The Justiceers - Part Six: Chapter Five
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
Part Four: Prefinished Business
Part Six: Death Rides a Horse
6.5
Jereth’s throat slid off Miriam Lightfoot’s Scorch Saber most pleasingly, despite the grotesqueness of it, and the despair she felt to end an innocent man’s life who’d had such hopes for the future. It had been a great feat of manifestation in itself, having seen to make a path for him here through methods of control upon the populace which she’d developed through many cycles hiding beneath the surface of Oliath.
Things needed doing, and fate had chosen the right woman for the job. Herself having spent such time in seclusion, getting back from what would be her past-self’s future here in system, reconnecting with all this planet meant to her heart and soul, she’d found the light again within her.
It meant the most to her that she could now feel how one day she would most certainly see Arthur Katrinus again.
By means of alchemy which took her through cycles of undoing and remaking, Miriam Lightfoot had been met again with her purest spirit — in fact, for the very first time — reconciling all she’d done through most brutal reflection, finding forgiveness for lifetimes worth of horrendous failures and betrayals to self, such persisting traumas endured, most continuous mistakes made, finally empowering rebirth into something more.
Her path would still lead to actions such as the one she’d executed in this time of the past, making choices of great consequence which had been guided to steer the fate and ultimate survival of people in the system of Yemi, finding again that trust her soul was known for from the abundance of lifetimes spent dissolving herself into the arms of nature and spirit in search of respite from most unfair desires of the heart.
Miriam Lightfoot was able to project more visages through space-time than any other living being would achieve throughout its great weavings. Having utilized them so completely from this home beneath a darkest city of The Periphery most unknowingly, only aware of her purpose to call herself and Arthur Katrinus here for its healing, taking many liberties in unwinding quite thoroughly, productivity was still never a question for this woman. There was a spirit within her unable to stop moving, and no matter how she’d try to rest, the visages of herself would be at work most unconsciously. Confusing her quite greatly, laying upon her burdens of strangest becoming, bringing her the need for sleep. Often, finding herself awaken from these slumbers knowing more than one should about things to come, feeling compelled to use that wisdom for both purposes of divine creation and destruction.
The people of Grammaton had been corrupted far before she’d arrived, something this entire saga in Yemi would come to reveal more common within The Periphery than anyone might ever have imagined. They’d even begun building most deeply within its crust, boring tunnels for a civilization beneath the surface most callously, ignoring the pleas of the planet that they relent, taking all found within and twisting it to their own design.
Most sacred spaces of eternal and spiritual nature to the planet had been discovered and remade by the hands of wicked men, turning the soul of this place dark, making the planet itself angry. Technologies far beyond that seen on the surface, or anywhere in The Periphery for that matter, had been suppressed, holding back the possibility for better worlds of balance to be born throughout the galaxy.
Humans here had turned rotten with the power this planet’s wonders had bestowed upon them, tearing into her in ways which never should’ve been done, and the planet itself was beginning to grow fierce in its voice. Furious in fact, most disgusted with what had become of these people and their civilization, yet witnessing completely, the truth of potential, a beautiful duality held within this woman of such magic being cradled within her most sacred womb alone.
There would be hope for people here because of Miriam Lightfoot. The way she’d faced so much, diving incredibly deeply into the shadow of it all, still coming back home to achieve a truer balance than had been known in this place before, once again seeing the best in people, yet unafraid to tear through their lies, even if relegated to solitude through the overt blatancy these abilities caused her to see in the ways of this broken world, and how intensely overwhelming the feeling of mass consciousness had become to her energy.
She was saner and clearer seeing now that any Scribe had been in great amounts of time, synchronized only with two others in this system who would come to join her in the future. Those sisters of heart and soul which she knew as herself, fated to be met in a most sacred place, and living lives of most incredible synchronicity. The challenges for each, no matter the length of time spent alive and suffering, or within the blessings of abundance, nor the direction of time in which they’d flowed, would all prove to suffer quite evenly by the end.
This one however, having brought herself to that healing so meant to be completed by a Scribe, in blessed connection to her planet, and through time itself with her Judge, had seen her through to that growthful transformation so sought by scholars of spirit. Bodhisattva — Gary had called it.
There was both a Scribe and a Judge now within her, most balanced and complete, if still a little spooky.
A device had been built and installed within the mechanisms of the High Court by her doing, at the behest of her quite well-connected fleet of visages, which would allow her to channel the will of spirit into the technologies of the people in this world, and bring her this man Jareth so divinely chosen through his soul’s willingness to sacrifice on contract.
Having most successfully completed this task in Miriam and Arthur’s past, she now found herself with the bittersweet satisfaction of being rid her singularly known goal. She’d felt the spirit of that man, before sliding her blade through the back of his throat, recognizing the way it carried a familiar glow, and found herself most curious what would be next upon her path.
The plan had always stopped there, no way for her to know what she would do next, so she’d abandoned that device in place within the heart of Oliath, trusting those seeds she planted for its healing, unknowing of the darkest force of corruption which had worked its way into them all from those sickest doings inside the planet.
A half-dozen cycles later, spending much time asleep, preserving her youth while that younger self and Arthur were on their way in response to her murderous purpose brought to fruition, was when Miriam finally heard the plan in whole, having learned to speak quite clearly with the hum of Grammaton’s heart itself, now a most constant presence within her awareness of surprising pleasantness.
It had become a second sun in her chest, which had been leading her home, and speaking quite clearly of a love held by her for another through time.
Her restful tomb of shadows had been a boon to this planet’s spirit itself, such light and healing offered directly to it for means of purest alchemy, trusting always its use and her safety within its grasp. Grammaton would be taking great care of this one. It warned her of the changing tides to come, and dreams would show her visions of places which safety would be most dearly required, teaching ways she might reach the people and make most positive change.
The systems put in place by her visages were corrupted, they’d not find a path through to its people, so lost in the haze of its cities great struggles to survive on a hostile world, especially being so sheltered from those technologies of most limitless energy-production kept from the people. It was the single thing which had potential to change the entire Periphery in most practical ways.
This had been discovered upon Grammaton, within those deepest sacred chambers so terribly maimed by the people who tore through them with disregard for their holiness, and kept in secret for use in their terrible designs.
It was these choices made by men which birthed the evil upon this planet, and placed it most deeply into that device Miriam’s visages had brought here to heal and steer towards the crucial step taken which would finally bring the needed change to this system, becoming the very catalyst to completing Admanium’s greatest plan of universal reformation.
Miriam Halafax and Arthur Katrinus were born to play a great role in this all, and the way things would come to pass, beyond this ultimate cleansing of evil, would be up to them and the many others awakened during this time. Each unique, one crucial spoke in the wheel, a puzzle piece to complete the whole of truth and understand most fully the purpose of this new world to be built, showing the way each heart had a precious part to play. Every single soul was to one day earn a place amongst the Gods, a gift of those who’d guided them from above through many lifetimes towards this ascension, so they might finally move on as well.
Ms. Lightfoot of Grammaton, through her most grace-led unbecoming and reformation, would be the one to save it all in the very end. She would come to fall, and bring this last vestige of evil so holding back the transformation of the planet along with her; the land mass representing its former capital, at the very end of this saga just beginning for her.
Finally, awakened again, knowing of the imminent arrival of Miriam and Arthur from her past into this system, and aware of the evil surrounding Yemi, it was time she’d finally heard the next step of her purpose.
She would ensure Miriam Halafax, the original, who’d so birthed these chaotic shatters of her soul through time, would herself survive this mess, for that too had been written.
