Wildmane

by Todd Fahnestock

  “You must sleep soon,” Harleath said, his comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Not yet,” she said, struggling through the complicated exercise. In Denema’s Valley, she had envisioned her own hands pulling at the threads. She’d thought that was the only way to do it, but it wasn’t. Yesterday, she stopped envisioning a pair of hands when she manipulated the threads. Harleath said that envisioning only two hands was a self-imposed limitation. A threadweaver was restricted only by her imagination. If she chose only to see two hands, she could only manipulate two things at a time. He said he always envisioned himself as an aath tree, with its many prehensile branches. So for the rest of that day, she was an aath tree.

  But today, it occurred to her that if she could imagine herself an aath tree, why not imagine herself as the threads themselves? She would have as many fingers as there were threads to use them upon. That was when she stopped thinking of things in terms of numbers. Number of hands. Number of branches. Number of threads. There was only her imagination, encompassing as much of the task as was needed.

  Things went quickly after that.

  The carving was complete, and she brought the sculpted figures to life, making them move. That stretched her attention to the limit. At the same time, she shielded her work with an illusion in the threadweaver realm which appeared, at first glance, to be Ethiel’s original wall. If the Red Weaver decided to check, she would have to realize there was an illusion first, and then she would have to pierce it.

  At the same time, Mirolah’s attention raced up and down the threads of the prison corridor to warn her in case Kikirian or Ethiel came to check up on her. She would need a few seconds to dismantle her work if the Red Weaver turned her baleful gaze this way.

  “Oh, how I wish I had met someone like you when I was alive,” Harleath said. “The things we could have accomplished.”

  “If you had met someone like me, you would have put her to work on capping the Fountain,” she said. “And then I would be dead along with everyone else.” Her attention flagged, and part of her sculpture smoothed into a flat piece of wall. She grunted, and brought it back, but the detail was fuzzy. She was tiring. She was going to have to pull more energy from the Fountain after this.

  “Mmmm...” he said. “If I’d had you, I would have succeeded, I think.”

  “No. You would still have failed.” With a gasp, she let the carving go, then turned the wall transparent, then blue instead of red, a cool-down exercise so she could keep working and hopefully recover some of her wits. “I think I understand something of the Fountain now that you still don’t realize.”

  “Oh?” He raised his eyebrow.

  The wall became brick, then granite, then sandstone. She made the changes come faster. Beads of sweat gathered on her brow. The first two days, she hadn’t experienced this kind of fatigue. Yesterday, it was only once. This would be the second time today. She would crash soon. She could feel it coming.

  “You think the GodSpill isn’t sentient. It is nearly endlessly accommodating, but it isn’t without its own desires.” She let go of the wall, and it slowly turned red again. She let out a long, even breath, then she sent part of her consciousness to the heart of the Fountain that Harleath had shown her. Deep in the core of the Fountain, there were no threads. The GodSpill longed for freedom, rushing against the walls of its prison, forced to trap itself when it longed to get back to the lands. She flitted into the cracks and touched the barest edge of the sweet center. It rushed into her, a juice that rebuilt every part of her fatigued self, from her soul to her breath to her muscles; it even warmed the skin of her body far away. She rushed back and spoke to Harleath.

  “You made the GodSpill trap itself, when all it wanted was to be free. If you’d taken the time to feel the GodSpill, to understand what it wanted, you could have worked with it. I think the GodSpill wanted to return the lands of Amarion to the way they had been before the Age of Ascendance. If you’d allied yourself with its desires, rather than instilling it with your desires, it might have shown you a way to undo the Fountain.”

  “But it doesn’t speak.”

  “Maybe you didn’t listen closely enough. The GodSpill doesn’t ‘think’ like you and me. It doesn’t hope and dream and act and make plans. It’s like water, filling whatever vessel it’s given, but it still has identity. It knows that it exists.”

  Harleath looked confused, and, for the first time, Mirolah found herself thinking of a way to explain something to him, rather than the other way around.

