Spring 48 (Mishkan)
Overgrown by rambling weeds, the Mishkan estate slumped to an end at white-stone cliffs above the sea. A wide stone path trailed over that cliff, its fenceposts still dangling over the edge and whispering of a dragon’s careless claw…
“The Wyrm came even here,” she wondered.
Were the strange holes in the ground, hollow but for weeds, also a part of design? Or the old laundry room she found where savage panther claws had been defeated by faded wallpaper?
I suppose I’ll be able to ask whenever I want now, Valkyrie thought. After all, I’m her Spear now.
For the moment, stranded at the estate until her ride arrived, the girl kicked a foot on the old iron bench just before the end of the world and fashioned a little song for herself.
Crisp Harvest leaves and fresh fallen snow
Cold on my lips and your warmth in my hand
The land slips its feet into the sheets
So why don’t we?
I’ll still love you when the first rose blooms
Fresh-plucked petals
I’ll wind them in my hair
Kiss them for me
So I know you’re still here
I’ll still love you when the first ships call
Masts swaying proud
My shouts in the crowd
My ribbon ‘round your fist
Till horizon steals you away
I’ll still love you when the first gull flees
Crisp Harvest leaves and fresh fallen snow
Last seagull calls over the empty bay
Fire came calling in the name of their god
Hungry for all we could give
But I’ll still love you when the last bell calls
Alone with her fantasies, she played the widow before the sea.
Hungry for all we could give, she mused.
A good line, Rie agreed. Its meaning deepens as we grow.
“How long do you think the Fire has smoldered in Ruhum’s core?” the girl wondered. Mom used to talk about how she thought Moros was out to steal her cattle when she was a kid. Like a bunch of fishermen are gonna invade!
According to Mrs. Hewes, Moros was a festering pit of smugglers, spies, and conmen. The older folk still groused about the fights over the fisheries, and the navy still advertised that its flagships were twice the length of Moros’ best. Plus, hadn’t that whole Reed thing before Valkyrie was born been some kind of Moros plot of insurrection or something?
I wonder if they hate us like we hate them? Just to pass the time in cold winter, I guess.
Valkyrie stirred, stretching her numb legs, and flung her hands up to stretch her back.
Her fingers bopped against a small, silky creature, and a sylph squeaked.
The girl turned.
A flock of the elemental beasts hovered overhead; dangled from the boughs; alit upon the broken fence posts. All with their ear turned to her and their fairy colors flickering like shadows of blue and gold across their flock.
Then, observed, the flock burst into motion, a little tornado of leaves, and sang back a new chorus in Valkyrie’s own voice.
Fire came calling in the name of their god
We gave all we could give
And I’ll still love you when the last Gate calls
Their tornado swept the old leaves skyward, carrying her voice into the sky, and left Valkyrie staring stupid after them.
She rose carefully, afraid to disrupt the moment and its meaning.
Part of her reached for her sullen reading of The Care of Creation: sylphs were native and dominant in the Jungle, disfavored elsewhere for their difficult eating habits, and widely considered the weakest of the elemental beasts. What were a score of them doing this far north?!
Another part winced at her own voice – too high and soft, often wheedling, with none of the power that someone like Ali could bring to rattle the rafters.
And the final chunk of her scattered brain, Did…did they show up just to hear me sing?
“Rie?” she asked.
Beautiful… her guardian whispered, entranced.
“What do you see?”
I do not understand, her inner voice admitted softly. We bore witness to perfection in the land of golden boughs. What is this choreography against the Cherubic parade before the Throne? Then why…
Then why does this catch in our heart so?
Valkyrie pressed two fingers to her breast, sharing the ache.
Incarnate and groaning with the agony of it; each moment vanishingly brief and already lost.
“Because we’re alive…”
We? Rie wondered, her tone burdened. Rather than share, her guardian once more retreated.
“She shows up to comment on my situation, nibble on a thought, and vanishes a moment later. My guardian’s a damned cat!” Valkyrie groused, watching the last glimmer of the sylph flock fade.
Two fingers rubbing a bubble of faerie fire, trying to ingrain the memory into her skull.
That she might remember this feeling when she was old and grey; that she never become like Mrs. Hewes, wizened and hateful.
***
Rie listened, of course.
