“Is there any weight to them?” Angelica wondered.
“Choose your questions wisely, lest you tire me and have to fetch more of the blue password,” Baba Yaga said.
“What is the true reason mother split her soul between us?” Jovian asked.
“There’s only one true way of knowing that, and it’s to ask Sylvie yourself.”
“But she isn’t present,” Jovian argued.
“But she lurks inside of you. All you need to find the truth is search within. But I suspect she knew the darkness wasn’t gone from the lands, and so she did what any mother would do — she gave you the ability to live your lives, while lending you her strength to face what’s to come.” Baba Yaga spoke as if she knew the truth of their birth.
“So we are real people? I’m really Angelica and he is really Jovian?” Angelica wondered.
“A foolish concern. Do you feel other than Angelica and other than Jovian? What makes you any more Angelica than Sylvie? We are all formed from the same ether, and we come here at the end of our times.” She motioned to the cauldron before her. “If we’ve done wrong, our wrongdoings are boiled from our wyrd, and then we enter the sea of reincarnation again. If we haven’t done wrong, we join with Goddess once more, and then, after a time, journey across the sea of reincarnation to be born again.”
“But mother didn’t make the journey to the afterlife.” Jovian said.
“Angels are different; they don’t need to go through the same motions as humans. While they are made of the same ether, the ether that comprises them is slightly different than it is for humans. Sylvie exists outside of you just as much as she resides inside of you. Her memories and her cunning have passed on to you, but what is Sylvie still exists after her physical death. She didn’t stop being just because she passed her energy on to you. Just as you exist as your own identities.”
Angelica was confused.
“And to answer your questions, when you get your wings, it isn’t the angelic side of your mother that will bleed through, it is the angelic blood of Angelica and Jovian that will drive the humanity out of you.”
“But if she isn’t the driving force inside of us, how did she die? Cianna said that she split her soul into our bodies,” Jovian said.
“Yes,” Baba Yaga said. Her arms were now losing their firm grip on the spoon, her posture growing more stooped with every question. “She split her soul into you, but every person that lives is a reincarnation of energy that once drove another person. That doesn’t make you any more Aaridnay than it does Jovian. Energy isn’t created or destroyed, it just changes forms. Even though your mother split her soul into you, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t individual people.”
Angelica considered that, and it made sense, though it was still strange seeing things her mother had seen before and knowing things her mother knew, and even having that other consciousness take over from time to time.
“It’s because you are anakim that you see those things,” Baba Yaga told them.
“Why did you bring us here?” Jovian asked.
Baba Yaga stooped lower, but her hair was still vibrant, her hands not withered as Angelica knew them to be when she grew too weak.
“Because of the trial yet facing you,” Baba Yaga said. “A while back, my sister Baba Yaga of the forest gave to you the will to do that which must be done. Now that I shall give you another gift. The knowledge to do that which must be done. You can’t defeat what lies before you without it.”
“And what lies before us?” Angelica asked.
“That I do not know, only that some great darkness faces you at the Turquoise Tower. Just as the Norns can’t see your future, so is it that I cannot divine it either. I only know that darkness lies before you.”
“And the Pale Horse,” Jovian said.
“That is a possibility.” Baba Yaga nodded her hooded head.
“Death is a possibility?” Angelica asked.
“Death is always a possibility,” the crone told them. “But don’t worry — on the other side of death, past his three wisdoms, lies the Ever After for you. You will not spend any time in my cauldron.”
That was little comfort to Angelica.
“Now, before I grow weak,” Baba Yaga said. “You need to take this.” The old crone pushed back her hood, revealing a younger face than the one they had seen in the woods. Her nose was hooked, hanging low over thin lips, her chin jutting out in a hook that nearly met her nose at the end. Her hair, long and white, hung about her like strands of moonlight. She shuffled around on her knees, not able to rise to her full height in the mountainous cave.
