📖 The Celestial Codex (4/7) 📖
The Rite
Leona had not returned by the time the raven-haired princess arrived.
Alyse entered the room, cautiously.
"My queen?" she asked, kneeling before her grandmother.
"Quickly," the queen said. "While I can still think. I'm very sorry to do this, my darling granddaughter, but you now must bear the burden. I must pass it on to you."
"If you think I am worthy, I will gladly shoulder any burden you ask of me," the princess said.
"You may not think so once you understand," the queen said to her, smiling sweetly.
Then, she turned to Moses.
“Take this down. It must be exact.”
He crossed quickly to the desk and dipped his quill, already sensing that the ink would flow without resistance.
“Alyse,” the queen said, reaching out and taking her granddaughter’s hand in her own. “Child of my son. Blood of my blood. The line is not broken, though time has tried.”
Alyse’s eyes widened. “Grandmother?”
“There is no more time for tears,” the queen said. “You must listen. You must receive.”
She looked to Moses.
“The ink is awake. Write.”
He dipped the quill.
“The essence of the Codex is not bound in ink, nor word, nor page. It is memory. It is melody. It is will woven into meaning. It cannot die, but it can be forgotten. And when it is forgotten, the world loses shape.”
Alyse’s lips parted as if to speak, but she held her tongue.
“I have kept it hidden. Within me. In fragments. In dreams. In mutterings that seemed like madness. But it is not madness. It is the remainder. And it must be passed.”
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and began to chant—not in rhyme, but in tones: syllables that rang low in the air, too old to be translated, too solemn to be mistaken.
Moses’ hand trembled as he wrote. He did not know the meaning, but the ink responded, shimmering with each stroke.
The queen placed her other hand gently on Alyse’s forehead.
“You must remember, child,” she whispered. “You must remember the names that were never spoken aloud. You must remember the star beneath the sea. You must—”
Her voice hitched.
She blinked. Her hand dropped from Alyse’s brow. She looked around the room, confused.
“Mabel?” she called softly. “Have the apricots come in yet? I was promised apricots…”
Alyse inhaled sharply. “No—wait—please—”
The queen turned her gaze to her. Her eyes were clouded again.
“Who are you?” she asked, gently now, as if embarrassed. “You look so much like someone I once loved.”
“I am Alyse,” the princess said, her voice breaking. “You were giving me something… something sacred. But I don’t even know what it was. I don’t know what I was meant to carry.”
The queen smiled faintly. “Child, don’t speak nonsense. Go on now. Let an old woman rest.”
Alyse dropped her hands and looked at them, recognizing that she had lost something, but uncertain what it was. She looked back up at her grandmother who now paid her no notice.
Moses sat frozen, his hand still on the page. The ink had stopped flowing. The last character he had written was unfinished—cut off at the curve.
Leona entered a moment later, surprisingly breathless.
“She slipped again,” Moses said.
Alyse stood very still.
“She was awake,” she whispered. “Really awake. And I felt… something. I don’t know how to describe it.”
The queen’s head had bowed forward slightly. She was asleep, or something close to it.
Alyse looked down at her hands, where a faint warmth lingered, as if a distant chord had just ceased vibrating.
“Will she try again?” Alyse asked.
"I don't know," Moses said.
Leona said nothing.
"Come and get me, at once, if she asks for me," Alyse said.
"Yes, your highness," Leona said.
The way she said it gave Moses pause. The princess' chambers were not far from the queen's. Why had it taken Leona so long to retrieve her before? Why did it seem like Leona would only hesitatingly get the princess? Did she know something about the rite?
Later that day, after a long silence and a fitful rest, the queen seemed herself again. Her voice had steadied, her gaze focused, and though the weight of her memories still clouded her brow, she spoke not in riddles but in history.
"You needn't write this down," Leona said.
"But I can, per the queen's order," he replied, dismissively.
"What order?"
He showed her where he had paraphrased the queen's permission. Her eyes narrowed upon reading it, but she said nothing else about it.
The queen spoke more of the cosmos.
"Epherion," she said, "is a star. When Epherion is given personhood by some worshipers, he is known as the god of fire, the god of light, the god of gold, and the god of purity, and sometimes the god of law and order. When he rises each day, even Ashira and Isen bow before him as his brilliance outshines them (although they are still there–just dimmer than Epherion and very hard to see except some early mornings and late afternoons)."
"Fascinating," Moses muttered as he wrote her words.
“Write this, Moses," she said. "Write it down. Every word. Don’t lose the shape of it.”
He nodded and dipped his pen.
"Ashira and Isen were the First Children of Terra, born before the rivers, before the roots, before we had words for love or war. Whether they are siblings or lovers depends on the tale and the tongue telling it. I have heard both, and I have found truth in each."
