Though many pilgrims lacked the courage to take the final journey, there was still a steady trickle of pilgrims leaving the camp to the north. Hope and Brunhilde stood by the road with Nevio, Liara and Zorzio. Baram was there too, but making his goodbyes to them. He had decided to stay with the youths cooking the camp, to teach them some of his butchery and make sure they were not overwhelmed by the hungry pilgrims each day. His face had a renewed happiness to it, they could both see he would do well as a teacher and guardian. The Comtessa had disappeared with the bard and they had not seen any hint of her, she must be chasing her new destiny amongst the throng of the camp.
“Good luck. Come and visit when you come back this way,” Baram said to Hope and Brunhilde. “Be careful on the road, the final walk is the most dangerous, they say.”
“My thanks, and good luck to you,” Brunhilde said.
“Come on, let’s get this misery play finished,” Hope said. She walked on, beckoning for the others to follow. The diminished group pushed on, Zorzio trailing behind with his heavy case.
Far ahead black clouds massed above their destination, roiling slowly in place like a fog that could not disperse. The road had a pull to it, as if they were walking downhill. It dragged them on with a feeling of inevitability.
Hope summoned a halo of light to shield her from the subtle dread of the road. She despised magics that clouded the mind and wanted always to be in control of her own thoughts. Brunhilde was cheery at first, trying to chat with their remaining charges, but their mood was somber as they considered their final destination. She gave up conversation and fell into her own thoughts.
The landscape they walked through was strange now. The road weaved through columns of rock massaged into sensuous shapes by the wind. It circled around larger boulders and through small valleys of the maze. The rocks were streaked red and brown like compressed layers of paint. The other pilgrims on the road ahead and behind them became hidden by the weaving of the road and they were alone as a group.
Though their path twisted along, they felt the pull of the Sponsor still. There was no way to get lost in here, the downward feel of the road pulled them ever onward. No matter the direction of the path, the wind was always at their back, subtly urging them onward.
Hope looked over to Brunhilde, who had a brooding look on her face. She clutched her short-sword and seemed ready for an army to attack them.
“There is something out there watching us,” Brunhilde says.
“There is something out there. I feel a sombre cloud waiting to fall on us. Keep your spirits up,” Hope said. Brunhilde grunted in reply.
Hope turned to check on their charges. She expected to see Liara and Nevio walking arm-in-arm, with Zorzio struggling behind them. But there was nothing. She turned back to Brunhilde. She was gone.
Hope dropped her hand to her sword and span around. She was alone. A vibration from the road thrummed through her boots and made her stomach turn. A low powerful swell of magic passed over her, and she saw her home, one of the great sky cities. She strengthened her magical shielding, but the vision remained. A lesser mind would have been wholly transported into the vision. Hope let the vision come, curious about the trick of it.
She saw a dock, with its long crystal and glass piers stretching out into they sky. Besides them light-coffins bobbed in the air, places for travellers to sleep and awake in a foreign city. The sky above was rosy pink, and the horizon below smeared bloody gold with sunset. For a moment the vision touched her and tempted her guard. She wanted to smell the perfumes of the court, feel the royal robes hanging on her body, hear the sounds of the fire-lights dancing beneath the city. Her body ached to feel the winds that only came above the clouds, temperamental and biting one moment, calm and soothing the next. She wanted the dangerous unpredictability of living atop the world.
But it was only a waking dream. She wanted to return with her sword and cut a bloody mess through the Queen’s Guard, not pretend she was still a girl.
“Daughter-Priest,” she heard her mother’s voice speaking.
“Mother-Goddess,” she replied in greeting, without looking. It was a memory then, the memory of a day she had long prepared for. The first delegation to another city for centuries, a chance for peace or unification. She let it play out as it had done before.
The delegation’s leader stepped forward, Telling Patience. He was handsome and charismatic, after many years of lobbying he had convinced the Queen to allow this attempt. He thanked her and the assembled royals for their support and attendance. The magic of the assembly and the city flowed around their feet like a mist. Ribbons of power leapt from it to the namelock shining in front of Telling Patience’s breastbone. The sigil that represented him and his core identity absorbed the magic gifted from the city and channelled it into the light-coffins, charging them for the journey above the sky.
Hope itched with impatience. She ran over the rituals of sleeping in her mind. She was ready to start the trek now, but the rituals of propriety must be obeyed. Telling Patience lavished compliments upon the Queen, whose aura spilled over the gathering like impenetrable cloud. The only place in the city safe from the Queen’s all encompassing presence were the forbidden depths of the foundations. Standing next to her was as invigorating and dangerous as standing next to the Sun itself.
