The Sah'niir

by Kim Wedlock

  "See for yourself."

  Hands rose against the blinding light. It was the clearest view they'd had of the sun in what felt like months, but now it only added to the assault on their senses. The rumbling grew to its loudest, the scent intensified and came in wafts on the breeze, and the music continued its delicate and untouchable melody as though it was tinkling inside their skulls.

  Rathen clenched his teeth. He'd forgotten how chilling the magic could be, and he dreaded the impending experience of silencing it with a clear head. He would feel the beauty vanish, the peace, all the disquieting wonder. It had chilled him at Borer's Teeth, and again in Wrenroot, but where the magic's assault had grown at every exposure, so too had he been spared that distress in his exhaustion.

  Now, though, he would feel its full force, as well as the spear of hopelessness it was sure to fire through his heart. The only thought that gave him any comfort was the possibility of learning something from the process that could help him with the newest task he'd been coerced into - but the spell was a trial for another time.

  A cool spray of water against his skin stirred him from his frets, and as his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, he found himself gazing up at a thundering wall of azure water crashing down from fifty feet into a white, lily-studded lake. He gasped despite himself. But while it shook the ground and shook the air, even this vast and powerful thing could not outmatch the forest, dwarfed as it was by the trees that grew on either side like drapery, rooted even to the face of the cliff.

  But mouths hung open nevertheless, and for a long moment they each stared in silent wonder.

  Light danced across the grass from the shimmering falls. Birds flew low over the surface of the pool and snatched dragonflies on the wing. Reeds swayed rigidly in the breeze. They smelled the lilies and the damp earth, they heard the bird and insect songs, the bubbling of fish and splosh of frogs. They counted the haphazardly formed rainbows that streaked unnaturally in all directions up and down the waterfall.

  Enraptured, Petra took a slow step forwards. The spray brushed her, but the sensation in the wake of what was already becoming a warm morning was too pleasant to retreat from. "I had no idea Turunda had anything like this..."

  "Petra!"

  The tranquillity was broken. A strong grip about her arm dragged her sharply backwards. Her hand immediately seized the hilt of her sword, but where she'd expected to find a vakah holding her back, she found Garon. Protest forming on her lips, she followed his gaze towards the right of the water's pool and gawped at the shimmering white stallion that stood on the furthest bank.

  Anthis eased in relief. "Relax, Garon, it's just--"

  "No, it isn't." Rathen pulled Aria close. "It's a näcken."

  "Actually," Hlífrún sighed tediously, "it's a bäckahäst. Näcken don't bother to disguise themselves." She approached the water's edge and stepped one delicate foot onto the surface. It dipped and rippled, but held like a spider's web, and she strode across it with confidence, her gossamer flowing around her like a royal gown. The stallion froze and watched her closely, but the moment her toes touched the grass on the other side, it nickered and bowed its head, affectionately muzzling her outstretched hand in greeting.

  They watched the queen smile. It was an honest expression, full of heart and contentment, and one that became more ravishing the longer they looked. Petra turned her eyes away. The others were slower to do so. Aria hadn't broken her captivated stare at the horse.

  The bäckahäst lifted its head as she scratched its chin between its tusks, baring for a moment its thorn-sharp teeth as its lip curled in interest. She rose up onto the tips of her toes and kissed its forehead, then ran her hand along its flank and gave its buttock a firm and dismissive pat. Obediently, it turned and walked into the water, vanishing into thin air long before it had submerged.

  They blinked in astonishment. Until Garon shook Petra by the arm he still held fast to. "What do you think you're doing letting your guard down like that?!" He demanded in her ear, but she pursed her lips and snatched herself free, turning her attention upon Eyila instead.

  "Garon, leave it," said Rathen as he pressed. "It's done." With a nervous breath, he turned to face the waterfall. "The magic is focused here. ...No..." he frowned miserably, "beneath the falls. At the...at the bottom of the pool." He looked vexedly towards the Root Mother as she returned across the water. "What exactly is down there?"

