Published by Creascriptum, 2016, The Netherlands.
Text copyright ©2016 by Louise Blackwick. All rights reserved.
Cover designed by Louise Blackwick, copyright ©2016 by Creascriptum.
VIVIAN AMBERVILLE ® is a registered trademark of Creascriptum.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this book are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or physically, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author or publisher.
ISBN: 978-94-92064-07-3
To my beloved Wouter and his contagious laughter
Who loves me as I am, eternities hereafter;
To whether odd or bold ones, the broken and the whole
Who stay true to their journey and to their final goal;
To you, ideal reader, who looks beyond the meaning
This story’s true, if but to you,
in evening nights, redeeming…
Contents
PART I
Vanadium Threads
Girl without Name
A Play of Odds
Syzygy
The Face in the Shroud
Vivian’s Descent
Friends and Freaks
PART II
A World Within
The Gold Mask Man
An Errand of Hope
Avis’aan
The Pattern of Threads
Mens Agitat Molem
The Forests of Arc Luteus
PART III
The Trial of Paths
Turquoise Banners
The Trial of Fears
The Return of Ashlar
The Trial of Wills
The Weaver of Odds
The Weaver of Ways
PART I
As the Weaver, so is the Thread.
Vanadium Threads
Ærinna everly worked passionately at balancing cosmic reality. Her agile fingers stirred to and fro with much ease and visible talent amid billions of wires. They were Threads of intelligent design she wove into the very fabric of reality.
Like all Weavers, Ærinna delved in neither good nor evil. It mattered only that reality would live to see another day, with its countless threads, weaves and tapestries. She also didn’t believe in justice. One couldn’t have been a Weaver and embrace that anything about life was, in any measure, fair. Justice was something that happened to optimists.
The Alarians’ craft was set in the central-most area of a colossal web of pulsating light and heat. As large as a city, the metallic loom mapped with subatomic precision the entireness of cosmic reality. The Pattern of Threads , they called it. Ærinna always believed the Pattern had more dimensions than it was allowed, but kept the thought to herself.
The Pattern was the focal point through which raw energy was harnessed, altered and translated into the substance of the cosmos. By weaving their thoughts and feelings into the substance of reality, the Weavers had ensured anyone writing about them would secure an instant bestseller – which wasn’t particularly difficult, considering the Weavers held the strings on the one holding the pen. Those who controlled the Pattern, controlled reality.
‘Weave in the good, weave out the Black,’ Ærinna prayed daily to the powers that be.
Of course, the powers that be were pretty much synonymous with being a Weaver. One needed to be quite adamant about religion not to recognize any being capable of manipulating the cosmos at will, would merit a small scripture of their own. If not a scripture, at least an interview in an obscure newspaper, somewhere.
It was said the Alarian civilization had taken a few wrong turns in history and failed to discover technology. Progress, however, was eventually achieved when the Alarian brain evolved the ability to directly influence energy from a distance, a mind-over-matter process known as Weaving . In later years, the Pattern of Threads was built to extend the act of Weaving not just to their world, but to the whole of reality.
But Weaving required painstaking regulation. When it came to altering the substance of reality, there was no such thing as too many rules. Ærinna’s work was based on seven cosmic laws which governed the cosmos, from the largest universal membrane to the smallest unit of matter.
The Law of Coherence was one of the seven laws of cosmic sway by which the Alarian Weavers condoned their craft. It was the first law ever engraved as principle of truth, and so it stated: Nothing exists for free. Everything happens for a reason.
So knew Ærinna her being chosen as Weaveress was no mere coincidence. Nothing often was in life. That very purpose had been pre-written for her by other Weavers before her time – not that she could have a say against it. One could not weave straight into reality without accepting they might have been predestined for it.
An alien energy flowed through each thin-as-a-hair strand of Palladium. It made each cosmic Thread shine in psychedelic colours no eye beheld before. Ærinna knew each colour embodied an emotion, and each coil spelled the turning of outcomes. With thoughts as pure as the rare strands of Palladium metal, her weavework had to be balanced down to cosmological precision. One small error would have spelled disaster for the whole of reality.
As every other night, paper-thin Threads rapidly slid between Ærinna’s burnt palms, painfully cutting into her fingertips. The act of Weaving inflicted a level of pain that over the years she had learned not only to accept, but ignore altogether. Palladium, the only metal known to effectively conduct cosmic energy, was now tainted in her blood; hers and all of the others who shared her efforts.
Weaving was no simple act. Ærinna looked down at her heavily-scorched hands. They were positively shivering under the worldly burden. Messing about with people’s fate was one thing, but killing them off was another. She knew she held entire universes in the palm of her hand, and the thought often startled her.
‘Right, now where did that black Thread go?’