  “A river will bend any way the land dictates,” she said. “But it always charges downhill. When I visit Daylan’s Glass, I hear the GodSpill wanting to be free. It’s trapped. It wasn’t meant to be trapped. It was meant to flow through the world, providing wonder and change.”

  “There’s no record anywhere that suggests the GodSpill itself has desire. It is an element. Like water or stone.”

  One of Mirolah’s alarms went off. Kikirian was coming.

  “Kikirian is here,” she said quietly. “You had best go.”

  He looked at her with worry. “Will you please bide your time? Simply wait—”

  She met his gaze. “I waited once. It cost me two companions that I will never be worthy of. There is one more who may still live. He came on the journey to protect me. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Given time, I believe you may be a match for her, but you are not now. You have no idea how powerful she is.”

  “I have some idea.”

  “Please,” he beseeched.

  “Go.”

  She could hear Kikirian’s heavy footfalls now. She tracked his intricate composite of threads and fibers and fibers-of-fibers with her weaver’s sight.

  Harleath sighed. “Then go with Thalius, child. I will stay as close as I dare.”

  “Don’t. I don’t want to worry about you, too. If she catches you, she’ll destroy you.”

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  “Go now,” she whispered harshly.

  He vanished. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall. She laid her arms limply at her side. She opened her mouth and let all of the breath out of her body, slumped down. She imagined how hungry she was and, for a moment, she felt it.

  Kikirian looked inside the door, smiled. “Well, novice. I hope you’ve learned a thing or two while you’ve been down here. Attacking the Red Weaver carries a heavy cost. Next time, I think you’ll throw your tantrum in private. She wants to talk to you. Get up or be brought.” The giant dramath opened the cell door and stepped inside. “If you behave, you just might eat tonight—”

  She reached out and saturated his threads with her own colors. He gave a soft grunt that was supposed to be a yell, and his burning red eyes opened wide, but then he wasn’t able to do anything. Or at least, anything other than what she wanted him to do.

  Kikirian belonged to her.

  48

  Mirolah

  Medophae stood next to Ethiel’s throne when Mirolah entered the room, and a wave of relief washed through her. He was alive. Thank the gods.

  The Red Weaver had dressed him in a white shirt, open at the front, with long, wide sleeves, black breeches and tall black boots. He looked like a young prince, waiting for his young queen. The expression on his face was focused, but not entirely present, as though he was watching something invisible in the center of the throne room.

  Ethiel had changed. Her face was the same, but she was younger and more slender, now roughly Mirolah’s age. She wore a floor-length red gown with a high neck and long sleeves. Gone was the voluptuous woman that Mirolah had seen last time. She reclined sinuously on her throne and ran one finger down the length of Medophae’s arm. He didn’t seem to notice.

  Mirolah felt a cool breeze of uncertainty. Medophae was a legend. He had fought and defeated threadweavers for centuries. He had even once killed a god. If Ethiel had taken him in hand so easily, what could Mirolah possibly do to beat her? But it was too late to back out now. She
marshaled her concentration and put the doubts from her mind.

  “You wanted to see Medophae,” Ethiel said. “And I oblige you. Of course, I’ve taken steps for your protection.”

  Mirolah said nothing. She and Kikirian came closer to the throne.

  “Kikirian, you may go.” Ethiel waved an imperious hand.

  They came closer.

  Ethiel sat up straight and glowered at Kikirian. “Must we have this scene again, dramath? I said...” Her eyes narrowed as she looked closer. Her attention snapped to Mirolah, and a faint smile touched the corners of the Red Weaver’s lips.

  “Well done...” Ethiel whispered. “The fledgling spreads her wings.”

  Kikirian charged the throne and leapt up the shallow steps. He brought his huge, gauntleted hands down on Ethiel.

  The throne shattered. Medophae stumbled to the side, regained his balance, then slowly stood up straight, still looking at the center of the room.

  Ethiel’s laughter echoed and rebounded off of the walls. Kikirian swung again and again, his steel-encased fists breaking stone with each strike.