  "Old things," she replied, smiling briefly towards Anthis, but rather than elaborate, she settled herself on the reedy bank and ran her fingers leisurely through the grass. "But for the moment, the door is locked. We must wait."

  "Door?"

  "Oh--"

  "No," she giggled as Anthis plunged his hand into his satchel, "it takes a different kind of key. I told you: we must wait." Then she turned her eyes towards the water, lay back on her grey elbows, and sighed in contentment beneath the warmth of the morning. The three vakehn separated to take up their own meditative positions around the water, and they settled just as easily.

  The others looked at one another in doubt before uncomfortably following their lead.

  An hour passed and the sun was just edging in above them when Hlífrún finally stirred. Her painite eyes fluttered open as the light graced her cheeks, her lips bowed into a smile, and she rose elegantly to her feet. The others scurried impatiently to join her.

  With the laziest wave she signalled to one of the vakehn on the far side of the water, and he was quick to respond. With an extraordinarily high leap, he rose from his spot beneath a tree to grasp a branch some ten feet above his head, pulled himself up as though he weighed nothing at all, and promptly disappeared.

  A moment later they winced against the blinding light that shone out from between the leaves. It shortly dimmed, then another flare appeared opposite, in a tree close beside them. In quick succession a flurry had lit up, four on each side of the water, bouncing from one to another until the ninth appeared on the cliff face right beside the waterfall.

  Their breath stilled in anticipation.

  A new rumbling began to shake the forest, and they watched as the water itself began to part, spreading like curtains, folding and crumpling like cloth, yet continuing to flow unhindered. And on the other side, where there had surely been rock, it bared now an arched doorway.

  But while they observed in wonder, Rathen focused himself on keeping his feet right where they were. The vakah's spell may have eliminated the pressure, but the magic was still coaxing him forwards, and now that the doorway to its source had been opened, its call had grown that much stronger. But this time he had the power to deny it, and deny it he would.

  Hlífrún turned and smiled, starting backwards towards the falls, bidding them to follow. They did so warily but for Anthis, who equally tried his best to keep his feet under his own control rather than run on head in excitement. He failed in his restraint to notice that they had stepped out onto the apparently solid water, and scrutinised instead the smooth cut of the arch. "This is elven," he said, oblivious to the spray.

  "What else would it have been?" Rathen asked blandly.

  Levelling with the glint on the cliff, he spun around and surveyed the ricocheting light. It was a perfect stream, making its way from sun to falls by deliberate and subtle design, a notion only pre-magic elves would have conceived. But, as he marvelled, a dreadful thought slowly began to take shape. He stepped beneath the arch and spun back around to avoid a trip. "Wha-uh, what is it reflecting that light?"

  "Stones. The elves set them in the bark to catch it."

  "That must have been a long time ago," Aria mused. She cocked her head at the grey-skinned spirit. "I know how trees grow. Shouldn't they have been swallowed up by now?"

  "Feira wished them not to be. I ensure it stays that way."

  "But how can light unlock--"

  "We've found stones embedded in trees before..." All eyes turned to Anthis at his suddenly agitated tone. His eyes were wide beneath a deeply knotte
d brow, and his young face was creased with torment. "But no one...no one has ever..." His hands floated helplessly to his lips, his head, to the air for answers while his eyes stared at some distant horror. Aria searched ahead into the darkness. "How many of these have been missed?!"

  He began to shake. Petra took him gently by the shoulder and steered him forwards as she did the enthralled tribal.

  They descended into darkness over treacherous ground. Light formed slowly above them, a dance of gathering fireflies flickering softly in the wake of the queen, and within moments had illuminated the staircase, spiral and constructed of woven roots. The light was stronger than it should have been, and they began to doubt that they were typical fireflies at all - but no one wished to look close enough to find out.

  The staircase levelled out into a tunnel riddled with hanging, rising and intersecting roots, but this time their guide coaxed them away, and they stepped freely into a chamber no larger than eight feet across. But while its size matched that of the last chamber the Wildlands had sheltered, this one was decidedly empty. Only a few small tables stood along the left side of the room, atop and beneath which were only a few pots, boxes and other inconsequential items. But they were no longer searching for information.

