Farkham in the Sky – Part II

Link to Farkham in the Sky – Part I

Farkham fumbled with the small statue as his hands looked for something to indicate what to do with the pyramid. He looked for scratches, cuts, scuff marks, or anything that might signify a point where the statuette broke apart. Weakened by thirst and hunger, his hands trembled as he pushed and pulled on the statue, but to no avail. Frustrated, he put the statuette back in his satchel and brushed his hands along the wall, looking for some tell-tale marking or imperfection.

Nothing still.

He looked up at the sky. The full moon has still high, but he knew there weren’t many hours left before it was gone, taking the pyramid with it, and any hope he had for a union with the goddess.

The sense of anticipation he had felt earlier turned into urgency, and when no solution was apparent, to emerging despair. Just before he had started to shout at the desert, the irritation disappeared.

He felt her, well before he saw her. He didn’t hear her – she never spoke – but her presence was overwhelming, even out of sight. He slowly turned, and even before he did, he knew she was there.

The light of the full moon was reflected against her silvery, white-blue body, outlining her beauty against the dark sky. The bright white eyes were staring into his soul, and even though there were no irises, Farkham always knew when those eyes were on him.

The statuette now grasped in both his hands, Farkham stood still as the goddess gently placed her hands on top of his own for a moment, and then reached out to touch the pyramid. She laid her palms flat on the glossy blue surface, closed her eyes for a moment, and walked through the wall.

Farkham still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, and it was unsettling. In this two-year journey, his steps were always confident and knowing, guided by the goddess. The sight of the pyramid had changed that, right at the end, when it mattered most.

Suddenly she appeared through the wall once more, beckoning him to come closer, and as he walked up to her she reached out with her index finger and touched him. The figurine still in his hands, Farkham watched as his skin and flesh turned translucent where she had touched him. Slowly, his entire body became transparent, and once the transformation was complete he started to shine with a silver, white-blue light, and that’s when he realised that the goddess was made of light, and he was awed.

The physical change didn’t make him feel any different.

“Well this is kind of anticlimactic”, a stray thought passed through his head and was gone as the goddess took his hand in hers.

She now stood next to him, and she led the way.

There was no sensation as his body passed through the shiny surface, which he found odd. He figured there should be something, some sort of physical acknowledgement of this strange series of events.

“Strange. That’s a word I haven’t thought of in a long time… I never before thought of my experience with the goddess as strange.”

Some part of his consciousness stirred, that hadn’t been active in a very long time. He was slowly coming to realise that the goddess, his goddess, his hope, his love, his despair, she had dulled his thoughts, that first night she came to him. Still the thought didn’t disturb him, and he didn’t feel upset (although some very quiet part of his mind whispered that he should be outraged at being cheated into all this).

He was now standing alone in the interior, his flesh back to normal. The room he found himself in didn’t look very big. Yellow rock formed the inside, contrasting in his mind with the blue of the outer surface. Four braziers on black metal legs burned knee-high in the centre of the room, forming a circle, and an opening in what would be the roof just above let in the moonlight. In the centre, kneeling, head slumped, was the goddess.

But she looked different.

He knew it was her, but his eyes were telling him it wasn’t. The skin was more…material now, blindingly white and smooth, still, but not shiny at all. It had a substance to it that wasn’t there before. Two large, white wings spanned from her back and folded over her form, covering her head and most of her body.

Farkham slowly walked closer. He now saw chains, which went from her wrists, ankles, and from a collar around her neck to the edges of an arcane circle drawn in black on the stones of the floor, where they were embedded in the stone with heavy metal rings. He could see that her fingernails and toenails were pointy and sharp, and had a red tinge to them.

As Farkham stood staring, she pulled her wings back, showing a bowed head, with eyes closed. The face was also different; wider, rounder. She lifted her head and opened her eyes. They were solid red, and the mouth was grotesquely large and red itself, and even the teeth were red, and solid red filled Farkham’s vision and he felt fear.

He was suddenly very conscious of the statuette in his hands.

Then she spoke.

The first words he had ever heard her say.

“I have long awaited you”. The voice was calm, reassuring. Sweet.

His vision cleared and he looked at her, fear still gripping his throat.

“I see you recoil at my sight. Do not fear. I am she who bedded you, who loved you, who guided you. I am one and the same.”

