ETHERUS
AND BELMIRA |
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his was one of the rare days, when the children could not wait till
Injèrá was setting and the night began. The night they were allowed to stay up
for long, sitting around a burning fire and amidst them Aileen, the greatest
storyteller ever - they were convinced. Aileen wasn‘t mainly a storyteller. She
was a Baveras Aid who had, despite her age, chosen to travel around and not to
settle down in a village somewhere in Santharia or with a group of Shendar
nomads as most others did it. She was still too
restless. And too fond of telling myths and stories about her
Goddess, the victories and defeats she had when fighting with her kind -
and about the never ending love story between Baveras and Grothar. But sometimes
she told stories about other Gods as well - as it was
the case today in this Shendar Dome in the middle of the Raház-Dáth.
Making herself comfortable on a warm blanket out of
the wool of the aka‘pi, she prepares herself to tell her audience another of her
tales. The children try to sit as near as possible, the adults settle down a bit
farer away.
"Before I start with my tale," Aileen begins, "I would
like to know from you, who has already travelled the road from Bardavos to
Uderza after the first frost?"
"Me, me and me!" a few excited children shout.
"And have you noticed anything special while passing the cliffs near Occen‘s
Lookout?"
"Oh yes," a girl answers. "You
surely mean the False Heart
growing there! When it turns bright red in autumn
after the first frost, you can spot the place even from the hills behind Uderza
on a clear day!"
"Yes, my dear, you are a good observer. Maybe you know already, that the
False Heart has other names
as well, Bleeding Heart, or
Burning Heart. Not so well
known is another name, Belmira's Hair.
Has anyone of you an idea, from where this name derives?"
This time Aileen gets only shaking heads to see.
"Now, my darlings," Aileen addresses the young ones. "Today you must be brave,
because I will tell you a tale of desire, love, betrayal and death. The story of
Belmira." She clears her voice, takes a sip of the mil‘no tea and begins:
"It was long ago, when the races, especially the humans
were still young, that a beautiful human woman lived on Caelereth. Her body was
well built, her face lovely, her eyes of a deep green
with golden spots in it, but nothing was as beautiful as her hair. It was
slightly curled and very long, reaching nearly down to her feet, floating around
her like a golden coat. And golden it was, shimmering and glaring like mithril
in the night, but with a red hue by day. When the sun shone onto it, it seemed
to burn, so vivid was it, like golden-red flames dancing around her. Her name
was Belmira.
One day, she caught the attention of Etherus."
Aileen pauses, the eyes of the children hanging on her lips.
"Can anyone of you tell me, who Etherus is?"
The younger ones look a bit perplexed, asking with big eyes for an answer,
Etherus isn‘t very known her in Shendar domes. But one of the older boys looks
at Aileen for her attention.
"Yes, Severin, tell us, who Etherus is," she asks him.
"Etherus is one of the twelve gods, and his element is fire as is Foiros‘ and
water Baveras‘, and he is the god of..of...excess." Seems even Jeremy has
problems with this word.
"Very good, my boy, and can you tell our little ones here, what that is,
excess?"
"Well," Severine hesitates, but then carries on.
"Excess is if you want too much from anything, if you
use more water than you need, if you carry on eating though you had already more
than enough, if you..." -
there he stops again, but continues shortly after -
"if you want to have more women than just your companion in life, and that very
often."
"Very well said, Severine, though this is not the only realm excess can exist,
it isn‘t restricted to the body alone. Good, I could tell you now more about
Etherus, why he is called the treacherous as well, but this would be another
story. Let me tell you the story about Etherus and Belmira first....
The first time Etherus saw Belmira was when the Injèrá
was setting and in this very moment her hair seemed
all fire. He thought first she was a kind of a fire
demon, but when he came nearer and saw her perfect body, her lovely face and
beautiful eyes, he fell immediately in love with her.
His desire to hold her in his arms and be able to caress this silken hair was so
burning, that he couldn‘t eat, nor drink, nor sleep nor do anything else from
this moment on. He didn‘t cease from her side and because he himself was a real
vision of a man in her eyes, it didn‘t take long till they became lovers."
