Clockwork Goddess (The Lesbia Chronicles)

by Loki Renard

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “All due respect, your highness,” Kira said, “you are a whelp on a throne which has existed for thousands of years. The war on magic has been a legacy of your ancestors, but they understood that it was not a war they needed to win. It was a balance they needed to hold. I do not know how you have killed Ariadne, but I tell you it was a grave error...”

  “I have not killed the goddess Ariadne,” Cadentis interjected. “If she has died, it is perhaps due to her age, or anachronism, or the fact that she never existed in the first place and was nothing more than superstition.”

  Kira let out a derisive snort. “You have so little knowledge of the world and its workings. You see only what is on the immediate surface. Because you cannot find it or hold it or turn it into a clockwork toy you believe it does not exist. But you will soon learn otherwise. Lesbia has depended on Ariadne for thousands of years. By her grace have we lived in a land of bounty. Without her...” Kira lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “This world will crumble in ways too numerous to name.”

  “I would not have expected such words from someone who alleges herself to be the greatest witch hunter of all time,” Cadentis observed.

  “I was a witch hunter. I was shown the error of my ways,” Kira said. “I fear you will not have the chance to be shown the error of yours.”

  “No,” Cadentis said with a small, but oh so cocky smile. “That tends to be the effect of victory. My lessons are the ones you shall learn.”

  Kira's eyes narrowed a little as she looked upon the queen with an expression which lacked any fear. “There is no lesson you could teach me,” she said. “Our capture means death. But it matters little, for the death of Ariadne is the death of Lesbia.”

  “You think the countryside will roll up upon itself like a rug and go away?”

  “I think life will wither,” Kira replied. “I think songs will lose their sweetness, mead its taste. I think all will be a shadow of what it was, mere meat grist for the mortal mill.”

  “I will tell you why you are wrong,” Cadentis replied, stepping boldly up to Kira, though the position forced her to look up at the warrior. She lifted her finger and put it to Kira's breast. “This is where the spirit of Lesbia resides,” she said. “In the hearts of the women who live here. Ariadne's magic, any magic, has only ever served to turn free mortals into vassals. We will not only survive without magic. We will thrive.”

  “It is my greatest hope that you might be correct,” Kira said grimly.

  “Now,” Cadentis said, stepping away. “My question is what to do with the four of you. If I were my ancestors, I am sure I would have your heads, but being a... whelp upon the throne, I have other notions of justice.”

  “Liz is a fanatic, and Moon is nothing by the partner of Trebuchet,” Kira replied. “Who in turn is little more than a warrior for hire....”

  “I know who you all are,” Cadentis said, waving her hand. “You see, when one does not rely on spells and incantations, one collects information. I know you are at the core of all this. And I know equally well that you were acting on what you believed to be the wishes of Ariadne, who you now claim to be deceased.” She paused and gave Kira a long look. “How old are you?”

  “Exceptionally old,” Kira replied.

  Cadentis smirked. “Not so much a whelp as a weathered old veteran,” she said. “If I were to grant you mercy, what would you do with your remaining days?”

  “I do not imagine I have many left,” Kira replied. “I have lived on borrowed time for far too many years. Without Ariadne's protection, nature will have her way with me. My life was lost a very long time ago.”

  “We are all born containing our own deaths,” Cadentis said, her expression perhaps sympathetic. “I must say,” she said with a sigh. “I always thought my victory would be a little more... dramatic. Of course, I am yet to find Ayla. Where is she?”

  “I do not know. She may also be dead. She left one morning not long ago and has not returned. Her disappearance was coincident with Ariadne's passing, I believe. Or linked to it in some respect.”

  Cadentis' eyes brightened. “Do you think Ayla might have killed Ariadne? The stories say that it was Ariadne who took Ayla's lover, Atrocious.”

  “Age took Atrocious,” Kira replied. “Ariadne made her passing pleasant. Ayla's anger at Ariadne was nothing more than misplaced grief. As for whether Ayla killed Ariadne... I cannot say. I do know that she has been possessed of a deep anger for a very long time. It was bound to boil over eventually...”

  “So your Ayla could have been the one to win my battle for me,” Cadentis smiled slowly. “I take it back. This isn't anti-climactic. This is deliciously ironic.”

  Kira let out a little growl.

  “What, would you like to cut me down where I stand?” Cadentis smirked. “You have my rider at your side. You would not lift your blade one inch before you fell.”

  “Cut you down? No. I would much prefer to cut a switch and have the satisfaction of seeing your upstart little hide welted by my hand,” Kira replied. “You should be in a nursery, not wearing a crown.”

  Cadentis scowled. “I have three decades of life behind me. I may not be as old as you, but I am no child.”

  “You could die an old woman and not reach full maturity,” Kira said in turn. “You gloat over what you do not understand. You should be grieving. We all should.”

