Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  ‘And who might you be, vanadium Thread?’ Ærinna asked, as though expecting it to sprout a mouth and identify itself.

  Her bloodshot eyes traced its progress as it wriggled and squirmed within the Pattern, a desperate worm in its captor’s hook.

  Except this Thread was no worm, but the king of serpents! It skidded towards the centre of the Pattern, bending odds and circumstances like an exhibitionist god. Ærinna felt the dread rising in her.

  ‘What yields this affliction?!’

  She quickly wove the most potent Koperträäd she could muster just to counter it. Nothing changed. The pea-green Thread continued crawling across the Palladium netting like creepers in canopies. Its composition indicated neither matter, metamatter nor any kind of hypermaterial. In Weaver’s terminology, that spelled massive trouble.

  Without much of a warning, the Thread tripled its length. It was now a biblical anaconda of resolute chaos. Ærinna flinched.

  ‘Ærrian’sha Lazuli!’ she beseeched, her cerulean eyes still affixed on the anomalous circumstance the wild, turbulent Thread was amassing before her. ‘Irra! IRRA!’

  A thin ginger woman responded the call by approaching. Irra Lazuli’s skin was scorched, reflecting many years of service to the Pattern. Her eyes were cloudy, as though covered by fog, and yet she saw more than most. Behind a white face, Ærinna asked in fast-spoken Æurlek.

  ‘What see you?’

  The ginger woman, known among them by the name of Blind Irra, fixed her fogged eyes on a random spot in the loom. For a few moments, she did nothing but stare unfocusedly at the bright display of multi-coloured Threads. As she emerged, she indicated a predetermined area of the Pattern.

  Ærria searched the loom. Whatever Irra saw, her eyes alone could spot it.

  ‘What see you?’ Ærinna repeated, trying to identify what the Seeress was pointing at. ‘Loose Threads?’

  The bright-green Thread wriggled a little before it came to a complete halt. Without warning, it turned black and motionless.

  ‘Not loose,’ Blind Irra responded in a puzzled voice, ‘binding.’

  Blind Irra, an Elder among Seers, approached the new blackened Thread. She gingerly caressed it, weighting it in her palm. When she whispered next, her voice felt doused by fear.

  ‘I am blind to everything but Threads,’ said the Seeress, ‘and I am no stranger to this one. Happened upon the old steel before. This is Shaa’janta .’

  ‘Ghostmatter?!’ Ærinna cried, a mixture of panic and excitement flooding her voice. ‘Are you for real?’

  Irra Lazuli turned her fog-veiled eyes in the direction Ærinna’s voice had originated. The Seeress could no longer see the face of people right in front of her. She could, however, see the Threads of living souls from all across the multiverse.

  ‘I am yet to be mistaken,’ she said smugly.

  The rogue Thread webbed its way across the Pattern, like a cancer eating its way through healthy tissue.

  ‘But we can’t unweave ghostmatter, can we?’

  Ærinna did not need this on her watch; she did not need a cosmic anomaly at the end of her shift. The disease seemed to be expanding. As its breadth grew by the heartbeat, it oozed out a thick, dense smog.

  The Pattern was smouldering.

  ‘Someone interfered,’ said Blind Irra, her unseeing eyes fixing onto the Weaveress. It was unbelievable how someone who only saw Threads was capable of such a penetrating look. ‘Someone attempted to change things from the way they should be’

  Ærinna scrambled her face into what she hoped was an innocent look, her eyebrows locked in visible indignation.

  ‘Who would be stupid enough to—?’

  ‘—someone who loves middlings,’ Blind Irra cut over her, her unfocused eyes upon the reddening Weaveress before her.

  ‘Pff, no one likes those slugs on legs,’ Ærinna twiddled her thumbs. ‘What could this mean for us, though? For the Pattern?’

  ‘It means chaos has eroded its way into cosmic reality,’ said Blind Irra. ‘It means calamities are afoot, within and beyond the Shroud.’

  Ærinna’s expression was bloodless as the blind old Seeress went on.

  ‘This is not the first time the Guild disturbs the darkness and invites chaos among us. Before you were born, Weaveress, we faced the outcome of chaos reclaiming more Threads than we could have counted. And now, by the rulings of Chance, it has returned to claim the Weave.’

