Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  He took out his sword, with three others copying him. The castrated man curled on the moss and ordered through a beard full of snout and tears.

  ‘Donjast stand dere! Shoot it down, dammit! Hit it! HIT IT!’

  A floumph sound like the beating of giant wings descended upon a second Recuperator, and the largest hawk Vivian had ever seen burrowed its beak into the man’s eye. The mighty bird turned in the air with majestic ease and planted large, metal talons deep into another man’s face. Maddened with the pain of a hundred scratches, he chaotically flourished his sword, catching the blinded guard across the face in full steel. Their agonized screams echoed through the clearing.

  ‘She’s gettin’ away! Someone detain ‘er! Someone taik dat gurl’s naif!’

  Two Recuperators obeyed their castrated commander and lassoed a large iron chain that caught Vivian in the ankle. She fell and the knife slipped through her sweaty fingers.

  ‘WATCHA LOT WAIDEN’? I WANT HER DEAD!’

  Vivian braced herself for the attack, but it never came. Out of a buttery darkness plunged the hawk, but this time the men had expected it. The metal caught a glint of starlight swishing through the darkness, and the great bird fell, its large brown wings folded at its breast.

  Entangled in chains, Vivian crawled backwards. Her hand stretched for the thread of liquid fire creeping from underneath the fallen leaves. The knife spilled its orange light across the moss, barely within reach.

  ‘GETAR! GETAR!’ screamed the castrated man. ‘SHE MUSSNT LIVE!’

  Her Agi blade cut through the iron like it was air and the ankle chains clanked loose. Too late, however. Three swords were pointed at her neck, one of which held by a man blind in one eye, another by a man who had his face clawed raw and a third by a man with an arrow sticking out of his eye.

  The third man fell on his forehead, snapping the arrow in two as his head hit the ground. The second man joined him, two arrows in his neck whose direction Vivian couldn’t trace.

  ‘HE’S IN THAT TREE, YOU FOOLS! USE YOUR EYES!’

  A fourth arrow nearly missed her, but hit the first man in his remaining good eye, showing him to a world of darkness.

  ‘RAISE THE ALARM! RAISE THE A—’

  A sword brushed passed her shoulder and the castrated man too was silenced. The only sounds remaining were the panicked whispers of a few roses.

  Raise the Alarm. The alarm. Alarm. Alarm…

  A mane of silver hair stepped out of the undergrowth and for the first time in months, Vivian seriously questioned her sanity. Patricia Kate extended a hand, and Vivian greedily grabbed it, returning the knife to its sheath.

  ‘Kate? You here? How?’ was all she could utter, before Kate had pulled her in a rib-crushing embrace.

  Lucian Blossom and a second man carrying a bow entered the clearing.

  ‘I’m so sorry—’ said Kate through a dollop of tears, while her hands patted the back of Vivian’s Artisan outfit. ‘I should have never— it’s my fault! I wanted so much to find you!’

  Vivian gently peeled Kate from her leathered torso. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘This belongs to you,’ said Kate, extending the journal. ‘It helped us find you. Oh, and umm... this trinket too.’

  Vivian’s took the journal and her long-lost many-faced die with colourful numbers on. Her eyes now turned to Lucian, who gave her a weak smile. She searched herself for bad words but none came. She was happy to see all of them; even the journalist who had slandered her family.

  They were in it together now. Three humans sharing the same cruel fate: they couldn’t go home. After months of living among strangers, she was ecstatic to see familiar faces. But who was the strange man accompanying Kate and Lucian?

  The hawk’s master looked as though a taxidermist had unloaded his stock right on top of his chest. His face was covered in dark pelts, while every item of his clothing seemed to have been crafted from some kind of animal skin, hide or fur.

  The man furiously worked his hands upon a large clutter of brown feathers. The injured hawk gave a defeated shriek, one wing pathetically flapping by its side. Behind them, one of the five injured Recuperators breathed his last. Lucian grabbed Vivian’s arm and shook it.

  ‘Emm, let’s get out of here, shall we?’ Lucian suggested.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think it’s safe here either,’ Kate agreed. She signalled towards the pile of whimpering Recuperators, turning around in the moss. ‘Let’s get going before anyone else finds us.’

