Worlds Without End

by Caroline Spector

  “Don’t tell me the past has no hold over you, Caimbeul. We both know what a lie that is.”

  “This is precisely the reason I left you.” he snapped. “You pick and pick and pick.”

  “That’s right.” I said. “I’m no Sally, or Susan, or whatever-her-name-is-this-decade who fawns over you like you were some sort of demi-god. Doesn’t fragging a sycophant lose its appeal after a while?” He pushed himself up from the table in an angry rush.

  “This bickering isn’t getting us anywhere.” he said. “What are you planning to do?”

  Hugging my grimoire close to my body, I walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. It had begun to rain, and every so often the craggy land was lit by lightning. Bare country, wild and untamed.

  “I’ve put up some protections, but I’m not sure how effective they’ll be. I wish . . . Well, I might as well wish for the sun to rise in the west. What’s that old adage? ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ ”

  Caimbeul came up behind me. I could see him reflected in the window. A flash of lightning; the desolate land outside. The darkness; Caimbeul’s image in the glass.

  “I think you should tell the others.” he said. “Why don’t you tell them? Your relations with them have always been better than mine.”

  “Because, Aina, I’m not convinced. You are. You will be more effective. Tell them.”

  “Tell them what?” I asked. “That I’ve had dreams and there has been one very strange telecom call?”

  “Don’t dodge it.” he replied. “They’ll have to listen to you. The ones who matter will know what it means.”

  I dropped the curtains and skirted around him. He was close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body.

  “Why do you want me to do this?” I asked. “What have you got up your sleeve?”

  He shrugged.

  “I suppose your reaction has something to do with it.” he said. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen anything unnerve you so much as that call. Your hands are shaking even now. And when you heard that voice I thought you might faint. And, Aina, you’re not the fainting type.”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He could still do that to me. Even in the worst moments, he had a knack for pulling it out of me.

  “You’re forgetting about Dunkelzahn and that ancient business.” I said. “I doubt they’re likely to have forgiven me for that.”

  “Probably not.” he replied. “But you must try.”

  “And where do you suggest I try first?” I asked. “Tír na nÓg? Let’s see ... I have such close relationships with the Elders there. Alachia in particular.

  Yes, we’ve become the best of friends since that nasty business with the dragons. Oh, I’m sure she’ll help my cause.

  “And then there’s Tir Taimgire. My relationship with Aithne is particularly strong. After Hebhel and Lily, I doubt he would piss on me were I on fire. Not that I blame him.”

  “That was a long time ago.” he said. “There are more pressing issues than things and people dead and gone.”

  I made a slow circuit of my study. So many years of keeping track of the wisdom. Anticipating this time. Now that it was here, I was reluctant to act. No, afraid to act.

  “Once, a long time ago, someone said to me that memory is all we have. Even as we speak, there is a slight lapse in time between what we hear and what we understand. All our experience is a kind of lag.

  “Everything is memory, Caimbeul. Nothing has any meaning without it. ‘He who cannot remember the past is condemned to repeat it.’ See, even a human philosopher understood it. And he blinked out in a heartbeat.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Caimbeul. The past is very much with us.”

  I closed my eyes and let the past wash over me like the sea rushing over the shore.

  Three birds are sitting on a branch. They are about to soar into the blue sky when an arrow pierces the hearts of two of them.

  The third bird flies away, frightened and lonely. She knows the hunter is after her. Will always be after her.

  6

  We have always been a meddlesome race of beings, we Elders.

  I suppose it comes from a long time of being privileged. Few have known of us. And none have been able to stop us from doing what we wanted. Oh, well, there was that business with the great worms, but even they must sleep eventually.

  What was that amusing little saying from the comix? “Who Watches the Watchmen?” I used to see it scrawled across the bottoms of bridges and on the sides of buildings during the late nineteen-nineties.

  So, though we’d been given a thrashing, while the cat’s away (or the monstrous serpents), the mice will play. And so we did.

  Myself, I have always preferred a low profile. None of the flash that has marked the passage of my fellows. The tales that have floated about me were easily written off as fables. That wasn’t by accident, for I have believed for a long time that our presence is more a danger than a boon.

  Perhaps had I been more vigilant, certain events of the past wouldn’t have come to pass.

  I had been traveling to England. Why, I can’t remember now. Although I believe it had something to do with that collection of stones in Wiltshire. There were rumors of power there. Tremendous magical power. It was whispered in the harems and in council rooms. In market places and among the nomads. There were always places of power and this was one of them.

  Stupidity.

  That’s how I came to be there. Had I bit of sense in my head I would have left them all to die. Hacking their lungs out, puking up what they’d barely managed to down a moment before.

  Ignorant, superstitious peasants.

  I knew there was a reason I’d stayed in the east for so long. In the east I wasn’t looked upon as a black devil. The color of my skin was hardly commented upon.

  But here among these backwards Englishmen with their pasty skin and bad teeth I was something to be feared, hated, and possibly killed. And the place they’d put me in might well do that.

