The Chiefest Of Honors

All the questions that Voah had about Ekero’s explanations of the sacrificial stone were blown away in streams, replaced by a flood of new thoughts to take priority. Ereuhin was here and the maverick Arbiter was momentarily fearful that her time had run out and that she would soon be shepherded to Zin at the gates of his eternal garden.

A lesser person may have fainted under the gravity of such epiphanies and the enormity of witnessing the Pillars manifest in front of them. Voah may have done the same had she not already endured such an incident.

Her body shuddered with a sort of sustained, rhapsodic vibration and she found it hard to hold the Goddess in her view as the deity seemed to both stand contained inside of a woman’s body yet at the same time dither and stretch to close the space around them in an overwhelming embrace. It was as if the firmament parted itself, opening ominously into a vista of pitch darkness dotted with a field of distant stars.

Voah had to calm herself by deliberately slowing her breathing with quiet litanies of mystic meditations regarding the phases of the moon. The repetitious mantras spilled out of her mouth involuntarily.

Ekero seemed to suffer similar proofs and had trouble coping, so he had to look away, swaying briefly before clutching onto the reverent arbiter’s shoulder to prevent himself from coming to a knee right beside her. He would show no deference.

Finally Voah was able to speak coherently,“It is the chiefest of honors, oh Holy Mother of the Moon. I am… unworthy.”

She bowed, trying to ease the dizzying spectacle. The Goddess wouldn’t likely bother revealing herself if she was just here to collect, lest Voah would likely be struck dead already. Instead, she had met Voah with a dreamy, pensive greeting.

So then… what were her intentions? Did the Pillars need Voah? And why now? She couldn’t help but wonder if she and Ekero would disappear for days after this encounter like she had done in the desert. Would Tarmen and Alexis return only to find them missing? What of Gonyaul’s fate? If he still lived… would she ever see him again?