And Thy Secret Fate Unfurls

At the eleventh eclipse, on last day of eternal summer, I decided I would kill the high priestess of Avelt. For this act, there were reasons and justifications --- of that I was assured. But, I was told, I stood not to the task of understanding. Nothing unusual for me --- it was to be expected, if anything. A sharp, final sound cut through my thoughts, flinching me, and what followed were fading noises which could, blasphemously, be called scurrying. The communion was over, that was what it meant. The god of death had departed. On an inflating stalk, I rose. Cartilage popped back into place, happy that my polyp-like kneeling was over. My feeler tentacles brushed the cave dirt from my bell and I absorbed a breath. I was averting the eyes circling my bell and when the wiggly rhopalia were free, I saw once more. ...Should have seen, rather. In the engulfing darkness of the cave -- broken only by a single shaft of sun from its mouth --- all visuality was reduced to mere suggestions. The clear jelly-bodies of macrohydra floated idly about as and darting wasps made feast. Barnacles spread fervently around and wild coral claimed the linings of walls. Everywhere, worms crawled. All this I knew, or guessed --- little of it was seen. What I knew of the cave and what was unknown, both were equally reduced to mere silhouette and impression. Long ago, I had strobilated in a dark warm cave --- not this one, but the qualia was the same. And, as if in remembrance, the stalk holding me up slacked. I can rest here; that was the feeling in words. With all the reluctance of one interrupting a dream, I focused sharply on the impressions which didn't neatly fit into that comfortable image: I heard grunking and rattling; I felt the constant thrum of a godheart; I smelt corpses in every single stage of decay. Focusing on those, I was jarred from my reverie. I straightened my stalk, killed the slack, and stood upright. I had decided I would kill the high priestess of Avelt, and I would. A grasper tentacle groped out for my sunshield and another had found my travel bag and slung it around my bell and, having everything, I fell onto my graspers. It took three of your four grasper tentacles to walk --- two if you had practice, if you absolutely couldn't spare more. I was a master of both. It wasn't a point of pride. With weight on my tentacles, my stalk curled inward, inverting into my bell. Like that I crawled away, crawled toward that shaft of light. And then, I felt it as a tug, but only in my mind --- inward, opposite the mouth, it was an urge to look, to glimpse. There exist flowers, whose death-petals are visibly lined with swift spikes, and whose nectar is sweet and fain to attract little hydra jellies to their end --- a temptation which even their weak will can oft withstand. If that which tugged my gaze were such a flower, then I am less than even the hydras. But the greatest wills do still falter, and I dare those who in my position would resist, I dare them be the first and only to criticize my action. I unveiled my eyes, and looked. It was a throne or shrine or portal, a sacred thing, and it rose up high and darkly exalted and crowned with wet spikes and it was the center and heart of the cave. It had earlier known the presence of the god of death --- of that I was assured. Brazenly, I leaned closer, breath tight in my bell. Those easily impressed would note first of all the corpse impaled on the spikes, its mesoglea spilling out in rivulets, its gray membrane turning to leather, its long slender tresses ripped delicately out and all their cnidae dotting the ground, hollowed of their god-given spark. But what else would one expect in the demesne of death? Hardly a surprise, that. No, peering closer at the crowned thing, I saw perhaps shed quills or feathers. Perhaps the diggings of claws. Perhaps a shadow, cast by a thing of such power that it lingered even after its caster had gone. Perhaps I shouldn't have looked. Mortal eyes weren't to seek the form of gods. It was proscribed. It would be --- it was --- the highest disrespect. It would be maddening. Of that we were assured. I drew my gaze away, and prayed a moment to that kind, general god of everyone, the god of knowing and certainty; I asked forgiveness for this trespass. Was it a little thing, what I did? Perhaps. But for one such as myself, even little trespasses ought to be measured and corrected. I'd fallen short in every area (of that, I was assured). Piety I could cling to. Piety I could control. I absorbed a vast breath. But I was a damned medusa already. Of that, I assured myself. - - - The red sun aimed and struck true with such judgmental rays. I saw a dumb macrohydra like floating blindly out of the cave, protectionless, and watched it start to dry and slightly wither not a cilia's width outside the embrace of shadows. Minutes later it was dead, and drifting to the ground, and still