  The woman was insubstantial, much like Harleath Markin, but Mirolah knew those gauntlets could hurt a threadweaver, even a ghost, if they connected. She had studied them during the walk from her cell to the throne room, and they were imbued with a strong weaving of single-minded aim, like the tip of a needle. It was designed to break through threadwoven protection. That was how Kikirian and Ethiel had broken through Medophae’s natural defenses when Mirolah’s own attempts to lift him into the air were slammed aside by Oedandus. The gauntlets had created one brief hole in his protection, and Ethiel had burrowed into his mind.

  So Mirolah kept Kikirian going after Ethiel. It was a long shot, but he might get lucky and hit her.

  Ethiel flew straight up, out of reach. Kikirian ripped the tall, red velvet curtains behind the throne from their moorings, attempting to wrap them around Ethiel like a whip, draw her down. The cloth passed through her.

  Ethiel flicked a finger. A red light exploded in Kikirian’s face, blowing him off the dais. He landed in a heap at its base, skidded to a stop, and then lay unmoving.

  “So much talent,” Ethiel turned her emerald gaze from Kikirian to Mirolah. “Such a poor choice of weapons. I was going to keep you alive, dear. I looked forward to having an apprentice, someone to talk to, someone to impart my knowledge to. But I don’t have the time to teach both you and Medophae how to behave.”

  Mirolah was barely listening. She knew Kikirian had been a gamble, and she hadn’t counted on him besting her. He was a physical creature, and though his gauntlets might have put a dent in Ethiel’s amorphous form, the next best thing was for Ethiel to knock her own servant unconscious.

  One down. One to go.

  She reached forward and yanked Ethiel’s threads, hard. The Red Weaver’s projected image vanished like smoke in a gale. With her threadweaver sight, Mirolah watched the dense red cloud of Ethiel’s true form, vaguely humanoid, billow up toward the ceiling, trying to get away. The mist was comprised of the tiniest threads Mirolah had ever seen. When she’d first seen Ethiel’s true form, she could detect no threads. But she could now. They were tiny, but they were there, and that meant she could manipulate them.

  She pushed her colors into Ethiel, soaking those red threads, trying to turn them. Hope sparked inside Mirolah as they began to change. Blues and whites and greens covered the red like dripping paint.

  “Insolent bitch!” Ethiel’s shrill words rammed into Mirolah’s mind like icicles. Mirolah screamed and fell to her knees, her concentration shattered. The threads of Ethiel’s misty body blazed red, ejecting Mirolah’s colors.

  Ethiel’s cold needles melted into the insidious worms of domination as she began to overcome the threads of Mirolah’s body, just like she had before.

  Mirolah gasped and let her physical form slump to the floor. She didn’t need it, not for this fight. Only the threads mattered. Now that Kikirian was out of the picture, this battle could take place entirely in the weaver’s tapestry.

  Mirolah became every thread in her body, a thousand thousand fingers. The two times Ethiel had dominated her before, it had happened so fast Mirolah didn’t have time to think. But this time, the creeping worms seemed slow, and what was more...

  ...there was a finite number of them. Two dozen red “fingers” worked at Mirolah’s threads. Mirolah, however, was part of every single thread. With just two “hands,” to stop Ethiel’s invasion, Mirolah would have been overwhelmed. But with every single thread as her ally, suddenly the task was simple, and this time, Ethiel was overwhelmed. Mirolah found the Red Weaver’s two dozen fingers and pushed the red out. The pain in her head vanished.

  With a quick breath, Mirolah sat up. She glared at the ethereal red cloud. It hovered, and though it had no facial expressions at the moment, Mirolah could feel Ethiel’s shock.

  Suddenly, Ethiel’s two dozen “fingers” became needles, stabbing at Mirolah’s heart and lungs over and over, not in an attempt to dominate, but to murder. The shock was savage. Mirolah’s lungs collapsed and her heart stopped. She fell back, dying.

  But as her body slumped, she stayed in the threads, focused in these last moments of her life. She furiously ejected Ethiel’s worms while at the same time pulling together the threads of her heart and lungs that had been so viciously yanked apart. She filled them with the GodSpill taken from the Fountain, bade them return to their original state.