Scintillating echoes of our voice
Sylph flock echoes greater than their sum
The gleam of Beauty, reflected through their dark waters. A gentle reminder of the Light beneath this world to lift Valkyrie’s wings.
Beneath, a subtle rebuke from her Chorus minders for She Who Listens.
Observe her growing hubris
Your charge unwittingly grasps for ever more
Not content for the dream-fire, she summons the sylph for no benefit but her own
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No benefit but her own? A traitorous thought rose unbidden. What fault is there in beauty for one?!
A sylph flock danced across the world, drawn by the summons of She Who Sings. They fluttered over open sea, resting the night on a wandering vessel as a good omen to sailors. They found land and danced with Valkyrie, hand in hand. Now they soared away, colors enriched by the joining, to pass over the Inventor Tura as he pined for the allure of the open skies.
All connected, spinning together, as the Song must.
Yet this one moment did belong to a single soul. Could it be hubris to accept a single moment as one’s own?
The guardian touched her hand to her breast, mirroring the waking girl.
Because we are alive…
A child’s answer! The luxury of ignorance! Valkyrie did not – could not – remember the terror of the Gate; the assault of cold fingers tearing at a newborn soul; the first trauma of incarnation.
Rie ached with the chill in this barren place.
Heed the Song, guardian!
She tried, but her breast still ached.
Because we are alive.
What was life? Separation from the Throne and obedience to unyielding Rules. A durance by which the soul spun gold to return above with a greater understanding of the Design.
I don’t get to live forever. You do!
Butchery…mortal minds fattened like cows for heaven’s pleasure…
No!
Rie strained for the Song, but she found herself chained. Where once she easily slipped free of her dreamlike body, away from the granite cliff, and flit far among the song…
…now she found herself anchored to this vision. The Garden no longer answered to her alone; She Who Sings had minted an inner world, the better to understand the song of her own soul, and She Who Listens could not shake free.
The Chorus whispered the self-evident logic of this newfound binding. That for Valkyrie to receive a sliver of ineffable Light, the guardian must assume equal measure of incarnation. Payment in kind…
Pollution of the garden.
You are in terrible danger
When your magi realizes the frailty of her flesh
She will look to you with hunger in her eyes
The girl that risked her life for Horace Manwell would not!
It has been in the past
It will be again
Heed Eleos
Merciless, the Chorus pressed into her with visions of that prison. There lurked the results of Man ascendant, conqueror of the Garden, seeking ever greater depravity in the face of the Gate’s demand.
Why is your sword still sheathed, holy guardian?
No! There has to be another way!
The Throne would not condone this cruelty! She only needed to listen better – to find the understanding beneath the cacophony of competing visions. If these voices were callous, others would be kind! She need only escape this detention so intent on judgement for magi and instead find more welcome notes!
You hesitate
You have faltered in your duty
You will meet ruin
Crushed beneath the demands, She Who Listens crumpled. Bent, battered, she…
…felt something diamond-hard and defiant crystallize in her belly.
All her doubts of Throne and Chorus; all the injustices of Malkuth; all the sorrow of living boiled over and roared back.
She Who Listened instead dared Sing.
Why?!
Her defiance roared across the garden and echoed back in a voice young and headstrong.
As the echo cleared, the Garden fell to terrible silence.
The guardian hurried from the cliff; through the mountains and the valleys; the secret glades of a maiden’s heart and the old grottos of childhood memories; high and low and nowhere to be found a sound but her own passage and the wind.
Oh, what have I done? What have I done?
Spat in the eye of the Chorus!
Broke the covenant of soul and mortal to inject her own notes into holy Song!
And now heard nothing of it at all.
It…it is so quiet.
The guardian rushed to the top of the highest, coldest peak and stretched herself for the comforting notes of what would be – what must be.
“Please,” Rie whispered. “I’ll be good. I’ll behave. Just…please…answer me.”
Do not leave me alone
How will I know what is just and true?
How will I know?
***
In the Mishkan kitchen, Valkyrie swallowed hard against a sudden lump in her throat. That last bite of bread sunk into her belly, heavy as a stone…
A knot of dread that lingered for no reason she could discern.
Before she could focus inwards, the windows rattled with thunder. She grinned and hurried to open the manor’s door before the Tempest.