The Weaveress squinted at the loom. While any other person would merely see a thickset of colour-flashing Threads, Ærinna saw cosmic events, destinies and the collective soul of countless beings. Some of them were about to kick the bucket and kick it well. They weren’t to die of any expected natural causes either – unless one counted being “woven out of the Pattern” either natural or expected.
She pushed her fingers into the entanglement of Threads and removed a single dark Thread, which she replaced with a synthetic strand of Palladium. So what if one had to die to save the many? At the end of the day, the rule of thumb was that “life needed to be preserved”. No one ever told the Weavers whose life in particular.
Even by Alarian standards, Ærinna was no ordinary Weaveress. As the Weaver, so was her Weave: wholesome and pure, which was very much fortunate, given the circumstances. Whatever a Weaver was made of, it had to be stronger than the atomic no. 46 Palladium they worked with.
Every chosen Weaver had long known what was at stake. At the center of the Pattern, pinned onto a large coat
-of-arms was the adage: “ As the Weaver, so is the Thread ”. It reminded the Alarians their weavework could only be as good as their greatest weakness. Which was why Weavers didn’t have any weaknesses. Not visible ones, at least. They buried them deep and they buried them well.
The purpose of the Pattern was to “assist” the cosmos in keeping itself alive. Naturally, given the overall lazy and self-deprecating nature of the cosmos, the Alarian Weavers took it entirely under their control, just to be safe.
“In Schools of Thought our lore is preached
Into our fingertips now reached
To find our path among the darkness
By weaving Truth in divine aptness”
Ærinna’s eyes now found a loose Thread. It stuck out of the loom with deliberate defiance. Not the right kind of defiance, mind.
She knew a terrible gold-haired leader had been elected somewhere in the multiverse, despite odds going against it. She also knew it would lead to the death of a billion souls. Even so, if she removed this one Thread from the cosmic Weave, an even worse leader would replace them. Ærinna decided the best action was no action, and merely pushed the Thread out of sight.
‘Weave in the good, weave out the Black,’ prayed Ærinna on and on, dividing godly skill amid the countless shimmering Threads, the weight of the cosmos on her shoulders.
Her attention was now drawn upon a boy whose imagination had the potential to change the face of reality. Unfortunately for him, Ærinna liked reality the way it was: fluid, slippery and with a brick in it. The case was quickly resolved by giving the young boy an appetite for procrastination.
Whenever their weavework got the better of them, the Weavers raised their spirits in song, humming late Karura’s weaving chants. Ærinna loved singing. Her burnt hands deep into the loom, she opened her mouth and carolled:
“It is a Truth widely-sought
A lore is preached in Schools of Thought
To stand in honour for our kin
And fend ourselves from Reaper’s grim
For Alarians, born in vitality
Bend odds with true alacrity
By weaving out blackening Thread
We keep the cosmos safe from dread
Open your conscious to the Truth
An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth
And since the mind is former portal
Veil it in Threads of light immortal”
Of course, the Weavers were not particularly talented at singing either. Taken individually, they sounded like a bagpipe mauled over by rampaging bears. It was when they all joined in singing that one would notice the difference. Hypnotic drums and hair-raising choirs – the Alarians were believers.
Imagine a fleet of ships, whose slaves are forced to row under the crack of whips and the prosaic sound of drums, while the London National Choir performed their most exquisite overture. It might not have been ethical, but the general effect was mesmerizing.
So had the Weavers perpetuated Karura’s elated chants; songs of crafts and of their ancient lore. They often sung in tandem, in the loudest voice available, in Æurlek’ääj , the ancient Æurlek , the oldest Alarian language and of the cosmos.
As for Ærinna, whenever her Guild sang, she always sang along, her voice seeping into the Pattern like so many rainfalls:
“Karura blessed us with the Pattern
In times of doubt, became our lantern
As Fate sought our extermination
We wove white Threads in abrogation
Our divine Will in Threads is sown
One step ahead of the Unknown
And heavy loads our hearts must carry
In woven aims, extraordinary
Translating Thought in apt Intention
We fashion Threads of pure creation”
‘Weave in the good, weave out the Black,’ prayed Ærinna again and again to the grand cosmic narrative. She was also secretly praying for a raise. One could never have enough Æns, she reckoned.
The most esteemed Alarian was no royalty, leader of armies, teacher of craft or high priest of lore, but the so-named Weaver of Threads. Age, skill and resolve aside, much separated Ærinna from the rest of her Guild.
She was born with the Sight , a quality which allowed her to glimpse into events beyond the Shroud setting the Alarian universe apart. To see into Existence was to see into the mind of one of the most ridiculously absurd creatures in cosmic creation: the human being.