  “Take her out of my sight, Minerva, and guard her well,” Cadentis ordered. “We will take our prisoners and return to Clitera City in triumph, where we shall make examples of them all.”

  As Minerva put her hand on Kira's shoulder and lead her outside, a single crystalline snowflake fell from the sky and landed upon her flesh. It melted almost instantly, but was followed by dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of similar flakes as quite unseasonably, it began to snow.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Vix stood in the distance and watched Ayla scream. Ayla had been screaming for a very long time, all sorts of curses and words Vix did not recognize as being in the common tongue. She and Ayla had not returned to the village of the elves, instead they stood on the endless plains somewhere between the village of the elves and Erwydden's tree while Ayla raged and foamed and screeched to the winds and the earth and the sea and the sky.

  Day turned to night, and eventually Vix fell asleep, Ayla's thin cries of rage and sorrow echoing in her dreams. When she awoke on the soft green grass, it was quiet and Ayla was by her side.

  “I apologize for my outburst,” Ayla said, quite composed once more. “My mother... has a way of getting under my skin.”

  “Your mother has a way of eating goddesses and sucking the magic out of the world,” Vix replied.

  “Yes,” Ayla agreed.

  “What now?”

  “Now we return to the mortal realm and do what we can. There will be much suffering. I can only hope that Erwydden's appetite is sated and that she will amuse herself elsewhere.”

  “Ah,” Vix said, restrained.

  “You do not approve of my plan, Vixling?” Ayla raised a brow, looking uncommonly beautiful in the elven light.

  “I think Erwydden needs to be dealt with,” Vix said. “We cannot leave her to do as she will.”

  “How is one to do that? She has been imprisoned in obsidian and escaped to wreak vengeance. She has swallowed a goddess, taken the power of Ariadne inside her. Any action taken against her only fuels her rage and her evil. With Ariadne's essence, she is much more powerful than she has ever been. I tremble to think what is now within her grasp.”

  “How does magic work?” Vix asked the question suddenly. A simple question, one which she'd never thought to actually ask before.

  Ayla smiled. “That is a question deeper than time.”

  “And that is an answer less useful than a cow's dung,” Vix replied. “Tell me how it works. How could Erwydden cut off magic to the world of Lesbia by consuming Ariadne?”

  “Magic is a forc
e which exists everywhere,” Ayla began to explain. “Most mortals cannot wield it because they simply do not have the inner workings to do so. Elves can, because they are made differently. Goddesses are capable of producing and channeling the force of magic. Ariadne was a conduit through which magic flowed into Lesbia.”

  “Okay, so she was just a pipe, and Erwydden closed the pipe.”

  “That's a very simple way of putting it, but in a way, yes, I suppose,” Ayla said, clearly amused by Vix's mechanistic attempts to understand the unspeakable.

  “If one pipe can be closed, surely another can be opened.”

  “If one has another goddess spare, certainly.”

  “What if we didn't need a goddess,” Vix said, a sudden gleam in her eye. She reached into her satchel and spread out many cogs and wheels and little springs carved from various materials. “What if we just needed a hen?”

  Ayla looked at her askance. “What are you saying?”

  “When we met, I told you Kira wanted me to make something bigger than a hen,” Vix said. “I didn't mean physically bigger. I meant bigger in scope. My hens can scratch and peck and perform basic little tasks, but Kira was interested in the power that made them work, making them.... it's hard to explain,” Vix said hurriedly. “But I think what she wanted, is what I am talking about now. I could never get it to work, because I was on the wrong side.”

  “The wrong side?”

  “This. Here. Where we are. It is a place of power,” Vix said. “If I place my construction here, and allow it to draw the magic, then place others like it back in the world... we cannot undo what Erwydden has done. I cannot bring Ariadne back. But I can create multiple channels of magic, so Lesbia will still have some sources of it. And if Erwydden destroys one, I can make another out of simple parts...”

  Her fingers were moving as she was talking, creating a hen sculpture out of cogs and little springs. She seemed to know precisely where each and every tiny part went. When it was assembled, it was a perfect little creature, all cogs and wheels ticking away. Unlike the ones Vix had put together in Lesbia, this one glowed.

  “It's drawing power,” Vix said, her eyes gleaming almost as much as the hen. “Now what I need to do is create another just like it from the same materials, connect them... yes... this can work. Ayla, this will work! I will make another one of these, and we will go back through the trees and you will find that the magic flows. And then I can create a flock of such hens, each sharing this energy... er, magic in a great network which could span... why, it could span the world if necessary. Beyond Lesbia even.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely,” Vix said. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Take me back to the world of men and I will show you. Take me back to the tree.”

  “We need not return to the tree,” Ayla said. “There are as many doors as there are breaths of air. Take my hand and we will return to the world. It should be easy enough to return now that Soren is not holding us in her spell.”

  “Wait,” Vix said. “Let me make one or two of these first.”

