Kent Kelly - And the Ashes

“You loved him, too,” said Lacie, dropping her eyes from Sophie’s to study the tears, the proof that her mother was truly there. “Didn’t you? Like grandmamma.”

“Yes, Lacie,” said Sophie, her voice on the verge of breaking open. She took in a deep breath. “I loved Silas so very much, just like grandmamma.”

“I miss daddy so much,” Lacie whispered. There were no tears. Her face took on a serene cast as she pulled away, tilting her head, considering Sophie lying there. To Sophie, her daughter appeared to be trying on some big spirit-thing she’d inherited and didn’t know quite what to do with, like she was trying on adulthood to see what it might feel like. Then young-ancient-timeless Lacie smiled, Tom’s lopsided and mischievous smile, and ruffled her mother’s hair. “I’ll protect you, too,” she said, matter-of-factly. “And mommy?”

“Yes?”

Lacie beamed. “Will you get me a glass of water?”

Sophie kissed her daughter upon the cheek, catching mostly blonde ringlets as she rose. She brought back a bottle of water, of course, not a glass. The cistern water was somewhat gray, with little flecks floating down inside it. But that didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but those eyes, that mouth, that unbreakable radiant spirit in gaze and smile. Oh, Tom. If only you could see her now, she is a wonder. “Here you go.”

A sip, a pout. A one-handed hug of practiced ease, the sensation of girl fingers on mother’s neck and cheek. A kiss, that endless joy which Sophie had believed she would never feel again. “Don’t cry, mommy.”

“I can’t stop,” whispered Sophie. “I’m so happy.”

(Sophie closed her diary in elder years with this cryptic, unknowable yet poignant poem addressed to Lacie.)

(Although inscribed well over a century after the passing of Sophia Ingrid St.-Germain, the reader may find the following words which were etched upon the inner metal “cover” plate of the preserved diary materials — a chronicle cut directly into the metal by some varying series of sharp implements — to be of considerable interest. It appears that the line of Shoshone Geyser Clan matriarchs continued unbroken, almost to within a century of the present day. What transpired to sweep the Clan from history in the 2200s is still unknown to us at this time, and this is one of the key mysteries which has caused me to break for the only time in my life with the sacred Covenant and to urge the UTAS Loremasters to bless, to purify and to aid the next year’s oversea expedition to U.S. Province 44, “Wyoming.”)

(I, for one, prefer to believe that the Shoshone people spread far across the Americas during the Age of Resurgence in exodus over the endless grasses, harvesting the power of the wind, relearning the secrets of earthly energy as a direct result of their geyser religion; and, I pray, that they forsook the black lore of the Weapons of White Fire forevermore. I realize that this theory has by many been branded as a heresy to our people, due to its obvious conflicts with the Orthodox Chronicle, and the resultant questions which must assail the Lore-Mastery Bloodline as portrayed in our own holy histories. Nevertheless, the preliminary evidence of the Yellowstone matriarchy recovered from Shoshone dig site 84 is compelling.)

(There must be so much more to learn, and I pray that I may offer my own life to the further discovery of this serendipity, in revelation. For I know now who I am. ~A. S.-G. C.)

The inscription upon the mantle of the Shoshone holy book is as follows:

(I) For seven years:Sophie of the High Shelter, daughter of Annabel, who by her own courage and the power of the One came to us from the fire, and the ashes. She who created the Wind Echo of the Second Shelter, our home.

(II) For nine years:Gracie Mae of the Houston, daughter of Lakesha, whose eyes were kind and whose hands were filled with healing.

(III) For one and fifty years:Lacie, daughter of Sophie of the Poisoned Hands, who shared with us the last revelations of the Lost World of the light machines, who by brave heart and silver tongue allowed us to make peace and to befriend the Jackson Lake Clan, our warriors.

(IV) For four years only:Rica of the Rosarito Beach, daughter of Juanita, who brought us the power of the waterfall, who was lost in valorous bloodshed ere the Sun Mission to the Northlands.

(V) For four years once again:Snow Deer, daughter of Sun-in-Stream, who would rather die in torment than ever reveal our secret sanctum to the Feeding Mouths who dwell in the Valley of Weeping.

(VI) For nine and forty years:Sage, daughter of Lacie, who journeyed into the Utter East in search of the Grail of Wonders.

(VII) For seven and twenty years:Daeli Choi, daughter of…

(Due to the extreme damage suffered by the lower panel, the Chronicle of the Storm Years ends here.)

(And that is all that now remains. The very rarity and now resonance of my own name, I believe, is proof enough that the bloodline of Sophia Ingrid St.-Germain lives on. The matriarchs gave down the names not of their husbands, but of themselves. The women’s family names have been preserved for centuries. Am I not of the one bloodline? Will deeper and hopefully un-irradiated physical remains which we might recover from the Geyser Basin, bones and DNA, offer the final proof? Let me go there to dig with our warriors and the delvers, I beseech you.)

(I submit these true and now sacrosanct records for publication, to be followed by mine own judgment for my betrayal, my revealing of these words to our own people. I submit and bequeath these remnants to the Loremaster in all sincerity,)