“You tricked me”, he croaked in a whisper, like a child who felt his friends had played a bad prank on him.

“I did not. I only…fogged your mind a little bit. It was necessary. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now. It’s a mad man’s quest to go after me, and only a mad man would do it. Besides, it’s exactly what you want. There’s no place you’d rather be”, she said.

Farkham was surprised to realise she was right. Despite the fear that gripped him, the longing and anticipation for her were there. And…yes. Desire, too. He swallowed.

“Come. Free me from these bonds. I long to feel you” she said, as if reading his mind.

The statuette was now cold in his hand. A contrast to her presence, to his desire. He didn’t move.

“Farkham” she said, and the word reverberated through the chamber. The power of her uttering his name was overwhelming, his desire intensified. He walked towards her, knelt just outside the circle. He put his hand up, as if to try and touch her, but instead said:

“Tell me what I must do, my love”.

The smile that spread across her face was frightening, but Farkham was ecstatic. This time his decisions were his own. They were going to be together, no matter what.

“The circle. Break the circle” she said.

He rubbed his hand against the sigils on the floor. He felt now that each symbol was made of onyx and embedded into the stone. No effect.

His goddess started to writhe with impatience. “Come on my love, quickly, so we can finally be together”.

Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed the statuette and hit the arcane symbols, hoping to chip them off the stone floor. With the first hit his goddess screamed.

“Use something else. It hurts to use the statue” she said through clenched teeth.

He opened his satchel to look for something to use. He took his pocket knife, and with hands trembling with anticipation and malnourishment, he picked the symbol nearest to him, put the blade at the seam between stone and onyx, and pushed. A faint pop was heard, and the symbol jumped out of its socket. The chains shimmered for a moment with a blue light and went back to normal.

His goddess strained against the chains. “More” she said.

Farkham moved on to the next sigil, and the next, and the next, and each time the chains would shimmer more faintly. When all the sigils were removed, his goddess said:

“Now the chains”.

Farkham walked up to her and his hands, still trembling, touched her skin before they reached for the chains.

“My love”, she said, “we will have plenty of time for this later. Let me out of these bonds, please. I have waited for too long”.

He grasped the chains, and using his knife he undid the manacles that held her wrists, first. As she rubbed her pained, white skin, he undid her ankle bonds, and then the collar. It clanged to the ground, and Farkham and the goddess where kneeling down in a broken arcane circle, with braziers burning all around them.

“Are we free to be together now?” Farkham asked and reached for her.

“Yes, my love”, she replied, as she took him into her arms.

The goddess’ wings unfolded, and holding him tightly in her embrace she flew straight up for the opening. It was higher than Farkham initially thought, and the opening had seemed smaller, but they passed through without issue.

Farkham and the goddess now in the sky, they soared in the night air of the desert. We wasn’t afraid of falling, her grip was secure. He couldn’t get enough of her. He kept running his hands over her smooth skin, feeling her, breathing her in. She smelled metallic, like blood, and acidic. It was intoxicating to him.

She turned back and headed for the pyramid, hovering above it at a great height.

“My love”, she whispered in his ear…and let go.

A confused expression spread across his face as he plummeted towards the opening. His hand reached out for her, but no words came out.

Farkham fell through the sky, through the opening, smashing on the stone floor. His body was broken, limbs splayed out at weird angles, and his blood flowed freely on the rock. One by one, the indented arcane symbols filled with his blood, and with each one a flash of red emanated from his body.

He watched his ruined body from above (is this my soul?), and we saw his goddess fly down above him, and he was saddened. Then she knelt above his body and obscured it with her wings, and he suddenly felt a tug behind his navel, pulling him at a great speed inside his dead, mangled body.

Blood-red filled his vision once more, and he opened his eyes. Only the red didn’t entirely clear up this time, but rather turned into a filter through which he now took in the world. His arms were heavy, and his legs too, but there was no pain. His wings (wings!?) were splayed across the floor, and his white skin was stained with red. He looked at his goddess.

“Together” she whispered as she took him in her arms.

“Free” he replied. “Forever.”

Once again they embraced tightly and flew through the opening in the pyramid, soaring in the sky as dawn approached.

Below them, the pyramid reflected the sky, and as the sun’s first rays touched it, it turned to dust and dissipated in the desert wind.

The Cactus