  Rathen swallowed hard as his eyes dropped to the Zi'veyn. This was the spot.

  "Pre-magic," Anthis muttered, his troubled whisper amplified by the cool air and compact walls while he looked across their carvings, already analysing the details the others had yet to notice. "Another holy site to Feira...things happened here..."

  "Things like what?" Aria asked in her own attempt to be quiet.

  But Anthis could only shake his head, the wonder that should have been in his eyes denied by his anguish. "I...don't know... The other crystals were found by nothing significant...either... Oh...Gods..."

  Aria smiled sadly and wrapped her little arms around him.

  "Well, it doesn't matter anyway," Rathen stated absently as he turned the Zi'veyn over in the fireflies' glow. "We're here for the magic." He straightened and turned to Hlífrún, who was once again smiling at him with eyes that burned bright with fascination even in the darkness. "I don't mean to be rude, Your Majesty," he began very carefully, "but there's not very much room down here..."

  Her eyes narrowed, but her stare didn't break. He swallowed hard again. Then, as sweat threatened to form on the back of his neck despite the cool if stale air, she smiled sweetly and turned away, spreading her arms wide. "Out!" But, of course, Garon immediately protested. She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Oh you do like to be a nuisance. Fine. The rest of you: out!"

  But this time Anthis stammered.

  "You're supposed to be watching Eyila," Petra reminded him, but he only looked back at her with wide, empty eyes as he struggled to find some kind of answer. She shook her head with a scoff. "Good to know where your priorities are. Fine. I'll look after her while you go gallivanting around. Just don't get in Rathen's way."

  "Oh for goodness sake!" Dust fell and rock crumbled as the queen's rich voice reverberated about the room, striking them all stone-still in fright. Then she huffed and sulkily folded her arms. "Now there's no room for me." She turned sharply and looked down at Aria instead. "In that case, we must play a game."

  The child's face lit up, until apprehension slipped in. She hid it well, however, for the huldra only smiled. She glanced past her to her father, but he was already looking towards Petra, who gave him one subtle nod and lifted Eyila gently to her feet, declaring that they would be outside. He turned back to the child and smiled reassuringly. "Go ahead."

  Hlífrún beamed with joy and grasped the little girl's hand, leading her right on out of the chamber. Rathen's smile collapsed as he watched them go, but his shoulders eased a little when they stopped and sat on the ground just outside the door in the middle of the short tunnel, joined by a replacement flare of fireflies.

  Garon took position in the doorway and gave him a nod of assurance, leaning against the frame where he had an easy view into both chamber and tunnel, while Petra took up a post at the far end. With his magic out of the question, Aria's safety was left in their hands.

  Rathen sighed and looked down again at the unassuming relic. "The sooner I get started..."

  The atmosphere in the chamber quickly thickened, but the silence was at least occasionally broken by light hearted giggling and accusations of cheating.

  "Little chipmunk," the Root Mother sang gleefully some twenty minutes later as she tossed the rock up into the air and snatched three knucklebones from the ground, "what fun is there in cheating when I can win so much more easily by simply moving faster than you?" She handed her the rock with a mischievous grin as Aria poked out her tongue, and waited as the girl took her turn to toss the rock. It rose notably higher this time, and she snatched three pieces herself before it landed back in the palm of her hand. Hlífrún narrowed her eyes at the collection of eight bones, and the seven in her own possession. "Now I think you might be cheating."

  "May I ask a question?" The girl began as they gathered the scattered pieces for a fresh game. "Are you the Lady?"

  "She can't be, Aria, the Lady is a group of sisters," Petra reminded her softly from beside the stairs, still smiling at the girl's infectious joy.

  "Actually, I am they, and they are I. My presence in the trees is stronger in some than in others."

