by Jason Denzel
She exhaled a word, “Huzzo,” and she exploded with the Myst. The wivan vanished in an instant, incinerated by her light. She pulled the energy of a thousand past masters, seeing their lives and faces in one instantaneous moment. Each one had a star now, and each connected to her with a beam of silver so that she shone with infinite rays coming off her.
As she exhaled again, the beams vanished, leaving only the drifting stars around her. The memory of endless lives died with it, but their echo remained.
Far above her, she heard Vivianna call, “Bayyy-lew!”
The entire void, and the Crossroads beyond, began to tremble. She was still within Lal, and he was dying.
Pomella radiated a pulse of thanks and love to her past masters, acknowledging their ever-present desire to guide her. She peered upward through the void, and lifted herself toward Vivianna. The stars roared past her; the place she was in began to collapse, just as the memories had. She fled faster, knowing she had to get out.
“Bayyy-lew!”
The chant sounded stronger now, but more desperate, telling her Vivianna knew what was happening.
Pomella let go of her worries. She let her anxieties and fears drop away like weights that only served to hold her back. She remastered the sense of calm that Lal had shown her, and let herself soar to Vivianna’s voice with the speed of a sunbeam.
She opened her eyes to the human world, and found Vivianna sitting beside her. They looked at each other for a moment, then smiled at the same time. A tear traced down Vivianna’s cheek, and Pomella felt one on her own.
“Thank you,” Pomella whispered.
Vivianna took her hand and squeezed.
They turned to Lal. His face was gray yet calm. No more tension lined his face. His eyes were closed, yet his lips moved.
Free of the fears she’d been carrying, Pomella slipped beside her dying master and took his hand. She leaned in and kissed his forehead.
“The oracle,” Lal whispered, and Pomella had to place her ear by his lips to hear. “She carry … danger. Find her. Find … Lagnaraste.”
He drifted, and his eyes grew distant.
“Lal,” Pomella said, stroking his head. “I’m here. Stay.”
“I join the masters,” Lal breathed, “to dwell in the Deep, so tranquil, so calm. Go there to find me. Find … everything, my Huzzo.”
His last breath touched Pomella’s cheek, and he died. His body relaxed, then dissolved into a silvery light that wafted around her once, twice, and was gone.
TWENTY-THREE
SAINT BRIGID’S TEARS
Moonlight shivered on the surface of the lake, creating a wobbling twin of the near-full orb hanging in the sky. Silence filled the clear night as if nature itself respected the solemnity of what was occurring at the shore. Pomella stood beside Vivianna with her head bowed and both hands holding her Mystic staff.
Sim had been the one to find this lake, a quiet oasis surrounded by poplar, oak, and peach trees located a quarter hour’s walk east of their campsite. He waited nearby, standing beneath a peach tree whose branches rustled in the wind.
Vlenar, who’d returned from the velten at sunrise, approached the lake’s edge, carrying Lal’s folded robes. The garments were the only things resembling his remains. Pomella’s hands still tingled from the cool sensation of his body dissolving into light when he’d died. Even now, it was hard to believe he’d actually been there, with her, in her arms less than a day ago. It was as though he’d never existed. Her mind refused to bring forth a clear image of his face. It was like trying to remember a face from a dream.
Conflicting emotions of sadness and joy for her master’s ascension into the Myst wrestled within her. Her instinct as a human was to only see the end of his life, and the hole his absence left in her heart. But another part of her, the trained Mystic within her, who had direct, firsthand experience with the Myst, knew that Lal’s reality was just another transition. Just as rain is pulled from the sea and returned through rivers, Lal had once said, so life arises and returns to the Myst.
Still, Pomella could not stop tears from welling beneath her eyes as Vlenar placed Lal’s bundled clothing onto the edge of the shore. Sim had offered to weave a basket, but Pomella had said there’d be no need.
Pomella let a moment of silence pass over the gathering after Vlenar stepped away. High above, shining nearly as brightly as the moon, was the red Mystic Star. Pomella lifted her chin and swirled the Myst. It flooded her in a massive tide, threatening to sweep her away. Without moving, she tapped the Myst and sounded a silver bell.
