> “Surely you’re joking? Let the man write! His book about witches has done more to bring new maidens to the Craft than any effort by any number of beldames.”
> —Thaighn Gaile Briar-Tongue, commenting on Denrick Roth
IN THE ARMS OF A GODDESS
Somewhere in the woods 09.05.15.12.03
Ellaenie woke to a curious mix of cold and warm. The air was chilly, damp with pre-dawn dew that wanted to settle on her. It nipped at every bit of her it could find, but was held at bay by a warm cloth and…
And warm flesh. Rheannach’s. They were asleep cuddled up together under the witch-herald’s tartan cloak, and still just as skyclad as they’d been last night.
Far from freaking out about it, though, Ellaenie felt safe in a way she hadn’t imagined she’d ever feel again. She probed her memory, finding it surprisingly intact considering how changed her state of mind had been last night. They’d danced, and danced, and danced until Ellaenie’s legs had given out and she could dance no more. Then they sat a long while wrapped up innocently and platonically but intimately in each other and talked about life and the secrets of the universe until sleep would let them talk no more.
The rustle of footsteps through grass made her realize she was staring lovingly at Rheannach’s sleeping face, entirely lost in how wonderful she was. She blinked and half-turned, already knowing who was coming.
Sure enough, Saoirse gave her a crisp, slightly envious smile as she knelt by the white puddle of ashes that was all that remained of their campfire, and transferred some fresh fuel and kindling onto it. She waved her hand over the neat pile and in seconds it was smoking, then smouldering, then aflame and crackling.
“Ye look transformed,” she commented, placing an iron teapot beside the flames. Ellaenie suddenly realized she was thirsty.
“I feel sore,” she replied, sitting up.
Saoirse seemed to find that amusing. “Aye, that’s a common feature o’ transformation. Ye’ll be far sorer after your first child, I promise ye that. An’ ye’ll be sore in every finger when ye come tae be my age.” She gave a slight sorry smile at her own arthritic knuckles. “’Tis an unavoidable thing, transformation. Ye will change and age and die, lass. Ye’ve no choice in that. But ye had a choice last night, and I’m fair glad to see ye chose well and committed to it.”
“I’m glad I did too.”
“Aye.”
“Why didn’t you join us?”
“Ach, dear one. The Maiden is born o’ the Mother. Last night was no’ a moment for the coven’s Beldame.” She smiled wistfully. “I surely shall another time, though. Now go on: your own clothes are o’er there, I took the liberty o’ washing them for ye. And there’s hot tea an’ toast waiting when ye’re dressed.”
Much as Ellaenie would have been happy to remain like this a while longer…the air was just a little too chill. And she was still very thirsty. And hungry, too. She nodded, stood, stretched and shook out her limbs, and went to get dressed.
She took one last second, though. Set aside a moment to stand on the lake’s edge and truly appreciate this moment that would never come again, and never be the same moment if it did.
Saoirse handed her a hot cup when she returned to the fire, covered neck-to-ankle in warm tweed once more. “Congratulations.”
“On what?”
“Ye’re a witch true, now. Ye’ve dined wi’ a Crown, danced wi’ a Herald, heard truths unknown tae most, opened yerself completely tae the worlds an’ been reborn through communion. Ye’ve faced test after test this last night, and ye passed them all so gracefully, ye ne’er even noticed them.” Her eyes glinted warmly in her wisened face. “I could’nae be more proud o’ ye.”
A complex emotion flowered in Ellaenie’s heart, one she could only name petals of. One of them was a healthy dose of gratitude, though, so she stooped and gave her mentor a hug.
“Thank you…”
Saoirse gave her a grandmotherly kiss on the cheek and sat back. “Ye look surprised.”
“I didn’t really realize what was going on.”
“I would hope not! This was a test o’ yer character, not o’ your cynicism.” Saoirse nudged Rheannach with her foot. The herald stirred then sat up, smoothing her hair down with one hand while pulling the tartan around her body with the other. “Had ye been all alert an’ wary an’ on guard th’ whole time, ye would’nae have had this wonderful morning, would ye?”
“I suppose not…” Ellaenie agreed. She sighed happily when Rheannach rose to her feet, gave her a hug from behind and a kiss on the cheek, then vanished in search of her own garb. She hadn’t known affection like this in…in a long time. She was only just realizing what a hole its absence had worked inside her. “So…that’s it, then? I’m actually a witch.”
Saoirse cackled. “Ye were expectin’ something more arcane? Some great expression o’ power or a ceremony an’ diploma, as the Artful would do? Now why would ye expect something silly like that?”
