The Writings of Michael Varian Daly - "Prelude on The Evening of a Harlequin" [unfinished]

12:07 pm - "Prelude on The Evening of a Harlequin" [unfinished]

~This is a novella I started a few years ago that has since stalled. It is only in the last few weeks that I realized why it did so.

Like almost everyone in this culture, I am an Individual, First and Foremost.

E pointed out that as I am functionally an Only Child [ten and half years older than the nearest sibling], largely grew up among adults, and lived in books and fantasy worlds for most of my childhood, I am even more an Individual than most.

But the society of these women is based upon The Trikona, the 'bond group' of three Sisters first made in childhood and replicated throughout all important relationships.

That is my challenge as a writer, to reset my mind and feelings toward the Trikona, to show how it permeates everything in their lives. And also how they are each still individuals while being so deeply bonded to their Sisters.

I finally realized that “Prelude” is based upon an Individualistic view of the world and therefore fails to truly represent this society, so I am setting it aside.

However, it does have a lot of good material to work with and, while it is now 'on the shelf', it has been an important laboratory in experimenting with this universe. So, here is what I had done with it so far...

Needodeswaynyo was a close replica of Gaea, its creation accomplished through the complex Majicks of the world building Gaean Cult of Shawanokia, using variable chronflow bubble universes, the subtle manipulation of mass with thought energies, and the brute force of moon sized field projectors, but those Sisters who had been to both worlds, only a handful at this point, as Needodeswaynyo was a very new world, those few would notice that her daytime sky was bit more purple that Gaea's. Neela didn't notice that. She hadn't been to Gaea and was very new herself, eleven Solanums just a few months past, part of the first generation of Sisters born underneath that slightly more purple sky.

Neela knew a lot about Gaea. All Sisters did. Some times she felt she knew too much about Gaea. The Elders talked about Her endlessly during Lessons, but She was The Mother World, so that was understandable. And it was always She with a big S. Neela could hear that clearly. Needo – hardly any of the younglings called this world by her full name – Needo was settled by the Sisters of the Shawanokia Cult itself and was the 'official' home world of the Cult and its High Priestess, the legendary Panteristi Zerna, Hunter of The Tempest Moon, and hero of the battle of Ashkelon, the climax of the Herculean War.

Neela was a Zerna herself: Neelazita Singelah née Zerna. The Great Panteristi – she was always The Great – was her great great grandmother on Iona her Seed Mother's side and she took a secret pleasure in the fact that she looked a lot like her formidable forbearer. When she checked herself in the mirror each morning before running off to do what was to be down that day, Neela would compare her face to the one in the huge painting of The Great Panteristi that hung in the Karaal's meeting hall: dark reddish brown skin, bright white hair and eyebrows, high forehead, shocking yellow eyes, a long, sharp nose, and a wide mouth with almost fat lips.

Neela would often frown importantly at her reflection, trying to capture the fierce expression of the portrait. But, being eleven, she merely looked silly, which annoyed her and yet made her giggle. She would not consciously think that The Great Panteristi looked that fierce because she was the only Sister who had ever killed a world. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a part of Neela acknowledged that fact and shuddered.

Most mornings, Neela would go find old Zeev, a harlequin who had served as a junior officer's valet to Nonalaya, Neela's Womb Mother, on Taarsh - Needodeswaynyo's moon - back when Taarsh was the Builder Ship that had shaped and formed the world she now orbited as a satellite. Zeev was a bit wonky in the head – being seventy six was ancient for a harlequin, most of whom were designed to expire around their mid to late fifties. Neela would 'reach inside his head' and reset his mind. Once he stopped twitching, they usually went up to the roof of the meeting hall to spend an hour or so looking at the Karaal and the fields surrounding it.

Old Zeev would follow Neela like a faithful dog – he was only a bit smarter than one - in his tan jumpsuit and straw hat looking just like a birdscare. They would clamber up the black compressed carbon fiber rungs of the service ladder that stuck out the whitewashed adobe wall of the meeting hall, Zeev behind her 'just in case'. Neela had given up arguing about that Solanums ago.

The First Karaal of Milalgodāo province was aways beautiful to behold in the light of early morning. Neela felt it always beautiful in any light, but the angle of Saansen's rays these first few hours after dawn gave everything a golden glow. The whitewashed adobe buildings, spread in circles radiating out from the meeting hall, seemed as if lit from within their very walls and roofs.