“Oxillian,” she called, “it is time!”
The ground rumbled and the Green Man emerged from the ground. Heavy branches lifted amid piles of dirt to build the bones of his familiar form. Overripe peaches dotted his body and formed his eyes along with exposed seeds that acted as pupils.
The wind rose from the southwest—a different direction from the normal eastern winds—carrying the sound and feeling of a rushing tide. Streaks of silver light sailed over the landscape toward Pomella, across the mountains and grassland, before suddenly resolving into the likenesses of Yarina and the other High Mystics. Their silver apparitions glowed like candles.
Pomella bowed to the fay-like images. “Welcome, High Mystics.”
“Hello, Pomella,” said Yarina. “We come at great expense, riding the surging tides of Treorel. Our time is short.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Pomella said. “Do you have words to share?”
“Many,” said Yarina. “But most will have to wait. Given the circumstances of our time, and in deference to our master’s love of simplicity, I will say only that his passing strengthens us in our most needed hour. Just as he once took the oaths of an apprentice, and received his Anointment to become a master, now he once more paves a path for us all to follow. I owe him everything, and reaffirm my love and commitment to his vision.”
The other High Mystics remained silent, with their heads bowed. Silver smoke rolled off each of them, wafting across the lakeside grass. The twin masters, Angelos and Michaela, stood as still as the moon.
It was Master Willwhite who caught Pomella’s attention, however. His face, which had always been delicate, had shifted in subtle ways, and was now definitely female. The High Mystic’s majestic beauty shone like a star, filling Pomella with an unspoken reminder that everything in life changed.
Heavy tears covered Master Ollfur’s face, but so did a smile that stretched to his eyes. Pomella imagined he was thinking of a joke he’d shared with Lal. She appreciated his tears. It lightened her, knowing she wasn’t alone in her grief.
She noted, too, the absence of Bhairatonix and Ehzeeth but did not dwell on it. Whatever their reasons for not coming, they were not her concern. This ceremony was not about them.
Pomella waved her hand, extending the Myst beyond her, and one by one shimmering white lily petals unfolded on the water’s surface, revealing a flower with a golden center. Hundreds appeared, until they covered all of the visible lake.
With another wave of her hand, this time the opposite way, Pomella deftly formed a silver boat beneath the bundle of robes resting on the lakeshore. She’d only planned to craft a simple raft, but the Myst extended itself as if of its own will, elongating what she created until it formed the shape of a sinuous creature, with a long neck and serpentlike head framed by a great mane of flowing hair. The stern extended upward in a long tail and curled at the end, acting as a hook for a globe of light that shone bright and blue. Collectively, the boat had become a scaled serpent radiating power and majesty.
A dragon.
“And thus the Myst pays tribute to a grandmaster,” said Willwhite. “Remarkable.”
The boat sat in stillness above the lake’s lily-covered surface, rippling small wakes of silvery smoke at its waterline. Pomella thought of Lal’s campfire story, and how dragons were one with the land, supposedly bringing harmony to the world and its inhabitants. Lal’s life was marked with notable struggle,
none more apparent perhaps than his tenure during the years of the Coughing Plague, but she had been blessed to see his more experienced, self-aware self.
Harder the winter, brighter the bloom. Lal’s recent words echoed in her mind.
He’d given up all labels and even his Mystic staff in order to experience the true essence of what it meant to be a Mystic. By shedding himself of distractions, he’d allowed himself to further the agenda of the Deep Myst. Pomella did not fully understand it yet, but she silently vowed to dedicate her life to it, just as he had. If she, or any of them, survived past Crow Tallin.
As it often did, a song welled within Pomella’s heart. It longed to be freed by the winds of her breath, a tribute to carry Grandmaster’s funeral boat into the sky.
But like her time at her fathir’s graveside at Reyman’s Hey outside Oakspring, she couldn’t bring herself to sing. With her fathir, it had been because none of the songs fit their strained relationship. Now, with Lal, who valued simplicity and privacy, she thought she’d save it for another time, when she was alone and unburdened by stress.
