The stale aroma of incense and ash was equal parts pleasant and disconcerting as Vida neared the antechamber. As she made her way up the steps, she noted that they must be the steepest steps in the entirety of The Orathox. The higher she graduated within the walls of her pyramidal city, the more precarious the stairs always became. Each step rose high, about one third the height of her staff. Which was a fair length above her head. Not that Vida was ever accused of being tall. The landing of each step was worn smooth and jutted out little more than the length of one of her fingers. The fact that a single misstep would mean Vida’s death or at the very least, severe injury, was not lost on her. As she approached the chamber, her right leg began to quiver. The fear she was feeling was raw and primal. It was different from the fear of being caught. Such as when she would “borrow” a codex from the Infinium, the library of infinite knowledge. Although the Infinium was far from infinite, thus, Vida finds herself here, in her current predicament. She held her position on the steps, all too aware that the slightest waiver in confidence could instill doubt in the elders and their final decision. She thought for a moment, she recalled her mother’s calming touch and how proud she knew her mother would be of her were she still with her today. Vida imagined her mother were with her now, reminding her of Akash and how he walked the entirety of the globe by simply placing one foot in front of the other. She continued up the final few steps placing her hand on the edge of the entry to the next floor, focusing only on the present moment.

Now, reaching The Orathox Admentium, the second-to-last room to the outside. “Outside”, she thought, a place she had not seen since she was no more than a newborn. A world she had longed for ever since she could remember. She would read of adventures, perils, and sweeping epics of love and loss. Her excitement was rivaled only by her fear. Alas, Vida knew that anything worth doing would always instill some measure of fear in the heart of any creature. 

She took a brief glance around the room, noting the three unnamed elders, each donning their ceremonial robe of woven flax. Each representing an aspect of the rite of exodus. The three of them sat with legs folded, each of them facing a different wall. It was forbidden to lay eyes upon one who may be exiting The Orathox. They could see only their own shadows cast upon the wall by an oil lamp embedded in the floor at the center of the room. 

Vida took the fourth position, laying her staff on the floor next to her and adjusting her robe, she faced forward toward the sole source of light. She gazed up at the censer dangling from the ceiling over the lamp. She had practiced this moment in her mind many times. Vida stretched her arm toward the censer and nudged it, ensuring it would swing from north to south and back again. This caused a small bell to sound and the final trial would now begin.

The elder sitting across from her, donning a robe of sky blue and white gold was the first to begin the trial. “Who seeks the rite of exodus?” the elder asked. “I do, Vida Abella.” The elder to her left dressed in a robe of solid wispy reds then spoke next. “Tell us of your mother.” “She was called Abella, I mean she… of course, of course her name was Abella.” Vida held an awkward pause. She could feel her hands trembling, but her gaze did not leave the flame from the oil lamp. She took a moment to gather herself, then she spoke with all the confidence she could muster. “My mother was Abella Nimu. She initiated herself to me when I was young, too young to remember the ritual myself. She had always wanted a child of her own, though she worried she had grown too old to care for a newborn child.” The elder dressed in yellow interjected. “Why did she take her first child so late in her life?” Vida began to answer, instinctively annunciating a word or two before catching herself. She had once, in her teenage years, asked her mother this very question, but her mother had explained her reasoning in confidence. Would she betray the memory of her mother just to appease these old people? No, she promptly decided. This was not the first time her personal morality had worked against her goals in life, nor would it be the last. She felt a modicum of anger fume from inside her. The gaul! She thought to herself. Who are they to… she thought better of it. 

Vida recalled the time her mother walked her to her first day of school and they stopped at a commissary along the way to acquire the supplies Vida would require to begin her life of scholarly pursuits. A large man and his young charge cut in front of them in line as though they didn’t even see them standing there. Vida’s mother, Abella, could sense her daughter’s anger. Taking her small hand she pulled her close, then bent over and whispered in her ear. “Now is not the time for anger. School is for patience, open mindedness and understanding. I will teach you where and when to channel your anger later. Do you understand?” Vida looked up at her mother, gazing into the eyes of the universe. Reading an abundance of wisdom and time across her face, she gently nodded. “Good,” her mother said, “I knew you would understand.”