“I…don’t know? I wasn’t expecting anything, really.”
“The only correct answer. By way o’ example? King Eärrach is power. He has no need tae show it, except for the benefit of others. An’ his power comes frae his humanity. So too will yours.”
“But there was that…that moment, when he first looked at me. It was like—”
Saoirse raised her hand, stopping her from having to flounder for the words to describe it. “I ken well what it was like. He spared ye the worst of it, as he did for me. ‘Twas just the first o’ many things that happened tae ye last night, an’ to be reborn is no’ a small thing. If you look into yourself, really meditate on it…ye should find your perspective has changed in small ways, here and there.”
“Well, yes. I was just walking around stark naked a minute ago and it felt perfectly right. That’s…”
“A start.” Saoirse grinned. “Go on, drink. Even the young need tae warm their bones.”
Ellaenie drank. Crowns, she’d never had a nicer cup of tea. It was gone in seconds, and Saoirse refilled it with a chuckle.
“…Is this what it’s always like?” Ellaenie asked, sitting down on the grass next to her.
“Which bit? The terrible knowledge, or the dancin’ around fires in naught but ‘yer bare skin?”
“Both?”
Saoirse laughed. “Oh, aye! ‘Tis always both. ‘would be a most grim thing tae be a witch if there was’nae this fun side tae it…which ye’ll get tae enjoy often, I assure ye. But the Craft is about humanity, an’ what ye did last night was but one facet. Joy an’ youth an’ dancin’ an’ bein’ alive in the moment. But to grow fully in the Craft, ye need to explore them all. Death, birth, sickness, love, triumph, failure, the burden o’ responsibility an’ the wisdom o’ knowing when yer first responsibility is tae yerself…all of it.”
“That…sounds like a lot.”
“Aye. ‘Tis the work o’ living. It’ll take yer whole life, an’ the lesson will only end on the day ye pass.”
Ellaenie drank her second cup of tea as she thought about that. Idly, she wondered where Rheannach had vanished to.
“So what’s next?” she asked aloud.
“For a young lady such as ye?” Saoirse grinned, then pointed with her eyes to something behind Ellaenie’s left shoulder.
She turned. Rheannach was still wrapped in her cloak at the edge of the lake, standing so close to Eärrach they were almost touching. His head was bowed slightly, his posture soft and tender, vulnerable as he said something to her. It looked like a question, and like the answer she might give ruled him.
As she watched, Rheannach stretched up on tip-toe to kiss him.
“That,” Saoirse said. “The true power that runs this world. And always has.”
Ellaenie smiled, and not just at the wave of infectious joy and relief that rolled off Eärrach, as his wife leaned her head against his great chest and forgave him. A rolling front of lush grass and flowers sprang forth from around them, crashing into the trees and becoming mosses, vines, and unfolding new leaves into early life. It washed away across the lake in a single hefty ripple, leaving fishes leaping as it passed, and the waters clear and clean and perfect.
And Ellaenie understood.
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Their time in the forest was over, for now. It was a pleasant walk with pleasant conversation as King Eärrach cleared a wide, easy path for everyone to follow, though his might was fully unrestrained this time, and he pressed on the world and her senses so much, it was an honest effort to keep her head above water, as it were.
Mercifully, he was considerate of her plight, and chose modesty in the form of a plain yet properly kingly woodland ensemble, with gauntleted gloves, cloak, plain moccasins upon his huge feet, and a sturdy, well-tooled leather belt.
He didn’t spare her a wink or flirtatious banter though, and he’d plainly chosen his clothing to remind her what kind of man and body lurked underneath his simple finery…but she could tell the difference between playfulness and intention.
Today, Rheannach was the center of his universe.
The love radiating off them both was overpowering and genuine, spreading life and joy through the land with their every step. Eärrach’s power flowed through both of them, and Rheannach enriched it thoroughly with her own. There was the warm feeling that whatever had divided them was mended again, and their happiness was making the forest thrive.
Strangely though, they weren’t taking the same route back. Instead it seemed to go on, and on, and on…
They came suddenly into a wide clearing, bordered on one side by the edge of the earthmote. Which was impossible! Enerlend was Inner Land, the only landlocked Garanese province, hundreds of miles from the nearest edge cliff.
