Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  Vivian frowned. ‘Why? I’ve been told they have answers.’

  The Artisan adjusted her stained apron, her metallic eyes tainted by an old sadness.

  ‘The Weavers cannot be trusted, that’s why. They have pushed the boundaries of cosmic control to a point of no-return. They are no longer satisfied with understanding things; they want to change them, bend them to their own selfish will. In their attempts to usher control over us all, the Weavers have imprisoned the laws of reality. The fate of the cosmos is now directly linked to that of the Pattern.’

  ‘The Pattern?’

  ‘The Pattern of Threads, dear. It’s their instrument of cosmic control,’ said the Artisan. ‘Initially built by the Guild to prevent worldly catastrophes, it is nowadays being used to control Fyrtorria – that is to say, to enslave your plane of existence and ours, as well as everything in-between. Lorria, Ælorria, Tylorria and Nilorria. Their weavework no longer leaves anything to chance. They have imprisoned freewill , see. The Guild wants everything to happen by their design.’

  ‘Maybe I’m here by their design. If so, they’re the only ones who can fix it.’

  ‘If the Weavers knew you were here, they’d be knocking down my gate as we speak,’ said Lady Saah. ‘No, dear. Your presence here is a sign the cosmic body has taken sickness, as we all knew it would. It means the Weavers have fully lost control of the Pattern.’

  ‘But they invented it. How could they lose control?’

  ‘The Weavers should never have attempted absolute control. It made reality lazy,’ whispered Lady Saah. ‘Now the fate of Fyrtorria is bound to that of the Pattern; the cosmic weave to that of its Threads. The Weavers have woven too much, too tightly, and altered the irreversible. For hundreds of cycles, they have been playing gods with everyone’s fates. They have weakened the soul of the world, the natural order of things, and in doing so, they have weakened reality.’

  ‘I still need to find them,’ said Vivian. ‘I was told they have answers. That they’ll send me back home.’

  ‘We have a saying here in Aerria: home is but a thought away ,’ said Lady Saah. ‘It means your home is where your thoughts are.’

  ‘We have a similar saying in our world, but it involves a heart,’ said Vivian.

  ‘What I’m trying to say, dear, is... maybe you should give this place a chance. There are worse places than Solidago.’

  ‘What about where the Weavers live? Would that be a good place to be?’

  ‘Clearly you underestimate the danger you are in. The Weavers are dangerous, dear – more dangerous than you imagine – and will likely kill you on sight, or use you in most heinous ways.’

  ‘Kaap reckons they can help—’

  ‘The creature is mistaken, dear,’ said the Artisan. ‘The Weavers will not help you, do you understand? They cannot and will not . Didn’t I just say they lost control of the Pattern? As for returning to your own reality in one piece, the sooner you put that hope behind you, the better. Hang around for a while, and you will learn this truth yourself.’

  ‘Why can’t I go back the same way I came in?’

  ‘What way? There is no “way” to speak of. Had there been a way, it would’ve saved us both the trouble to attempt it, but there isn’t any. The Shroud is just a stretch of raw, empty space. It’s less than air,’ the Artisan shook her head. ‘I’m sorry dear. Dead or alive, you cannot leave. You’re stuck here. We both are.’

  The kitchen’s woven chair had countless chips and cracks and now had a dejected-looking Vivian sitting on. She pushed her head into her palms, trying to fight the sting of tears. The Artisan was watching her closely – how embarrassing to cry in front of a stranger, thought Vivian, biting into her fist. The news had hit her more mightily than a Tuuk’tan’s mace.

  ‘What then? What’s next? What do I do?’

  ‘That’s not an answer you’re ready for,’ said the Artisan.

  Vivian lifted her tear-stained face. ‘Try me.’

  Lady Saah stood up at once. From her hip, she detached a small silk pouch, whose contents she poured out onto the table.

  ‘Runestones!’ said Vivian as a dozen round pebbles spilled over the kitchen table, their polished texture catching the lilac candlelight.

  Yet upon a closer inspection, she regretted her assumption. The bright-orange symbols etched on each stone were nowhere close to Norse runes she knew, nor were they stationary. Just like the writing on the plaque, they kept switching erratically between symbols, like badly-tuned slot-machines.

