The Astral Dream of Passage, by Antoinëtte Van Sluytman

“Passage across the Miraji.”

The man lifts the chondrite talisman hanging from his neck, and a radiant sliver of light crossing its edge nearly blinds me. A symbol of his high rank as a praiseborn, but I didn’t need to see the T-shaped travel permit to know that much.

His meteorite donned hands are indigo-black, a complexion symbolic of maturity, but it was painted unlike those whose flesh become naturally imbued with the color through arduous dye labor. His guest is a foreigner from the mountain nation; a lutanist. Swathed entirely in black, from the dark frayed cape hanging from his shoulders to the strip of fabric binding his eyes.

“Coastline,” the man continues, his gaze barely crossing mine, but I am used to it. There is something unnerving about the way he clutches his symbol of passage, as if the object is the only thing tethering him to composure. I nod, because I don’t usually speak during crossings, and my guests prefer it that way.

The lutanist has his head down, completely still despite the wind lashing at his collar, summoning the chimes of the gold bells in his turban. When I reach for my oar I notice him smile at the ground, his lips full and wind blistered.

I wait until they board the sunboat before using my heels to push the vessel through the crimson mudbanks. Only when the first swell of the current beckons the boat do I plant my oar into the mire and haul myself back on board. Above us—blood red nebula fringed gold seeps across the horizon. I glance down at the compass hanging from my astrolabe belt, then I fasten the strap of my wide-brimmed hat beneath my chin, brushing off the cosmic dust.

My guests pour their coffee and the steam of saffron reaches me.

One might say the humble chronicles of a Miraji oarswoman comes with little thrill. I spent my days navigating the tides of the cosmic oasis on the snout of an unremarkable sunboat, remaining significant so long as I was unnoticed. More often than not, a person of my trade maintains the company of great spectacle.

Nobles, foreign tradesmen, political tributes, soothsayers, and rather mysterious meetings better conducted beneath a vast nebulae-dusk sky than amidst civilization, all guided to their next destination by my hand. The steady rhythms of my oar, pushing through a desert of dark matter and cosmic dust, our boat a mere mote of dust drifting across its infinite surface. I care not for their company.

I speak of little, hear all, exist to not exist, but record everything.

“A clear sky upon the Miraji desert, eh” the praiseborn breathes in, but the inhale betrays his apprehension. “The crown of our nation.”

“I’ve never heard of a desert that moves and one needs a boat to cross.” The lutanist places his redwood instrument beside him, as if it were a third passenger.

“Some call it the inflating chest of our astral deity, Cernaddon—and so she breathes.”

I pull the tiny leather book from my sleeve. The words I write mean little to me—their purpose is to steady my mind when the Miraji beckons during the long nights. I fear a woman of my age may erode over time with the tide I navigate. I was prepared to write, after all, as soon as I saw the tattoos commemorating the lutanist’s hands, I knew who he was.

Corodonli Renhah.

“I’m familiar with the tale, though I suspect you are here to assess the legitimacy of my reputation rather than the common folktale.” The lutanist’s head tilted, like a curious crow.

The man was considered a sagacious heretic, born to a people of mountains who spoke of music like a sacred mother tongue. He paved this legacy with prominent hands; ungodly. Black tattooed fingers like five yearning extensions of his soul. His miserable tongue, sharp and gilded with the ire of a poet. His eyes, bound by the symbol of a creed that had cast him out. A strip of dark fabric and a tail of obsidian teardrops. His was a name known to all but sought only by the misfortunate.

As it were, the praiseborn across from him, was one with the misfortunate.

“The matters of your exile are a cause of speculation…your music I hear is…an occult paradox…to some.”

“My music is simply a language like any other, but it speaks to a hidden part of us, breaching the annals of the mind,” Corodonli explains. “But if it’s your soul you fear for, I assure you I have no interest in that sort of trade.”

“Ah of course…I did not mean to imply…”

“You aren’t the first praiseborn to acquire my services and not mean to imply something.”

“Don’t take offense, I simply meant—”

“Perhaps you can start by telling me what ails you.” The lute was laid to rest on his lap, then Corodonli’s long fingers began to twist the ivory pegs. The praiseborn’s eyes became round when the lutanist plucked a long black talon from his sleeves and grazed it across the strings. The reverberation caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. The grip around my oar tightens.