The sky looked fresh and free. Out there she could grow and learn, away from her mother.
When Telling Patience’s speech finished he drew his hand over one of the coffins and a copy of his namelock shone in response on its lid. It opened and he climbed into it. The coffin closed and inside the magic of the coffin would case him in deep sleep.
The rest of the delegation stepped forward to their coffins, some gave parting farewells to their families, others headed straight for their transports.
Hope approached a coffin without looking back, but though she hailed the coffin with her namelock, there was no response. Ambition’s Nape cut in front of her and held his hand over the coffin. He was a similar age as hers, they had fought in duelling tournaments and she knew that he carried a grudge for his numerous defeats. But he was from a minor family, the idea he could hold a rivalry against a royal princess was ridiculous.
The sigil on the coffin shone with his namelock. He shot her a cold smirk as he climbed inside. Hushed gasps and laughter came from the observers, stifled quickly enough to avoid offense, but long enough to sting Hope. She felt horror and disappointment showing on her face and fixed it into a cool gaze before she turned around.
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The vision of her mother was painful and bright, even the second-hand memories of bitter beauty were painful- her robes and crown of sharp crystal that jutted into the sky, the contained roar of her magical aura like a building on fire and on the verge of perpetual collapse.
“We have need of you here, Fractal Blossom,” her mother said, using her namelock to highlight the huge personal complement that the Queen was bestowing on her.
Hope said nothing and returned to her mother’s side. There was a white fire of rage burning in her stomach. Of all the petty games her mother had played, this was the worst. To humiliate her in front of the Court was unnecessary, she was the Queen ultimately of course she could decide who represented their city. But to remove Hope’s chance at independence without her knowledge and in front of her peers was a cruelty meant to send a message to her daughter: You are a piece on my playing board.
That was the moment when Hope’s heart had closed against her mother. There was nothing more to the memory. Just the fight to hold back tears and the tension of rage as the light-coffins shone with impossible colours and took their retinue through the weave of magic to another city.
Hope snapped the vision in two like brittle glass. If the magic was meant to induce despair it had failed. She was filled with renewed purpose to find her way back home and take her revenge.
Nearby Brunhilde had been dragged back into her own memory. She was atop a hill, looking down on her village. After sad goodbyes she had circled round and climbed up to take one last look over her home, hidden in the forested hill. Younger cousins were playing outside the longhouse. Her mother and father were speaking to each other. They hugged and Brunhilde felt a pang of loneliness. She didn’t know when she would return to see this place again.
She drank in her last look at the houses and animal pens nestled in the hills, the muddy training yard where she had wrestled and fought with sword and axe. Every small place held a memory, the rain barrel where she had her first kiss, the birch tree with its scarred trunk she had used for target practice. The cave she had sat in for nights and days until she met her spirit, Bear. She had not realised how much she was leaving behind.
Around her in the soft earth she had drawn a circle of runes; she finished that circle now, waiting for its magic to call out. The cold scent of melting ice and warm fur arose from the earth. Bear was waking and coming to her call. When it arrived, Bear’s presence was as warm as a fire. One of the first things to live, born of Old Man Moon like all the other animals. A friend to humans but also its own being. There was quiet as they both waited for the other to speak.
“Why have you called me?” Bear asked.
“I beg a boon,” Brunhilde said.
“Ask.”
“Guard my family.”
“You want me to watch over them?” Bear asked.
“I dreamed of storm clouds over our longhouse.”
“There is a great storm blowing in from the seas.”
“What is it?”
“Spirits of sea and sky fly before it.” Bear lifted its snout and took long snuffling tastes of the air. “They don’t say what it is, only that it comes.”
“Stay and protect my home, from the storm.”
“You will travel without my protection.”
“I have a destiny upon me. Keep my home and family safe, and when I return we will be together again.”
“You see many things, little Sparrow, but this you cannot see. Maybe we part for a long time.” Bear lowered its head and Brunhilde rested her face against the long snout of her guardian spirit. Its touch was as strong as an ancient oak and as delicate as a mother’s caress. She didn’t want to leave its protection behind, but her duty to her family outweighed her own fear.
“I smell wanderlust. You will be gone for a long time,” Bear said.
“I have to leave.”
“You will be gone for a long time,” Bear repeated.