From the wall behind her she drew down two circular glass bottles, both stoppered with cork. She handed one green one to Angelica, and one blue one to Jovian. They took them appreciatively. The liquids inside shone with a wyrded light, bathing their faces with blue and green. Angelica could feel the light play across her skin, like feathers brushing her face. She wrinkled her nose against the tickling sensation.
“Drink,” Baba Yaga said, indicating that they should consume the contents.
Angelica took the cork out of her bottle, and Jovian followed suit. A pleasant aroma greeted her nose, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the smell. It was floral, and soapy, and it infused her bones with peace.
She closed her eyes, placed the bottle to her lips, and tossed the liquid back. Angelica felt the light inside the bottle sweep past her lips, illuminate her throat, and warm her belly with its glow. It warmed her insides like the finest whiskey, and she cleared her throat against the heat that rushed back up in greeting.
“Now, there’s not much time left for us,” Baba Yaga said.
When Angelica opened her eyes, she saw the familiar shadow of Wyrders’ Bane dancing on the edge of her vision, as if he were just any other shadow in the cavern created by the shifting light. He reached for her with his power, and Angelica felt his ethereal fingers sifting her wyrd, searching, trying to get a feel for it.
“There’s that yet to deal with,” Baba Yaga told them.
“Was it the stone that brought us here?” Jovian asked.
“The stone doesn’t have an effect on you,” Baba Yaga said. “But I amplified its power to bring you to me. I’ve had little chance to slip into your minds, and there was no way you could poison yourself so easily without others seeing you, as you did to meet my sister.”
“Why doesn’t the stone have control of our wyrd?” Angelica asked.
“That I will not tell you, not with him being so close,” she said. “But egrigors can be beaten, and when they are, new intentions placed in their being. It’s how the Well of Wyrding is always swayed from good to bad.”
Angelica nodded with understanding.
“There will come a time, soon, when the Turquoise Tower will call you. I dare say it will happen before this silly war in the north is over. You must answer its call. You will know when the time is right.”
Angelica’s vision dimmed.
“The herbs Rosalee has given you are working. Don’t resist them,” Baba Yaga said. “But one thing you should know before you leave: the tea alone won’t stop Wyrders’ Bane from striking again. He must be defeated.” As if her words were an augury, waking them to life, Angelica felt herself rise up out of the cave, over the mountain peaks, high above the snow-heavy clouds.
Then there was a startling shift to the ground, and Angelica and Jovian came gasping awake on their opposite couches.
Rosalee let out a startled yelp, her book flying form her hands to land noisily on the coffee table.
“Dear Mother, I’m glad you’re okay,” Rosalee said, a hand on her heart. “But next time, move a little first!”
Joya sat in the darkness of her red room, staring down at the shimmering green jewel before her. The fire had been banked, casting the room in shadows. The only noise she could hear was the occasional shout outside from men on the ramparts, and those still digging out. She had closed the heavy woolen drapes in an a
ttempt to block out more noise, but it had minimal effect.
She drew her attention back to the gem, watching the light dance here and there around the lace table cloth. It reminded her of the play of sunlight on water.
Joya slipped her hands over the thin stone and felt the memory of the Shadow Realm waken to life. There was a link from Guardian to stone, and in a rush she knew that this stone had been modeled after the Orb of Aldaras by the only Realm Guardian of the Shadow Realm, Beatrice Forester.
Clasp with both hands, the memory in the stone whispered, and Joya obeyed. She clasped her hands together as if she were praying, with the slight green stone in the center. The room was plunged further into darkness, the light from the stone shining feebly through the cracks in her fingers, sending rivers of light cascading over the tabletop.
Joya gasped, and felt her mind pulled down her arms and into the stone, like a lodestone draws metal. When her eyes focused she saw all around her a sea of green smoke: slipping across the ground, playing against her black robe, imploring fingers tasting her wyrd, getting a feel for her.