Moses glanced up at her as she paused, sipping cool tea.
Then she continued.
"Ashira is the closer of the two—brighter to the eye, softer to the soul. She rises in the East with grace, and we drink to her. And when she vanishes in the West, the faithful gather before the dawn. We call that time the Moment of Mourning. There is wine, yes, but also tears. Ashira is the goddess of beauty, of stars, of the music that comes after speech."
"What about Isen?" Moses asked, prompting her.
"Isen follows her, always a step behind, always colder. His light lingers longer in the morning sky, as if reluctant to leave. He is the god of weather and the seas. Distant, yes, but not cruel. He gives us the tides. He gives us storms, too—but storms are not punishment. They are memory in motion."
"What kind of memories make storms?" Moses asked, his hand resting on the parchment.
"Sorrow," the queen said.
"Sorrow?"
"Every three years, Ashira passes before Isen—the Occlusion. Three nights, and he is gone. His followers feel it first. Their rites fall silent. They say he leaves this plane, and perhaps he does. I once asked the high priest if that was true. He wept and said nothing, which is how you know the answer is yes."
"I have not heard this story before," Moses said in awe.
The queen smiled.
"There are those who scoff at such tales. Let them. They say moons do not love. They say moons do not mourn. But what do they know of silence, or of waiting? Ashira waits each day to rise again. Isen waits each night to be seen. And I—well, I have waited a lifetime to speak these words aloud. We are all Children of Terra, but Ashira and Isen—they were her first."
"A tragic tale," Moses said.
He dropped his quill and stretched his fingers, bending them backwards with his other hand. He looked around and realized that Leona was absent.
"Your hand is tired?"
"Just a slight cramp, but I can keep going."
"It's okay, you don't need to write this. Ashira was the first scribe. Did you know that?"
"You've said things before that made me feel that way, majesty."
"She wrote the first book—the Celestial Codex—the song of creation. She wrote it to keep the words sacred, as a historian might. But what she did was create magic. The Celestial Codex was the source of all magic in the world, and it was kept right here in Garreval since the beginning of time."
"Where is it kept?"
"It is gone," she said, almost sadly.
"Gone, how?"
"My ancestor took it out of the world."
"You said that before, majesty. But you didn't say how."
"The mages had become too powerful and meant to overthrow him," she said. "He was a devout worshipper of Ashira, its author. And he begged her to save his kingdom. They struck a bargain."
"Who, my queen?"
"My ancestor and the goddess."
"Your ancestor struck a bargain with the goddess? Truly?"
The queen gave a slow nod, her expression distant.
“Truly,” she whispered. “In those days, gods still answered. Not always with thunder or visions, but with quiet bargains made beneath temple stones. My ancestor—King Halveth the Fourth, though they called him the Silent—was not a sorcerer. He was a scholar. A scribe. And he feared what the mages had become.”
Moses leaned forward slightly. “What had they become?”
“More than men. Less than gods. They built towers taller than the stars dared rise. They tried to unweave death, to undo grief. Some succeeded—for a time. But the cost… oh, the cost.”
She rubbed her temple as if remembering made her weary.
“Halveth prayed to Ashira for deliverance—not war. Not blood. Just silence. Just forgetting. And she answered him.”
“How?”
“She came in the hour between night and dawn. The Moment of Mourning, they say. And she told him the Codex could not be destroyed—but it could be removed. Hidden in one who would never wield it. Guarded by flesh, not stone.”
“Removed from the world?” Moses echoed.
“Yes. Sealed inside a living soul. Passed down through blood, never opened. Never read. Not until the world was ready. And I—”
Moses stared. “Yes?”
She opened her eyes wide.
"I have a granddaughter, don't I?" she asked.
"Yes, my queen."
"I must see her right away."
"At once, my queen. I will fetch her," Moses said.
It took less than a minute to reach Alyse' quarters. He knocked on the door immediately.
Alyse opened the door with surprise. “Again?” she asked, but there was no hesitation this time.
"Begging your pardon, your highness. The queen asks for you, and—"
She flung open the door and followed him back to the queen's working chamber.
The queen raised her head as they rushed in.
"Alric?" she asked. "You promised me apricots."
And just like that, she was lost in time again.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.
I loved the poetry in this prose. The way the codex is described is great. Like the line "It cannot die, but it can be forgotten. And when it is forgotten, the world loses shape." really struck me.
I think the tension between what Leona wants to keep hidden vs Alyse and the narrator are trying to uncover is good.
(Obvious to me at this point that the Queen is the magic that was hidden from the world - but I could be mistaken).
Unto the next part ;)