Now, her mind, back in the present. A tear rolled down her cheek. Vida spoke up, “I once asked my mother the very question you ask me now. She gave me her answer, but it was personal and she swore me to secrecy. I rarely lied to her in life, I will never betray her in death.” The elders were quiet for a moment, then, the elder in yellow spoke once again. “That is admirable,” she said. “I’m sure, were your mother here now, she would be proud to call you her daughter.” “She is with me now.” Vida immediately replied with the smallest drop of venom in her voice. The elders were quiet for a time then began speaking in the ancient tongue. A dead language. A language so old, it requires the use of a small resonance chamber in the back of the throat long thought vestigial. Vida was unable to understand their words, though, through their tone she gleaned that the old woman, the one with the yellow robe, was becoming angry and was furiously lecturing the two old men. 

After some seemingly heated discussion, the red and blue elders seemed to surrender and the elder in yellow let out a victorious grunt. The blue elder then spoke. “We must take our leave now. We cannot look upon you, turn and face the wall.” he commanded. Vida did as she was told, she stood up and turned to the inclining wall of the pyramid. She looked at her shadow against the wall, sputtering and flickering with the flame of the lamp. She could hear feet shuffling about, she could hear stone doors opening and closing. Is this it? Is this the extent of the trial? She sat there, her mind reeling with excitement and fear. Then her mind slowed, it’s been quiet for a while, she thought to herself. She looked at the wall in front of her. She saw only her shadow and the hole in the floor containing the precarious stairs she had recently climbed. She looked at the wall and the perfectly cut stones making up its surface. She gave thought to the thousands upon thousands of workers who had built the Orathox so long ago. She contemplated all the generations who dedicated their lives to its construction. “Patience,” she heard her mother tell her. Vida decided to wait just a little longer, afterall; if she was fated to leave this place, she would never be able to return.

The flame from the oil lamp began to dim. Someone has cut the supply of oil. What does it mean? Did I fail the final trial? Am I supposed to climb back down the steps? A slight shiver crept across her body. The admentium was getting cold and her light source was only getting dimmer. She leaned forward and peered down into the entryway in the floor she had climbed out from earlier. She could just barely make out the first two steps leading into complete darkness. She stood up and finally turned around to find an empty room, an ever dimming flame and the censer, no longer swinging from north to south, but resting. Vida noted an eerie stillness in the room. It was as though all time had stopped. She closed her eyes. She could hear only the beating of her own heart. She began to consider that perhaps this was all a part of the trial. She heard the sound of a stone slab door opening above her. She opened her eyes and sunlight filtered in through a hexagonal opening in the ceiling of the admentium. She started to take a step toward the center of the room gazing upwards to the source of the warming sunlight. “Stand back!” Vida heard an old woman’s voice shout. She recognized the voice. It was the voice of the elder in yellow robes she had just been speaking to. Vida took a few steps back and nearly fell down the steps to the lower floor. Her eyes were having trouble adjusting to this new bright light. She rubbed her eyes, only to be blasted by the unpleasant sound of an iron ladder falling from the upper floor to the ground in front of her. “Up! Up! Come!” The old woman shouted unceremoniously. Vida hesitantly stepped forward toward the wrought iron ladder. The sunlight diffused across her eyeballs, she could hardly see anything through the hexagonal opening. She felt as though she were being beckoned to the afterlife. The smell of incense evacuated the chamber and was immediately replaced with a smell Vida could not describe. Is this fresh air? She wondered. “Now! Up, go!” The woman shouted once more. Vida loosened the strap on her staff, placing it around her back. She clasped her hands on a rung and began climbing. As she ascended the ladder, her mind reflected on her past. She couldn’t help but think that she could still turn back. She considered her friends Kavo and Metza toiling away down in the lower farms. They were content there. She would never see them again. Vida pushed forward.

