“Who are you?” A snake made up of smoke slithered in the air.
“I am…” Rowida wondered if the snake wanted her name or something else. “I am Rowida.”
“Who are you?” The snake lashed at Rowida, stinging her left arm with immense pain, then curled around itself and raised its head to stare at Rowida with empty eye sockets.
Rowida winced at the sudden pain. Then she realized she was wrong to assume the snake wanted something as mundane as her name. Her name was not what defined her. “I am a leader of men, a conqueror, a woman. I am the most powerful single person in Agartha.”
The snake rocked from side to side, and it bared its fangs. “Who are you?”
Rowida sensed that if the snake should bite her again, she would die, never even be given a chance at rebirth. She hesitated for a long moment, and the snake hissed loudly as it prepared to lunge at her. “I am a murderer, friend betrayer, child kidnapper, destroyer of Agartha, I am the most miserable person in Agartha, and I welcome death in place of the agony I feel every day for my sins and guilt.” She pulled open her shirt. “Come on, finish me.”
She waited for the fangs to plunge into her skin, ending her miserable existence once and for all, but nothing happened.
“You may enter.” The snake dissolved into mist, and in its place, a muddy road lay ahead.
Rowida stepped on the road’s beginning. It felt solid and real. Rowida marched ahead, seeking to find where the road led.
All around her, the world formed as if solidifying from the smoke into existence by her mere presence. Rowida felt that the terrain was familiar, yet she failed to identify it as any she passed through.
The sky and land looked exactly as they were on the other side of the portal, except that now and then, a feature of the terrain would melt into something else. A tree melted into a clearing, then into a bush. The sides of the road changed from brush to grassland and then back. There was an element of change, the unexpected yet familiar, in every inch of the road.
The road finished into a void. Rowida stopped and looked around her. Until the end of the path, the terrain remained as it was, Agartha-like, but past the road, there was nothing, not even the smoke present at the portal entrance.
“Gertrude?” Rowida called at the void. “Gertrude, are you here?”
Rowida took a deep breath and stepped off the road. She felt like she was falling. A year passed, falling from the tip of the road. A year of nothingness crashed beyond Rowida as she forever fell.
Then she found herself in front of an all-familiar city, Zarzura, the white city in all its glory. Rowida shivered. She didn’t want to be there. In her mind, she could hear the judgment that would strip her out for her soul. In her mind she could hear the screams of the thousands of residents as she and the grand wizard unleashed their doomsday Arcanos on the place, and in her mind, she could see the wall of green fire coming to consume everything while she pushed her only friend and confidante, Gertrude to be instantly consumed in a flash of the magical fire.
Rowida tried to turn, but she couldn’t. Something compelled her to go forward. She passed through the long road to the gates, then through the gates. She passed the main square and the commercial district beyond. She walked to the ruling halls and stood in front Zarzura’s rulers, ready to pass judgment on her. They were going to strip her of her soul again. She screamed at the top of her lungs, but all that came out was just a soft whimper.
She was helpless, passing the stages of stripping her soul, then the long journey to Beimini, then the horrible experience with the boy she took from there to the surface world, then her extremely difficult return and isolation from all people for decades until Gertrude came into her life.
Gertrude, sweet and faithful Gertrude, the only person who stood by her and urged her forward to fulfill her plans of exacting her vengeance on the greens, the one who stood by her as she burned down their city and lost her chance to get a soul. Gertrude, whom she betrayed and killed while enraged at the man she thought she loved.
Then she experienced the moment she lost her dragon soulmate with all wrenching clarity, the search for the green boy, and finally stealing his soul and having to feel all the guilt of the hundred years that came before.
Then Rowida was back again in front of Zarzura, about to repeat those decades of soul-wrenching agony.
“I deserve it. I deserve it all.” Tears flowed down Rowida’s cheeks as she stood stunned in front of the gates of Zarzura. “Sorry, I am so sorry for all that I have done.”
She fell on her knees and pulled the mud from the ground, and poured it on her head. “I am sorry, my beloved Gertrude. You were the best thing in my long, miserable life. I am so, so sorry.”
She kept putting the mud over her head for what seemed to be an entire year until her body was three feet deep in the mound of soil, and her tears never stopped flowing the whole time.
“I don’t deserve salvation. I don’t deserve a chance of happiness or a moment of rest.” Those were the words she repeated for the past month.
Rowida decided to bury herself and finally get her deserved punishment. Death in the place where death was all there was.