“I no longer dream. The soothsayers say it’s a sign of great misfortune…”

“When was your last dream?” His thumb tested the weight of the first string, a steady hymn echoing across the distance. A knot of dread twists in my stomach at the sound.

“The winter equinox.” The praiseborn kept his eyes on Corodonli’s hands, fluttering nervously.

“What elements do you sleep beneath?”

The talon grazed the rim, then his index finger stretched across the surface, orchestrating a vibrating incantation.

“Granite and…mudbrick…a ceiling”

“Is there anyone with you?”

“What…what do you mean?”

The rhythm steadied, each vibration a foreboding echo that summoned deep shivers. The strings wept beneath his fingers, a consternation chorus of woe. The praiseborn flinched.

“I mean—who is with you now?”

“My wife and child. They are…smiling…” The man’s voice was unsteady, a hoarse whisper.

“Where?”

“I can see them outside the window.”

“What are they doing?”

The intonation deepens enough for me to feel it at my core, the pace increasing. My heart races with it.

“They are seated beneath the pomegranate trees…my son chases the wild yordic…”

“Can you move?”

“I…” the praiseborn stammers. “I can.”

“Can you smell anything?”

“Black salt and smoke from the villages…the orange blossoms in my wife’s hair…”

Two more strings were plucked, a powerful declaration from the fingertips. I will never forget that harrowing sound.

“Are they close?”

“Y-…yes.”

“Go toward them.”

Brisk winds battered the briefest of silence. The praiseborn was quiet before he spoke next, and this time his voice was broken with grief.

“I cannot…they were taken from me…taken by disease.”

“Not anymore…they are outside the window, waiting for you. They are with you.” Corodonli lifted his right hand gently, letting it linger beside his cheekbone. “Tonight, you will dream of your family.”

With that, the lutanist snaps his fingers and the praiseborn’s body shutters, the coffee slipping from his hand before the sound of his body sliding to the side. My book fell from my own grip before my gaze shifted across my shoulder. The praiseborn was curled up like a child, the silk of his robes strung across his shoulders like a shroud of nobility, a steady movement rising and falling beneath the front of his shirt. The inflation of a chest. Asleep.

Corodonli twisted his pegs in silence, his head still averted to the ground, the veil across his eyes like a strip of shadow. I knew then, that that day I guided the lutanist and sleeping praiseborn across the Miraji in silence, that it would be the first time I would have no words to record. As an oarswoman, I considered I had no real worthy story to tell—until that moment. Alas, I had no words. The Miraji commanded the moment, the grandest witness.

When we reached the coast, the lutanist took his pouch of compensation and allowed me to guide him from the boat.

“He will dream as normal,” he suddenly said. “And a few days from now he will forget about the both of us.”

I stared at him, startled at his words. Surprised he had noticed me. Nonetheless, I smiled, because I had never known the satisfaction of being noticed until then. We were better left forgotten after all. I was a simple oarswoman that guided powerful people to their destination. And he was a blind lutanist who gave those powerful people the ability to dream again.

He strung his lute across his shoulder just as I grabbed my oar. I watched him leave before preparing for my next destination; at the snout of my unremarkable sunboat, upon the inflated chest of a cosmic oasis.

Author’s note

Antoinëtte's work exists in the liminal space between sci-fi and fantasy as a reimagination of 'advanced' societies without artificial intelligence. The Astral Dream of Passage is a snapshot of a character backstory based in an expansive afrocosmic universe she created. Antoinëtte’s short fiction and artwork are all bridged across the many uncanny dimensions of this ever-growing astral world.

Antoinëtte Van Sluytman

Antoinëtte Van Sluytman is an afrolatina scholar, science-fantasy writer, poet, instructor, film & media coordinator, martial artist, co-founder of upcoming multimedia studio, Broken Chalice Studios, and award winning illustrator based in California. Antoinëtte's work honors the legacy of pre-colonial spirituality and matriarchal antiquity, with her debut afrocosmic story published by Hexagon SF Magazine (Myriad: Lawless).

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