Wild intuition gripped her and she looked up—
Up at Garanhir. Far enough away as to be overhead, dominating the horizon. Where she had started! Somehow, when they were in the forest—
Eärrach chuckled. “That’s one of the trickier things to do, but I will teach you, when you are ready. You will also need to make a fair study of the Art and of sciences currently unknown to the people. Only the most ambitious witches or mages ever learn it from me or the other Crowns…”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“One step at a time,” Rheannach commented. She’d walked arm-in-arm with him the whole way and looked even more like a goddess right now than when she’d been dancing last night…
Ellaenie looked back up. That was home, over there in the sky. She’d thought maybe she might one day fly above it in an airship to visit other provinces, or maybe even make a state visit to the Craenen, the Yunei Empire, or some other foreign land…
But this was the first time she’d ever set foot on another earthmote. The first time she’d seen the cloud sea over the edge, for that matter. It was a jarring thing to encounter, a trip-up on what she’d thought was the journey home.
“Hmm!” He must have sensed her general thoughts and had a mischievous grin on his face. “I think there’s one last little favor I can do our young Maiden-Duchess today…”
Rheannach attempted and failed to restrain her amusement. “Oh not again, you huge lout—!”
”Always! But you can’t tell me it won’t get people talking!”
“…Dare I ask?”
“No!” He held out a hand as if he meant to embrace her. “But I promise, this will be memorable. Come.”
Sure enough, he lifted her up in one great arm, while the other held Saoirse.
Ellaenie had an intuition of what he meant to do as he looked up at Garanhir and adjusted his footing, and a spark of panic shot through her. “Wait, what about the horses—?”
She felt suddenly frozen in place while he crouched down, took aim—
A brief flash of utter black, a short but severe pulse of heat from Eärrach’s body, then she was free to wiggle again in his arm and they were soaring through the air, straight up as if they had been a firework fired from a mortar.
Later, Ellaenie would struggle to decide if the shriek she emitted was terror or thrill.
The roar of the wind was tremendous, but she could hear his voice as he held them close. “Enjoy it! You’ve nothing to fear!”
The flight was incredibly fast, too fast to understand. A vast distance all but vanished in hardly any time, and as she felt them slow, curve over, and fall again—
She could see all of Garanhir below her. For a glorious moment, it was a gentle, sedate fall…
“Quite the view, eh? Take it in, it won’t last long.”
Sure enough, they began to pick up speed. Terrible speed. She had no doubt he was somehow protecting them from the sure violence of such a gale, but none of that mattered. He took aim at a forest, a clearing—the very spot where they had started! Faster, faster, faster, the land coming up to meet them—!
They landed, a short walk from the encampment. Again there was that moment of frozen, pitch-black protection just before they hit, and where they landed was now a wide circular flat of newly-solidified stone, far too hot for her to walk upon. He set her down well clear of the thing’s heat, and before her running entourage could arrive, he gave her a grin, a wink, somehow…turned around himself—
And he was gone. Ellaenie caught a glimpse of him galloping away over the grass in stag form, the edge of the woods parted for him like water for a diver, closed behind him, and he was gone. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of her entourage rushing across the path toward her.
Back to the ducal life.
‘Tis no’ so bad, love, Saoirse replied.
And now, you know you always have an escape, Rheannach added.
Ellaenie thanked them both with a smile, then turned around. Her lady-in-waiting Lisze was, impressively, leading the charge despite her long skirts. No doubt she’d cluck and fuss and want to clean her up before they headed back…
Let her.
She was home. And neither it, nor the worlds, would ever look quite the same again.
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> “Surprisingly accurate and well-researched, except for where he is completely wrong.”
> —A review of Denrick Roth’s Elves, seen in the Auldenheigh Morning Post.
THE WANDERING ISLE
Somewhere in the endless sky 09.06.03.06.05
Sure enough, Cerkos drove a stiff bargain, but Jerl benefited from an unexpected advantage in the negotiations: Mouse.
It seemed there was a lingering echo of Leave Us Alone even here. Mouse just seemed to pass beneath notice, now. The Queen’s crew would excuse-me and work politely around him but he had to actively touch them or get their attention if he wanted something. The same went for the Islemen, who were happy to give him a room and a spot at the dinner table, but just…didn’t seem to realize he was there otherwise.
He’d put it to good work, and gone poking around in places he wasn’t supposed to be. He’d assessed the inn’s storeroom, taken a stroll around the farm that covered most of the isle’s surface, and come back some interesting obvservations about what they were flush with, and what was short.