  Her heart knitted together and began pumping again. Her lungs reassembled and filled. She sucked in a long, ragged breath.

  Ethiel hovered, stunned.

  This won’t do. She couldn’t win by remaining on the defensive. She had to attack, had to drive Ethiel back, had to make her afraid. Only then would the Red Weaver stop.

  Mirolah hastily divided her attention to three tasks. She set one fragment of her attention to maintaining her body’s threads. If Ethiel invaded or stabbed at her, that portion of her focus would protect her, eject the invasion, or repair any damage.

  With her second fragment of attention, she launched a full invasion of Ethiel’s threads. With the last fragment, she left her body as Harleath had shown her and circled Ethiel, looking for a weak spot.

  The strike and parry continued, and Mirolah held her ground. Ethiel’s imperiousness receded, and she ceased her verbal threats. She poured her energy into dominating Mirolah, into pulling her body apart, into shattering her concentration. At each turn, Mirolah repelled her while continuing her own attack, holding the status quo.

  The third fragment of Mirolah’s attention studied Ethiel and discovered a weakness. Ethiel had divided her attention as well. Innumerable tendrils, invisible unless meticulously searched for, trailed out of the smoky cloud. For a moment, it stunned Mirolah, and she wondered how long she would have lasted in a battle against this weaver if Ethiel were not busy in a hundred other places.

  But as she watched Ethiel attack her again and again, Mirolah realized a crucial difference between the two of them. Mirolah’s body fought for itself. It had a shape that it wished to retain, a life that it wished to continue. But Ethiel was not alive, not in the same way. Her dense cloud of tiny threads was a construct in very much the same fashion as her castle. It remained only because she concentrated on it, continually held it together with GodSpill. If that concentration ever ceased, or if those threads were forced apart, what would become of Ethiel? Would she dissolve? Would she die?

  Mirolah left off with her invasive attack and redirected that attention to forcing those tiny threads to disconnect from Ethiel’s “body.”

  The threads complied with a willingness that shocked her. They resisted for one fragile instant, then flew apart as if a team of horses were already pulling on them.

  Ethiel vanished. The red misty figure that hovered near the ceiling was gone. Simply gone.

  Mirolah returned to her body and raised her head. She peered all about with her threadweaver sight, but could fi
nd no trace of the Red Weaver.

  She’d won. Nervously, she looked around at the architectural construct Ethiel had made, half expecting it to begin unraveling. Nothing happened. Apparently, it would stand even when Ethiel wasn’t concentrating on it.

  Mirolah levered herself unsteadily to her feet, breathing hard. Now she felt the rigors of what she had done. Her head throbbed, her body felt drained, and her hands shook. She felt as if she had been dragged behind a cart for twenty miles, but she forced herself forward. Left foot. Right foot.

  Medophae still stood where he had been jostled, staring at the middle of the room. Excitement beat in her chest. She could throw off the spell that dominated him, and they could leave this place.

  She shuffled past Kikirian’s limp body, set her foot on the steps and...

  ...Kikirian’s huge hand shot out and grabbed her ankle. She gasped and turned.

  The dramath flung her across the room. Mirolah flailed, reaching into the threads of the wall as she hit, turning it softer, turning a killing collision into one of pain and broken bones. She fell to the ground, stunned. Her right shoulder and wrist were broken, and the agony stabbed through her. She tried to right herself, stunned.

  Kikirian leapt across the room and swung his fist at her.

  She grabbed the thin, sparse threads of the air and bunched them in front of Kikirian’s fist, but it only slowed that gauntlet. The fist smacked into her, slamming her sideways and cracking her ribs.

  “Nobody controls me,” he snarled. “Nobody!”

  She lifted herself into the air, out of his reach. He tried to grab her, but missed. She shot away from him...

  ...straight into Ethiel’s arms.

  The red cloud engulfed her, tight-knit and glowing. In the real world, Ethiel projected her voluptuous form in the diaphanous sheer silks of a dancer, hovering in the air beside Mirolah.

  She quailed. Exhausted, broken, fending off the horrible pain, she knew she couldn’t fight them both.