The Only Road Home

The Only Road Home by Francesca Quarto

She believed she was invincible. The goddess had given her that impression after all. She had surmounted incredible obstacles to survive. She was feverish with hope and the energy of youth.

 "Here, take this stone and you shall prevail, daughter," the goddess told her; the smile of the cobra before it strikes curling her beautiful, cold mouth. 

But goddesses have been known to manipulate the truth to suit their own ends. Was this to prove one of those times? Her life, her future, depended upon the answer.

Clutching the smooth gray rock, she stepped out of the shadows where she'd hidden, waiting for the pale moon to be lost beneath the storm-heavy clouds. For once, she welcomed the eternal night. She let the darkness engulf her like a wave, not moving so much as the flutter of an eyelid. Dressed in the black robes of the Acolyte, its hood concealing the glossy mass of coppery red hair, she melted into the cloying shadows, feeling the chill moisture they carried, touching her pale skin with blind fingers. 

A low rumble, like snow gathering into the teeth of an avalanche, began to ride the incessant winds. It grew louder, overwhelming all other senses until it filled her head. She fought the urge to reach up to cover her ears. Behind the churning sound came the thud and tramp of heavy footsteps. The weight they carried surely crushed the very earth beneath, marking it forever with its passage. The moon hung desolate and alone under its mask of inky thunder heads, waiting and watching just as she did.

The goddess had only relinquished the stone after she had proven herself the Acolyte of Merit; the one to send on this delicate mission. Though she understood this was an undertaking from which she could never return, she believed it defined her very existence. She, and the others of her kind, named the Original Sinners, had been locked away on this bleak and dying world, for crimes committed by faceless, nameless ancestors. Their outrage was deemed so great by the gods, that any of their progeny would also suffer their fate. Of these, only a handful remained. Late, in the blast of the red summer, she had become the last female. There were now only six of the Original Sinners left to roam the barren wastes of their dark prison world. The others, all madmen without conscience or pride, stalked her like the sexual prey they viewed her to be. The goddess only intervened because she became bored watching the same game of hide and seek, night after night. 

Her instructions to the girl were easy enough, "Follow the way that shall be revealed to you by the stone's illumination. It shall lead you out of the shadows and free you into the light."

She was gripping the hard edges of her gift, until they pressed painfully into her palm. She wondered how its dull surface could ever show the way to the only road home; back to a place of light and life. The way back could only be found through this narrow gap of time. 

The sound of a low growl, like a stomach crying out to be filled, another heavy thump upon the parched, dead ground...Here he comes. She tossed the stone ahead of her so she could follow it to freedom. It made a shallow sound as it skipped like a rock over the flat face of a pond. But there were no tranquil ponds here, only brackish waters to quench a constant, burning thirst. 

It came to rest several yards in front of her. She stood mutely rooted to the spot, waiting for the light. Suddenly, a shimmer of yellow began to pool around the tossed stone. The glow began to seep into the desiccated ground, shooting back out like a lightning bolt in reverse. This was the road home, illuminated for her at last! All she need do, was climb it out of the black dungeon that was her state of existence.

Breaking her statue like stillness, she began to sprint like the fabled hart, to wherever this narrow road would lead. I am going home, she kept thinking, as she pumped her legs and panted her breath into the eternal night. Finally reaching the pulsating ribbon of brightness, she stretched out her hand to grab hold, only to feel the void of a cruel illusion.

The goddess watched all from her marble throne, as the creature ran into the oblivion of imagination. It still shone with the intensity of belief, beckoned with a voracity for freedom, but sadly, was only the mirage of a path out of her current existence. It was only a stone after all, not a gem. She had taken it, even knowing at face value, it was nothing but a stone. Smooth to the touch, sounding of promise when it was tossed, but still, only rock.

"Ah, how silly these humans can be. They chase after illusion every time," she sighed to the scudding clouds over her marble head. 

Her hands lay upon her knees, each palm up. One held a precious gem, the other, empty. Not unlike the promise of the stone the girl had chosen. The goddess continued to chuckle as she watched the girl follow the promises, until she faded into the distance. The female human would know the truth in the end. There would be no road back home, but then this peculiar race of beings seemed ever hopeful and optimistic. 

"Such a waste of your limited time," she mumbled to the girl who never heard. She was too busy trying to get back to a past that didn't exist, and to live in a future that was only a dream. 

For her part, the goddess, breathing her rarified air, and bathed in the warmth of an orange sun, began to cogitate upon other schemes to find amusement and distraction from her own eternal sameness. In the deepest part of her cold heart, she longed for a moment of darkness, just a breath of shadow, to rest her unclosing eyes from the glare of never-ending light. She sighed deeply, causing the heavy steps of the Guardian to turn in her direction.