drying. It had been half my size, at least. I might last a few moments more. Cnidarians had it hardest in the eternal summer. I looked. Farther outside the mouth of the cave, on the ledge which southwardly wound into the distance and northwardly curved out of view, there was a shelled star crawling along its way. On the aboral top, multicolored ossicles like scales caught and parried blinding rays of sun. Where its shell wasn't rendered unintelligibly bright, you saw the design of the ossicles made a big plus sign shaped like a target. An eager croak came north from around the curve and a frog with fangs was bounding over here. But its prey, the star, was swiftly snapping its rays snug into its shell. The bright-skinned frog slapped down right beside it, and was disappointed. Before the thing left, though, its departing jump flipped over the star in its shell, like a petty little revenge. With the frog gone, rays popped back out and waved and struggled, but writhe as they might, they couldn't flip right the shelled star. A grasper tentacle --- my grasper tentacle --- was reaching out and gingerly lifting and flipping the shelled star right side up. It went all still and timid then, but moments later, with my tentacle drawing back, the star was falling bottom first and flexing below it many tube-like podia like row upon wiggling row of walking grass. Another tentacle was reaching for some tool in my bag and another still was taking that tool by the handle and then throwing it. In the middle of the star now, just aside one arm of the big plus sign, there was lodged the blade of a knife. ...I had missed the target, that little plus sign shell marking, and I cringed. My aim needed more practice. Always needed more practice. The star was screaming now, and my fourth and final tentacle now snatched the knife and stabbed again and quieted the screams, putting out the misery. The sun crept further across the blue sky, shaving slivers off the shadows. I fell back on my stalk, and tilted my bell and with three eyes stared up. Opposite the cave mouth was the other canyon wall, the top only just visible from this angle. And beyond that was Avelt, and the sunspire, and at its top, the high priestess whom I would kill. But for now, this canyon wall stood as my obstacle. I stowed the knife away. - - - Moments later I realized I was resting on my stalk again, immersed in my thoughts again. You aren't doing anything. I straightened my stalk. Right now, I was rooted close enough to the exit of the death-odored cave that, with the heat of eternal summer reaching for me, I cooked slightly. Or imagined I did. Regardless, I was close enough to see that the sun had gyred around the sky and was poised to peek into this cave before long. I could recite to you whole lists of reasons to rest here and contemplate like this --- there was my plan to consider, now that I'd decided I'd kill the high priestess of Avelt; there was the heat (even on an eclipse day like today, the heat slightly melted you); then there was the endeavor of climbing out of the canyon at all. The last of those excuses rang truest of all. Getting down here to the cave mouth had been trouble, and that was getting down. I prayed for elevation. I could have waited day-spans by this cave mouth. But it wasn't as though anyone had ever outwaited the sun, not in centuries. When you got stuck in a mental loop like this, it was never something inside you that broke you out, not really. A cloud passed in front of the sun. Simple, yes. But that shade cast over the canyon --- what could I say? It enticed. I appreciated shade. Who didn't? It was like a leap or inversion, taking to the air. Gripping my sunshield in a grasper tentacle, I crouched and pushed off with my stalk even as it inverted back into me. Quickly, magic snapped through my cnida-tipped tresses and then flowed. Even as the magic exuded from the cnidae, I felt it reflect off the ground and return as a gentle push upwards. Slacken the flow, just a bit, and the push slackens. Like that, levitation. Equilibrium in this came naturally to others (....or else I was that much inferior), but for me I would correct and overcorrect, anxious feeler tentacles waiting for that telling rise or fall of air that meant the flow was just so slightly imbalanced. Awful, dreadful, exhausting. This sort of treading levitation was a true headache of a technique -- but directed levitation, that was a little better. I angled my cnidae, and the magic flowing from my tresses pushed me along. Slowly at first --- it gave me time to lift my near-forgotten sunshield and, holding it between me and the light, I was spared a withering affliction when I breached into the sunlight. - - - For the moment, I floated above the ledge jutting out from the canyon wall. It had been big enough to land on when I'd leapt down from on high, but small enough that now I only trusted my wobbling levitation moments b