Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  ‘A fair lot, apparently,’ Vivian fought back, ‘and for good measure too. Reckon you’ve been brewing funny brews and I’ve been drinking them all, unwittingly. Probably Lucian’s idea of wriggling out stories. You had no right to snoop!’ she thundered.

  ‘I had every right! The Manor’s my home too.’

  ‘Only because I’ve talked Miles into it.’

  ‘Quite. Knew you had it in you. Just go ahead and regret it.’

  Vivian’s eyes suddenly fell on the journal. ‘Give that back!’

  Kate tightened her grip on the journal, her sea-green eyes all narrowed. ‘You can have it back after I’ve had a read.’

  ‘Give it, Kate,’ Vivian dived, her fingers fastening on one side of the journal.

  Kate refused to unchain herself from it. ‘Let go of it.’

  ‘No, you let go! It’s bloody mine, isn’t it?’ Vivian yelped, pulling at it with all her weight. ‘I want my privacy!’

  Kate strongly resisted. ‘Gerroff!’

  And just then, under Kate’s tiniest nudge, Vivian’s fingers slipped off the journal and she fell a few feet backwards, and into the hole.

  Kate’s outstretched hand shot out a fraction too late. Vivian was nowhere to be seen.

  Kate listened in horror as Vivian’s yell grew dimmer and more diffused, as if ensued from the opposite end of a tunnel. With the unmistakable thud of a body hitting a hard surface, all yelling had stopped and silence took on an ominous texture. The hole-in-the-world diminished and light rebecame darkness.

  Alone in the dark and loudly hyperventilating, Kate decamped from Vivian’s bedroom and shot into her own room. Her heart was now pounding in horror over the walking folly she had been given to experience.

  Guilt-ridden and still strongly questioning her own sanity, Kate spoke out loud the name of the person who would believe her, regardless.

  A nearby beam processed her request and within seconds, a groggy voice filled the room. Following it, a bright holographic mess of ash-blond hair materialized before her.

  ‘ ‘Lo? ’

  ‘S-sorry to wake you up Lucian. I didn’t know whom else to c-call.’

  ‘ Kate? My goodness, is that the time? This better be ruddy important! ’

  ‘Life and d-d-death!’ cried Kate, a line of sweat lengthening upon her temple. Death, most likely . The idea alone seemed to choke her.

  Lucian’s sleepy face yawned, floating in mid-air like a plasma ghost. ‘ What’s wrong? ’

  ‘Come down by the Manor – I’ll open the gate for you – tell no one we’ve spoken – and Lucian, please hurry!’

  Friends and Freaks

  A thundering noise had Vivian awoken.

  Life had nearly left her body when she woke up in the dark, sprawled across a carpet of rocks. For a brief moment, she thought to have been crippled: hands pathetically bent beside her torso, spread-eagled feet sticking out at odd angles.

  A large rock had fallen on her right leg, which she pushed aside with great strain. Warm blood rushed back into her crushed leg from which dollops of blood had clotted into the fabric. At least she was alive. How did she survive such fall?

  Vivian shook her head, trying to remember what her dream was about. Darien had been reading her a bedtime story, a large smile on his face. Aniya Amberville was busy tucking her in, a glowing white rose behind an ear. When Vivian touched the rose, the reality around her flickered, only to disappear in a big ball of blame.

  Angus Trimmings came in focus, a canister of petrol in his hand. Beside him was the butler, his hands tainted in blood.

  ‘We feared the truth might wound you, little miss,’ Miles had told her through a tear-soaked face. ‘We were just trying to protect you.’

  Vivian rubbed her eyes. There had been more to the dream. The strangers whom she believed to be her birth parents had also been there, and something else too. Something to do with thirteen dead crows and a hole in reality – but she couldn’t quite remember the details.

  The left side of her head felt sore. She patted the area gingerly and discovered a bleeder near her temple. Having broken her fall, the fabric of her house robe had torn. Vivian could feel the sharp rocks underneath, poking her flesh raw. She needed to stand up.