Neela had seen verts of The Great Towers of Gaea, two mile high spires of crystal, micro forged steel, ceramic panels, and Synware fields that were home to The Old Cults like The Dakinis, the first of the Amazon Warrior Cults, and of The Incarnational Cult of Erishkagel. Shawanokia had a tower there, too, on the northern end of California Island.

She knew of the grand monasteries built into the sides of mountains or floating off the coasts upon many other worlds. She knew of the delicate beauty of spider webbed space habitats that drifted among the stars. She knew of other types of Karaals that used soaring, elegant, innovative architecture.

But she preferred the simple layout of her Karaal, a pattern used by the tens of thousands of other Karaals which had spread across the landscapes of thousands of other worlds over the last fifteen hundred Solanums.

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It was strange to think of Zeev coming from a crèche. She suspected it was different from the crèche she was born into, though how different she did not yet know.

Neela had fond memories of crèche life. There were twenty four in her clutch, the first of this Karaal. She and her Sisters were all born within a few weeks of each other, not all that unusual. The primary idea of a clutch was Connectedness, a continuation of the connection Neela felt in Nonalaya's womb, her Womb Mother's thought energy weaving and touching, through and around her, making sure she was perfect and whole and projecting Love and Safety and Strength into Neela's forming mind and body.

Neela knew when it was time to leave that warm, comfortable place, knew that she would be safe 'outside'. It was still a bit of a shock when she burst out of her mother's body into the birthing pool. Even at seventy five degrees, the water was colder than the womb, and then the air cooler than that. But Nonalaya held her and cooed to her and hearing that beautiful sound for the first time with nothing between it and her ears but that cool air soothed her more than she would ever know.

The crèche itself was a mix of soft pinks and blues, calming, spiritual colours. The floor was covered by an adjusting comforter that always cradled Neela and her Sisters 'just so', moving as they moved, holding their little bodies in the most gentle, yet proper fashion.

Those first several months there were always three or four of the Womb Mothers present, sleeping out by the edge of the comforter, or nursing one of the clutch. One of Neela's earliest memories was waking up, hearing the soft breathing of her Sisters around her, and then seeing her own Womb Mother nursing two of them, one on each breast, eyes closed, rocking back and forth with a look of profound contentment upon her face. After a moment, Nonalaya sensed Neela and opened her eyes, smiling at her lovingly. The warmth of that vision washed over Neela and she fell back to sleep.

Nonalaya made sure that she was there to nurse Neela when she awoke.

Of course, Neela, like each Sister in her clutch, would nurse with every one of the twenty four Womb Mothers of this clutch dozens of times before they were weened at around two Solannums. That was when the business of real individuating began.


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This morning, Neela had taken special care with her appearance. The First Karaal of Milalgodāo was going to have its very first visit by a Horse Clan, a most significant and portentous event. This clan was one of the oldest, First Epona of The Fire Red Mane. And the clan that Neela's Seed Mother Iona had ridden with when she was very young. So Neela wanted to look her best.

Her hair up in a pony tail held with a green seashell barrette. A beaded leather choker. Silver crescent moon earrings with matching bracelets. Her best raw linen tunic, which showed off her long, muscular legs – always a plus – and her best sandals, little more than hard tanned leather bottoms with thin leather cords criss-crossing up to her knees.

“Very fetching,” she cooed after twirling around a few times in front of the mirror.

She turned toward an open space on the wall and uttered a Summoning. A face just like her own bulged out of its surface, except that this face was the color and texture of the whitewashed abode.

“What do you think?” she asked, twirling around one more time.

The face grinned. “Take care the Horse Sisters don't carry you off.”, it replied.

“Silly creature,” laughed Neela and snapped her fingers. The face merged back into the wall.

The first time Neela has Summoned the Place Spirit – she was barely nine – she had been rather disconcerted to see herself staring back. Both faces has squawked and the Place Face had collapsed. She asked her Majick instructor, Mistress Goroke, what she had done wrong.

Mistress Goroke had smiled, an expression not often seen upon that leathery old face.

“Nothing at all, youngling,” she said, “The Spirit of Place is yours because you are the first to imprint that place, so of course, the face will be yours.”

“Forever?” Neela asked very softly.