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘—the Æbekanta, yes,’ confirmed Blind Irra. ‘I’m afraid the cosmos is no longer under the control of the Guild.’

  Ærinna flinched as she heard the Elder’s dark interpretation. Irra, of course, spoke of the legendary Æbekanta —the most noteworthy cataclysm in cosmic history. Its force was above all forces, for it vanquished subtle Thread and penetrated all solid weave. Although the Æbekanta had first struck in the time of her forefathers, Ærinna was no less aware of its ills.

  Countless Threads had perished. Numerous had deceased. All because of one sick Thread; a Thread fitting a child the Weavers needed to sacrifice, but ended up helping instead. What cosmic intrusion had invited chaos this time around? Surely it couldn’t have been the puny, vulnerable, starving Vivian—

  The blackening loom was now smouldering itself to dust. Ærinna swallowed, fighting to keep her composure.

  ‘What’s causing it all?’

  ‘We can never be sure, Weaveress,’ said Blind Irra, her foggy eyes once again pasted onto the smoking loom. ‘But that Thread over there looks unnatural. Very powerful, too.’

  To Ærinna’s horror, Irra pointed at the same area Vivian’s resilient Thread minded its own business, while the Great Weave around it smoked itself soggy.

  ‘Has her Thread penetrated the Pattern of Souls, sister Irra?’

  ‘She is beyond souls and faces, Weaveress. She is fate now; she is prophecy.’

  No sooner had the Seeress spoken than a hole materialized at the heart of the loom. Possessed by a cosmic hunger, it seemed to be feasting on primary Threads and the metallic loom itself.

  Colour drained from Ærinna’s face – Chaos. Apocalypse. A second Æbekanta.

  ‘Umbra of K—The Pattern!’

  Like a candle through silk, the Pattern was falling. The Weaveress traced the horrible opening that had singed itself into the Pattern of Threads. She knew only too well what it stood for. Somewhere, out there in the vast cosmos, countless Threads were being pulled right back into the Unwritten, into Inexistence. What agony those souls must trial in death! There might be middlings amongst them.

  No, no, she must not produce the thought. Her head must stay clear otherwise the idea alone might invite the event. Equanimity was expected of her Weaver rank. In with the good air, out with the bad air…

  As the Weaver, so was the Thread. And yet, that evergrowing hole in the loom primarily meant the cosmic populace was dying. Something had birthed the celestial anomaly. Somewhere out there, something was afoot. But what?

  ‘No-no-no-no-no-no!’

  And yet, a darker truth picked at Ærinna’s mind. Her luck was made, not born, so it was likely to waver. She had been helping middlings get even with the cosmos. She had been questioning her weavework too. Surely, her deeds and misplaced doubt had now invited sickness. It brought about her heart’s deepest fear, and the result was the gaping hole before her eyes.

  But no, the other Weavers must not know she was the one who interfered. She would, of course, deny it.

  ‘Oh no, our dictum!’

  The Weavers’ coat-of-arms had burst into flames. The silk banner which depicted the mark of the Guild – an endless icovellavna knot on shamrock-green backdrop – was now ravelled in fi
re.

  She had to tell Irra.

  One heartbeat later, the Weaver’s dictum – As the Weaver, so is the Thread – had disappeared beneath the smoke. The last standing guardian of cosmic reality lay now in ruin, compromised. The loom had fallen, and in its stead, Chaos and Chance had come to rule.

  No, better keep silent.

  Ærinna’s eyes traced the rapidly expanding borders of the hole. A generation’s work, obliterated. Their precious Pattern, shattered; its countless Threads, unwoven.

  Just open your mouth and say it…

  People, so many people, were about to expire. The grand purpose of building the Pattern of Threads was to prevent events such as the Æbekanta.

  …or not. The Guild will have your head for it.

  And yet, against all odds, Chaos had returned. Here it was now, its claw sharpened, ready to strike reality down— once more—ready to kill…

  ‘ If we cannot control the Pattern, we’re fated,’ begun Ærinna ‘The whole of reality is fated!’