Valkyrie yanked the door open for Lady Mishakn and bowed. “Oh, great and mighty Tempest, et cetera, et cetera!”
Reverberating with distance and cold beyond Valkyrie’s experience, Alisandra arched an eyebrow. Her dark halo of war revolved steadily, keeping the beat to the drums only she could hear.
“I am afraid time is precious. Do you require something, my Spear?”
“N-no, ma’am.”
“Then let us be about it.” Alisandra brushed past. “I hope the wait has not soured your resolve.”
“No!” Valkyrie squeaked. “I will fight!”
Alisandra half-turned, a faint smile on her lips.
Ah, it is nice to hear such words
That makes two of us at least
“I would appreciate an extra pair of hands,” the Lady Mishkan requested, leading with long strides.
Valkyrie hurried to match. “Of course!”
The angel led her on a zig-zag through the manor, selecting trinkets seemingly at random: silverware, an old trowel, a headlight from the angel’s broken car.
As they walked, Alisandra muttered to herself. “It is a terrible thing we build. A cage for the Wyrm; a cage of the Wyrm. A labyrinth of mirrors; a prison of your own mind. To rattle the bars and wound yourself…”
Valkyrie nodded along, accepting the old keepsakes; how did the angel choose them?
“A shared past,” the angel explained unhelpfully. “Intersection of echoes; of Eden…”
“O-of course!” I am so lost.
Eventually, Alisandra paused in the display hall, weighing the regalia in its case. Gaze distant, the Tempest asked, “Have you ever dreamed of being Queen, Valkyrie?”
“I…I guess…” the girl hazarded. “I mean, the Mishkan tale was certainly…romantic.”
Though she had never quite understood the appeal of the Queen Mishkan’s lover, even as her classmates mooned over his sonnets. Then again, she had never understood why half her class sighed over the bloody gym coach as a gaggle of thirteen years olds…
Her Mirielle memories stirred: that suitor was Lord Mishkan – the Archangel Gabriel – and suddenly the trinkets in Valkyrie’s hands shivered.
“I do sometimes imagine the look on Angela’s face,” Alisandra murmured, still regarding the regalia.
The suitor was the Lord Mishkan was the Archangel Gabriel was the consort to the last Queen of the Mishkan line was Alisandra’s father…
Oh.
“The unification of Water and Fire in one fell swoop,” the angel considered.
Though Valkyrie remembered Mrs. Hewes throwing fruit, and she spoke unbidden. “No way anybody would accept it.”
Her words landed like the Inventor Alva’s big flight – a cold splash.
The Tempest blinked.
Shook herself free from a dangerous dream.
And laughed, suddenly once again Ali. “That is the Mirielle in you, my Spear! Well familiar with the fickle minds of mortals!”
“S-sorry!”
“Do not be. I would have my Spear speak her mind.” The angel shook her head, bemused, and squeezed Valkyrie on the shoulder.
Valkyrie glanced back at the regalia and shivered with the feeling of a storm averted.
Usually this would be when Rie offered a cryptic pronouncement…
“Next stop,” Alisandra announced, striding now for the front door.
“Uh, do I need to dress for anything?” Valkyrie interjected, glancing down. She wore Alisandra’s old sundress, sunflower yellow and cinched with a white sash.
“Cute will suffice for the moment,” the angel remarked.
“Thanks!”
“I wore it when I was eleven.”
Valkyrie opened her mouth to protest, but Alisandra scooped her up and leaped north.
They burst into the sky above Woodhaven above a crowded plaza. Constable wagons and freshly pitched tents covered the square, and every cranny bustled with some new variety of conehead. Many wore armor over their precinct uniforms, and Valkyrie spotted something odd.
A few among the crowd wore black armbands tied over a sleeve.
Staring at those armbands, Valkyrie felt something deep and evil echoing in the pit of her stomach. She clung to Alisandra, drawing strength from the ease at which the angel held her aloft in the sky.
This has been before… whispered Rie.
The Wyrm?!
His is not the only rot.
Alisandra scowled, the Blade at her hip thrumming. “Oliver, can you truly handle this?”
Main’s bridge into Sevensborough was now covered in heaps of garbage and wood, a shaky redoubt of overlapping barricades. Smaller cousins blocked the lesser bridges, and raw garbage had been dumped into the creek. The water plugged, it became a swamp.