“In all probability.” Mistress Goroke almost grinned, an event Neela found nearly as disconcerting as her own face coming out of the wall. “It is your room. You are the first to live and dream in there. The workers who built it would leave trace energy, but those would be related as memories of the Spirit of Place.”

Mistress Goroke directed her attention to the rest of the class.

“Remember that we are all energetic beings, that we project our own Spirit Energy wherever we are. Because this is a new Karaal upon a new world, it is Tabula Rasa. You are the first generation born upon this world, so many of the imprints that last here will be yours.”

She gazed at them sternly, her usual demeanor.

“But before you use that as an opportunity for making mischief, which I can already see in your faces, keep in mind that your present quarters will be yours for another forty to fifty Solanums, so you will get to sleep in the beds you make.” She gave them The Glare of Kali. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mistress.” They had all chorused.

From that point on, Neela had treated the Place Spirit as a slightly younger playfriend, relating her thoughts, the events of the day, Lessons learned from her various classes, songs and word games. She had her Trikona, Shima and Jamela, talk to her, as well. And when Neela went to their rooms, she talked to their Place Spirits, too.

After a Solanum or so of this, Iona had casually told Neela that Mistress Goroke thought her 'a fine student', very high praise indeed.

Before rushing out of her room – and she was rushing – Neela had one more thing to do. Positioning herself in its center, she quickly surveyed her personal space. A fifteen by twenty foot room with a nine foot ceiling, a stained and polished hardwood floor, and its own bathroom and shower. No tub. The luxury of quiet personal bathing was one that was earned.

Her bed, neatly made and covered with a brightly embroidered comforter, was tucked into one corner, a rough hued stained wooden frame with an intricately carved headboard that had been bare when Neela first slept under it. She had done the carving herself, Symbols and Images from her Dreamings.

The bed was still big for her – it was adult sized. But, at five feet tall, Neela was growing into it.

To the right of the bed, under the room's only window, was Neela's personal altar, a low wooden bureau, which, as tradition called for, she had made herself under the instruction of Mistress Saangina, The Master of Woodworking for the Karaal, the first week Neela had moved out of the crèche and into this room. She was six at that time.

Back then it was a squat, blocky thing, plain slabs of wood solidly put together. But, over time, she had refined it, added a drawer and an inner platform, carved details as she had with her bed's head- board, re-stained and polished the wood. Now, it was refined and beautiful, covered with candles, small statues of several Goddesses, Sacred Objects, of metal, ceramic, or wood, a seashell incense burned upon a wooden tripod.

On the wall around the altar Neela had hung pictures and totems and had painted scenes and images from Goddess Lore until the altar had become the center of a small, but elaborate universe. A small rug rested on the floor before this universe where Neela would sit or kneel depending upon the nature of the Ritual or Practice.

The next wall to the right held a desk/bookshelf/communications console of a simple, straight forward wood construction with a matching chair. Its shelves were lined with hard copy volumes, some old, some plain downloads. Otherwise, except for a few pictures Iona, Nonalaya, Neela's Trikona, and a blue ceramic vase holding dried wild flowers, it stood unadorned.

Continuing deosil, the next wall held the doorway and a good sized armoire of a similar straight forward construction. Presently, it was only half full. The Karaal was only two hundred miles north of Needodeswaynyo's equator, so when younglings weren't at Lessons, or at a Ritual, or formal dinner, they tended to run around naked. This kept Neela's wardrobe at a minimum.

But, clothed or no, a Sister Warded her space before departing from it. That was a tradition that went back to The Time of Men when it could mean life or death and maintained both as a reminder that things were not always as they were now and as a guide to focus Majickal Workings in the most basic of ways.

Neela focused herself, putting all the rushing excitement that was natural to a youngling aside. She felt the slight thrumming tingle of her two crystalline implants, each merged under her skin near the top of her deltoids, made a mudra, and thought/spoke a Summoning. A pale blue shimmering began to crawl over the walls, floor, and ceiling, moving swiftly until it enveloped the entire room. Neela smiled with satisfaction.

Whenever she set The Wards, Neela somehow, somewhere, always thought back to the first time she performed this Spell in Mistress Goroke's Basic Applications class, which was actually the point. Mistress Goroke always anchored the younglings to their Lessons.


© 2006 Michael Varian Daly

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