-15-

The entire team disembarked the orbiting spaceship, the moment Varhas felt that homely urge. That urge, textured as wanton and protective hands that fall over young eyes, to shield them in their shade, so that they may not see, pain made widespread, closely following mankind.

On a whim, an anxious alert was made by Varhas and he commanded the team to leave orbit for a short stop.

Anax initially believed this an action of IDP, some crashout of cerebral fitness and he almost had the other Claimant sedated, pumped with Stabilizers and held down for the struggle of sleep. However, evidently conscious, aware and easy to talk to, Varhas assured his friend that the planet that they orbit is a necessary stop. A necessity, as he put it, of good times, soft times, where time itself is spun into strands from celestial wool, and they are to be cloaked in it.

And in these words, Anax saw this narrative as a lucky boon of the world.

-

On this planet's surface there is mostly ice and snow. Other than the living density of the spaceport, that accepts and sends off small busses of limited capacity, there are mostly people here, living isolated in cobblestone and log houses far away from another, or in caves, frozen over swamps and perpetually dark Sarmatic forests. Deep and virgin woodland, that the locals called it, utter peace, death made manifest in a pure bridal gown.

There is sunlight only for a few hours and the nights are long. With no light pollution whatsoever, the only interest this planet has to humanity, is the clarity of celestial lights, stars and magnetic fields that guild the sky, lumber and the habit of wildlife study.

Ever since Varhas landed on the planetoid, it appears that the snowfall has subsided, the clouds have parted to complete celestial awe and the pathways are safe. More than that, currently, as the party travels through the deep snow on foot, savage beasts remain far away. Two days ago, Hab saw an Eurasian brown bear far out into the distance, regard their party and then disappear into the naked forest, as if called to with imperceptive animal tongue to make it go elsewhere.

After five days of walking through the snow, at the morning of the sixth day, the system's deep orange sun peaked through a white ridge and the shape of two sharp-roofed buildings appeared far into the distance. One of these is made of cobblestone and the other is wooden.

As soon as Varhas sets foot into his childhood home, he is swarmed by kin.

Zanuvia enters last, to see a dingy-lit room of stone, where the surfaces are covered by the fur of wolf and bear and the fireplace crowned with taxidermied corvids of all shapes and sizes. Young rooks, ravens frozen in the widest opening of their wings and pairs of black and white hooded crows. Alike to this, the wooden beams above are painted brown, black and white and one of Varhas' nieces is staring back into the old sea-witch, lying flat on her chest.

In total, Varhas has three sisters, of whom have given him three nieces and two nephews. Three girls and two boys, Varhas tries to count them one by one as they stand all around him, buying time to recall their names. Then, he begins by calling them out by descending age. Dorotea, Astrun, Jaska, Heige and Agfast, the last one, sitting in one of the wooden beams, above the heads of all strangers. Magga, the eldest sister of Varhas comes into the room, putting all of the children to one corner of the large house. Before she greets her brother, whom she has not seen in at least a decade, she stands on the tips of her deer-skin boots, reaching upwards and grabbing little Agfast from his white gown, forcefully unsticking his clawing fingertips from the wooden beam.

Varhas smiles and his first thought is of Hrungni the old ancient maine coon cat that used to be part of their family.

"Little Agfast has become the house cat now."

"Him? It's another Hrungni that one. That cat's spirit went straight out his furred mouth and into the newborn."

Odd words for the first words one might hear. The party's Claimants are surprised without trying to show it, but the mere fact that all Contestants laugh at that sentence, reveals more than there should be. When Anax, Zanuvia, Lacata and Voliphoe express nothing, Jorj, Hab and Otto laugh and smile at this odd placement of words.

Varhas notices this. For now, letting the thought pass by.

The older sister prepares a wooden table. No food is served but the many tools and children's toys are pushed aside for the eight strangers. One corner of the house fills with the traveler's bags and more firewood is put into the fireplace.

