by Aderyn Wood
“Well, it’s about time.”
Dale jumped and turned to the voice. A man stood gripping a fishing spear in the shallows of the lake. His red hair was like fire and his green eyes sparkled when he smiled at her. He wore a simple outfit of rough, homespun shirt and loose trousers. His ears were round, not pointed. Not of the Seru then. Maybe from somewhere further south. But what was he doing here?
“I’ve been waiting since dawn. I’ve caught two fish for our noon meal.” He smiled again as he moved out of the water. He dropped the spear on the bank and walked the few short steps toward Dale.
“Who are you?” she asked, taking a step back. He seemed nice enough, and Dale felt instinctively she could trust him, but since Balak, she wouldn’t give her trust so easily again. She lifted her chin and scanned her surrounds quickly. Esme was nowhere in sight. Perhaps she should call her.
The man raised his eyebrows. “You don’t know me, Dalendra Ap Arcadia?” A beam of sunlight penetrated the canopy and his hair shone red, as red as her own.
“I guess it’s to be expected,” he said, taking another step toward her. “This is the first time you’ve seen me in my true form.”
Dale squinted. A feeling of familiarity washed through her, and in her heart, she knew who this stranger was, but her mind wouldn’t succumb to the feeling. Could it be true?
“Well, it’s quite simple really.” He smiled, his eyes shining bright. “I’m your father.”
23
“Are you hungry, Dalendra?”
Dale eyed the man who claimed to be her father. He placed kindling for a fire on a rocky section of ground. Hair so red, eyes green, ears round. When he glanced at her, she saw something of her own reflection. But more than the physical resemblances, Dale knew on a deep level that he truly was her father. Just as she had known with her mother.
“We have much to discuss you and I, and these things cannot be told with an empty stomach. Sit.” He gestured to a log.
Dale didn’t take her eyes from him and stumbled before she sat on the log, wondering which of the millions of questions she should pick to ask first.
“I know you have many questions,” he said, as though reading her mind. “But let me ask you a question first, daughter. Are you a sorcerer now?”
Over a year ago when she’d found her real mother, Dale had grown used to her quick enough. But her mother was such a warm and welcoming person. This man, he seemed nice enough, but there was something… distant about him. Dale didn’t feel any particular desire to run into his arms. He was her father, she didn’t doubt it, but could she trust him? There was something about him that reminded her a little of Balak.
She cleared her throat but didn’t quite know how to answer his question. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
He put his hand over the kindling, closed his eyes, whispered a word then the flames danced. Dale’s eyes widened. So, her father was a sorcerer. That much was clear, and a powerful one it would seem. He added a heavier log; smoke rose and a comforting aroma of wood fire filled their small camp.
He looked up at Dale then. “Well, that is your quest, and before you ask, let us eat. A conversation over food makes it easier for people to build their trust. That is what I have seen. And you need to trust me, Dalendra. I am not Balak, and I am not your mother with her grand expectations.”
Dale swallowed. “You know about Balak?” And what did he mean of her mother’s expectations?
“Yes, I know him.” On the ground by his side lay two fish, gutted and scaled. He picked each up and thread them on to a long straight stick and held them over the coals. “I know all.” When those green eyes of his looked to her, Dale believed him. “You have questions about Balak, about your mother, about Nessa. And you shall have answers, but at this point in the flow of that great tide you call time, other things must take priority.” He smiled. “Patience, daughter.”
Dale’s eyebrows met in a tight frown, but soon the aroma of crisp cooked fish filled her nostrils and her stomach growled in appreciation.
Her father grinned. “I knew this was a good idea.” He took each fish off the stick and placed them on a large Paulownia leaf. “Be careful, it is hot,” he said as he handed one to Dale.
“Thank you,” Dale said, still watching her father. She broke off a section; the meat was white, tender, and steaming. She popped a morsel in her mouth. It was very hot, and she breathed in short rasps but the taste was so good she didn’t pause to swallow before she popped another section in her mouth and closed her eyes relishing the heat.
