The Feather and the Moonwell

by Shean Pao

  She rose to her feet decisively. “I will find you a new body, one that can sing for eternity.”

  She swept from the room and, behind her, the minstrel sank to the floor, weeping. She almost went back before the door shut. Surely he wept for joy at her proposal. Yes, it is for joy, she told herself. A chance to live forever.

  Had she not already granted him a wish, she might have healed him of any ailment. But her gift had been given. No power under the sun that she knew of would let her bestow another. The law bound her. A single token, a single blessing.

  She could not repair his aging body. He needed a new one, a youthful one. She wouldn’t lose him. Not her minstrel. Not after Odhran had left her. Not since realizing the emptiness in her life.

  Anarra didn’t know how to craft a new body for her minstrel. She wasn’t certain she possessed the power. It frightened her, so she pushed the worry from her thoughts, telling herself she would find a way. She must.

  Concern spun like starflurries in her mind the entire day. She paced the Star Chamber, thinking on Barbarus, the spell Rash’na’Kul sought, the Feather, Odhran, and her minstrel. Sadness spread like a pool in her heart.

  The ocean called to her, and she stood at the edge of her tower, frowning down at the lapping waves. They offered no answers. The emerald-green satin gown she wore crushed too tightly at the bust, so she loosened the bone-colored buttons set at her cleavage so she could breathe.

  Images of the war within the Moon Well nagged at her, vying with her desire to possess the Feather. What if she could not prevent the dangers? A conflicting breeze fueled the rising anger burning in her chest, insisting that she make a choice. How would she deal with the guilt if she caused the destruction she saw in the bowl—paint over everything again? What had she gained, all these years, but loneliness and false happiness?

  Now her minstrel might be dying. How much time did she have before she lost him?

  Anarra crossed to the pedestal and gazed into its placid water, hoping to see the Feather once more.

  It eluded her vision.

  The surface was not void, however. Terror rose within her like a bloated corpse released from the grip of the ocean. Summer had not faded, yet she saw herself burying her minstrel beneath the willow on the cliff. Was it this year’s season revealed here, or the next? How long do I have?

  “No. No!” She gripped the side of the pedestal, anxiously drawing on her power, trying to use the Moon Well to follow the Thread of the vision.

  Favored blessings unto me,

  Oh, waves and moon and sea.

  Bequeath a spell of song to life

  To set my minstrel free.

  Movement in the bowl caught her attention, and she gazed deep. An image appeared of her beloved minstrel, but his features appeared oddly reflected. It appeared that a clear shell had been molded of his body and then filled with fluid. Within his chest, a ruby glow throbbed a steady pulse.

  Revelation struck her like cold water. She fled the chamber and swept down the staircase. Her gown flowed over the steps like the ocean, sea-green waters that chased her eager form. She let her fingers trail along the walls to keep her balanced. Doors lit under her touch and fell back into the stone at her passing.

  She stopped. She straightened her shoulders as a grand entrance appeared. The arch gleamed with gold-and-silver-wrought leaves above a door of paneled rowan, crafted from the roots of a Dryad tree.

  She burst into the room, moved at once to the pillar that held the corestone. Anarra studied it for a long moment, then drew it against her breast. The crystal would sustain the body she needed for her minstrel. Yet the knowledge of how to fashion the body eluded her. Hadn’t she read … somewhere?

  She gazed about room at items resting on shelves and pedestals. Her eyes settled on a thick volume, wrapped in green fabric, faded with age. There. Had she still been painting, she might never have recalled what she had read within its pages. Now she remembered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Corestone

  Anarra stood at the apex of her Star Tower while the crystal walls of the surrounding dome faded, allowing in the embrace of the night. She lifted her eyes to the riot of stars, a spray of light that held its own power, and drank it in as if breathing sweet air. The wave-shaped pedestal began to glow.

  She gazed into the Moon Well with anticipation. The still pool reflected the constellations above, an inky blackness filled with the lights of heaven. Beside the pearl bowl lay a small velvet bag holding the powdered remnants of the corestone, a lit beeswax candle, and a dish the size of a hummingbird’s nest, brimming with crushed runes.

  She had spent so much time erasing her life. Now it slipped away like water escaping her hands.

  Anarra settled her mind, then began to draw upon the force of the stars. The moon had not yet risen to offer its strength, but she decided she didn’t need it. The power of the corestone should be enough to craft a new body for her minstrel.

  She had never performed such a spell. It was forbidden by her people.

  No, not my people. Not the Aes Sidhe, she thought. They would not deny me. No power was too great to possess by their standards. But the Tuatha Dé Danann would surely condemn her for attempting it. Well, she no longer resided in the lands of Tir na nÓg, nor did their restraints bind her.

  She poured dust from both containers across the surface of the water, where it layered over the liquid and created a white-gold veneer highlighted with ruby iridescence.

  Anarra dipped her fingers in and began to draw fluid from the Moon Well, lifting it upward from the bowl. The powder of the corestone congealed. She pulled on it like taffy, drawing more from the well, but soon found herself struggling.