Conversation splits soon after and the many people go over the pleasantries of exchanging names, news and speaking about the world around them, while the children marvel at their clothes, their bags and whatever other object lures their eye.

Time passes and the night turns to deeper night. The party takes their sleeping bags and they lay on the furred floors. Sleep comes easy, but Varhas is merely laying there, until he feels the familiar call, beckon him in dear ways.

Ways, of shape and in absence of light, inevitable. He walks the room and out the door he steps in light clothing. Barefoot, he walks the snow, beyond there is light in glimmers and the utterdark is to him, a mirror that reflects all the microscopic celestial splendor downwards, into the black smoothness of snow.

Without numbness and in a trance, the limbs stiffen to frostbite but the man is aware of safe wholeness. No wound will come over him, no pain but the inevitable silence of the other house, the other building right in front of him, with the sculpted wood and the patterns of Urnes, the tangled hounds made in black wood, consuming each other in their fatewoven pattern.

In the presence of a Pantokrator, the trance one experiences dominates his synapses. As the door opens, the utterdark on the other side blankets all of Varhas, reducing thought to silence in the deepest parts, to places that make man forget habits and basic functions of his body.

Time passes. The Claimant is undone. And in every case, this undoing would be a horrifying experience where someone else, penetrates the holiest sanctum of the mind, the pools of individuality and makes of one, a slave, a fanatic, a blank sheet to be written anew.

But the shadow recedes and along with it, fear does not manifest. In fact, when Varhas becomes remade, he feels earnestly that he is himself as whole as before the door and he is warm with motherly care, slowly becoming attuned to the darkness.

And the interior is wood. Packed a staircase, a podium and an altar, without nails seemingly held together by that same celestial light that passes ethereally through oak wall and roof. The drapes are red and black, purple and brown with patterns of natural twist and supreme quality.

It is as if god himself has made this place, Varhas thinks. Indefinable power that turns blessed whatever it weaves and carves.

One of his sisters grabs him and walks him deeper into the temple. Skin to skin, he instinctively passes the small black feather into his sister's hand. The fake, manufactured oddity found by Anax during the banquet is taken by Varhas' sister.

He feels the skin on his hands and ease overcomes him with the passage of childhood on the company of his older sisters. The thought is pleasant and with a few more steps, he is in another room of a short ceiling, where the source of utterdark becomes malleable in the air. The corner where the Pantokrator sits, stretches in a geometry of unlight.

As the geriatric fingers poke through to sight, the loom in front of the shadow reveals itself and when her old hands push the breast beam, his mother comes in full view.

Long having unwoven her name from existence, the Pantokrator ahead has nothing to be called by. Forcefully changed neuroplasticity, here and in other planets, far away to strangers and even to those people that she calls her kin, complete expungement of all cultural references to herself, make her as such.

When Varhas calls her by the only words he knows, the mother looks into the Claimant with a face softened by its mere mention.

"My young Seithrbender. Come give your old bones a hug."

Varhas closes the distance and he hugs his mother. The pillow on the floor is already there, placed decades ago for this very moment and Varhas knows it so, by the tapestry behind his mother, this very moment in reality, depicted in dyed wool. A black dressed woman, of silver straight hair, fading sunlight and the holiest strands crowning the head of a wrinkled woman, whose eyes are magnetic storms of swirling blue and the purity of white clouds.

"How are you doing mother?"

"Better now. Long awaiting for this moment was killing me. Are you eating well Varhas? Is life amongst the stars to your liking?"

"Very much so. I have lost some weight unfortunately."

"Worried."

"Yes, I am worried. It is a stressful time out there."

"I am aware."

"Then, forgive my peering into Pantokrator business. Did you vote for or against the dissolution of the Contest?"

"Come on Varhas. Not even a minute with me and you are asking for work? To sate your curiosity, I voted for dissolution."

"Then..." Varhas is cut off with shush and speech, both manifesting across him together.

"My son. Listen. I care about you my dear and you will not ease your fears by asking about politics. Tell me now, what has made you so worried, seeking my advice in homely returns?"