This stone was so much more than the Orb of Aldaras. The Shiv of Beatrice, it told her, was its name. It would allow her to commune with the races in her realm, as well as gain access to the memories of the Guardian before her. She’d had a moment of this connectivity when she was first chosen as Realm Guardian, but then it had been a voice urging her on, a memory of where she needed to go. Now it was as if she could reach out to Beatrice and speak directly to her. As if the sorceress no longer needed a physical body, because she had the stone.
Joya wondered how this differed from necromancy. Weren’t necromancers thought to be able to trap their souls in items and become a lich? An overwhelming feeling came to her then, as if she weren’t alone, as if there was another presence there beside her.
She got the impression of a small woman, thin as a wisp with ruby-red hair and black eyes. The image wavered for a moment and then was gone, but while it lasted an impression came to her.
Memories, not souls, the feeling told her.
“So this is your mind, then?” Joya asked.
The image of the pale woman wavered before her again, as if coming to her in the form of colored smoke. Yes.
“I need to contact the people of my realm,” Joya told her.
The short image wavered again, and she spread out her arms. As she did, a number of orbs winked to life before her, in varying colors. There were more orbs than races she knew about.
“I need to speak to the frement and the ooslebed first,” she said.
An orange orb floated to her, and right behind it an orb that shifted colors from toxic green to putrid blue. She reached for the orange one, and it came to rest in her hands. Within the surface of the orange orb Joya saw a staggering city, plunged in the depths of night. The shapes and sizes of the buildings were hard to determine because of the black iron used to build them. If it hadn’t been for the plethora of lamps shedding light from various windows, Joya wouldn’t have been able to discern the city at all. Skywalks led from most buildings, and she couldn’t imagine why this mode of transportation was used instead of the streets. It struck Joya as odd that the frement were a nomadic race, yet they had built such a grand city.
It is only a place for creating, Beatrice whispered to her mind. The frement don’t like to live within this city, but it’s prudent to have a permanent dwelling for the production of their machines.
“What do I do?” Joya asked with a nod. “How do I commune with them?”
Speak your intent, the image seemed to say.
“And they will hear it?”
Yes, the right people will. Beatrice’s memory wavered.
“We need you, in the Realm of Earth. No harm will come to you now, I’ve ensured that. Bring your heavy machinery. We need not only your weapons, but the fear your loud machines can make. We will startle these ignorant races with your alien craft.”
Surprisingly, Joya felt as if a response came to her through the orb, a shivering that rippled up her arms and to her mind, as if answering, Yes, Guardian. It will be done.
Joya released the orange orb, and it bobbed back toward the outspread arms of the memory of Beatrice.
Next, Joya collected to herself the green and blue orb. Inside she saw a sprawling, moss-covered clearing with various regally dressed figures of dark elves lying about, sharpening long blades, or smoking fine weed from long, slender pipes. She knew this wasn’t a permanent dwelling for them. If they were anything like their brethren in the Mountains of Nependier, they were also a nomadic race. While the area was just as dark as the previous city had been, this clearing was lit with numerous sunflowers, as bright it as if it were mid-day.
Again she pressed her desires into it, and this time when she spoke, she could actually see the dark elves taking notice, and sitting up at attention.
“The Realm of Earth needs your blades and your arrows. Strike from a distance, keep yourselves safe, but bring your most ferocious hecklin. We strike with fear as our main weapon.”
The feeling of assent came to her then and as she released the orb she could see the dark elves going about making good on her orders and their promise to help,
“One more,” Joya said. “The dryads.”
A brown orb floated to her and she gathered it to her hands. The moment she touched it an alien, almost corrupt feeling came to her. She looked up at Beatrice, startled. The red-headed memory nodded.
They aren’t the pretty, fun dryads they have in the Realm of Earth, the memory thought to her. These are cruel hunters of humanoids.
“Will they obey me?” Joya asked.
As long as you pay them with blood on their wooden swords.