“Sealed against the west…” Valkyrie murmured. From this height, she spied a convey of old trucks rumbling along the eastern highway.
“Constables might be easily dismayed by the prospect of a siege, but the true threat will be the open road.” Alisandra clicked her tongue. “Dammit, Oliver…”
I don’t have time for this
I will trust in you for now
Though her tight grip on her Blade belied other thoughts.
Alisandra dropped to the Woodhaven roof, set Valkyrie down, and motioned. “Hurry now.”
“Coming!”
Descending, Valkyrie got her first glimpse of the mercenary wreckage made of the loft.
“Sorry about all this…” she muttered, flushing.
The angel shrugged. “All can be replaced. They could not breach the true sanctum.”
Valkyrie spotted an old guitar, crumpled by the ruined couches. Kicked in, still imprinted with a boot. “But…”
Alisandra followed her gaze; a muscle in her jaw flexed; she shrugged. “Father would not want me to be sentimental.”
And I didn’t want people to tell me I was just learning the guitar because of mine…
Stopping at the one locked door that Valkyrie never breached, the angel opened the way with a touch and a whisper.
Secrets now offered freely to the thief.
Probably a lesson in that, the girl thought ruefully. I’m getting sick of ‘lessons’.
Taking a breath, she entered. One step inwards, she stopped, struck by the atmosphere of the Archangel’s vaunted workshop. Teddy bears on the shelf, a couch well-worn from use, a stack of faded tomes, and a long desk with a shrine filled the room. Instead of the usual standing water and stone, there was only a vase filled with southern flowers and a blue butterfly clip laid at its base.
Valkyrie rubbed at her arms. “S-sorry to intrude.”
“You are invited,” Alisandra corrected. “Gather the books.”
Arms full, the girl quickly sorted trinkets and books both into provided satchels.
While she sorted, Alisandra crouched behind the couch at a locked safe. She unlocked yet another ward with more whispers, and the itch on Valkyrie’s skin faded away.
Valkyrie glanced at the vase of flowers. “Can…can she hear you?”
“Please do not distract her. Mother too has her Work.”
“What kind?”
“On that I must hold my tongue. All living beings echo, even angels, and our foe can glean too much from even an idle slip.”
The angel opened the safe, revealing five faded and chipped gemstones. Each lay on a cushion, and each she carefully removed. With the last one, Alisandra laid her hand on the satchel and whispered, “Pray forgive the disturbance.”
No answer; why did Valkyrie hold her breathe awaiting one?
Finally, the girl cleared her throat. “Anything else?”
“In the safe? No. Do you require anything?”
“Some money might help.”
“Ah, very good.” Alisandra dumped a wad of gold notes into Valkyrie’s hand. “Be free with it. I will gladly spend a thousand gold if it buys us a season. A day, even.”
“No good is what I’m best at!”
“Indeed. I count on it.”
Alisandra slung the satchel over her shoulder and led Valkyrie back to the roof and finally the sky.
As they shot skyward, a constable phalanx struggled on the bridge into Sevensborough under a heavy rain of fruit and stones from Azure sentries. One sentry stepped back, coaxed his serpent, and sent a gout of filthy creek water across the bridge.
“You’d think with this many men…” Valkyrie muttered.
“Ah, but how were these men trained? Shields and armor serve well against the inconvenient strike. Cudgels seek the unguarded skull. Wagons wait to arrest the lot of them. All the tools to quell a few hundred at a time. Observe, Valkyrie – what are the Azure men wearing?”
“Helmets,” she duly reported.
“And heavy vests, and masks against vapor bombs. Sevensborough has spent many years preparing to weather this particular storm. For the constabulary, this is a riot. For Sevensborough, a war of survival.”
And mother waded in there of her own free will?
Lips pressed tight, Valkyrie nodded. “I’ll do my part, Ali. Just like we planned.”
“That is my dearest hope, my Spear.”
“I think I’ll start with that reporter you mentioned, if it’s alright.”
“An excellent starting place.”
One step later, Alisandra deposited her in a Mel alley and vanished with her goods.
Armed with a wad of cash and a cute dress, Valkyrie drew in a deep breath for courage and marched towards the Conclave Square to find herself a yellow journalist.