Aileen takes a sip of tea, there is no other noise heard than the pouring
of another cup after she emptied her first. Then she
continues.
"The two had a good time, for Belmira was as devoted to enjoy life to the full
as Etherus is. So they spent their days with eating as much of the best dishes
you can imagine , drinking the best wines till they fell asleep in each other
arms, riding out till their horses broke down under them and if they lost
interest in any of these distractions, they lay together enjoying each other's
body.
It is not known how long this went on, but one day,
Etherus longed for something new and he was gone when Belmira woke up in the
morning. She wasn‘t annoyed, because she had felt herself, that though she had a
gorgeous life with Etherus, the worm of boredom had begun to gnaw on their
distractions in a hidden corner. Gladly she took some rest and when Etherus came
back after a few days, they enjoyed each others company even more - till the
next departure of Etherus.
Etherus and Belmira were a pair which fit very well
together, both with their desire, their lust and love for excess. So it is
surely no surprise, that one day, when Etherus was away, a handsome young man
caught Belmira's eye. Her desire to feel his arms
around her inflamed her and not having learned to
restrict herself she immediately tried to seduce the young man. Pretending to
love him dearly she ensnared him and who can resist a woman like Belmira? She
took him as a lover, but not for long."
Aileen pauses to have some more tea, looks over her audience - and sighs.
"When Etherus got notice what had happened, he was furious. There was no
thought, that he had had other women in the time Belmira was with this man, but
he was so raging in his wrath as he was loving in his desire,
that his ire got beyond
the scope of sanity. He killed the man immediately, while Belmira tried to flee
and hide in a cave. But Etherus found her, seized her and smashed her body on
the steep rock of a mountain wall."
An outcry goes through the young audience, not used to hear such cruel stories
from Aileen, wide eyes are looking at her and hands hide open mouths. Aileen
goes on telling her story.
"However, Foiros, the God of Justice, intervened - Belmira had done nothing else
than Etherus himself. He didn‘t prevent the extinction of her body though, but
he allowed her to life on forever - in the
False Heart. On the place where her
body was killed a beautiful climber began to grow which soon covered the whole
wall and spread from there over the whole of Caelereth."
It is quiet in the dome, nobody dares to be the one to break the silence, till
the smallest of the children, a little girl called Jeremy raises her voice and
asks:
"And why is this plant called False
Heart?"
All are looking at her and she cuddles close to the next bigger girl, a little
bit scared and surprised about herself. Aileen takes the tension out of the air by smiling at her.
"Good question, little one!" she assures her. "Does anyone of you want to answer
this?" she asks the bigger children. But noone
dares to say something, so
Aileen continues.
"Well, let‘s start with an easier question. Why is the False
Heart called Belmira's
Hair or Burning
Heart or Bleeding
Heart?"
"That is easy!" Aerith, the girl sitting next to Jeremy says: "The
False Heart is red when the
frost has touched it and is falling down the cliff as Belmira's
Hair was red and falling down her back. The other two meanings are easily
explained as well. The leaves of the heart are shaped like a heart and red as
the burning fire or red as blood in autumn. The heart we have in False Heart as
well..."
Severine is clearing his throat: "Maybe the Heart is called false because
Belmira was false to this man she pretended to love but didn‘t. She wanted him
without giving him her true love. But if she would have loved him, she would
have been false to Etherus....."
Aileen is smiling, these children are so bright and attentive. "Very well said,
Severine. Belmira was false in her relation to this young man she met. But, and
there people wrong her, when they think she was false to Etherus as well. She
was not, she acted just as he did when having a lover beside him. But nowadays
people often don‘t want to see this and say, she was turned into a False Heart
because she betrayed Etherus."
"Aileen, Aileen! Was Etherus punished for killing Belmira?" Jeremy wants to
know.
"No, my dear, Etherus is a God and Belmira was just a human woman. Who should
punish a God? But..." Aileen looks at her audience. "It is said that Etherus had
punished himself by killing her, because he never found another woman again with
whom he had so much fun as with Belmira - and so he is still longing for her -
and you can hear him calling her in the winter when the wind blows through the
frozen red leaves of Belmira's Hair."
Story written
by
Talia Sturmwind
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