  Frustration edged her breath while she worked, but the substance would not hold its shape. It kept softening into a glob like honey. For an hour she persisted, whispering many spells. Finally she cried out with disappointment and returned the gel to the paper-thin bowl.

  She watched while it sank out of sight. She bit her lip. It was a setback, certainly, but it was not the end. I will not give up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Essence of Love

  Anarra perched upon a low-backed chair in front of an empty pedestal inside a circular chamber mirrored on all sides. The glass panels around her stretched from floor to ceiling, each four feet in width and set side by side. Her image reflected forever within them.

  She continued to dwell on the reason the spell to form her minstrel’s body had failed. She still wore the emerald gown from the night before. In fact, she had not been to bed since she’d released the substance she had tried to shape.

  Now she brooded upon her failure until self-pity and frustration grew into despair. To gain respite, she focused on the Feather. She dreamed of the freedom it would bring her from this tower.

  This chamber would be its home. The mirrored glass would expand its fiery beauty a thousand times a thousand, a flaming brand that would reach past time and thought.

  Her mind lingered on the framework of the Feather, wanting to caress each delicate appendage and let it fall weightless in her hand. She envisioned it floating above the pedestal while it expanded into timelessness.

  The Feather had trapped her with its beauty and mystery. Why did it reveal itself first as relentless midnight black and then as if set on fire, yet not burning? How did it possess the power to free her from the Star Tower? What creature did it come from? Would it be born from the demon that Rash’na’Kul intended to create? How could something so beautiful result from evil?

  While she sank into the infinite reflection of the mirrors, she sensed a familiar energy. She reached out to it, not through her Threads, but as if she were traveling along a beam of light. Though she did not gaze into the Moon Well, somehow she was able to use its power. A trance gripped her while she followed each mirrored image to the next. Within her mind, the Feather changed first to onyx, then to fire and back again. She followed it deeper into the vision,
and knowledge was revealed.

  Rash’na’Kul’s spawn would create the Feather because of the spell Anarra would weave for him. And yet the possibility of it fractured, still undecided, inside that nimbus of space called the Void, where all things waited to be born. It struggled like a butterfly trying to rip free of its cocoon. If she were able to tease more out of the well, she might know what to do. Perhaps she could manipulate the events that would bring about the Feather’s existence. Just a little further. She need only see a little more…

  * * *

  “Milady?” Barbarus called softly.

  Anarra spun in her chair, bent across its wooden arm, her face pulled into a rictus of rage. Her pale hair swung across her cheek, revealing her black eyes filled with a shimmering spray of stars.

  Barbarus fell backward in shock and lost the illusion of his human appearance. “Forgive me!” he cried. He dropped to his haunches in obeisance, crouched in his true form of a suarachán. He lowered his head, touching the floor. One hand reached as if to ward her off, the other pressed against his lips, wishing to take back his words.

  Anarra stood abruptly, knocking over her chair. She hitched a breath as if horrified at herself for frightening him. “I’m sorry. I was—” She shook her head and came to him, took his arm, and helped him rise. “Forgive me. Let us go elsewhere, Barbarus.”

  Her tone sounded so tender he lost his fear at once. He stood and restored his human form.

  “I am sorry, Milady. I am sorry I disturbed you. The wards were down. I should not have shown you that horrible—my horrible body.”

  “Hush now. It was my transgression.” She linked her arm through his, and they descended the stairs to another room—the one that held her collection, where he most loved to be. She led him through the maze of objects and set him on a stool carved from a single emerald. It was a small seat with three legs to support it, but it gleamed as if the colors of an entire forest lay captive within.

  Anarra rested nearby in the leopard chair. An awkward silence hung between them. It seemed to have taken all her will to compose herself after he had come upon her in her trance.

  Bits of light danced over their figures while the starflurries swirled in their little glass prisons set about the room. The stillness between them stretched until he could bear it no longer.

  “I should have waited below—” he began.

  “No.” She lifted her hand. “I am at fault. I frightened the one person I can call my friend.”

  An unfamiliar warmth flooded Barbarus’s chest and spread through his torso. He couldn’t speak, but a large smile broke over his face. She was his first friend, besides Fleek. Someone real to care about.

  Anarra also smiled, then glanced down, appearing embarrassed. “How fares Rash’na’Kul, Barbarus?” she asked.

  The mention of the Nepha Lord tightened Barbarus’s chest and shattered his euphoria; the happiness dropped from his face. He rubbed at his forehead, fidgeting. “My master is annoyed, but he also wants the spell to bind a demon.”

  He settled his arms on his knees and hunched forward, booted feet flat on either side of the stool. His long wool coat pooled around him on the floor. “My master says he can obtain the items needed.” He pulled at the buttons around his throat where they were too tight.

  “It might take a while to find those ingredients.”

  “He had six of them already, and I gathered the others.” He untied a leather pouch from his belt and rose to place it in her upheld hand.

  “The Flame of Brig he says he will find by his own means.” Barbarus frowned as he went on. “But the last item”—Barbarus said, opening his palms in a sweeping gesture “—even I cannot find something that does not yet exist.”

  She lifted an elegant brow. “The essence of love?”

