“Why did you think Witches killed my mother?” Alira asked as she followed the crone through the dark woods. The stooped figure held a lantern in one hand and ambled slowly over the uneven ground.
“‘Tis what I tells everyone that comes by. I’m always hopin’ it will deter bandits from thievin’ the place if they think witches been there.”
“And have many people been here since I left?”
“Nope, just a single man a year or so back. Escaped slave, I think.” Ohira eyed Alira over her shoulder. “You’d know ‘bout that life, sure enough.”
“How do you know?”
“I can read it in your face, child. You done been through a lot already. Even after your mother disappeared.”
“You knew my father?” Alira asked suddenly, recalling her having seen a man around the cottage, living with her mother. “The man you saw?”
“Aye, child. And their servant. ‘Twas Henry.” The disapproval in her tone made more sense to Alira now. Ohira knew he was a bound spirit somehow and it offended the old woman. “Come on in, child. Wipe your boots and sit awhile.”
They had arrived at the crone’s home, a minute hidden hut deep in the dense old growth of the forest. Alira had never been to this part of the wood. Something always seemed to repel her, warning her it wasn’t safe. Huge draping sheets of moss covered the squat stone building and the door looked to be made of a slab of driftwood.
“It’s happened then,” Ohira’s voice was soft and gravelly as she looked over Alira. The two of them sat at the woman’s tiny table in her single room cottage hidden in the woods. The old woman took Alira’s hand in her gnarled fingers and turned it over, removing the dirty cloth that had been tied around it.
“You’re healin’ right well, at the very least. He done that for you.”
“Ma’am?” Alira asked softly.
“The Princelin’. Got his healin’ powers now. Maybe others, hard to say.” Ohira stood and limped around Alira whispering in a strange tongue. “Mmm, yes.” She sat again.
“Ma’am?” Alira asked again.
“His bond done broke, child.”
I’m free? Henry’s ecstasy was ill contained and Alira felt the welling happiness invade her own consciousness.
“No, boy. Said your bond be broken. You and the girl are Shadesorrow’s keepers now, ain’t much can bind you, but you know the real danger, princelin’.”
“What is this Shadesorrow? Henry also spoke of it.”
“What, who, how. All questions you gon’ want answered.” Ohira stood again and hobbled to the small hearth and put another log on the flames. “Probably others, too.” She sat again, groaning, her knees clicking in protest. The crone took a deep breath and began her story.
“Long ago, a madness done infected the covens. ‘Twas before they was banded together to form that Morinn nonsense. A madness took hold of a witch from each coven, possessin’ her to write or yammer. Obsessively, mind you. Nonstop. Each woman claimed they was the avatar of Shadesorrow, come to instruct how to release her. They refused food, water, sleep. Until they died.” The toothless woman swallowed, working her mouth. “Ain’t remember all their names but each one kept on sayin’ a single thing. Some done called them Witch Prophets of Yore.”
“What caused the madness?” Alira breathed.
“Don’t matter none,” Ohira said, waving her hand in dismissal. “Suffice to say they done went mad.”
Ask her about the book. Henry hissed inside her mind.
“I can hear you, princelin’.” Ohira smiled her toothless grin at Alira but the younger woman felt the crone addressing the other entity inside her.
“The book?” Alira prompted.
“Mmm, yes. Someone done got the idea to write all them mad rantin’ and writin’ down and they formed what they called Shadesorrow’s Word.”
“Who is Shadesorrow, though?”
“The Darkness. The Forgetter. The Unmaker. Aethra’s Wrath.” Thunder rolled in the distance and Alira could smell the rain coming through the open window of Ohira’s home. “The Avatar of Cataclysm.”
“Is this the same Black Witch that the church warns of?” Alira guessed. While the two religious orders differed in their worship and outlook on most things, they seemed to agree that there was a being that could bring about a terrible unmaking of all humanity.
“Yes, child. ‘Tis the very same. She’s the answer to the Light. Can’t be no Light without the Dark ‘n all that. When man done breaks too many laws of nature to be forgiven, when they stray too far from the Light, she comes to...Unmake. That’s what the church says. But they ain’t got it all right, only some of it. They ain’t got the first half of that story.” Ohira’s voice trailed off as she swallowed again. Rain began to fall on the roof, a soft staccato pinging that escalated quickly to a steady drizzle.
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“The book done been passed down, many generations now. The last coven to keep it was the Bloody Hawk and when their numbers got low, they called to the others, wantin’ to make one giant gatherin’ of Witches. They all agreed to band together for their own protection, and the book was shared. When they done built that fancy temple in Morinn, they locked the book away, and over time they started to think that it was all just madness.”
Lightning lit the room and a loud crack followed shortly after, making Alira jump and yelp. Her heart racing, she looked sheepishly at the crone and gave her an embarrassed smile.
“And my mother happened upon this book and saw a way to put an end to the evil ways of the Morinn.” Alira sighed sadly and looked at her hands.
“No,” Ohira’s voice broke on the single word and Alira’s head snapped back up, her dark eyes on the old woman’s watery blue ones.
“Then how–”
“Witches ain’t always been evil, child.” Ohira stood once more and shut the shutters of the window, pulling them in and clicking them shut with a loud snap. The rain dulled to a soft rumble on the roof.