When she looked up, her father was still smiling at her. “Good isn’t it?”
Dale nodded.
They ate in silence for a moment, and when her father had finished, he put the leaf beside him and wiped his hands on the grass. “So, you do not yet know if you are a sorcerer. Well, that is a problem, daughter.”
Dale put her leaf down too, and wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. Her father’s voice hadn’t seemed particularly disappointed, merely matter of fact like.
She shook her head. “I’ve tried to become what they all want me to be, but my magic… I cannot rely on it. Sometimes it works, but most times, it doesn’t. They used to look to me with hope, they expected me to save them from the Unseelie, but now when they look at me all I see is disappointment, hostility, even.”
Her father nodded. “Yes, but they lack awareness of their own simple failure.”
“What do you mean?”
“To put faith in someone else is the quickest path to disappointment.” He pointed to Dale. “Faith in thyself, that is most important. Faith in thyself.” His eyes burned and a cold shiver flicked along Dale’s spine.
“But how can you have faith in yourself when all you’ve done is fail?” she asked.
Her father picked his teeth with a twig. “That is all part of your quest. To learn such faith.”
“My quest?”
He shrugged, “Your fate. Your destiny. Your purpose.”
“You mean the prophecy?”
He squinted. “Oh yes. That. But, your immediate quest, your next step. That is what you need to focus on. I thought it was on Earth, your next step, but I was wrong.”
Dale shook her head. “My immediate quest? What are you talking about?”
“I think you know, daughter. What do all great sorcerers have that you do not?”
Dale almost laughed. Ability. Power. Skill. She could have answered any of these. But her father meant something else. “Do you mean faith?”
He shrugged again. “Yes, faith of course. But once you have your faith, there’ll still be something missing. What is it?”
Dale squinted, as she thought of Gareth, Ness, Rhys, Jaral, Agathina, her mother, and all the sorcerers. She thought of the prophecy too, and a realisation stirred making her gasp. “A hysbryd. I am missing my hysbryd.”
Her father smiled. “Yes.”
“So I am to find my hysbryd. That is why I’m here?”
“Yes.”
Dale felt anger, small but present, bubble up within. “Well, why haven’t you showed up before now? Don’t you realise how many have died waiting for me to be what I’m supposed to be? Why meet me this way? Why here in this forest? I’m not even allowed in here.”
Her father’s smile fell away and Dale’s skin prickled. “Why wouldn’t you be allowed in these forests, daughter?”
Dale’s brow furrowed with frustration. “Because, these are the Forbidden Forests, they belong to the First, we the Second are not allowed to enter.”
A smile twitched on her father’s lips. “And what do you suppose I am, daughter? Of the First or the Second?”
Dale’s eyes widened. “Oh my… You’re a – You’re a First aren’t you!”
Her father raised an eyebrow. “And if I am indeed a First. What does that make you?”
Dale froze. Holy shit! “You cannot mean it.”
“You’re quite right. There are limits to where we may journey. All ne
cessary to maintain balance.”
Dale closed her mouth, her head reeling. She was a First? But if that was true she should be able to summon great magic. She should be able to move bloody mountains!
“Dalendra.” Her father’s voice was raised and Dale snapped her attention to him. “Stop thinking and listen.”
She stared at him and nodded.
“When the First made the worlds, it was balance that kept all intact – our steadfast rule. All things must live in balance. Sadly, such harmony is now threatened. Earth has changed, and the Unseelie feed off the Earthens the way a flea feeds off a dog.”
Dale couldn’t help but frown. The concept of balance was easy to grasp. But how it applied to the various universes and worlds in exact terms, she still struggled to understand, despite the best efforts of Sa’r Atapole and everyone else.