  ‘ Outcome leaks . They run on Kaalà, see. Very rare, these. Forbidden anywhere north of Euforbia. If they catch me…’

  ‘They predict events?’

  ‘Interpret, dear. My hope is that the presence of a Shääj’sha – of one who has crossed the Shroud – will give us a hint. Point us in the right direction...’

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘They’ve been like this for ages’ said the Artisan, holding out one of them in the palm of her hand. Its luminescent orange symbol kept changing, jumping in and out of focus. ‘Couldn’t get a decent reading since they found that damned hole in the Pattern of Threads. Not that we’re allowed to practice it anyway. Our laws forbid Seeing anywhere outside the Alarian School of Thought. But I consult them occasionally, over an early brew and a pot of steamed—’

  The Artisan had stopped in mid-phrase, her quicksilver eyes widened in horror. Vivian had touched one of the stones, driving the erratic symbols to a stop. Flashing as one, all stones had locked upon the same fiery symbol: a small triangle with a thick wavy line underneath.

  A look of horror dawned on Lady Saah’s dark countenance. Vivian turned to her apologetically.

  ‘I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t break—’

  ‘The Burning Water…’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  The Artisan seemed to be trying to recompose herself. After draining a large mug of brew, she brushed off the subject of the symbol by pretending to pick at a spot on her apron.

  ‘Your way ahead is clear to me, should you accept it,’ said Lady Saah, standing up and returning the stones to the pouch. ‘You must blend in.’

  ‘Blend in?’

  ‘Blend in,’ she repeated. ‘Stay in Solidago. Keep to this urb. Blend in, with time.’

  ‘Won’t they see?’

  ‘To the untrained eye, you are but a northlander. This is a settlement of travellers and merchants, dear. There are many of your pale kind here.’

  ‘So I should just lie? I should just go about, pretending I’m not human?’ she snivelled, her eyes close to tears.

  ‘Human, Alarian… you are a name,’ said Lady Saah motherly, pulling an old and tattered cloth and handing it to her. Vivian blew her nose loudly. ‘And a name can be a million things.’

  ‘I don’t belong—’

  ‘Don’t belong? Don’t belong? Were the mountains not islands? Were the valleys not streams? This world or the other, you’re part of reality, dear. Part of life,’ she took her little hands into hers. ‘You do belong, dear. You belong by existing.’

  ‘But what will I do here? How will I survive?’

  The Artisan seemed to bind her answer.

  ‘There are labours at the Haijk you could do.’

  ‘What kind of labours?’

  ‘Mending flesh; binding bone – work. I can clear one of the rooms upstairs to make it your own. If you agree to learn my healing craft – Nasitra’nëja – I will guarantee your pay, comfort and safety. Have you fed, bathed and clothed. Raise you and protect you as my own.’

  The Artisan patiently waited for Vivian to blow her nose and wipe her tears before continuing.

  ‘A tedious existence, dear, I know so. I understand how difficult it must be to leave your world behind. But here you’ll be healthy. Here you’ll be safe,’ said Lady Sa
ah, smoothening her apron with her ebony hands, ‘but should you decide to pursue other fates… it will be beyond my measure to protect you.’

  Vivian’s dark eyes mirrored Lady Saah’s. She had never enjoyed much freedom in life. First Ala Spuria, then the Amberville Manor, and now an entire world. She had merely swapped a little prison for a big one.

  A Ned cooped up in a house for nobles, Vivian went about life pretending Ala Spuria had never happened. At the same time, if she wanted to survive an alien planet, she had to pretend her humanity never happened. As a human among Alarians, she would have to supress, deny and bury her innermost identity: her human nature. Then again, was humankind really worth clinging to?

  With Vivian Amberville fallen out of existence, society would carry on the Madhadisation of the modern world. In view of her sudden disappearance, Today’s Weekly would sell more petty stories, with Lucian Blossom taking lead at unravelling her absence.

  Patricia Kate would of course, inherit the Manor, buy herself some status and a better existence. The number of paying jobs would continue to shrink, the Floods would increase, ghettos would expand, plagues multiply…

  ‘There’s nothing for me back there,’ she told Lady Saah. ‘Like you said, home is but a thought away .’