Pomella lifted her palm skyward and held it just moments before snapping it down. The boat, the lilies, and Lal’s clothes burst into flame, making it appear as if the lake were on fire. The scattering ashes rose to the stars. The mixture of red, orange, and silver fire reflected off the water before it all merged into a single blue color that somehow spoke to Pomella of Lal.
One by one the High Mystics faded away. Yarina was the last to leave. Pomella saw tears upon her silver cheeks. They met eyes, and for a moment they were not student and master, but rather equal peers sharing a moment of sorrow for the teacher they had in common. With a smile, Yarina faded.
Oxillian smiled at Pomella, then rolled himself back into the ground, leaving his branches and peaches in the muddy soil.
Out on the lake, the blue flames extinguished themselves, leaving the water tranquil.
Vivianna, who had remained silent throughout the brief ceremony, said, “I will set up our cots for tonight. We should be walking by sunrise.”
“Return without me,” Pomella said, her eyes still on the place where the boat had vanished. Nothing disturbed the water in that spot. It was as if nothing had passed over it.
She turned to Vivianna, who had a surprised expression on her face. “Take Vlenar and hurry for Kelt Apar.”
“But where—?” Vivianna began.
“I have to find Shevia. She’s somehow important to something happening with the fay, and maybe all of Crow Tallin.”
“I will go, too.”
It was Sim who spoke, and Pomella found herself grateful for his offer.
“Can you track her?” she asked, knowing the answer before he replied.
He nodded, but it was little more than a dip of the chin.
“I believe Shevia is ensnared by a powerful fay creature,” Pomella said, voicing her suspicions. “In some way, she’s become, or is in the process of becoming, a wivan.”
Vivianna’s eyes went wide. “By the Saints,” she said. It was the first time in all these years together Pomella had heard her Continental-born friend use the Mothic expression. “What will you do when you find her?”
Pomella eyed both of them. “Whatever I must.”
* * *
Shevia stood at a crossroads. Dirt caked her dress, hair, and feet. She’d traveled for at least a day or two, although her mind was so lost within itself that she no longer cared to keep track. Her stomach rumbled.
The path behind her led back toward the Ironlow Mountains. Up ahead, an intersection offered a road going north–south with a sign indicating Oakspring and Sentry. She brushed her disheveled hair from her face. Directly to the west, MagBreckan loomed above the northern edge of the Mystwood.
An oxcart plodded south along the main road. A farmer and a younger man—probably his son, about Shevia’s age—walked beside it while a short-haired woman clutching a sleeping baby rode on top of the cart. The farmer eyed Shevia suspiciously before an expression of shock bloomed on his face when he saw her Mystic staff. He snapped something to his family and they pulled the oxcart to a stop.
Moments later, the men prostrated themselves on the ground in front of her, while the woman bowed as low as she could from her seat. “Greet’ns, Mistress,” said the farmer into the dirt. “We’re on our way to the Mystwood. They-a says the High Mystic is protecting anybody who stays close to Kelt Apar.”
Shevia licked her parched lips. “Do you have water?” she said in their language.
The farmer exchanged looks with his son before the younger one rose and brought Shevia a hide flask from the cart.
It was all Shevia could do to not snatch the flask from his hands. The farmer’s son bowed awkwardly as she guzzled the water until she coughed. Catching her breath, Shevia forced herself to bring focus to her present environment. She opened her mouth to thank the farmer but then stopped.
Behind the family, on the far side of the road, stood the ghostly silver image of a young boy. He was naked and disheveled, with his arms wrapped around his body. He shivered, with his knees touching, and kept his eyes on the ground. Sorrow and fear radiated from him like heat from a fire.
“Ah, Mistress,” said the farmer, “begg’n pardon, but are you well? Can we assist you in any way?”
There was something terribly familiar about the boy. A wind that Shevia could not feel tugged at his hair. He raised his face and looked directly at Shevia.