“Once, witches were the doorway between man and nature. They done spoke to the spirits, asked for favors in exchange for small things like gifts of food or gathered herbs. They was Aethra’s handmaidens, and they was good. But someone taught them how to take from the spirits and not give in return and they began to keep them as slaves. They learned words of binding and the spirits had no power to flee. Those that kept spirits got powers that ain’t no one else had.”
I remember when Man was kind. Henry whispered. I thought Erin to be like those early Witches. She said she wanted me free, as I was meant to be.
“Maybe she did, princelin’. Maybe she started her journey like that. She got wind of the book, though, and power is a very interestin’ thing.” Ohira smiled softly at Alira. “Your mother did have a kind heart, child, once upon a time. I’m certain of it. But the Morinn turned your mother rotten on the inside and she couldn’t forgive them for it. Once she learned of the book, she stole and lied until she got her hands on it. She made a copy for herself and read the prophecies, finding some kind of trickery she could take advantage of to get her hands on the secret to binding powerful spirit folk, such as Henry.”
How many are left, Granny? Henry asked sadly.
“Too few, princelin’. But that’s why you and Alira are here, ya see?”
“What did she want the book for, Ohira? What do you mean she wanted to use it to bind spirits?”
“Far as I can tell, she wanted to somehow trick Shadesorrow into granting her some kind of boon. I fear she was willing to offer up all of mankind to save herself.”
“She died, though, Ohira. She’s gone. If that’s what she wanted, it was all laid to waste when she died.” Alira’s distress was evident in her unsettled movements, her constant pulling at her hands and tapping of her fingers. A truth was building for the young woman and it was going to crash upon her like a tidal wave, she could feel it. Henry’s voice whispered in her head, his tone concerned.
Alira. Henry said patiently. Your mother bound her own soul to the gemstones of her blade, the ones in her own blade are not the originals. I thought you knew when you touched it–
“Shut up, Henry,” Alira’s voice was cold, her body rigid. “I don't want to hear from you right now. Stop talking. No more.”
“Child, he’s speakin’ the truth. I don’t know where she put them gemstones but I know she done the unthinkable and somehow bound herself to them.” Alira’s breath was quick and panicked, her head swimming. Ohira’s voice was far away and a high pitched whine buzzed in Alira’s ears, partially drowning out the woman and, thankfully, Henry.
“You gotta find them soulstones and stop Erin or Shadesorrow will come, destroyin’ Henry and yourself.” The edges of her vision blurred and darkened and she slithered, unconscious from the chair.
Alira. The tug on her mind was painful, like stretching a muscle that had been overworked.
Wake up.
Mentally, she swatted away the spirit and slowly sat up, her head pounding, the rain still pattering on the roof.
“I’m afraid you’s gotta teach him to not try to take over. Fightin’ him like this is only going to end up with you dead and him trapped inside a body he can’t do nothin’ with.” Ohira sat where her head had been, a cloth and a small dish next to her.
“Help me,” Alira whispered, her voice raw. “I’m so lost.”
“A course,” Ohira’s toothless smile was warm and comforting.
For the next half hour, the crone instructed Alira on how to tamp down Henry’s impulses and keep him bound inside her mind. At first the young woman baulked from the task; it seemed wrong somehow. But the more Ohira told her of the dangers of Henry using his powers through her, how it would erode her sense of self until she was naught but Shadesorrow and they were one being, Alira succumbed to the instruction and bade Henry to be quiet.
“Well done!” Ohira clapped her gnarled hands and grinned. “You’re much like her, you know.” The pride she took in the complement turned to ice in her gut. She was not her mother, she was not corrupted by the darkness of the Covens.
She was Alira. Her heart hardened against the pain of turning away from the memories of her childhood with her mother and Ohira saw the spasm of turmoil pass across the young woman’s gaunt face.
“You are like her, child. Ain’t got her bitter hunger, but you got the same heart: strong, passionate, full of life. Selfish, just as she was.” She raised a hand as Alira meant to object. “But your selfishness ain't nothing but self-preservation at this time, and it ain’t bad.”
The crone gestured for the blades and Alira handed them to her, hilts first. She watched in trepidation as the old witch studied them carefully. The younger woman was shocked to notice that both of the blades were glowing faintly in the dusky room, their blades a soft hazy purple.
“Alira,” the witch’s voice was not her own. The sibilant country accent had vanished, replaced with a strong voice. It had deepened, the single word spoken full of dark energy. “You must stop Shadesorrow. If, for some reason, you cannot…” She crossed the blades before her and Alira felt a strange shift inside of her mind and body, Henry overlaid across her own sense of self in a dark, dangerous, expansive way. Alira fell away completely and a huge, storming form replaced her, eyes bright white voids.
“Shadesorrow will unmake all.” The ancient witch uncrossed the blades and Alira returned to herself, Henry locked in the recess of her mind. Sweat trickled down her temple.
“And if Erin reaches Shadesorrow after she has regained her powers, she will try to bargain for more power, culminating in the enslavement of the dark goddess, to be used as a conduit forever more.”
“How?” The question stuck in her throat as she gasped it out, the enormity of her task laid before her in such blatant terms as to leave her with no hope.
“The book. It’s got power, instructions that Erin done used to make her plans.” Ohira’s voice had faded to her usual raspy lisp. “The church got itself a copy of it. It ain’t complete but it’s the only one I know of that ain’t at the Temple. You must begin your search in the home of the church, Lightholde.”