meats, the richest treats, and several mature coronas guide her to a quiet eddy where the wind won’t reach her, where she can float and sleep. Old flesh needs long rest, and meanwhile the coronas finish their work, cultivating the day’s jungle. Only then can they can return to their homes, relishing the purpose and beauty that flows through each of them.
The sun is hidden behind jungle.
Night reigns, and as always, a portion of the corona pretend to be tiny furious fires churning in the holy void, and after a healthy time, night draws the next day into existence
The coronas do their work again. The jungle grows and every mouth is fed, and each day ends with them filling their homes with confidence, tending to private needs and private pleasures before passing into states that are not quite sleep.
Day and night, everyone talks about the ancient creature and what she wanted in the other world.
Bold voices find bold answers.
“She has decided to punish the monsters,” they say. “One final battle for the flesh.”
No other explanation seems likely for that kind of soul.
Twenty-nine is a blessed number. One third is a lovely partial number. Twenty-nine and a third days pass, and she is half-strong again. And again, she pierces the shimmering barrier, emerging at the Creation’s center, working furiously to fly in a great slow circle. The monsters notice but they are too slow. Exhausted, she falls back through the barrier, and she eats again and rests, saying nothing about her mind or this crazed adventure. And the other Firsts never offer opinions about what their sister wishes. They want her left alone, and they talk quite a lot to one another, but always with private voices, wearing concern on their ancient bodies while they tell their scions to mind the jungles, to care for their own souls.
There is a third voyage and then a fourth. The old female leaves at night and each is uneventful. But she has established a ritual that even stupid creatures can understand. The final journey is buoyed up by sunlight. She emerges to be met by a great flight of monsters. The coronas drifting below count the approaching machines and the little beasts riding inside the machines. Never has the enemy been so numerous, so close. Young voices and harsh voices renew the arguments about what the First of Firsts wants, and more to the point, what she deserves. Plainly, everyone should follow her. The monsters are sick with urgency, racing to catch her and butcher her, and this is a rare rich chance for the good world to rise in force, destroying every machine and a small, critical portion of the tree beasts.
But that is not the coronas’ way, of course.
The elders firmly remind everyone that they are tenaciously peaceful. Their power and speed are not attached to any rage. But talk doesn’t stop the more belligerent souls. Calming scents are more effective, but even then not enough. The most violent coronas gather near the barrier, waiting just out of sight, each spotting the machine that he or she will kill first, and in their minds, in secret, they see themselves bathed in the searing white light that the coronas like to aim at their heroes.
A thousand young coronas make a momentous decision:
If the old female fights, they will fight too.
That is the honorable way.
But when the monsters arrive, not even one of her heads snaps against them. With bladders swollen and empty, she remains in one place, inviting them to pierce her with spears and explosives. Then the monsters grab her limp form with bags of gas—bags made from the bladders of her own scions. Every corona watches the murder. Then the monsters drag the dead gray flesh to the emptiest piece of reef. An ugly night arrives, and a few coronas sneak into the other world, watching knives hack the body to pieces and then toss the pieces aside. The First’s glorious parts, too old to be given an age, are also too old to be used for even the ugliest purpose.
The waste is astonishing. What more proof is needed that the other world is ruled by insanity?
That wicked night is crossed at last, and other days and nights follow in turn. Another First is judged to be the eldest now. He is more male than female, and he might well be the same remarkable age. But his voice has never seemed as wise as the one who is lost, and where she was dramatic, he holds a duller kind of soul.