  Her bleeding hands worked tirelessly in regaining her balance, but her crushed leg wouldn’t budge. Rearranging her legs, Vivian barely resisted the impulse of crawling into a foetal position and plunge into a dreamless sleep. She would have gladly surrendered to Death, had it not been for the rhythmic, metallic blasts echoing out of the depths of the earth.

  She wasn’t alone. She had to survive long enough to get help, but where on earth was she? Vivian rubbed her eyes only to gaze into the face of deep darkness, and for a while nothing else was shown within. Her eyes gradually started to adjust.

  Towering shapes materialized into vertical parapets of rock, and dark outlines slowly reformed into boulders of stone and of steel. A dance of shadows revealed dim flickers of orange light, reflected upon what appeared to be a cavern. She seemed to be in a deep cave. A labyrinth of narrow tunnels extended onwards into further darkness.

  Still fighting the urge to scream, Vivian pushed herself upright and onto her feet. Faint flickers of orange light revealed an old, dirt-covered pickaxe trapped underneath a cave-in.

  Judging by the stuffy air, she was nowhere close to the surface. She decided to follow the sporadic sounds of metal on stone.

  Miners must be digging nearby , she thought to herself. People…

  Engrossed by the strong smell of sulphur, she made her way across a rocky terrain, in search for souls who could offer her aid. Intermittent bursts of orange light, muffled voices and pick-axing sounds seem to arise from the leftmost tunnel. In but one direction, the darkness was thinning, so Vivian took a left.

  She was barely out of the tunnel when she realized her bad leg fired pain every time she leaned on it. But now was not the time to dwell on wounds; not when survival was at stake. She needed to follow the pickaxing sounds. She needed to find the miners.

  In orange limelight, several workers toiled tirelessly at undoing stone with metal. Vivian’s felt relieved; she was saved. They were to come to her aid and attend to her injuries.

  She opened her mouth to call out, but the sound seemed to have locked in her throat. A flicker of light exposed what the darkness had been keeping secret. The miners were no miners at all, but abhorrent, horrendous, creaturely, completely hairless and deformed.

  Freaks! The lot of them, freaks!

  Their lower legs seemed to end in hooves, which gave them a rather beastly appearance. Small horns of yellowed bone crept out from beneath the milk-white surface of their crumpled skin and their pig-ears jiggled with every hit of lilac pickaxe. Their disproportionally large arms ended in a four-finger hand and their stubby legs were twisted, like those of a goat. Whatever they were, they neither looked nor sounded human.

  Vivian automatically dashed behind a large rock, determined to keep out of sight. The creatures used whips to hasten their toil and put each other through their paces. Every now and then a crack of whip was followed by a blood-curling roar of pain.

  Her heart now pounded in her ears louder than their whipping sounds. She wanted to make a run for it, but immediately decided against it. Not only her bad leg wouldn’t carry her far, but she was starting to lose consciousness. A small trickle of blood had made its way down to her cheek.

  The mine was absolutely bubbling with pickaxe noises and the snapping of hard whips. She was now fighting hard to control her rapid breathing, her pounding heart, the tightening of her chest and the chocking sensation in her throat. Fight or flight symptoms escaladed along, bidding her to do something, to do
anything at all.

  She took a deep breath, counted to three and took a quick look from behind the rock.

  About a hundred of them pale creatures – each about six feet tall, pale-skinned, hunchbacked and somewhat uncoordinated – busied themselves with mining. Their tools of trade had a strange violet glint about them, yet it was what they mined that Vivian found breathtaking. An alien metal glowed in the dark with the luminescence of a small orange sun. Unexcavated splinters bathed the mineshaft in a cantaloupe light.

  What’s that they’re mining?

  A small glint of orange caught Vivian’s eye. She slowly turned, only to realize a thin shard of pure orange light had been forgotten in the quarry, two thirds of its length dislodged by former mining. The effervescent light emanating from it seduced Vivian at once.

  Cautiously, Vivian grabbed one of its loose ends and pulled it free from its limestone bed. She spun the five-inch metal shard in her palm a few times. It felt cool to the touch and so it remained. The alien metal was strangely incapable of taking warmth from her hands.