  She sat and she worked, her fingers as busy as they had ever been. For a time there was silence broken only by the small sounds of human industry. Vix produced three more hens in addition to the first, placing them carefully in her satchel.

  “Now,” she said. “Let us go.”

  Ayla took her by the hand, murmured a few words and within seconds the air became freezing cold and the light dimmed and suddenly Vix and Ayla stood in a snow drift.

  “Brrr!”Vix shivered. “How long were we in the world of the elves? The seasons have changed.”

  “They have changed,” Ayla said. “But not in the way you might think.”

  “Anyway,” Vix said through chattering teeth, “let us see what this hen might do.”

  She pulled one of her creations from the bag, and before Ayla's amazed eyes, the little mechanical hen glowed.

  “It works,” Vix breathed. “It... it works just as I knew it would.” She could not take her gaze from the little creation, which glowed with not just light, but heat too, warming the air around them much like a fire might.

  “Ayla...”

  “I feel the magic flow,” Ayla said, extending her hand toward the hen. “This is a pure source. It could be dangerous...”

  “It could be,” Vix nodded. “I see the source of the sun here in this hen, I see that which makes the mother's heart beat. This is the core of life, I think, contained here in this little clockwork hen, flowing from her sister in the realm beyond. I cannot believe... such a thing exists.”

  Ayla smiled at Vix. “I doubt you understand what you have done here today.”

  “I have made a new kind of hen,” Vix said, very much sure that she did understand very well what she had done. “One which will channel magic.”

  “Yes, you have done that, practically speaking,” Ayla nodded. “But more than that, you have mitigated evil. Erwydden's cruelty has not triumphed. Do you see? A little scrap of a human with a talent for tools has undermined the greatest evil I have ever known.” Ayla's eyes grew wet with emotion and her voice shook as she spoke. “I have lived in fear of Erwydden for as long as I can remember. Her darkness stalks the world. There are other such entities given to foul deeds, but none of them so powerful as she. A goddess cannot help being somewhat cruel, because she does not know what it is to be mortal. Erwydden has tasted of it and uses it to her advantage.”

  “She is a right rectum,” Vix agreed in a significant understatement.

  “She is the shadow I will never be able to purge,” Ayla said. “But you have shed new light and chased some of the darkness away. Vix... I do not think you will ever truly understand how important you are, but believe me when I tell you that you have saved Lesbia. And you have saved me.”

  “Saved you?”

  “You have given me hope. I have never known any mortal to stand in Erwydden's presence and survive. Even less have I known one who was able to counteract her evil with human ingenuity. Your little manipulations of the world, those are a magic more powerful than hers.”

  “It's not actually magic,” Vix tried to explain. “It's these different types of metals and woods, when they interact in certain ways in a field...”

  “Hush,” Ayla said, pressing her finger to Vix's lips. “This is not a magic for my ears.”

  “But...”

  “Shh.” Ayla took her finger away and replaced it with her own lips. She kissed Vix with a deep tenderness and love before speaking once more. “This is your magic,” she said. “It is yours to share with the world. I will not understand it, as you will not understand mine, but I can tell you that this power which you have brought forth will change the course of history. You have plucked magic from the realm of the goddess and bought it to the hands of mortals. This changes everything, Vix. Everything.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  In the middle of Clitera City, sitting on a throne of ice, Queen Cadentis shivered and drew her furs closer about her.

  “Where is the warrior? Bring me the warrior!” She shouted the orders at chattering teethed soldiers who could barely move due to the way the cold locked up their joints and made even the slightest motion painful.

  A great fire burned in the middle of the hall, but its heat was absorbed instantly by the freezing gusts of winter air which forced their way through every crack and crevice in the walls.

  Snow had fallen every day since the capture of Kira and her crew, blanketing Lesbia in ice. Never in the history of the land had such inclement weather been recorded. Crops were dying, animals were suffering and people were struggling to survive. It was a disaster, there was no doubt about that, but there was little anyone could do besides hope for the swift return of the sun.

  Cadentis cut a slight, almost pathetic sight in her furs, like a field mouse curled up in a sock. In fairly short order, Kira was bought before her. The warrior was not clad in furs, but she did not shiver. She seemed immune to the crippling cold, e
ven though she was only clad in a simple linen shift. Her leather armor had been taken from her, along with her weapons.

  “Warrior, I say for the last time,” Cadentis said. “I know this... weather is some trickery on your part. This is some dark elemental magic. I demand you lift this curse from the land.”

  “This is not my curse,” Kira said as she had many times before. “This is not a curse at all. This is the absence of magic. Lesbia thrives on magic, always has.”

  “Very well,” Cadentis snapped. “We need Ayla. Where is the witch?”

  “I do not know where Ayla has gone,” Kira replied. “This is what happens, your majesty, when you persecute all that is good. This is what happens when generations systematically hunt out that which they do not understand and destroy it. Make no mistake, little queen. The death of this land is the royal legacy. You have destroyed Lesbia.”