  Vivian turned to the pair of them. ‘Go where? You should be coming with me. I live in a safe house.’

  Kate and Lucian exchanged looks. For a while, the only sounds were the hawk’s dull shrieks of pain and the fumbling of its master, attending to it.

  ‘Umm, Viv… what are you doing?’

  Vivian stooped down and reached towards a tuft of unearthed roses.

  ‘What I was supposed to do in the first place. I came here to get roots,’ she said, uprooting a few in the process. ‘The Artisan I’ve been helping needs them for her son.’

  Kate crossed her arms. ‘Are you saying you want to go back to this… this artisan person?’

  ‘I have to. Lady Saah took me in. Fed me and clothed me. Taught me how to heal people and paid me well for it,’ said Vivian, pushing a pair of dirty roots into her pouch. ‘For the past three months, she was like a mother to me, and now her son’s sick—’

  Kate blinked her round, sea-green eyes at Vivian as if she had never quite seen her before.

  ‘ Three months ?’ mouthed Kate. ‘Viv, you’ve only been missing for six days – three of which Lucian and I spent in this world, trying to find you.’

  Vivian returned Kate a very confused look. ‘You guys are mistaken. I’ve arrived in Kranija some seventy-eight restings ago—’

  ‘—I think you’re mistaken, but it doesn’t matter,’ said Kate quickly. ‘What’s important is that we’ve found you. That man over there can help us leave this awful place, isn’t that great?’

  Vivian tossed a look at the wild man they were travelling with. He was bent double over his injured hawk, his face shrouded in darkness. Why did he bring Kate and Lucian to such a dangerous place?

  ‘Kate, I’ve… I’ve no words to explain how grateful I am you are here…‘

  ‘No need to thank me, Viv. I’m sure you would’ve done the same—’

  ‘…but as I’ve been trying to tell you, Lady Saah gave me a great life at her Haijk,’ Vivian interrupted Kate. ‘While I appreciate you coming after me, I feel somewhat terrible that you’ve come. Now all three of us are stuck here.’

  ‘Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?’ said Kate crossly. ‘We can all go home!’

  ‘That’s just the rub… it’s not my home anymore,’ said Vivian in a slightly more angry tone than she intended. She quickly realized how ungrateful she must have sounded and quickly mollified her tone.

  ‘Kate, I’m sorry. I feel awful about this. You shouldn’t be here. None of you should. What I’m trying to say is… I meant you to have the Manor. Your name was in the deeds. I gave it to you, remember? You should have known that by now.’

  ‘But, you could’ve been dead! You could’ve been—how was I to live with pushing you in, eh? Knowing that I’ve doomed you?’

  ‘You didn’t doom me. The Artisan has been very good to me. I’m actually quite happy here.’

  Lucian adjusted his glasses. ‘Vivian, Kate and I have gone through a lot just to find you. Don’t you wanna go home?’

  Vivian returned Lucian a pitying look. ‘You both know how much I hated that Manor. You know how much I craved freedom. Some life that was. Locked in a room all day long, servants watching my every move. This is a fresh start for me. I feel strangely at home with this… this place.’

  ‘How is this better than home?’ Kate pointed at the butchered
guards, some of whom were still squirming in the grass. ‘Had we not been here, they would’ve—’

  ‘That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have left Kaap. He hardly ever leaves my side—’

  Vivian broke off, once she realized she wasn’t making much sense to anyone.

  ‘I don’t want to go home anymore. Ærria – that’s how they call this world, Ee-Ree-Yah – is incredible, really. Dangerous, sure, but incredible. They have all sorts of interesting wildlife and a plant cure for every disease. Oh, and you should just taste their food! All organic and none of that plastic gloop we gobble up in Great England, and just wait until you have a drink of yomsaap—’

  Kate shook her head, her mouth open. ‘You can’t possibly be serious.’

  ‘I am. The Manor’s your kind of life, not mine. I know it’s unusual, but my life has meaning now. You should just see the kind of things I can do. I’ve actually moved on.’

  Behind them, the injured hawk screeched. The wild man shuffled uncomfortably. Kate looked from Lucian to Vivian, not knowing what to believe. Vivian went on.