  It was called the Tower, but, of course, it wasn’t. More like several castles and towers collected together. Not that I’d had much of a chance to see any of it. I’d been brought here in the middle of the night and hadn’t seen much of the light of day since. Sometimes I wondered if anyone even remembered I was there.

  Once a day a jailer slid a plate of bread and porridge through the grate. I could hear him muttering catechisms under his breath. It would do him little good and likely lose him his head, given the political mood. But don’t we all fall back upon the icons from our youth? The stories we recite to keep the monsters at bay.

  And that was how I knew I must appear. Oh, I’d lost the pointed ears, thank goodness. The more obvious signs of my elven condition were muted now. Magic was at a low ebb, though for some reason belief in it had never been higher. There were more charlatans and mountebanks claiming to turn lead into gold than you could swing a dead cat at. And they did a great bit of that, too. To drive out the demons.

  Demons like me with my black skin and my white hair. My hair I could dye. Luckily, my eyes had changed to a brownish-gray color; otherwise I’d probably already be dead. What would they make of Vistrosh and his ceathral skin and pink eyes? I wondered.

  But here I was locked up tighter than a miser’s hoard.

  And how had I come to be here? My own weaknesses, as usual.

  “Help us.” I’d heard.

  I looked down and saw a young child, a girl, maybe eight. She wore a ragged tunic and her feet were bare and dirty. What desperation drove her to ask for help from any passing stranger? Much less one who looked like me.

  “They’re sick.” she said.

  “Who is sick?” I asked.

  “Everyone.” she replied. “Everyone except me.”

  But she didn’t look well herself. Her eyes were bright and glassy and as I drew closer, I could feel the heat of fever radiating off her.

  “Please.” she said. Her hands reached out and
I thought she might actually touch me, but she pulled away.

  “What makes you think I could do any good?” I asked.

  “Someone has to.” she replied. “Or I’ll be all alone. They’ll ... die.”

  I didn’t want to help them. For as far back as I could remember I’d been trying to keep out of these things. To let Fate take her own course. It wasn’t for me to decide. There were other matters that needed my attention. But as I looked into that pale feverish face another child came to my mind, and I found myself being led into the rude thatched hut.

  The air was thick with the odor of a low-burning peat fire. There was a hole cut in the roof to let the smoke escape, but that only helped a little. Pallets lined the edge of the room. On them lay several people, all of whom were in various stages of the same sickness.

  The grippe.

  Why these people were so, ill from it I didn’t know. It was a common enough problem—not as frightening as the plague or cholera, which could pass through a town and leave it devastated in a matter of days or weeks.

  At my feet lay an elderly woman. I knelt down beside her and took her wrist in my hand. Under my fingers her pulse felt erratic. I was closer to the power here; the pull of it too tempting to resist. As my eyes closed I began to see the pattern of her life. Thin and threadbare. Bleak colors woven together with an odd shock of bright blue.

  It was so difficult to hold on to what I was seeing. The images were blurred and hazy, slipping away from me if I hesitated for a moment. But, healing her would be simple enough, I saw suddenly. It had been so long since I’d taken the risk. Since I’d wanted to.

  There was a faint sound. It broke my concentration and I turned toward it. There, shadowed in the doorway, stood the girl. For a moment her image blurred with one from my memory. I knew then I would help them, regardless of the risk.

  Again, I took the woman’s wrist. Tapping into what little reserves I’d tucked away, I focused all my concentration into bringing back the weave of her life. The heat flew through me then, sliding into her body, burning out her fever and pain. Hot ribbons of health wove themselves into her body.

  I released her wrist then, exhausted by this minor act. I smiled a bit at this, I who had brought armies to their knees with a flick of my wrist, swooning at this child’s play.

  And what did my generosity get me?

  A private room in the bloody Tower.

  The people I helped weren’t to blame. They couldn’t have been expected to keep quiet about their miraculous healings, I suppose. Though I suspect the tale was embellished by the time it reached the ears of the clergy.

  The Protestants and the Catholics had been going at it ever since Mary came to the throne, but the one thing they agreed on was that anything smacking of witchcraft was to be dealt with severely.

  For some reason the local priest, who was the first person to see me after I was captured, didn’t want to kill me right off. Perhaps it was my skin, or maybe he hoped to gain points with bishop. At any rate, I was taken to London and then sent to the Tower.

  Where I remained for months.

  I’d heard that there were prisoners here who’d been forgotten for years. But I tried not to dwell on that.

  Spring passed, then summer.

  All Hallows Eve.

  Dark came early. Through my slit of a window, I could see the fine mist ushering a heavy fog. The flickering torches looked unreal and ghostly. A perfect night for the devil’s work. If you believed in that sort of thing.

  I’d been sitting in the dark for several hours. The worst thing about imprisonment was boredom. But this wasn’t the first time I’d been in such a situation. Then I heard it. A faint sound from down in the base of the tower.

  Then footsteps on the stone steps. They were coming to kill me, I knew it. After all this time, they had remembered and were dispatching me at last. The least I could do was go to my death on my feet. But somehow I couldn’t force myself to move from the cold stone floor where I sat.