  The Artisan smiled, a blemish of claret in her round cheeks. ‘Remain seated. I’m going to put something stronger on that wound. You’ll need two good legs to run my herbs.’

  Vivian quickly swallowed a mouthful of baked pastry. ‘You’re putting yourself at risk by hiding me. By taking me in.’

  The Artisan gave off a small laughter. ‘This is Ærria, dear. We are always at risk.’

  Lady Saah disappeared into the next room only to resurface with a small bag of smelly herbs. Bent on her knee, she adorned Vivian’s throbbing right foot with an assorted mix of macerated plants. After dabbing large amounts of aromatic ointment, she cocooned her foot in a pair of clean rags.

  ‘You should be up and running in no time,’ she returned Vivian a wide smile. ‘Let it sit, dear,’ she pointed at her leg. ‘I’ll go get the books. We begin right away.’

  The Gold Mask Man

  Vivian quickly learned that being an Artisan mainly consisted of remembering things and answering questions.

  Lady Saah would read out loud the names, markings and specifications of various herbs and roots while Vivian would identify them in a tome with hand-painted illustrations. Kaap would often watch such questioning sessions from a high-backed chair over which Lady Saah had propped the largest pillow in her scullery.

  ‘Tell me, which herbs are good for reversing tooth rot?’

  ‘Lalu plants. Red Siccaberos too, when you can find them,’ said Vivian breathlessly, reciting from memory. ‘Naturally, their active components will only come into effect under the influence of Kaalà.’

  ‘All Alarian cures work with Kaalà,’ Lady Saah added. ‘You needn’t mention it anymore. What about Agania?’

  ‘Yes, of course, urgh!’ said Vivian, punching herself in the forehead. How had she forgotten it? ‘Agania also. Common bush with runcinate leaves, ridged like corrugated iron. Grows only in maritime climate. Aalamaar coast, north of Garlaan, for instance. The urbs of Yucca and Senpal are best known for Agania harvests.’

  If Lady Saah was impressed, she did not show it. She merely just pushed on testing Vivian’s knowledge, most of which she had put there herself.

  ‘Take a case of festering—’ the Artisan begun, but Vivian had already jumped with the answer.

  ‘Boil water in a large vat, three parts willow, one part grey lucerne. Clean festering wound with it. Submerge wound entirely, when possible. Mash bonerose petals – preferably squeeze out its essential oils – but use a new cloth when pressing mixture against the wound. Let it sit for three days—’

  ‘Restings, dear. We call them, restings ,’ said Lady Saah, with an air of infinite patience.

  Vivian nodded. She was not quite into the lingo of the world, but she was getting there.

  By now, she had learned Ærria was orbited by two suns, Ikko and Jaari – with Ikko being the large orange one and Jaari the miniscule, white dwarf that struggled to keep up. She had merely seen paintings of them in a dust-covered rotulus scroll she dug out of the Artisan’s cabinet. Jaari was always pictured in light-blue aquarelle colours, which made her very eager to see it with her own eyes.

  Unfortunately, neither Ikko nor Jaari were visible from the current land, Kranija. It had taken Vivian days and days – well, Alarian restings – to get her head wrapped around the idea that Kranija had no day and night cycle. The only notable difference between daylight and night-time was that the latter was a lot darker and much, much colder.

  The closest Kranija had been to a sunrise was the appearance of a single smidge of purple on the horizon that marked Ikko’s highest climb in the night’s sky, thus the beginning of a resting. Seeing as Kranija was in the ever-penumbra side of Ærria, the skies were a light purple during the day, and an indigo black during the night. Dali and Maasi , the Alarians had named them. Even so, Vivian continued calling them day and night. Force of habit was a difficult thing to shake.

  ‘Eldura Marga’s tendrils cause mortal agony to anyone who— are you still paying attention, dear?’

  Vivian suddenly snapped out of her reverie. ‘S-sorry. I was miles away.’

  Lady Saah crossed her arms, shook her head and tried her best to act disappointed, but couldn’t bring herself to it.