Her father studied her. “Take these fish we just slaughtered and cooked for our noon meal.” He gestured to the bones on the large leaf at his side. "Creating them is no difficult task, and if we had wanted, the First could have simply created the fish, and that would be all that existed. But it wouldn’t last, would it, daughter?”
Dale bit a lip. “No, because the fish are designed to fit into a particular world, a system, and that means they need water, and air, and water plants to lay their eggs on and mosquito larvae to eat.”
“And there are predators, such as ourselves who will eat the fish for nourishment, but if we were to eat all the fish, there would be no more of them, and the system would no longer live in balance. Something else in the system would rise, perhaps the mosquitoes, and something else in the system would fail, perhaps us if we relied on them too much for our nourishment. Or perhaps the bear.”
Dale tilted her head. “And if the bears died that would be another hole in the balance and the system would be unbalanced again?”
Her father nodded.
“But, accidents, or unforeseen events occur to upset the balance or just change it so that a new balance may evolve.” Dale searched for the words to explain. “An ice age might kill off an entire continent of creatures, or a meteor.” She paused. “Or a nuclear power plant disaster, or a terrorist threat.”
Her father kicked dirt on the fire until the red coals were no longer visible. “Come let us stroll through the forest.” He stood and Dale followed.
They walked around the lake listening to the fish still jumping in the afternoon sunshine. This place has perfect balance, she thought.
Her father gestured to the surrounding forest. “The worlds we have created can survive for a time with all sorts of imbalances. They learn to rectify and rebalance, quite independently and without the need for input from the likes of your mother, the Second, or we the First. And that is how life should be. The gift of life is equally joyful and painful, but that is the balance. Life must have joy, as it must have pain, there must be happiness and sadness, there must be good, and there must be evil. And, life’s most grand paradox dictates that there must be both order and chaos.” He stopped walking. They had come to a path that lead through darkening woodland and above it, a vast mountain now stood clear before them. Snowcaps gleamed pure white in the afternoon sunshine.
Her father continued. “But when the imbalance goes on for too long, when something overpowers all else, then life is threatened, and perhaps, if no one does anything to repair it, then life will cease to exist. And all our work shall come undone.”
“You’re saying that because Earth is so out of balance, that now we must do something about it before it is too late?”
Her father nodded.
“But mother has been saying the same thing, and that is what she is trying to achieve by stopping imbalance here, with the Unseelie, and then going to Earth to rectify the imbalance there.”
Her father looked up to the mountain peak. “Yes, I know what your mother intends. And her intentions are noble. But it is time for someone to intervene with the ability to exist in all worlds. Someone who can walk among the First, the Second and the Third. Someone who can feel the balance in all three worlds and not alter it by her presence.”
Dale let go a slow breath. “Me?”
He nodded. “Yes, daughter, you. You were born of the First and of the Second, and you have lived among the Third. You alone are the one who will bring about the rebalance.”
Dale didn’t believe it. “But how? My magic, it isn’t working.” Her heart raced with the knowledge and fear of who she was. Of what she was. A new energy pulsed through her. Was it the lands of the First doing it? Or the fish – consuming something that lived in the world of the First. Whatever it was, it felt like a surge of power, and Dale almost wanted to cast a spell to see if her magic would now work.
Her father stopped and turned to face her. “And so we must talk of your quest.”
Dale nodded. “My hysbryd.”
He held up a finger. “Part of your very being is wrapped up in your hysbryd, and it is a tumultuous relationship you will share. Together, you will ride the very line between chaos and order. You must be strong if you are to rule her.”
Dale licked her lips. She’d always dreamt of a hysbryd like Cat, or Vulpanna, or Nancy the albatross, but now she had no knowledge of what to expect.
“You must find your hysbryd.” Her father pointed to the mountain path that meandered through the dark shadows of the trees. “When you unlock the power to rule your hysbryd you will unlock the power to your magic.”
Dale frowned at his words. “But if I am of the First, do I need a hysbryd?”