Varhas knows not to push into the domain of Pantokrators, asking about things that should not be known. Information such as this, is reason for great and expensive political and religious gossip, where entire armies of agents, try to pry the secrets from another.

His mother can only offer him one thing and all those that remember him in his childhood know this. Even in minute denial, Varhas too has been certain of this from the first moment he stepped away from this planet.

"There is this man."

"Are you in love with this man?"

"No. But earnest part of me sees the shame in his passage through life. I see a great champion in the making, one of the greatest perhaps and I see his death made manifest in tragedy. Not a grand ending, but a silent snuff, so small perhaps that it makes me see reality as an error. I feel as if all the myths I know are manifesting in front of me, their hopeless and much foretold end nearing and..."

"And you can do nothing about it."

Varhas nods. His mother touches a few tight strands on the loom that remain aligned, seemingly as pure light that is geometrically always straight. The hands move with dexterity, animated and holding pattern to their work, playing melancholic music with an object that produces nothing but light.

The woman speaks.

"You say that you can do nothing, but you hold a man's dreams in your fingerprints. My dear child, why do you not grab these pearly lines and weave this man's fate to absolute joy?"

Varhas feels behind his eyes a throbbing pain. Then, under his eyes he feels a sharp, then warm sting as he blinks. The thoughts become random and ugly, following the trajectory of his tears.

"Is this all there is to man? Is this all that we are, mere moments of light in vast seas of void?"

Her old arms touch the man's face and with one thumb she wipes off the tears. Soft and holding, the enveloping gesture is done in complete silence parted by infinitesimal sobbing.

"No my love. No."

"That man has seen hell and spent lifetimes on it. For what? Just a high at the end of his life. And he is not even to die there, but mellow this great memory out, die in its absence. Will he even be satisfied then? Or will he die bitter? The greatest what-if?"

"Soft one. Listen to me. Fear not the strands that weave us and the tapestry we call fate. When we have options and these are set already in motion, we can do nothing more but our best. Give the man exaltation. Give him a moment where common man will dwarf all Pantokrators. And though I speak of heresy, of things the most horrid of wars have been fought over, this is the work, inevitable, final and wholly yours."

The words appear to work on Varhas. He no longer cries, but the mind is still heavy with burden, things that are to untangle when their time is due. Varhas' worry begins to manifest towards his mother, but the Pantokrator within her manifests words to sever it before his mind sends the first signal.

The old mouth parts again. "Do not worry about me either my gentle rook. Have I ever told you the story of your birth?"

"No, mother. Please." Varhas feels the tears solidify on his cheeks and there is deep surrender, deeper listening to his mother's storytelling.

"Back when this planet was only nomads trudging through the snow, and the Wars of Ascension were in full swing, our family was having the toughest fight for survival. This was before you were born. From a family of fifty-four, we had remained only ten. Without any actual way to fight, the only way to defeat the other Pretenders was to use our Claimant powers and battle great duels over the inverse dream. Winning, meant control over hidden devices, over hills, mountains and forests too and this was our only way to dissuade and weaponize the wildlife. This is how we fought, because the inhospitable distances between us were too much to cross for normal warfare. Back then, I was going into the inverse dream while your father dragged us along with his snow dogs, going from one deadly fantasy to the next, fighting people whom I'd never meet. And all that too, pregnant with you, at the age of forty. I remember, the final fight. Whatever Claimants were left in the family, joining me against the enemy Pretender and all the while you wanted out. Broken waters and my thought consumed by the delirium of the inverse dream, they were trying to drink the life out of me, accursed beings. If they had succeeded, this planet would be nothing but a feeding ground for evil, blood drinkers and baby-eaters, more witches would be around than the trees in these forests. And imagine, no such moment would be here and now. My worried child without some ease to his burden. This is the world of man Varhas. We do everything for the people we love. Now go. Take the blessing of this old bag of bones and go, make the universe, just a little bit gentler."