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘We cannot have this!’ she erupted, colour rapidly returning to her cheeks. ‘Not on my watch Irra, we cannot!’

  ‘Steady there, Weaveress.’

  Ærinna could hide the truth no longer. The hole in the Pattern had been her doing. The Weavers tell no lies, for to lie was to alter the multiverse. Part of the lie would be entering the Weave and substitute the truth for deception.

  ‘I have doomed us all!’ exploded Ærinna, tears rolling across her scorched cheeks. ‘It was me who meddled with Threads beyond my meddling rank. Now we’re facing the unwiring of the Weave! One hundred and eighty billion years of evolution will perish at my own stupid mista—’

  ‘—ENOUGH!’

  Irra Lazuli, the wisest of Seers, had raised a hand, pleading for silence.

  ‘CONTROL YOURSELF, WOMAN,’ boomed Irra, ‘ELSE YOU MAKE IT WORSE!’

  The blind old woman sounded more upset with Ærinna’s meltdown than the prospect of a second Æbekanta, but when she spoke next, her voice was steady.

  ‘Remember your lore, Weaveress. You have interfered, yes, and your punishment will be severe. Yet in times like these, you must remember why our Weavework endured.’

  Ærinna fell silent, ashamed of herself, her cerulean eyes fading to a dull grey, her auburn hair extinguished by the nearby mounting flames.

  ‘We survived because of Kaalà ,’ stressed Blind Irra. ‘The life and substance of everything. The force of all forces, the soul of creation, Kaalà,’ she repeated. ‘That terrible power between your ears. I’m talking about your imagination, Weaveress. Is this not why the Guild chose you? Everything you can imagine is real.’

  Ærinna mumbled something indistinguishable which sounded a lot like “I know”.

  ‘As the Weaver, so is the Thread. If you think we are doomed, doomed we shall be,’ Blind Irra continued in a calm tone, all traces of kindness erased from her old features. ‘A fate more terrible than your darkest fear is picking the loom; darkness deeper than my Sight can penetrate. Give us a way, else spare us your rants.’

  While Ærinna shamefully fumbled about, trying to find a solution to what she knew to be an irreversible catastrophe, the Elder Seeress considered the event in full composure.

  After the longest spell of silence during which the hole in the cosmic loom had expanded to the size of a small crater, Irra Lazuli’s voice returned.

  ‘There is little time left, Weaveress, so hear me well.’

  Her voice was grave, her expression as undiscernibly fogged as her unseeing eyes.

  ‘Unless we weed out this Chaos soon, we’re speaking cosmic extinction.’

  ‘Irra, you don’t mean—’

  ‘The girl must die’ said Blind Irra. ‘It was woven, and yet you interfered and changed her path. Balance must be restored.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I like it no more than you do, Weaveress, but sometimes—’

  Her sightless eyes now mirrored the enlarging gash in the loom, which seemed to grow with crude, near-devilish defiance.

  ‘—sometimes the Hand of Fate must be forced.’

  Turning to a frightened-looking Ærinna, Irra gathered her scorched hands and commanded.

  ‘Send word to the Guild. Tell them we request their Unwirer.’

  The Weaveress shook her head, but verbally consented. The Seeress had a point. Now was not the time to give in to the terrors of imagination. To weave better circumstances, one had to imagine better circumstances.

  ‘Imagine better,’ Ærinna whispered to herself, her retiring outline growing thinner and thinner against the mounting, all-engulfing Great Black.

  Girl without Name

  ‘Get dat mangy ol’ bag outta ma face!’

  ‘Alms ser. Spare a penny for a hopeless soul, ser. Alms…’ begged the old man.

  His white hair was tangled and oily, his foot-long beard was matted with twigs and his feet were wrapped in plastic bags. Arend the Wanderer, they called him – the oldest beggar in Keynes.

  The passerby spared the homeless man no consideration. A large piece of carton adorned the old beggar’s torso. In heavily discoloured ink, it read “ALMS”.

  ‘Push off, ya lousy bag of wank!’ the nobleton shouted. The mere existence of the beggar seemed to have caused him a great personal affront. ‘Go find a real job!’