  ‘Lady Saah – the woman I work for – has taught me how to heal people. And now her son’s been taken ill by the Black Flu. You heard correctly. A disease which has nothing to do with this world.’

  Kate hissed.

  ‘Filth? And you still wanna go back to her? Are you off your fricking trolley? Didn’t I tell you a thousand times what happened to Lara? Don’t you know better than to keep away?’

  ‘Kate, listen—’

  Kate raised her hand, pleading for silence.

  ‘No, you listen! You owe us as much for risking our limb just to find you! Acciper here—,’ Kate pointed at the tall wild man wearing furs who fumbled over the hawk, ‘—knows of a group of people with some very advanced technology. These people have a loom thing – it’s a bit like our Neuro, really, only with wires. They can open a… a sort of bridge between this reality and the next, and have us all sent back—’

  Vivian threw a nasty look at the man in furs, comprehension dawning across her features.

  ‘The Weavers? Is that where he’s taking you?’

  Behind them, the wild man had fallen still. The hawk did not protest when its master cocooned it in one of its furs and strapped it against his back.

  ‘Need to get going,’ said Acciper, suddenly getting up. ‘Forest not safe. Next ship to Garlaan leaves in less than a strike.’

  Vivian stomped her foot in the moss. From underneath his hood, Acciper’s eyes sparkled like molten emeralds.

  ‘Excuse me, good sir. As much as I appreciate you coming to my rescue in the nick of time, I must politely decline your invitation,’ said Vivian. ‘Lady Saah gave me specific instructions not to follow anyone anywhere. To the Weavers, least of all.’

  A loud horn sounded in the distance, causing a flock of crows to take flight. In the nearby town, a large beacon was lit. It burned with a bright, purple flame. Beside her, Acciper tensed.

  ‘Roses have whispered our deeds,’ he told the others. ‘They know there be middlings in Ærria. Come with me now!’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, sir? I’m not leaving this city,’ said Vivian, a little louder. ‘The Artisan made me swear—’

  Acciper cupped Vivian’s shoulders. For the briefest moment, she was intimidated. The hooded man was nearly twice her height.

  ‘Hear that, middling?’ said Acciper, one finger pointing at the sky. ‘Ashlar’s war horn, calling his Recuperators to battle. Most perverse human hunt. Bad men looking for you and your friends. Get one leg in Solidago, and they take the leg. Your Artisan mistress is one, but they are ten thousand.’

  ‘I’m not going to the Weavers!’ said Vivian stubbornly. ‘The Artisan doesn’t trust Weavers. For all I know, they’re the ones blowing that horn— Sir.’

  Once more sounded the horn. Between the trees, distant voices grew closer. The wild man’s knuckles pushed deeper into her shoulders.

  ‘Why choose death when you can live?’

  Vivian looked back into the dark recess of Acciper’s hood.

  ‘I don’t choose any death, sir. I choose a life. If the Weavers really can help, then let them help my friends. Take them home, sir.’

  ‘Vivian, no!’ said Kate.

  ‘She’s joking,’ said Lucian. ‘She must be. Vivian can’t possibly mean to stay.’

  The wild man nodded. ‘Made your choice, middling?’

  ‘Yes sir, I have.’

  A dirty hand clasped over her mouth. It reeked of sweat, blood and wet feathers. She heard the hawk shriek as a tiny vial was pushed under her nose. It smelled like sour, musty cabbages. She chocked.

  ‘You gave me my life,’ Vivian heard him whisper. ‘Time I give you yours.’

  The wild man’s hands were on her body. They were rough and stout and didn’t know their own strength. He could have broken her in two.

  It had been a full minute before Vivian realized her legs had stopped supporting her. She was only half aware of Kate and Lucian screaming something. Her ears replaced their voices with a long, monotonous tone. She forced her eyes open. Acciper had thrown her over his shoulder.

  The horn sounded in the distance. They were running away from something. The image before her darkened, and Vivian knew no more.

  Avis’aan

  The sleeping drug gave Vivian the most ridiculous dream. It had something to do with her ripping a hole in her new dress and Aniya making her stitch it back up.

  “ I can’t stitch dresses, ” Vivian had told her.