“It’s my choice,” Brunhilde said. Her voice was firm.
“As you wish,” Bear said. It dropped to all fours. As it clambered down the hillside, it faded out of her sight.
Brunhilde turned her head away from her village. She felt the biting cold of the wind more, and there was an emptiness in her chest where Bear had sat. She tried to sit up, but a heavy weight pulled her down. She hadn’t expected Bear to leave her so soon. She was like a babe with fever, her arms shivered and there was a terrible weakness in her bones.
She couldn’t remember what came next. Where was she? Had she travelled and had adventures away from home, or was she still sitting in her rune circle, dreaming of the struggles ahead? The air outside the circle went dark, then the runes disappeared. She was alone, more alone than she knew she could be. It was a pit with no bottom. A great roar of fear lunged up from the depths she was falling into. She put her hands out to stop her fall, but there was nothing to grab hold of.
A small dark hand grabbed hers. It yanked her up, urging her to stand. She rose like a eagle ascending above the clouds, from the darkness of the memory into the clear-minded present. Hope was standing beside her. Tears stung Brunhilde eyes. The power of the vision had burst away like a soap bubble. She was grateful but dizzy from the sudden release.
“Are you here?” Hope said. She had a halo of light shining around her head.
As they held hands Brunhilde felt an uncomfortable tingle of magic passing from Hope into her. She took a moment to focus on the princess and her surroundings. She remembered that she was on the road to see the sponsor. With Hope’s magic shielding her she saw everything clearly now. The edges of rocks were limned with definition, she saw even more colours weaving through Hope’s cloak. Inside Hope’s eyes she saw the brown weave of her irises. The tattoos that started from her neck shone with intriguing power.
“Is this how you see everything?” Brunhilde asked.
“Sometimes. Stay close to me. We need to find the others, before those things get to them,” Hope said. She pointed up at the rocks. Crouched on the rocks, like birds roosting from a storm, were ape-like creatures. Even with Hope’s gift of clear sight the creatures were smoky and transparent. They must have been watching them for a while. They bared teeth and swayed from side to side like starving children pleading for a meal.
“Did they push me into that memory?” Brunhilde asked.
“No, they’re just scavengers. Things that prey on the weak-minded. Are you hungry?” she called out the last part mockingly and raised her hand towards a stone pillar where the creatures were hanging. They howled and leapt away into the maze of rocks. “Cowards.”
“Like ravens of sorrow. Misery-curs, I’ll call them,” Brunhilde said. “Naming things gives you power over them,” she said to Hope.
“Call them what you want, they’re harmless if you stay close to me.”
“Where are the others?” Brunhilde said, remembering her charges.
“Somewhere nearby, they must be lost in their own memories of defeat,” Hope said.
The twins were easy to locate as their voices could be heard echoing around the rocks. Hope expected to find them clutched together, trapped in a miserable memory but they were standing tall and haranguing a group of the misery-curs.
“We’ve suffered insult and violence!” Nevio shouted at them.
“How dare you think you can sneak up on us!” Liara cried.
The beasts cringed and scampered around on the floor, trying to climb up onto a perch or leap away. But the twins’ shouts of anger knocked them back every time.
“Here is our supposed protector!” Liara said as she saw Brunhilde. She glared at the two adventurers. A few of the misery-curs scampered closer to her, like obedient hunting dogs. In the cloak of her anger they looked more solid, and menacing.
“Come here,” Hope said.
“We’ve both had enough of being treated like commoners by a haughty wanderer. What city are you Princess of? What is your family’s name?” Nevio cried. More of the curs knuckled their way to stand at his feet. Instead of fleeing they now looked ready to fight.
“Come here, those things will drain your anger if you let them,” Hope said.
Nevio started to pace back and forth with angry bravado. He threw his hands up as he ranted. “Why should I take any notice of a wandering cur like you? You’re just as lost as we are!”
“At least we’re honest about our disgrace,” Liara said. The assembled beasts rocked back and forth and growled a promise of violence.
“Stop wasting my time!” Hope shouted at them.
Liara and Nevio drew short daggers and scowled. They dropped into a fighting stance, legs bent and their arms swayed like snakes.
Hope summoned a blade of her own. “Come and learn your lesson,” she said.
There was a moment of tension as they watched each other. Brunhilde refused to draw her sword, but she readied to respond if none backed down. The roar of the misery-curs rose, then erupted into a screech as the twins leapt forward.