  ‘Spare yourself some food, ser,’ Arend insisted. ‘For a poor old sod. Please ser, I will work for you.’

  For his audacity, the old beggar was rewarded a slap across his unshaven cheek. He collapsed in the street like a ragdoll, sporting a bloody lip.

  ‘Irkin’ fookin’ Ned. Serves ya proper for pestering me!’

  Arend the Wanderer scrambled back to his feet, wiping his bloody lip against his tattered sleeve. He stopped requesting for alms and allowed the passerby clear passage. As his silhouette melted down the alley, the old beggar turned his carton plaque around. It now read “THE END IS NIGH”.

  ‘The end is coming!’ cried the old beggar behind him. ‘And it’s coming within!’

  At the highest floor of a derelict building, a little girl had viewed the scene from behind the grimy window of her prison-cell. Another clash between the fortunate Milton citizen and the scrapebyer of Keynes.

  Though officially registered as one city, Milton Keynes could not have enjoyed more separation. Whilst Milton hosted the upper class, Keynes sheltered the social rock bottom. A historian would have told you it all began with those who brought the Madhad Way, but many historians were too afraid of being accused of practicing “history”.

  History was of course, illegal, for it contradicted the absolute and adamant way of Madhad. Anyone refusing its clear-as-snowmelt teachings would be playing with fire – the fire of eternal damnation. But not everyone was ready to elect a foreign doctrine that nullified the human rights and current laws of the state, so they elected a proper temper, a large brick and a bloody good aim.

  The people took to the streets, but when the streets ran out of bricks to be thrown out in anger, the world economy was on its deathbed receiving morphine. The world was thereupon split into very rich and very poor, which deepened the crisis, and a Madhad government stepped in to pick up the pieces. Crippling laws had followed; laws that ultimately sent the working class to meet its maker. Turned out its maker didn’t live there anymore. The middle class disappeared from the midst of society.

  Over the course of decades, the poor and jobless generated a new social order: the Non-Educated Demographics—popularly nicknamed “ Neds ”—whose main trait was vagrancy (and the occasional “mooning” of unsuspecting passersby). From the ashes of homelessness, cluster
s of Neds mushroomed into existence, afflicting society.

  So had the Ghettos come to be.

  It was in the Keynes Ghetto area of the city that a little girl’s ordeal begun. Staring down at the beggar’s carton plaque, she contemplated the man’s disturbed sensation that the End of Humanity was drawing to a close. In her opinion, humanity had long been dead.

  Just then, the highpitched voice of her warden brought her back to the present; a somewhat glum present.

  ‘Ya even effing listenin’? I said I’ve brought ya sumfin’ warm. And here. Promised ya a drinking cup, didn’t I?’

  A porky-looking woman, whose aquiline nose was adorned by a diamond-shaped mole, pushed forth a stale dish and a porcelain cup. She quickly wore her special-occasions smile; a smile the girl who received the meal did not bother to return.

  ‘Whassamatta?

  ‘How am I to eat this? You’ve given me… plastic.’

  ‘A mouthy one, eh? Whut, fink of yerself too good for artificial meals? Mayhap ya fink yer lordly pomp deserves all-naturells for having lousy Neds for parentage.’

  ‘But it’s… stale. It’s gone bad, it has.’

  ‘ Stale , she says. Beggarin’ street rat. We took ya in, didn’t we? Ya should be fankin’ us we’re givin’ ya anyfing at all.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in… in here,’ said the girl, eyeballing her gift, a fresh symbol of her detainment. It was a small beige porcelain cup with “ Ala Spuria. Room 209 ” printed on.

  Rooms, were they? Her only contact with the outside world appeared to be a small window with diamond-shaped bars propped against its surface. Was she a prisoner? Mouldy sheets, cracked walls, pestilential smells. Children shelters , they called them. More of a penitentiary. Who were the shameless gits running it?

  ‘Please, I… I need to find my family.’

  The woman gave a small rub to a visibly-hairy armpit. ‘Dat’s why yer here, dearie. Tah find ya some decent ‘un. Well, far as decent goes.’

  The girl seemed to be fighting against tears. ‘I don’t want a new family. I need to find my own !’