  Her black eyes shone with deep orange fascination. The ore looked exquisite, but somewhat terrible to behold. Without much second thought, Vivian pocketed it and waited in silence.

  The dance of pickaxes had pulled to a halt. One of the miners blew into a large horn and the hundred creatures slowly dispersed into the bowels of the earth. It felt like a pressing force had swallowed the mineworkers, pulling them and their tools into the mine’s lower levels.

  Vivian decided it was now or never.

  Counting down from ten, she sprang from behind the rock and proceeded up an ascending tunnel. A seemingly interminable corridor stretched to the upper levels, but Vivian didn’t care. Her useless leg aside, she dragged herself in desperation, faster and faster, towards an increasingly cooler, less stuffy and more breathable air. She was a couple yards away from the mine’s exit, when her heart very nearly pulled to a stop.

  Two creatures, kindred to those in the extraction area, guarded the entrance. Their massively deformed backsides were whipped to the bone, their cruel injuries now facing Vivian. The two carried enormous maces, wrought in the same lilac metal which adorned the others’ tools. Posted at the exit from the mines, Vivian saw no chance to slip past them unnoticed.

  But why run? Her presence in the mine was accidental. Though the display of weaponry inspired little trust, the creatures might yet be reasoned with. She was small and unarmed. They wouldn’t harm her.

  They’re just mine workers , Vivian thought. She cleared her throat.

  ‘Umm—’

  No sooner had she spoken than the left beast let out a loud, threatening roar. The rightmost one reacted even quicker. He revolved on its bony heels, its spiky mace within an inch of Vivian’s unprotected neck.

  Exposing cracked horns which revoltingly grew out of their cheekbones, chins and necks, they levelled their hideous heads with hers. Their dark, glassy eyes spelled dark intentions. Petrified with fear, Vivian raised her hands in surrender.

  Between the two began a spine-chilling exchange of roars. Though the grunts and groans might have classified as communication, Vivian felt her chances of exercising reason had dropped somewhat. One of them pushed a spiky rod to her cheek, as though marking her as spoil. The other responded by planting his weapon into the ground.

  As their gestures escalated in violence, Vivian was hit by a dark thought. They weren’t discussing her fate. They argued who amongst them would have the privilege to skewer the flesh off her bones. Vivian couldn’t see herself escaping this. She had not survived a hazardous fall just to become minced meat.

  The more aggressive of the two was clearly winning. It raised its spiked rod, geared up for attack. She was either to seize the opportunity of their bicker and attempt slipping past them or she was to witness her innards become outnards.

  Biting into her knuckles, Vivian gathered her courage. Come what may, she had to risk it.

  A second was all it took and Vivian slid onwards on the carpet of dirt, under their goat-like feet, underneath their threatening weapons and into the cold night air. Her injured leg seared in agony, but she deliberately shut all pain out of her awareness. The faster she ran, the longer she lived.

  If she could run at all…

  One of the freaks had thrown its weapon and missed her by a hairbreadth. It landed with a bang, a foot away from her running outline. Vivian dared not look back until she saw herself out of the mouth of the mountain. At last she pulled to a halt, violently panting and clutching her painful leg. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed the two were still in pursuit. But her bad leg had gone numb and refused to budge.

  ‘Come on,’ she tugged at her stiff leg, ‘move!’

  Despite their bulk and sluggishness, the beasts were slowly gaining on her. Less than a hundred feet spread a towering forest of dead, blackened trees. No way could she outrun them forever; she needed to lose them in the woods. With one last jerk, her leg had propelled her forward. It was like stepping on sharp blades, but she dared not slow down until the forest had received her in its midst.

  Unearthed tree-roots and rocks hindered her progress, but she desperately pushed on, thoughts of survival at her heels, her thin silhouette indistinguishable amid the leafless trees. The trees looked charred as though a great fire had once reduced them to carbonized stumps.