  Petra's eyes widened as a sense of sudden inferiority kicked her in the head. It seemed to miss Aria, however, who continued her rather brazen questioning thoroughly unperturbed. "In that case, if you're a god, why do you leave them and make them follow you?"

  "Ah, but I am not a god, and I don't leave or make them follow me." She scattered the fifteen knucklebones. "I'm always there. But as seasons change and life grows, the strength of life in the trees change. Some go to sleep sooner than others, some don't sleep at all, and so my presence shifts to whomever is most receptive."

  Aria nodded a little too easily. "And looking after their dreams?"

  "They believe what they will," she sighed. "I don't know what lies in the next life any more than you do. But I would wager that, should they live as they're supposed to, whatever comes next will be kind to them. And as long as 'the Lady' continues to live in their hearts, they will do just that. Watching over their dreams is just a comfort."

  "So it's not real?"

  Hlífrún smiled at her knot of concern. "It's as real as they believe it is. That's why it's a comfort."

  "...So do you look after their dreams?"

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Perhaps. I've no idea what I get up to while I sleep. Perhaps I do gather them up and that's why so few of my own dreams make sense. Listen to me, chipmunk," she leaned forwards and fixed her with a gaze that exuded a sudden, endless wisdom, as though she were much, much older than the ruins in which they played. "Some things you should never try to understand. Knowledge can be a burden. In mystery, there is freedom."

  "But Anthis--"

  "Does not wish to know the answers to faith. If I have learned that much of him, you must know it, too. It's tangible knowledge he seeks. Not metaphysical."

  She blinked slowly.

  "The nature of reality, of existence - the kind of questions that only serve to feed the ego of the one who can finally answer them. Things that don't really matter."

  She nodded slowly, and her eyes drifted slowly onto Petra. The duelist appeared lost in troubled thought. "I think I understand... So that goes for knowledge that will make us sad or angry too, doesn't it? If it changes our hearts in a bad way, but doesn't really have anything to do with anyone else, or anything around you, we don't really need it."

  "...I suppose..." Hlífrún frowned and followed her gaze. Then she understood. She turned back with a smile and dropped her voice beneath even a whisper. "Very astute. Vengeance too, in a way. Live happily, chipmunk, and live well. Some things you don't need to know, others you need not to."

  Anthis slowed his enthusiastic rush as
he passed Garon in the doorway. Frowning at the unusual look on his face, he followed the officer's riveted stare towards a table just inside the chamber. The question forming on his lips quickly evaporated.

  The moment he caught sight of it, his heart lurched. Sweat beaded on his skin as suddenly as if the floor had caught fire, and he swallowed hard past the quickly-forming lump in his throat. His heart thudded, his collar felt tight, the skin prickled on the back of his neck.

  Both of their gazes urgently snapped away.

  Garon turned his back and leaned against the opposite side of the doorway, clearing his throat with a light, unassuming cough while Anthis stuffed the dried herbs and their erotic magic into a jug. Eye contact was avoided, and they returned to their own business without a word.

  Beyond the magic, the world didn't exist. There was only the arcane. Order within chaos, simplicity within intricacy; a structure to be probed and dismantled while its products enticed, lured and distracted at every step - self-preservation, if magic were so capable.

  But he was above it. He had beaten it before, this legacy of a formidably mighty people - a people who thought themselves so far above him and yet had driven themselves to the brink of extinction for such foolish use of it, who even now hid in the mists and forbade themselves life's freedom, paralysed by the fear that it may happen again.

  But he had beaten it many times. And he would do so again.

  Another controlled breath; the final threads of the web began to tear.

  Snap.

  The music silenced.

  Snap.

  The scent diminished.

  Snap.

  The peace relented.

  And nothing.

  The cold touch of metal only complemented the emptiness which itself began to suffocate him, just as he'd known it would. He spared it no moment to set in. Immediately, he sought his safety line. Like a wisp of smoke from the hearth, Aria's giggles gathered and drifted, circling around him to slow his breath, ease his senses and quiet his mind but for one all-important thought. And only once he had that thought firmly centred did he take a deep, sedating breath and open his eyes.