‘Forgive me Mr. Hamershin…’ she was often heard apologizing to whichever unfortunate soul she had collected.
She knew her weavework demanded cosmic sacrifices for a greater good. It was a human this time; a man whose life had ended at her fingertips.
Beyond a thin veil of space stretched Existence, the frailest and most imbalanced reality of the cosmos. No one was really sure why it was imbalanced, but some believed it had something to do with the general alcohol consumption per capita.
If reality was a soap bubble, the universe accommodating humans would be living right on its surface. Concurrently, the Alarian universe would be seated within, on the bubble’s interior. Surprising how only a thin membrane of space separated Existence from Non-Existence.
‘Oh dear. I hope you find your rest, Mr. Hamershin.’
Humans fascinated Ærinna. Unlike other Weavers, who popularly regarded humans – middlings – as nothing more than slugs on legs, Ærinna thought very highly of the creatures whose universe was but a thought away.
Despite never having met a middling in flesh, Ærinna had studied them at length and in great secret. Frequent were the times the Weaveress found herself singing to herself in a low voice, her fingers swiftly spinning the hot Threads of Palladium:
“Oh, how I have longed for evermore
To have a middling on our shore
And how I long to have their greeting
And learn their habits: eating, sleeping
Oh, how I wonder what they seem
I often meet them in my dream
Baffling me in cognizance
A beam locked in their countenance
They’re all amazing, middlings are
At an arm’s reach, and yet so far…”
The scorching heat of the web was slowly eating into her flesh, her memory and her focus. Ærinna felt tired, yet determined to complete another successful shift. She knew only too well that with each woven Thread, a part of her soul would be entering along, never to re-emerge again. As Weaver, she wove a little bit of herself with each turning of an odd Thread.
‘Weave in the good. Weave out the— Umbra of Kavi, what’s this now?’
Ærinna gazed into the Pattern, beyond the Shroud of souls and of faces, and saw a child with long dark hair and eyes like black marbles.
There was power about the girl… power as the Weaveress had never seen in a living creature. Her life was tangled into a tight knot. Her Thread had no beginning and no end. She was a cosmic impossibility.
‘She’s different…’ Ærinna whispered to herself. ‘Why is she different?’
Something was wrong – or perhaps right – about that Thread. A volatile Thread, it seemed. A little girl named Vivian.
The Weaveress watched the middling child being threatened with a long, nutsy stick. Ærinna narrowed her eyes. Someone had taken the patience of naming the stick.
‘Poor Vivian...’
And yet Vivian’s Thread was unlike anything Ærinna had woven before. Unlike any other middling she had studied, Vivian seemed to live from the inside-out.
‘This child will change many lives,’ she whispered to herself. ‘If she survives.’
But Vivian wouldn’t survive
, thought the Weaveress. Vivian had been mouthy, ungrateful and rude, and the large woman with the boltsy stick was at the end of her patience. She would not tolerate the little orphaned brat much longer. She would have her order, even if that meant another order of coffins. The large woman pulled a small syringe from her chest pocket, and filled it up with a tar-like liquid.
By the laws of the Pattern, the Weaveress ought to have looked away and pretended there was no abuse at work. Pretend she had not seen Vivian’s impaling doom. After all, a Weaver’s job was to balance the cosmos, not to save lives.
And still, the weight Vivian’s Thread exerted upon the fabric of reality was phenomenal. In the infinity of Existence, she was the heaviest point alive.
Alive indeed, but not for long...
Ærinna pushed back her sleeves and plunged her hands elbow-deep into the thickset of Threads. Miss Syringe-of-Justice was in there, somewhere. Feeling her way into the soup of metallic Threads, the Weaveress’s hands enclosed around a pair of very chubby forearms.
The large woman gave an agonized shriek, the syringe rolled away, wasting away its deadly dose. The tiny middling beyond the Shroud was safe once more, and no one would know Ærinna had meddled.
‘Ha!’ snorted the Weaveress. ‘We’ve shown that abusive woman, didn’t we?’
Ærinna had always had a soft spot for middlings. It was like watching a puppy being sent to the slaughterhouse with a smile on your face. Humans might not have deserved the love and loyalty of puppies, but they were at least worth saving as species. It wasn’t the first time Ærinna had interfered to save one either. A human, not a puppy. What could ever go wrong?
Expectedly, the cosmos took no delay in coming up with an answer.
An abnormally large Thread had sprouted about. It glided its way across the iridescent web, pulsating in uncanny tints of green. Ærinna patiently followed its evolution across the loom.
The mysterious Thread had materialized out of thin air, and seemed to be heading nowhere fast. Its behaviour was most unusual, too. It coiled and slithered along the tightly woven fabric like a belligerent snake.
Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds Page 1