  The sound of voices. I thought they might be arguing. Then more footsteps. The lock was opened and the door swung in.

  I put my hand up against the sudden brightness of a lamp. A rustle of fabric. Any moment now I would feel the burn of the blade.

  “You may leave us now.” a voice said.

  A voice I knew.

  I dropped my hand and blinked. It couldn’t be, yet it was.

  Standing across from me, robed in heavy velvet and fur, was Alachia.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  She frowned. “You never have learned any manners.” she said. “Do you not know that you are to rise in the presence of a queen?”

  I snorted. “Blood Wood is long gone.” I said. “Its ashes have been forgotten more times than either of us can remember. You’re no more a queen than I.”

  “You never were ambitious.” she said.

  “No, just not foolish and vain.”

  Her frown deepened. Even with such a withering expression on her face, she was still beautiful. The skin was as pale, the hair as fiery red, and the eyes as blue. Not as stunning as she’d been, but part of that was due to the changes in the magic. Now her beauty was more human.

  “You are an annoyance.” she said. “But you are my cross to bear. Isn’t that an amusing expression? Tell me, aren't you curious as to why I am visiting you?”

  I didn’t answer. I knew it would annoy her. How odd that even after all this time we fell back into our old patterns.

  “Well, I’ll tell you.” she said. Her voice was gleeful and fairly danced with excitement. “In a fortnight, I am again to gain a throne. Admittedly, not as impressive as those I’ve left behind me, but it will do in the meantime.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you heard?” she asked. “Mary is dying and Elizabeth is to be crowned queen. Don’t you think Henry is turning over in his grave? Killing off that poor girl’s mother because she couldn’t give him sons. Brutal bastard.”

  “What has that to do with you?”

  “Why, my dear, haven’t you guessed yet?”

  I stared at her for a moment, then, through the dullness of my mind, comprehension.

  “Are you mad?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she said coyly.

  I was staggered. She’d been interfering for years in things that weren’t our business—but this—this was too much.

  “How do you propose to achieve this miracle?” I asked. “Don’t you think people will see the difference between you?”

  “Ah, I have been planning this for years.” she said. “It has taken an immense amount of time and energy. Do you think that I just popped up yesterday? Oh no, I have been Elizabeth for quite some time.”

  “But her servants, teachers, surely someone . . .”

  “A simple enough matter to arrange. A spell here, a spell there . . . and patience. Such patience as you have never known. And now, at last, I’m in a position where I can do something.”

  I could only stare at her. It was madness—sheer and utter madness. How she could possibly think she could maintain such a farce was beyond me.

  “Aina,” she said, “you have always been so shortsighted. We can control what happens over the next thousand years. Make the world over in our image. Think of it—the power will come back again. Not this trickle, but a deluge of energy to rip loose the moorings of the world—unless we make certain of the proper order of things. Humans are sheep. We will always rule them.

  “The legends and tales you strew about aren’t enough. We must have more. We must control them. This is our destiny.”

  Even had I wanted to stand, I didn’t think my legs would hold me. What she was proposing was monstrous. It went against everything I believed about our place. Our purpose. We had a duty to perform.

  We were to keep the world safe so that the knowledge would survive from age to age.

  She knew what I did—how could she discard it all for so cl
umsy a form of power? But then, power had always entranced her. And so much of her mind would never be known to me. She was far older than I.

  And I have lived so long that Sisyphus’s chore looked like a blessing to me.

  “You pervert what we are.” I said.

  “This pious attitude is quite boring, Aina.” she said. “I think I liked you better before you lost your faithful companion. He certainly would never have tolerated such an attitude. And he could goad you into so many things.”

  I felt the blood draining from my face and blessed my dark skin. Cruelty was her hallmark. How could I have let my guard down for even a second? The energy drained from me then. I didn’t have the strength now to battle with her.

  “What has all this to do with me?” I asked.

  She walked closer to me. The wide span of her skirts just touched the ragged hem of my cloak.

  “I want your assurance that you won’t interfere with my plans.” she said. “I know you could make things difficult for me and I won’t have it. There has been too much time and energy devoted to this for you to create problems.”

  “How did you know I was in England?” I asked.

  “That was a happy accident.” she said. “For the last few years I’ve made it my business to keep abreast of any rumors of witchcraft. When I heard about a dark-skinned woman with white hair who’d been arrested for sorcery, well, I assumed it must be you.”

  “Have you known all along that I’ve been here?” I asked.

  “Of course.” she said. “I just couldn’t take any action on it for a while. Besides, I wanted you out of the way until I decided what to do with you.”

  I closed my eyes. Knowing Alachia, she could keep me here for decades before letting me go. By that time I might well have lost my mind.

  “What do you propose?” I asked.

  “Just what I said. You keep out of my way in this matter. I will act as queen to this tiny nation.”

  “This is madness, Alachia.” I said. “Why would you want this?”

  “Because I need to rule.” she said.