  He shook his head and returned to his stool. “Neither of us has the knowledge of how to acquire such a thing. Nor do we understand why it would be an ingredient in a spell to bind a seventh-level demon.”

  “Strange, the things that can bind, do you not agree? Some are vastly more powerful than you may imagine.” She opened her palm and revealed a tiny vial half the size of her little finger, strung on a cord. “Once you have the essence of love, it will fill this vial.”

  The skin around his mouth tightened at the corners. “Must I find a person to love?”

  Her eyes widened. “Are you capable of love?”

  His mouth dropped open, utterly confounded. “I think … not.” Emotions spread within his chest the way Anarra’s watercolors bled across her paintings, running into each other, becoming something else as they merged.

  Am I capable of love? He didn’t have the faintest idea, and it had never occurred to him to wonder. A deep sadness engulfed him. Why have I never felt love? He thought of Fleek, and the memory of the sciathán’s death still ached. Had that been love? How would he know?

  Barbarus gripped the seat of the little stool as though he might topple. Every time he was with Anarra, he discovered new things about himself, opened doors in his mind he had never touched before, asked questions never before pondered. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

  They had talked well into the evening when they had first met, discussing what he longed for. He, Barbarus. Not Rash’na’Kul, not of his master, for once. For the first time, he had explored the desires hidden within himself and confessed what he wanted.

  “Mayhap you will discover love, Barbarus. Once you find someone to love.”

  He gazed up, filled with hope, sorrow, pain, disbelief, and fear. How could he feel so much? How did one manage all these feelings?

  Her voice sounded tender. “Not everyone finds love in their lifetime, Barbarus. There are plenty who go without. You are not alone in that.”

  “Have you loved?” He did not ask to offend her, yet her expression revealed shock. He blustered, alarmed that she was angry.

  She met his eyes with her own and said, “I do not remember.”

  They stared at one another for a long moment and shared a raw emotion that bound them in ways he didn’t understand. Then Anarra lifted the vial so it spun and caught the light. She rose and laid the tiny item in his palm. The silver-braided cord spiraled into the center. She closed his fingers over it and clasped them within her own.

  “To fill this vial, you must cause someone to love you. Wear this always. When you feel its warmth against your skin, you will have what you seek.”

  “But you would have better luck at this than I.”

  She drew back in surprise. “Me? Why would you think such a thing?”

  Barbarus lowered his eyes in shame. “I’ve seen you with …”

  “Are you spying on me?”

  He wanted to crawl into a hole. His master had commanded him to discover everything about the Willow Woman.

  “But of course you are,” she said.

  Barbarus glanced up to discover she was smiling.

  Anarra said, “No, Barbarus, to answer your question. The love of my kind cannot be so easily captured in a vial.”

  He felt uncertain, and she added, “There are many forms of love. It will not be as difficult as you imagine.”

  He smiled as he looped the cord around his neck, thinking that it would be the least dangerous task he had ever undertaken.

  Barbarus’s mood lifted with her encouragement, from her friendship. Wasn’t that what they called it when two people cared for each other in the smallest way? For all the troubled questions she drew from him, he had never been more alive or happy as when he was in her tower.

  Then he grew sober, considering the purpose of his visit. “Rash’na’Kul asks what you require in return.”

  Anarra returned to her chair. She was silent for a long moment, resting her black gaze upon him. He let her contemplate his question. Perhaps that was what friends did—let each other rest in silence within their questions and help them ponder out the answers.

  “I have never been asked what I want,” she said. “People give me gift
s they hope I want or think they can afford to part with.”

  Her gaze wandered over the wealth within the room. Barbarus wondered if any of it mattered to her.

  “Are we not asking for your release as the cost of the spell scroll he seeks?”

  He expelled the breath from his lungs. “My freedom from Rash’na’Kul?” They had spoken of it when he had given her the corestone, but he had tried not to dwell on it. It seemed too impossible a treasure to achieve.

  “That is your desire, is it not?” she asked.

  “Yes, but … my freedom for so great a spell? Controlling this creature will give him terrible power.”

  Barbarus bit his lip. His master would rip out his entrails if he found out what had been revealed here. Not for the first time, Barbarus was thankful for the insulating walls of her tower.

  “Surely that is not all you demand of him?” he whispered.

  “No,” she agreed. “Yet we must still negotiate to achieve your freedom. Rash’na’Kul has strengths deep within the earth that I am unable to touch with my powers. Regardless, your request was bought with the corestone you already gave me.”

  Her eyes widened. “Corestones,” she repeated. She left her chair and hurried toward him. He had never seen her so excited. She took his arm and pulled him to his feet.

  “Twelve,” she said. “I need twelve of the stones, and he must agree to free you from his service.”

  Twelve corestones would gut Rash’na’Kul to his core. What would she do with so many? His heart squeezed to a fearful lump, but he said, “I shall go tell my master.”

  He bowed, but she had stepped away from him, her gaze fixed on a waist-high emerald statue of a man playing a flute.

  Barbarus paused at the doorway. “I will ever be in your debt, milady.” He left when she didn’t respond.

  Chapter Sixteen