  But then the Artisan stepped in and said: “ Sure you can. You’re an Artisan. When you stitch, one can barely see the line. ”

  It all became ridiculous when Aniya Amberville had turned into the pale woman with raven hair and violet eyes.

  ‘ You left me in that orphanage, ’ Vivian had yelled at her. ‘ You left me to die! ’

  The woman had then whispered in her ear, ‘ home is but a thought away .’

  The dream no longer made sense. Vivian’s eyes sprang open, only to find herself looking into a white head of hair. Kate had fallen asleep while sitting upright, her shoulder resting on Lucian’s bent knees, her small chin buried in her chest. Lucian was napping on the wooden floor, using a large sack of grain as pillow. Assorted cargo sacks and crates lay about a tiny wooden room with lots of portholes and no visible door.

  The floor underneath her was moving.

  Vivian rubbed the fog off her eyes. They were already on board a vessel, and by the feel of it, on tempestuous seas. Its erratic movement kept pushing an apple core from side to side.

  The man who called himself Acciper was down on his haunches, balancing on the tips of his toes. In a pile of rags was the hawk, its broken breast a red mess.

  ‘ You’ve been cut, my love, ’ the wild man told the bird through the softest whisper. ‘ Warned you not to fight four Shenk’shen at once. ’

  Vivian shuffled past Kate and side-stepping a crate. Her anger was so great she could barely contain it. She sat next to Acciper.

  ‘You blithering idiot, you kidnapped me!’

  Acciper turned to her, his metallic eyes barely visible under the many layers of furs.

  ‘Blithering idiot?’ said the man. ‘So much for Sir .’

  ‘Turn this accursed boat around,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Now!’

  ‘First of all, ship , not boat. Secondly,’ he lifted his hands and wiggled his fingers ‘see me at the helm?’

  Vivian felt a chocking anger in her chest. Steam could be coming out of her ears and it wouldn’t look out of place.

  ‘I don’t care about— YOU TOOK ME AGAINST MY WILL!’

  On the other side of the cargo room, Lucian gave a loud snore.

  ‘Gonna wake up your fellow middlings—’

 
‘HUMAN NOT MIDDLING. AND SO WHAT IF I DO? LET EVERY PERSON ON THIS BOAT—‘

  ‘Ship.’

  ‘—THIS SHIP KNOW WHAT A STINKING SACK OF DUNG YOU ARE!’

  Kate stirred in her sleep, but Vivian ploughed on.

  ‘COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, I WILL ESCAPE. I WILL ESCAPE EVEN IF I HAVE TO BITE EVERY SINGLE INCH—’

  Acciper lowered his hood. Vivian’s words froze in her mouth. A gaping silence fell between them.

  ‘But you’re that… that prisoner,’ she finally said. ‘Yours was the face I saw in the Shroud!’

  ‘Not a prisoner, thanks to you… small human. Clever device, one you gave me. Acciper’s the name.’

  ‘I’m called Vivian, not small human. ’

  ‘So those two lovebirds said,’ Acciper pointed at the two sleeping faces of Kate and Lucian. ‘Small you are, all the same.’

  Vivian crossed her arms, turning her back to the man. For a while, she grumpily observed the giant sleeping hawk, carpeted in Acciper’s fur skins, until the man recaptured her attention by removing a small object from his chest pocket. She immediately recognized her old Swiss army knife.

  ‘What for Virshii is this?’

  ‘It’s a… umm, how to describe it? A human penknife of sorts. One with ten different tools, but all in miniature.’

  Acciper blinked in confusion, the knife still in his outstretched hand.

  ‘Curious thing. So small it opened my shackles.’

  ‘Yes well, where I come from, small and clever are often synonymous,’ said Vivian darkly. ‘Ever heard of nano-bots?’

  ‘No,’ Acciper said simply. ‘Sorry I called you small human. I’m good with animals, not people. Where I come from, people are horrible and everyone is either liar or thief.’

  ‘That’s quite alright. I was just saying—’

  ‘—and small humans are clearly a touchy sort.’

  Vivian punched him in the shoulder. Acciper smiled, handing the knife back to her. Vivian didn’t take it.

  ‘Keep the damn thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve a better one now.’

  Acciper bowed in gratitude before adding, ‘Know of your knife. Largest shard of Æbe’trax ever set eyes upon.’