The Cavalier Queen had a hold full of whisky, furs, steel ingots and timber. The first, the islemen could make for themselves, and indeed the large orchard along the isle’s trailing edge was the source of a truly excellent apple brandy that Jerl knew he was going to miss after they’d parted ways. The furs, surprisingly, were less useful than he’d guessed: the isle sometimes dipped down as far as Talvi, so of course the islemen kept a small mink farm.
Steel and timber, though? The isle just wasn’t large enough to produce either. Though half of it was wooded and the islemen practiced an ancestral form of forestry that yielded good straight poles and plenty of both firewood and charcoal, they were already getting as much from it as they could. Planks, beams and boards suitable for new construction and furniture? They were dependent on trade for those. And steel to make nails and new tools? Forget it. There was no mining a wandering isle.
So, thanks to Mouse, Jerl was going into the negotiations knowing exactly what his opposite number needed, and what he could afford to pass on. But that wasn’t the most important part.
He’s more desperate than he lets on.
The thought was Mouse’s, floating into Jerl’s head. But it made perfect sense: wandering Isles had suffered terribly from the advent of airships. They were, in many senses, a relic of a past age and the islemen way of life wasn’t sustainable without a regular flow of travelers using their services.
But what incentive was there to use their service? A wandering isle…wandered. That was their nature. Some, especially over in the Craenen archipelago, had a schedule of sorts and looped around and around predictably between the same motes, but Cerkos’ isle was a true rogue, going wherever it pleased and entirely at random.
By such rogues had people spread across and settled all the worlds, in the deep past. But nowadays, if you had the choice between chartering an airship to go exactly where you wanted, or paying much the same to an Islemen family to go Crowns-knew-where…why would you? The number of people traveling with purpose far exceeded the number traveling out of sheer wanderlust. Certainty of destination was the advantage by which the airships were squeezing out the islemen.
The Queen hitching on them was probably the first real custom the Islemen had enjoyed in a while. Cerkos would be a fool not to take Jerl and his crew for everything he could get.
And he couldn’t afford to irritate Jerl into leaving early, either. The longer he could persuade Jerl to stay, the more coin his family would have to support their way of life until the next opportunity arose.
Armed with this knowledge, and with Mouse’s quite comments and observations, Jerl bartered hard. He had his own crew and the fate of the worlds to think of, after all. And in the end, both parties walked away feeling like they could have won just a slight bit more…which in Jerl’s view meant they’d succeeded in finding a fair balance. He wasn’t ripping these people off, nor being ripped off in turn.
Good enough.
He and Mouse went for a walk along the walled road that ran right around the isle’s edge, to clear their head and have some time alone.
“You’ve still got the box, I notice,” Jerl commented, once they were a minute or so away from the inn and out of earshot. It wasn’t hard to spot: Mouse kept it in his jacket pocket, and turned it over and over with his fingers basically all the time.
Mouse nodded. “You think I should throw it away over the edge.”
“And you know why I think that.” Jerl stopped walking and turned to face him. “So why haven’t you?”
Mouse paused, then gestured for him to follow: he stepped over to the well-built cobblestone wall that marked the isle’s very edge, and pointed over it. “See what’s below us?”
Jerl leaned over and looked down. They were passing through some weather today, so the isle was periodically washed in a silvery fog that left the skin damp, but at this precise second things were clear enough to peer through the cloud sea.
Even to his experienced eyes, it took him a moment to distinguish the Talvian taiga from the pale haze of intervening sky. The Unbroken Earthmote was below them, and its fingers clawed outwards in both directions, framing the entire sky.
“When I get rid of this thing, I want to be certain,” Mouse said. “I want to throw it into the dark Outside, not leave it lying in the woods somewhere. The Crowns already hid it down there somewhere, underground, and Civorage still managed to trip over it.”
Jerl couldn’t argue with that.
“I suppose that’s our next step after Ilẹyede,” he mused.
“Once Dad’s safe, yeah.” Mouse joined him at the wall.
“How is he today?”
“Bit of a fever. Imdura says it should pass, but they’ve done all that magic can do, now.”
“It’s got him this far.”
“Yeah…” Mouse sighed heavily. “…He’s affected too, you know. They all are. By me, I mean, and this power. I have to actually touch my own father on the arm and say hello for him to notice I’ve entered the room. You’re the only one on this entire isle who seems to be able to remember I exist if I’m not directly in front of you.”
“We’ve both spoken Words of Creation. It’s…” Jerl paused, then sighed and reasoned there was no sense in holding back his thoughts from somebody with the power of Mind literally at his fingertips. “It’s not what I thought I’d planned, and I’d prefer you hadn’t, but Crowns I’m glad to have somebody I can share that fact with. I was beginning to worry it would be very lonely, having all this power and nobody who really understood it.”