  Vivian span on the spot, trying to measure how tall was the nearest tree and whether she was fit enough to climb it. Of course she wasn’t, and besides, what good would that do? The trees sat bare of all leaf and life, their trunks charred and torched. Provided she could climb one, there were no canopies left to hide her.

  Her leg now throbbed so painfully, it could barely support her weight. She was on the verge of giving up when she heard it: a shrill voice had warbled its way into her mind. It sounded ethereal, unearthly and unlike any other voices she had heard before.

  ‘ Middling. Middling… ’

  The sudden voice put Vivian on her guard. ‘Who’s there?’ she craned around looking terrified. The forest was as empty and lifeless as ever and yet the voice droned on, ever more penetrating, more buoyant.

  ‘ Come hide here, ’ the small voice announced in what Vivian registered as mingled fright and amazement. ‘ Hide here, here… ’

  ‘S-show yourself!’ she told the darkness, and once more the darkness replied.

  ‘ To your right, yes? Ten pace right… ’ said the voice in slightly-broken English, and Vivian heeded it, though she failed to spot who could be casting the voice. She had arrived at the charred remains of what must have once been a broad and glorious tree.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked aloud, her eyes affixed on the great dead tree. There seemed to be no one in sight. Had she imagined it?

  Distant roars and wood-bludgeoning noises catapulted Vivian back to the present. She would sort out whether the voice had been real or not once she was safe. Dangerous pursuers were still on her trail, determined to pocket her insides. Her brain reeled with anxiety, but her face looked determined. If only she could hide somewhere, she might still stand a chance. But with only stumps for trees, where does one hide?

  ‘ In here… in here… ’ beckoned the voice, and at that juncture Vivian’s eyes finally stopped upon something. The great dead tree sported a large hole which seemed to have naturally formed with rain infiltration.

  A tree hollow was better than nothing, Vivian assumed. If she was lucky, the tree hollow would hide her. She meant to step through but the voice boomed, louder still.

  ‘Middling must get inside hole.’

  This time, Vivian barely heard it. Not with a mind particularly clouded by mace-induced maiming. Horrid grunts and stampeding hooves announced the thunderous approach of her pursuers
.

  ‘They almost upon you. Quick, yes? Quick!’

  Vivian, somewhat hesitantly, cowered inside the tree hollow, her arms and legs as close to her torso as possible. Once inside, she found herself sitting in a constricting darkness.

  Like a wet blanket, the tree had wrapped itself around her. Like a zipper on a dress, the hollow had seamlessly resealed itself as if it had never existed. Trapped inside the great old tree, Vivian’s feeling of dread increased. What madness had driven her into trusting the ethereal voice? How could she have been so naïve? She should’ve known it was a trap.

  Her firsts punched into the solid wood, but nothing budged.

  ‘Lemme out! I WANT OUT!’

  The two creatures were near. Vivian could hear their thunderous hooves tramping across carbonized bits of wood and twig, but she did not care.

  ‘LET. ME. OUT!’

  Better to die a swift, violent death than to slowly suffocate inside the dead tree. As though it had read her mind, the voice blared reassuringly.

  ‘Make no sound middling, or they find you. Tuuk’ta'ne find you.’

  ‘What? Who’s there? Show yourself!’

  ‘ Speak no more or they hear. Tuuk’ta’ne hear! ’

  In spite of herself, Vivian fell silent. For a while, the pair of freaks lingered about, their violent grunts nearly as frightening as their long, spiked rods. In their pursuit, they seemed to have left no shrubbery standing; no stone unturned. Still oblivious to Vivian’s concealed presence, the beasts had dropped their angry pursuit, the sound of goat-hooves now growing fainter and fainter into the distance.

  A slit of light tickled her eyelashes. Vivian opened her eyes, only to find herself staring out of the tree trunk through a hole as large as a car tyre. The tree had once again opened, allowing her freedom. The coast looked clear. Her hands still frenziedly shaking, she pushed her crushed leg out of the hollow.

  But she had barely breathed fresh air when the tree hollow vanished from sight. In its stead had risen a rodent-like animal of red, lacklustre fur and eyes like two golden dinars.