A snarl curled at the corner of Shevia’s face. The boy turned and ran west, into the wilderness, toward MagBreckan.
“Mistress?” the farmer repeated, concern and fear rising in his voice.
“Food,” Shevia said at last. “As much as you can spare. Quickly!”
The baby cradled in the woman’s arms began to cry. The farmer and son hurried to the cart, and quickly sorted through their stores to fill a canvas sack for her. Shevia waited with as much patience as she could muster. The silver apparition of the little boy dwindled into the trees on the far side of the road.
The farmer handed Shevia the sack of food, which she accepted without comment. They bowed to her and she strode after the silver boy.
As she passed the woman and the crying child she stopped. Looking down at them, she saw a fist-sized fay creature perched upon the baby boy’s head. The child’s family obviously couldn’t see it. The fay appeared to be some kind of insect with six pairs of wings and multifaceted eyes. Its snout sucked upon the baby while its abdomen swelled with whatever it was it drew from the child.
Shevia reached her hand toward the fay. Presumably thinking Shevia was directing the gesture toward her, the mother bowed her head and said, “Please, great mistress, we are your humble servants.”
Shevia closed her fist and the fay insect burst into flames. It squealed once and popped into a cloud of incinerated ash.
Shevia touched the child’s head and felt it burning from fever. She took a deep breath, and drew the heat from the boy into her own body. He quieted immediately. His bright eyes lingered on her a moment before closing as he drifted off to sleep.
“Your child will not suffer from fever anymore,” Shevia told the woman.
The mother’s eyes widened. The woman placed her hand on the child’s forehead and began to tremble. Shevia saw the mother wore a cord of intricately twisted ropes around her wrist, which she understood to be a local custom. “Than-thank you, great mistress,” the woman said. “You are beyond kind.”
“Do not go to Kelt Apar,” Shevia said. “The world is about to change. Go east. Go to Enttlelund.” She stumbled over the awkward name with her accent. “Go to the Continent.”
“As you command, Mistress,” said the woman. “But we cannot pay for passage.”
Shevia reached down and pulled the woven cord from the woman’s trembling wrist. Wrapping the Myst around the cord, she shifted the bracelet’s nature, and rewove it as a cord of gold. She dropped it into the woman’s hand.
“Go. Give thanks to Sitting Mother.”
The woman’s mouth fell open, but she could not find words. Shevia swept away from the family and did not look back. As she approached the tree line where the boy had vanished, she began to run.
* * *
Evening descended as she finally caught up to the boy. For most of the day, Shevia had trudged through untamed wilderness by scrambling over rocks and crossing jagged streams. More than once, Shevia was glad she had her Mystic staff to help her navigate the various obstacles she encountered. Because this was the edge of the Mystwood, and Treorel shone brighter than ever in the sky, denizens of Fayün crawled all around her. She shooed them away, and on one occasion had to incinerate an overeager axthos who leaped at her from a tree.
She found the ghostly boy standing on the edge of a wide pool that was fed by a towering waterfall. Silver smoke rolled off the boy’s naked body and mixed with the similarly colored mist rising from the waterfall’s base. He was tall and lanky for his age, with a knobby backbone. He faced away from her, his gaze directed into the water.
Shevia steeled herself. “Show yourself.”
The boy looked over his shoulder. Tears streaked his dirty face. Her earlier suspicions had been correct. Her teeth clenched.
“You,” she sneered. Many of Bhairatonix’s features were the same as a child that he had as an adult. It was strange to see him this way, a weak, crippled little child compared to the towering master she had once feared. Her mind raced as she wondered why and how she was seeing him.
“Why are you here?” Shevia snarled.
The boy sniffed once, soundlessly, and fell into the pool.
Shevia approached the water’s edge and peered in. It looked like a normal pool of water to her, but as she gazed into it she beheld a shimmering light deep within its depths. That light called to her, like a shiny coin at the bottom of a fountain.
“Shevia,” came a voice from nearby.
Instinct took over. Shevia uncoiled and hurled a globe of fire at the speaker. Too late, she realized who it was.