“How much power do you have?” Mouse asked, and gestured that he’d like for them both to keep walking. “You knew that safe combination, and you always seem a step ahead of everyone, but…”
Jerl nodded as he fell in alongside and they strolled onward toward the orchard. “If I die, or if I choose, I can…go back. Return to the root of a series of branching paths, and try a different option.”
“So…it’s impossible for you to lose, then.”
“I wish it were that simple,” Jerl grunted. “No, there are still ways this can all go incredibly wrong. I saw all my crew die, last time around. Some of them died saving my life. I…don’t know how much I can bear of that. And for all I know, some of the best futures can only come about if they die. I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Shit…”
“And if Civorage ever gets his hands on Time, he could outmaneuver me. Or perhaps, for all I know, if he manages to get his hands on that box in your pocket, if he really tried, he could tear Time from my head…”
“Could I do that?”
Jerl shrugged. “I daresay you could, If you didn’t mind destroying me in the process.”
“Fuck. No. Definitely not!”
Jerl chuckled. “Good to know.”
“I’m having enough trouble with this power anyway, I don’t need to add more to it,” Mouse added, with a touch of mischief that had been missing these last few days.
Jerl snorted, amused. “Aw, and here I thought it was ‘cuz you like me.”
“…I do. A lot.”
Jerl turned to face him again. “Even after rummaging through my mind like you did?”
Mouse was blushing. “Actually…especially after. You’re really not like anyone else I know.”
Jerl took a step closer, tilting his head curiously. “How so?”
“Crowns, Jerl. It’s not one thing. It’s…” He cleared his throat and trailed off. Jerl was taller than him, broader in the shoulder, thicker of arm and core…just bigger. And if he was honest with himself, he enjoyed that dynamic. He enjoyed the way his mere presence, this close, was enough to fluster. He’d done it many times, and mostly the victim of his looming fell into silence: Mouse, it seemed, started talking faster when he got flustered. “It’s the way you know what you want and you go for it, but what you want is to do right by people, and you’re at peace with yourself, like you’ve never made a decision you really regret in your whole life, but I thought everyone has regrets and doubts but it’s almost like you…the ones you have aren’t enough to even slow you down…”
Jerl leaned in a little closer. “Go on…”
Mouse was transfixed, now. He could have stepped back any time he liked, but instead he was looking up into Jerl’s face and trembling. “Weren’t we, uh…weren’t we going to try and hone my skills? At some point? Go over what I can do?”
“Prob’ly should,” Jerl agreed. “But there’s no privacy on an airship. If there’s anything else we need to go over, just you and me…now’s the time. What was that you were saying about me going for what I want?”
“What, uh…what do you want?”
Their noses touched. Then their lips. Just long enough to make the point, but Crowns! Jerl hadn’t wanted somebody like this in years…
He got the feeling Mouse hadn’t, either. But also that any more than this would be too much, too fast, too soon. That was okay, though. Just so long as they really understood each other.
“That, for a start,” he said, and grinned roguishly.
“…Right. Yeah. Uh.” Mouse looked quite stunned. “…Wow.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It…yeah. Yeah, uhm….yeah.” Mouse rallied a bit and found some of his snark again. “Is that all?”
“For now. We do need to sort out what Mind does for you and how much of it you’re going to keep and how much to put back in the box.” Jerl took a step back. “Right now you’re not really in control of it, are you? Not if even your own dad is forgetting you.”
He saw Mouse refocus, sober, and nod. “No. No, I’m not.”
“Right. Let’s fix that. ‘Cuz I think you’re the right person at the right time to have this power, but it’ll still destroy you and the people you love if you’re not careful.”
“I know. You didn’t feel Civorage the way I did, Jerl. He’s…he’s not human, any longer.”
Jerl nodded grimly, but still managed to find his roguish grin from somewhere. “Right. Let’s keep you human, shall we? I think I’ll prefer you that way.”
His reward was a laugh, a smile, and a nod. A little uncertain, a little troubled still…but for the first time since the mansion, Mouse seemed to relax and become himself again, which was what Jerl had really been after. His premonition was that Mouse wouldn’t be able to master Mind until he’d got his own mind settled first.
Now that they’d managed that, or at least made a start of it, they could work on putting the Word back in its box and keeping only what they needed to put the world right. So they walked, and talked, and shared a burden that nobody else in the worlds had to carry, for now.
And Jerl was very, very glad of that.