said, ‘You believe it to be the Fourth Circle. A battle of consequence was fought here in ages past.’ He waved a hand lazily at the sky. ‘This is the consequence.’
‘Nothing is left?’
Piper smiled and in the magical corona surrounding Miranda, she couldn’t tell if he was being ironic or sad when he said, ‘There’s a great deal left, but it’s just been ground down to a fine powder in most places.’
‘Why am I here?’ she turned to ask, but Piper was gone. In his place stood a young woman with ebony skin, eyes of piercing black, hair tightly gathered in rows that flowed down her neck to her shoulders. She wore a similar costume, but of red and beige rather than green and yellow. ‘Where’s Piper?’ asked Miranda.
‘I am Piper,’ said the young woman in a voice as melodic as one could imagine. She picked up the exact same pipe Miranda had seen before and blew the same annoying melody.
In the span of two lifetimes, one as a human and the other as a demon, the merged being of Child and Miranda had seen many things, shape-changing and conjured illusions being among them, but there was something different about this creature. ‘You change your body at will?’
‘Yes, don’t you?’
‘Not lately,’ said Miranda, deciding to ignore the body shift. She remembered something Pug had said about one of Kalkin’s visions. Suddenly she realized she didn’t know if it was something he had said to her on Sorcerer’s Island as Miranda, or something since Child had come to this world with Miranda’s memories. ‘I’m losing one of my selves, aren’t I?’
Piper shrugged. ‘I don’t know about such things. I only know what I know.’
Miranda was intrigued by that statement. ‘Isn’t that true of everyone?’
Piper smiled, her teeth brilliant against her dark skin. ‘Some people know things they don’t know they know. But I only know what I need to know. I was formed for a task, nothing more.’
‘Formed?’
‘I was of the Bliss, at one with the Source, and now I am here with you to provide what you need.’
Miranda saw something behind Piper’s shoulder and said, ‘What is that?’
Piper turned and saw a speck of light. ‘An energy adjustment.’
Suddenly the pinpoint of light blossomed into a cascade of sparkling lights that rapidly blinked out of existence. ‘Despite seeming empty from your perspective, there’s a lot going on here,’ observed Piper. ‘The Fourth Circle is contracting. In … time is a difficult concept … some years, many years, few …? In some amount of time the Fourth Circle will be gone.’
‘One of the Circles will be gone?’ Miranda thought of the ever-expanding void in the centre of the Fifth Circle and asked, ‘Will the Fifth Circle vanish?’
‘I do not know,’ answered Piper.
‘What am I doing here?’ asked Miranda.
‘That I know,’ said Piper. She pointed behind Miranda. ‘Look!’
Miranda turned and where a void had been moments before, a panorama of a massive arc of heaven stood revealed, as if some incredibly large curtain had been drawn aside. A vista of stars was visible and for a brief moment Miranda had a touch of vertigo as the sun rose above it and moved at noticeable speed.
‘This was once a place like those to which you’ve travelled, realms of countless worlds, stars, comets, planets teeming with life,’ said Piper, and hearing a new voice, Miranda turned to discover Piper had changed bodies again. A tall, handsome man of middle years, with a neatly trimmed beard just lightly shot through with grey stood wearing a similar outfit as the last two incarnations had, but this one was in a sable black that looked like velvet, trimmed with gold lamé. ‘Will you stop that?’ said Miranda.
‘Why?’ answered Piper in a deep, melodious voice. ‘Bodies are fun.’
‘You never had one before?’
‘I may have, but I don’t remember. We who are spun out of the Bliss know only what we need to know; whatever pasts we may have experienced are part of the Unity with the One.’ He shrugged and grinned. ‘Makes everything new.’
‘Wonderful,’ muttered Miranda. ‘The gods send out curious toddlers to save the universe.’
‘Watch and learn,’ said Piper.
A massive storm of energies erupted across the panorama before Miranda, and Piper said, ‘The Sundering.’
‘What is it?’
‘When the heavens and hells split. Behold the demon host.’
A swarm of creatures flew out of the rip in space and Miranda’s eyes widened. Instead of the seemingly endless variety of shapes of horror Child had known since her birth, this was an army of incredible beings, roughly human in form and beautiful in a way she could barely comprehend. There was not the slightest resemblance between what she knew from her short tenure in the Fifth Circle and what she now observed.
Soon another figure emerged, a being so brilliant she could barely look at it. ‘Who is that?’ she asked.
‘Hell’s first king,’ answered Piper and she saw he had reverted to the form she had first seen, the youth in the green-and-yellow garb.
‘He … is beautiful.’ Both Child and Miranda found him an object of stunning form and elegant grace. ‘What is his name?’
‘Name?’ Piper blew a shrill note. ‘That could be his name. “Name!” He has a different name for every race of being that encounters him. Some worship him as a god, and others fear him as the ultimate font of evil. He is, or was, or will be a force of nature. Does calling air that stirs “wind” make it different to when it goes unnamed?’ Piper pointed with his flute. ‘The Shining One, Light Bringer, Fallen Star, First of the Chosen, Accuser, Defiance, so many names in so many languages.’ He gripped her arm lightly. ‘There was a first cause. But this was the second. Remember that. Your father and Pug witnessed the First Cause. You are seeing the second. He was first among those created by the First Cause, Most Beloved, but he challenged his creator, and became the Opponent!’
Miranda could not tear her eyes from the image. There was no scale. Hell’s first king could be the size of a man seen from very close, or a mile tall viewed from many miles’ distance. The human-like face was perfection, without blemish or flaw. If one could imagine perfect proportions of brow to nose to chin, fullness of lips, set of eyes, shape and contour of a male body, then he was perfect. A woman of no small life experience, she was overwhelmed by desire and longing, a need for more than mere physical love, but to be accepted by this being. She said it aloud: ‘He’s perfect.’
Piper laughed. ‘No, but as close as any living thing can get. There was only one perfect being in existence.’
‘Who?’
‘In time. You’re not ready.’ Piper waved his hand. ‘This is the event, or as you would see it … time confuses me. This is the Second Cause.’
Miranda