“There you are, young one.” Vida heard the old woman say. “I thought, I thought you could not…” before she could finish her sentence the old woman chimed in. “…could not, what? ‘Lay eyes upon one who seeks exodus from the Orathox.’ hmm? Ha!” The old woman gave a chuckle. The laugh lines on the woman’s face were extreme. Vida could see now, the woman was far older than she initially assumed. The elder continued, “Stupid traditions.” She let out a sigh. “Stupid men and their stupid traditions.” Vida examined her surroundings. The two women were in a cylindrical spire reaching at least another ten floors up with long slit-windows following a spiral staircase. Vida noted that the spire itself was not made up of the large and precisely cut limestone bricks as the rest of the Orathox was, but rather; a dark gray, almost black and greasy looking series of long stones reaching all the way to the top. She counted twenty four individual stone columns with the spiral steps simply attached to them. It was as though each step was growing out of the stone columns.

“This… this spire? It was not in any of the texts I read, or renderings I saw of the Orathox.” Vida said as she stared up the spire in wonder. “Hmm… yes.” The woman said as she appeared to furiously work on something under her robe. “This place is called ‘The Coil’. It was added long after The Orathox was completed, though it is still far older than I am.” The elder paused her work for a moment, adjusting her posture, she let out a sigh of relief. “I am working on a gift for you. I had hoped to have it completed before you left us, but my hands do not move as quickly as they once did. Sit.” The elder gestured to the floor. “An introduction is in order. I am called Nimu.” Vida’s eyes widened. Abella, her mother, held the second name of Nimu. There were others named Nimu, she reminded herself, but the name was hardly common. “Oh, yes.” Nimu offered. “You could say, I am your grandmother.” Vida looked at her in disbelief, then spoke. “My mother always said that you had ascended to elder, but that was so long ago… I…” Vida was stumbling over her words. “You thought me dead did you?” Nimu snapped back. “Well, yes, actually. I mean I… I could only assume.” Vida stated, recovering her words. “Ha, don’t worry, I am difficult to offend these days. You were not wrong to make that assumption. It is not a bad thing you know, being the eldest of all The Orathox.” Nimu adjusted her posture again, stretching her back once more, then continued. “Everyone has to listen to you, including the stupid old men. Nothing more than little boys in old bodies I tell you.” Nimu looked down at her project she was concealing beneath her flowing yellow robe and began her work once again. She had noticed that she had Vida’s complete attention and knew now was the time to ask, “So… my daughter, what was her passing like?” Vida lowered her head as her heart grew heavy at the question, but she felt safe sitting there in the warm setting sunlight, just her and her grandmother. She felt embraced by the warmth of the desert winds gently pushing through the small slotted windows periodically dotting The Coil. She suddenly felt the urge to sit closer to her new found grandmother, and so she did. She scooted closer, she moved so close that their knees were almost touching. Her grandmother looked up from her work and saw Vida’s glazed over eyes. Nimu cracked a subtle smile, a smile she had not made since her time with Abella so long ago. “She passed away peacefully, in her sleep. We made her favorite meal that night.” Nimu interrupted. “Gnash-na?!” Vida let out a sharp breath of laughter immediately followed by a sniffle. “Yes, gnash-na.” Vida looked up at her grandmother, warm tears now cascading down her cheeks and collecting at her jawline and chin. Vida instinctively wrapped her arms around her grandmother, embracing her. 

The two women sat embracing for as long as they wanted. Both of them finally having the opportunity to share the loss of a daughter and a mother. There were no two people in the entirety of the universe who loved Abella more than these two women. And so, the common love these two shared for Abella reached its zenith here, atop The Orathox, high above the desert floor. 

Just as their embrace was reaching its inevitable conclusion, Nimu ended the long hug with the words, “You know… I was the one who perfected that recipe.” Vida pulled away, keeping her hands on her grandmother’s small shoulders. “Your daughter always said she perfected it!” Vida exclaimed. The two women laughed through their residual tears. 

Vida stayed up late into the night with her grandmother. Her grandmother gave her some equipment for surviving the harsh desert and beyond. She told Vida stories of Abella when she was young and stories of her own adopted father, Evinti. She imparted onto her granddaughter all the wisdom she could in the short time they would share together.

Eventually, as the moons were on full display high in the sky, Vida could no longer ignore her body’s exhaustion and gave in to sleep. That night she dreamt she was with her mother, grandmother and great-grandfather. Vida and her grandmother sat at a campfire while Abella and Evinti stood further away in a kitchen cooking dinner. Vida and Nimu sat around the fire laughing and debating as Abella and Evinti would occasionally chime in with the odd quip here and there.