  During her training at the Haijk, Vivian had come to learn the Artisan’s true nature. Despite having got off on the wrong foot, Lady Saah was a patient, good-natured and very generous woman. She did everything to mother Vivian’s every need, from arranging her own private quarters, to buying her new clothes, books and utensils.

  The Artisan even had a failed attempt to give Vivian the “birds and the bees” talk – which the Alarians didn’t shy away from graphically calling it “the belly-marrow dance” – until Vivian, embarrassed out of her mind, convinced her to put the highly explicit rotulus away and confessed she heard it all already from Aniya Amberville.

  Every morning – when the darkness would be at its thinnest – Vivian would get up and make the fire, feed the poultry, collect their eggs, broom the backyard, wash the laundry, cook supper and prepare the firewood for the following day. Matijas, Lady Saah’s son, would sometimes help with sorting through his mother’s supply of herbs, while Vivian would arrange by category the myriad phials, jars and flagons of macerated plants and healing brews.

  It was hard and tedious work, Vivian reckoned, but the pay was well worth the effort. Lady Saah would pay Vivian 1Æ a day – give or take a few ruvi – which were large metal coins of a light lilac sheen. She didn’t yet understand the value of the currency, but from what she heard from Lady Saah, after two hundred and fifty restings, Vivian would have saved enough to buy her own Pelsinn mount.

  ‘Eldura Marga, dear,’ repeated the Artisan. ‘I was asking you about it.’

  ‘The Fireflesh Jellyfish,’ Vivian recited. ‘The toxins extracted from it are used in the torture of prisoners of war. Harmless, otherwise.’

  ‘What about the Ar’na’mora?’

  ‘Deadstone moss,’ she narrated, each word tumbling one after another in a rush. ‘The Farer’s Stiffness, they call it. Imitates moss-covered rocks. Its million microscopic barbs inject a type of neuromuscular venom. Induces temporary paralysis, so careful where you sit.’

  ‘Well said, dear, well said,’ beamed the Artisan proudly. For a few mornings, she had been looking particularly satisfied with Vivian’s growing knowledge of the world and its curative herbs. ‘By my reckoning, you are ready to move on to errands and assisted Artisanship,’ said Lady Saah.

  ‘Errands? You mean I can finally go to town? Begin with healing?’

  ‘ Assisted healing,’ the
Artisan corrected her, but her words were utterly stomped under Vivian’s joyful whooping. She had only seen Solidago from the Artisan’s disc-shaped window.

  ‘No more brooming the yard, cutting wood, feeding chicken—’

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid your daily chores will stay the same.’

  Vivian’s large smile dropped a notch, yet her happiness refused to deflate. She was finally allowed to visit the spice market, the pastry shop, the herbs merchant and the jewellery stand she had heard so much about. The Artisan had assured her that as soon as she was ready, Vivian would be allowed to explore the urb of Solidago and its legendary marketplace to her heart’s content.

  ‘ Assisted exploring,’ the Artisan rectified, pointing at Kaap. ‘This one can accompany you. If he agrees to shrink enough to fit in your pocket and keep a low profile. We don’t want attention drawn upon yourself. Remember the story, dear: you are a foreigner from Hoarfrosta—’

  ‘—who travelled to Kranija to learn Artisanship,’ Vivian completed the sentence. Lady Saah had made her memorize her cover story in intricate detail and repeat it every single resting since her arrival at the Haijk.

  ‘Keep to the agreed itinerary. Don’t wander off dark alleys—’

  But the rest of her advice melted away as Vivian’s train of thought hit the central station.

  Vivian was coming down with a bad case of explorer’s fever . She had been dying to leave Lady Saah’s cottage for seventy-three days and just as many nights. She knew so as she’d been counting them off the Artisan’s calendar – a tapestry of thick, hanging threads, where each day would be marked by securing a single large knot, while a ten-knots-line delineated the closing of a waiting, the week.

  After buying the Recuperators’ silence so they won’t reveal she hosted the most unlikely creature available, Lady Saah found it fit to send Vivian straight into the lions’ den: the local marketplace. Vivian concluded an errand to Solidago, the industrial heart of Kranija, was the synonym of shouting out “HUMAN” from the rooftops through a bullhorn.