October 8th, 2014.
I almost found her—just a little further.
Behind me are years of studying the diaries of my predecessors who failed, months of despair at yet another dead end, promises to my family to abandon the search, and always, my inevitable return to it. I have been impoverished; one by one, friends stopped speaking to me at the very beginning of the path. What were their noisy parties and drunken conversations to me, when I could spend that time searching for her?
My appearance is far from normal: clothes full of holes and dust from endless wanderings. When I look in the mirror, I no longer recognize the aged madman staring back. In the past, I tried to drown her call with alcohol, by moving to new places, by taking part in military campaigns—but it only muted the voice for a while. In the end, I accepted my fate and gave my life entirely to the search.
And now destiny smiles in return: in a book I buy from a stranger at a roadside market, I stumble upon her trace. Her seal marks the page. This time I will find her—I know it. I sell the last of my family’s possessions and set off for the mountain named in the book.
At the foot of the mountain, the villagers greet me in the evening square with torches. Some wail in mournful voices, others beg me not to go higher—but I already hear her whisper and press forward through the crowd. Hands reach to restrain me, but I sharply pull away. Just at the village’s edge, I notice someone running toward me, awkwardly waving a torch. A youth in linen trousers and a long-hooded robe, his face hidden. He offers to be my guide.
We climb. Her call grows stronger. Neither dark forest, nor vicious shadows, nor steep slopes can stop me. As her song grows louder, note by note, a divine flower blooms inside me; each petal rewinds the clock of life, I grow younger, drunk on the rush of power. I must find her. I long to see who she is, what she looks like. My thoughts blur, dissolving into the ocean of her song, hypnotic as a siren’s call. Near the summit, the guide takes my hand to help me past the boulders. I am entirely absorbed in unearthly bliss, barely aware of where I am.
And then, finally, at the mountain’s peak—I see her. She sings beside a great bonfire. Flames leap and cast flickering light across her alabaster skin. Long black hair falls over fragile shoulders, woven with white feathers and blue ribbons. From beneath dark lashes, her green eyes pierce me. Wind rushes by, pulling her tunic tight across her slender waist, cinched with a leather belt. At her side hangs a dagger in a sheath inlaid with gold and malachite.
She lifts her hand and beckons with a single finger. Slowly, eyes locked on hers, I drift toward her—I do not walk but float, for I no longer feel my legs.
She draws the dagger, its sharpened blade flashing, and extends it toward me. “Thou shalt not kill!”—the ancient, final taboo flickers for a second in my mind before unraveling like threads of mist under the sparkling emerald fire of her gaze.
From behind me, the youth approaches and stands at our side, facing the fire. He throws back his head, baring a throat smooth and untouched by hair. His hood falls—and I see my own face. He wears my face.
My arm swings, slicing his throat open like the rind of a ripe watermelon. Blood streams down, and yet he stands smiling, as though the happiest man alive. I feel no regret, not a tremor of hesitation. I do not wonder why he bore my face. I only turn, embrace her, inhale the fragrance of her hair and skin, and whisper faintly into her ear:
“What is your name?”
“Idea,”—her voice thunders inside my skull, sharp and sudden like a crack of summer lightning. I try to say something more, but my words catch in a gurgling cough.
Her arms wrap tightly around my chest, thin nails digging into my back.
“Do not fear—I will take you into my world, the world of Ideas,” she whispers. I cannot grasp what I am not supposed to fear. My thoughts tangle, my legs falter.
Suddenly, from her back, two vast white wings unfurl. With a few powerful strokes, we rise into the night sky. Instinctively, I try to embrace Idea, but my arms refuse to obey. Then I notice: her tunic, at the waist and below, is soaked in blood. The boy must have spilled it, down there at the fire. Yet the stain spreads, darkens, sags heavier with blood.
And as I lose consciousness, I understand: it is my blood.