The Urmeer Tether

By William J. Keith

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." -- Genesis 1:6

A vast world of water, blueing the sky above, falls down to meet the waters of the world's oceans. The oceanic horizon is where this magical transformation takes place, where ships disappear into the vastness of the sea, where a loved one returns from the unknown back to the arms of hearth and home. Even for humans who no longer believe they are surrounded by an infinite depth of water in the day sky, the ocean's horizon -- farther, smoother, and more alien than any horizon on land which can be reached and crossed -- still holds wondrous powers of joining, separation, stability, and transformation.

One is never on the horizon one perceives, of course. How could it ever be a Tether? Even if it were, how could it be discovered? The answer to this question lies in the later history of the Grigori before their Outcasting. A Watcher named Medad that served Oannes was taking his leave of a human lover, sailing away to another life. She waited on the shore, watching him go; and when he was only a speck on the sea, his image trembling and about to vanish from her sight, he felt their farewell echo with the power of every such farewell on the Earth. Realizing he stood in the wavering locus of a transient Tether, he quickly invoked Oannes and was Attuned to the Tether on the spot, later being Word-Bound as its Seneschal.

Medad had little time to enjoy status as a ranking member of Oannes' hierarchy; the Grigori were Outcast shortly thereafter. But Medad kept his Tether, since it was worried that the process of reattuning the transient Tether to another angel might destroy its sanctified nature, with no promise of regaining it. Later, Oannes was destroyed, and Medad was more alone than ever. Today, he wanders the oceans in celestial form, sometimes watching the shipping lanes for pirates or seeking lost mariners, sometimes desiring only the solitude of the vast ocean. Very rarely are there Disturbances here for him to seek out and deal with. Since no Superior now takes his Tether's Essence, Medad sings Themes to strengthen those melodies in the Symphony he cares about: the Waters, Harmony, and Memory.

Of late, he has taken to wandering around in a patch of ocean off the east coast of the North American continent. Not being in contact with human communications, nobody's told him about the strange tricks his Tether, made with the concepts of parting and joining and horizons, is playing with humans' perceptions of time and space in the oceans around Bermuda...

So he wanders. And as long as Medad is on the open ocean, his Tether surrounds him. But because the Tether locus exists where Medad perceives the oceanic horizon to be, Medad himself can never reach it. Heaven, for Medad, is always just beyond the horizon.