“Your very existence is linked to that creature. She is part of your own balance. Your hysbryd is of the First and has a mind and power all her own. But you will need to control her, and when you do, your power will rise. Your magic works differently to the sorcerers of the Second.”
“If my magic works differently, why can’t you teach me how to use it?”
“Because you must know it. It comes from within you. Not without.” He turned back toward the mountain. “There is the path, daughter. Time grows scant. Now go.”
Dale looked to the path again. The shadows seemed even darker. When she turned back to her father, he was gone. Vanished, just as Esme did. She sighed; so many more questions she had. Questions about Balak and her mother. Questions about the Unseelie and how she was supposed to thwart them, even if she found her hysbryd and unlocked her power. But she would receive no answers now it seemed. She took her first step onto the path and shivered, it was dark and cool, as though the sun had just been pinched out.
24
The light of the forest gave off a reddish orange glow as late afternoon sunlight filtered through rusty autumn leaves as though they formed a stained glass window, beautiful and unnerving at the same time.
Dale’s legs grew heavy. She stumbled now and then, but forced her mind to stay alert and her body to keep moving forward. She finally knew what she had to do to unlock her magic, and she wanted it over with.
Pride, and even thoughts of revenge ran through her. She’d be happy to show the doubters her mother had been right all along, and that she was their saviour after all. She imagined the look on Sa’r Atapole’s face when he saw her bring down the Unseelie, and she relished the satisfaction of it. She also imagined the proud look on her mother’s face. It would feel good to finally prove the queen’s faith had not been in vain.
But such thoughts were prideful, and all too human; they had no place in what was yet to come. No. Dale’s vanity had no place in this. It was for a bigger cause, and giving in to the selfish pull of glory wasn’t going to help her in this quest.
She must find her hysbryd.
A stream ran along the path and she stooped to drink its icy water. Then she stood and stretched the kinks from her body, looking through the forest to the ever-darkening shadows. Only the gurgling of the stream broke the silence. Once again, the forest was quiet. No birds. No squirrels. No insects. Not even a breeze.
Curious. There’d been fi
sh in abundance back at the lake, and birds chirping in the trees. But here, in the depths of the forest, all sat silent and still. A shiver touched her spine, but she moved on. She had a long climb ahead.
Dale’s thoughts meandered with her steps, and she wondered what her hysbryd would be. She’d always hoped for a cat, just like Cat. One she’d have her own special connection with. But now, Dale doubted she would find such a match. What type of animal lived on a mountaintop? Perhaps a hawk, like Ricardo’s hysbryd? Or an eagle?
Soon enough the path grew steeper, winding its way up. With dusk, the light changed from red to purple. But silence still reigned. She paused to look up and could just make out the wisp of cloud that seemed to hover just above the snowcaps.
As night fell, Dale continued her climb. A full moon had risen, lighting her way. She glanced up at the silvery orb every so often, quite different to its match on Earth – larger, brighter.
Night wore on and Dale’s legs grew heavier still, along with her eyelids. She tried to blink herself awake and shook her hands to get the blood pumping. But her legs ached and icy cold numbed her toes, making her shiver. If only she could sit somewhere, lean against the warmth of a thick trunk and close her eyes…
She shook her head. No. She had to keep going.
Another stumbling step up the rocky path and the snowy summit came into view. Dale's toes grew unbearably cold. She paused at a pile of leaves, and grabbing a handful of dry ones, she lined her shoes. It worked. In minutes, her toes no longer throbbed with ice-ache. She pumped her legs harder in an effort to move faster and keep warm.
A vague sound interrupted the rhythm of her stride and she stopped. Her heavy breaths causing puffs of steam to billow in the moonlight. She froze, tilting her head, trying to detect the sound once more. A rush of wind whipped her hair. Another whoosh met her skin and it brought warmth with it. Dale scanned the sky. Dark clouds scudded beneath the stars. A shadow flew above her. Closer.