She picked a large rock and bashed it against her head, but all she got was a bruise and a headache. She was still alive. She pulled her hand away and bashed her head again, then again, and again.
Then something pulled back at her hand, and she couldn’t bring the rock to connect to her blood-soaked head. She turned with blurry eyes to see who dared deny her deserved punishment, to see that it was a familiar face.
“Gertrude?” Rowida dropped the rock. “Is it really you?”
“Yes, my old friend and bitter enemy.” Gertrude released her hand. “It is I.”
“I am so sorry for what I did to you.” Rowida wailed as she inched to touch her old friend, but her fingers connected to nothing.
“I know you finally have a soul, and you are feeling the guilt for the first time in decades.” Gertrude talked coldly and distantly. “For so many years, I felt the hatred and anger, all-consuming, keeping me trapped in this burning city, never able to move forward, never able to forgive you.”
Gertrude reached and pulled Rowida out of the middle of the mud mound and out. “When I first sensed you in this place, I wanted you to suffer, to feel the hatred I felt for you.” She led Rowida to an enormous boulder at the tip of the road and sat her down. “But as you lived your entire life in front of my eyes, I found excuses for what you did, reasons for redemption, and I felt less hatred and less anger as I watched your suffering after Zarzura fell after you killed me.”
Gertrude held Rowida’s hands in hers. “And finally, when I saw your regret, your shame, and guilt, I found out that I was never mad at you. I forgave you the moment you pushed me to my death.” Gertrude smiled. “I was mad at myself. I blamed myself for not seeing ahead, for not warning you about the warpath you took, about the grand wizard, and I couldn’t forgive myself.”
Gertrude sat beside Rowida. “Now, I finally did, I was only human, just as you were, and we commit sins because they are our way to pass through our suffering, guilt results from our judgment of those sins, and forgiveness, especially forgiveness for ourselves, is the only thing that takes us above our humanity and raises us to the ethereal and eternal.”
“So, you forgive me?” Rowida smiled through her tears.
“I do.” Gertrude hugged her. “Also, I agree to be your spirit guide to whatever you need to go forward with your life.”
“I don’t need that anymore, I am just happy to remain here beside you, my friend, my solace, my daughter, for I realized after I threw you into the flames that I did it to the only person close enough to be called kin, the person I saw as my daughter.” Rowida touched Gertrude, and she kissed her hands.
“Mother, indeed, I was in some way your daughter, and perhaps this was the best thing I had in life.” Gertrude kissed Rowida’s hands. “You will soon forget the experiences you had in here. All you might carry with you would be the sense of being forgiven and the knowledge I will impart on you.” Gertrude laughed a pure, gentle laugh. “You will not believe the number of people who pass this place in their dreams and then forget all about it and go on with their lives.”
“But I can’t forget you. I need you beside me, like the old times.” Rowida hugged Gertrude fiercely.
“You can’t. I am moving on.” Gertrude patted her hands. “Once you leave, I will go on to the next stage. Maybe I will be reborn, and we will meet again.” She smiled.
“But…” Rowida tried to refuse, but she knew Gertrude spoke the truth. She will move on. She had nothing left to bind her to this place. Tears pearled again in Rowida’s eyes. “Can you search for me if you were born as an Agarthan?”
“I will.” Gertrude patted her hands again. “Now, to find the blues and yellows, you need the Arcanos of Memphis, also known as the Arcanos of the second chance.” She wiped away Rowida’s tears from her cheeks. “It is in the Chronicler’s lair, and it has to be given, not taken.”
“But the chronicler knows of me, and they will never allow me to set foot on their island.” Rowida searched Gertrude’s now serene eyes and felt some peace just by looking at them.
“Find a way.” Gertrude faded away. “You need to take the Arcanos and touch it to the sky, meeting the water and call on its power to give you a chance to reach the blues and yellow.” Gertrude was almost transparent by then. “Just beware, the energy toll to bring the two nations back could be more than all the energy that sustains the existence of the world. Only one of the chosen ones can pull them back, drawing on the energy vibrating within the threads of fate.”
Gertrude disappeared completely. And all that was left was a gentle smell of Arabic jasmine, the same perfume she used to wear when she was alive.
Rowida stood, looked in the distance. The white city disappeared, and all she could see was the mouth of the portal back to the living world. She sighed and stepped through.
If you liked this story, check others about Rowida: Rowida, a girl who would change the world. Why Rowida? Rowida
And now you can read her full story in these published books: Through The Storm, The Green Boy, The Eternal Agarthans, and Red’s Soul.