“That I can do,” Joya replied. “Your Realm Guardian needs your wooden blades in the Realm of Earth to slay a threat upon the steps of the Guardian’s Keep. Your blades will run red with dwarf and troll blood alike,” Joya promised.
A hungry, bloodthirsty feeling came to her, and she knew the dryads were also assembling to help her.
“You will harm none on your way here,” Joya added as an afterthought, and the memory of Beatrice nodded, as if it was a good clause to add. “You will only slay those that threaten the Guardian’s Keep.”
The response was less enthusiastic than the first agreement they’d sent her, but the feeling that arose to her told Joya that they wouldn’t want to miss out the chance to bathe their blades in blood, and this war she promised gave them all the blood they would need.
“Now,” Joya said, releasing the orb. “I need to address all three, for I have a strategy.”
Uthia heard the drums thrumming through the clearing, a sound that made her heart race, her mind reel, and something dark release within her. She wasn’t a prisoner with her darkwood sisters, but she nearly felt like it. She had a duty to herself and her realm. Uthia knew the Realm of Earth needed help. Normally the dryads would do whatever their gnome brethren dictated, taking their orders from the Germinant Gob. He had said they wouldn’t help in the war, and so they wouldn’t.
But Uthia couldn’t follow those orders. She knew the humans, maybe interacted with them more than any of her dryad sisters or gnome brothers. While her race would continue on as long as there were forests, the humans were much more volatile. They needed help.
And so she found herself sheltered in an old stand of Averanym, gnomes who had gone to root, listening to the nightly rituals of her darkwood sisters. Uthia sat amongst the flowers and plants of the old Germinant Gobs of the Shadow Realm, allowing her soul to commune with them. Strangely, where the dryads of this realm were much more ruthless, darker, near chaotic, the gnomes were much nicer, softer, more understanding. She enjoyed their company, and might have taken roots with these dryads, if it weren’t for how they acted.
“Sister of the North,” Uthia heard a silken voice call to her just beyond the field of Averanym. It was Pushta, the leader of the darkwood dryads. “Are you going to join u
s?”
Uthia didn’t want to. She would rather sit here, trailing her stick-like fingers across the petals of one rather amiable Averanym, but she knew in order to gain the darkwood’s trust, she would have to join them.
“Of course,” Uthia said. She plastered a smile across her black lips and pushed to her feet. Her limbs creaked as she stood, like wind blowing through a forest. Her white bark skin was nearly glowing in the light of sunflowers scattered through the darkened wood. Her hair, a spill of green vines and leaves, was pulled back behind her shoulders.
Pushta held out her hand, smooth black with delicate fingers. The darkwood sisters were made of a polished ebonwood, black, shiny, and much more like a human than the woodland dryads of the Realm of Earth. Where Uthia had black orbs set in knotholes for eyes, the darkwood dryads had white orbs. Where the woodland dryads had leaves and vines for hair, the darkwood dryads were bald.
“What is it tonight?” Uthia asked, feigning interest and eagerness to help.
Pushta’s knothole ears twitched with Uthia’s voice. The slits where her nose should have been flared as Pushta scented the air, her head tilting back.
“Can’t you smell it, sister of the north?” Pushta asked, her voice husky with hunger.
Uthia couldn’t. “Yes,” she lied.
“A centaur has harmed a sister while she was at root,” Pushta said, leading Uthia on through veils of sunflowers, and along twisting paths deeper into the woods. The sound of the drums swelled around her, caressing her skin, calling the bloodlust from within her.
Uthia never knew such a feeling existed until she came to her darkwood sisters. Now it was something she was very familiar with. Each night there was some new bloodletting. Uthia shivered, not wanting to recount the rituals, knowing soon enough she would see another display of barbarism.
“Are you cold, sister?” Pushta asked. The words drove fear into Uthia’s heart with the thought of fire.
“No,” she whispered, her voice trying to mimic the lust in Pushta’s. “Just anticipating the ritual.”
On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 12
