Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  At once, the polygonal walls of the arena melted before her eyes, only to be replaced with plane stone walls, grimy floors and crummy little windows fitted with metal bars. A low ceiling opened into a bright, open sky, through which Vivian could barely hear the cheering of the audience, all distant and dim now, as though it was a coming from the depth of an underground cave. Above a yellow-stained straw mattress, hung a mouldy old poster that read in discoloured letters “ If ya ain’t beamin’, ya ain’t leavin’. ” It was the Ala Spuria’s Shelter for Strays, exactly as Vivian remembered it.

  But she didn’t remember being this small... and was the room growing larger or was she shrinking? The empty walls were pulling away from her, the tiny window was expanding and the low ceiling was rising at a rapid pace, a mile away from where Vivian now stood, wearing ill-fitting clothes and shoes too big for her feet.

  She was six years old again, and the distant scream of the audience was surely just another orphan getting their daily punishment. And it was like seven years of Vivian’s life had disappeared down a bottomless abyss, or perhaps, never truly happened, for here she was again, hungry and cold and very, very frightened, waiting in horror for someone to emerge out of that terrible darkness, and break her spirit in a million different ways.

  And indeed, a mere moment later, a dark shape had risen from the ground, and the familiar outline of a porky woman with a diamond-shaped mole assembled before her six-year-old self.

  ‘Ya’ve been very naughty,’ Miss Burlington softly breathed, flourishing the boltsy end of a long, wooden stick. ‘Goin’ outta yer room, breakin’ curfew, tryin’ tah run away. Very naughty indeed.’

  These are just fears , Vivian told herself, just as Miss Burlington lifted Old Lumbersides directly above Vivian’s head. This isn’t real.

  But the pain that followed felt real, and Vivian collapsed on the cold stone floor, cradling a bleeding arm to her heaving chest. An ecstatic look spread across Martha Burlington’s sweaty face; the sort of frenzied passion bordering on madness that Kate sometimes wore when looking at expensive clothes. And then Vivian remembered that behind that mouldering old poster, was a hole in the wall, and beyond it...

  ‘Kate! Are you there, Kate? Answer me, please!’

  But Miss Burlington ignored Vivian’s plea. Her piggy eyes were now tracing the creek of blood flowing freely from Vivian’s injured arm. Once more, she lifted Old Lumbersides, a wicked intent etched into every shadow of her grotesque features.

  ‘Kate! Please help me, Kate! KATE!’

  The blow descended upon Vivian’s nape, where the Thread of All Tongues was yet to be woven in seven years’ time. The back of her neck seared and flared in unspoken agony, and from within that agony she heard Kate calling back to her, not from the postered hole-in-the-wall of her cell, but from the midst of a million voices that cheered, and roared and clapped their hands.

  ‘VIVIAN! VIVIAN! VIVIAN!’

  Kate’s voice had done it; it had broken the dark spell, injecting a doze of reality into the darkest recess of her mind. Vivian wiped her bloody lip with the back of her torn sleeve. As convincing as her nightmare fuel seemed, she wasn’t really back in Ala Spuria, and the woman beating her wasn’t the real Miss Burlington, but a demon made out of fears and despair and the loss of all hope for the things to come.

  Vivian pushed her bloody palms against the hard floor, and felt warm sand between her fingers. No matter how much it looked like Ala Spuria, she wasn’t really there; she was still in the arena, with a million people watching. Ærinna’s words began playing at the back of her mind.

  “ The biggest fight in life is with yourself. ”

  She might have returned to the same place, but the time was not right. It was not seven years ago, but seven years later, and the cage that once held her was nothing more than a dark construct; a prison of fears, reconstructed from Vivian’s memory, whose only purpose was to torment her.

  Miss Burlington let out a cruel, mirthless laugh as Old Lumbersides sunk its bolts into the softness of Vivian’s flesh. She couldn’t let her own self defeat her. The dim in the background weren’t screaming orphans, but frightened spectators – people who had come to witness Vivian taking control of her life, embrace her darkest fears, and arise from the arena as a creator of her own life. A Weaver.

  Instantly energized by the remembrance that she could Weave , Vivian hoisted herself up, and looking into the pink, porky face of this last, great demon, she pushed her tiny fists into Miss Burlington’s shallow eye-sockets, and thought with all her might ‘ Darkness ’.

  Martha Burlington’s roar of pain filled the air, her scream bouncing against the empty walls of the little room, against Vivian’s entrapped mind, and the foundations of Ala Spuria trembled and shook, its large bricks toppling over like a house of cards, until nothing remained but splintered wood, copper pipes and broken masonry. From the pile of rubble, a small white dove had stretched its crumpled wing and taken flight into the sunset, droplets of blood flying behind it, like rubies.

  The image before Vivian flickered, and out of the piling rubble erupted a vast Victorian library, its high-arching shelves cowering under the weight of countless books. The tiniest lights disturbed the otherwise perfect darkness, and Vivian searched for the source only to find an exact replica of herself, from toenail to eyelash, slouched over a messy desk, deeply asleep.

  The lit candle by her side had turned half of the girl’s face into an orange blur. There was an open journal beside the sleeping Vivian. Its last entry was shinning black upon the page, in slanting sunken writing: “ I’ll run away…. ”

  But she had never put her plan in action, Vivian remembered. She had never come close to running away. That very night, in fact, Darien and Aniya Amberville had joined their daughter beneath the ground, leaving behind an orphaned, remorseful, broken Vivian.

  Cold fury arose within Vivian, as she watched herself sleep over the writing desk so peacefully, so serenely, clueless that in a few hours time she would awake to a world devoid of Darien and Aniya – her caregivers, her parents – who overprotective as they were, had welcomed her into their life, into their hearts, when no one else would; who had loved Vivian like a daughter; whom Vivian never quite realized that she loved back, like a real mother and father; like her own parents.

  All gone... all faded... all because of her childish act of revenge. All because her brooding self wouldn’t fulfil her duties to the Manor and to her parents; all because she didn’t – or perhaps wouldn’t – replace the oil in all the lamps, as she was asked to.

  But perhaps it was not too late. The fire would not start in a few good minutes. Yes, perhaps there was still time...

  Leaving her sleeping self behind, Vivian dashed out of the library, towards the supply-room, where she grabbed a large canister of oil and an old funnel, and tore away as fast as her feet would take her, towards the Manor’s western wing.

  She was well on time. The fire hadn’t started yet. Perhaps it wouldn’t start at all, now that she was here. With the speed of a bullet, Vivian began replacing the oil in every other fixture, skipping those that were barely put to use, her eyes scanning the musty darkness, her ears trying to penetrate the silence of the night.

  Finally, her parents’ imperial bedroom came into view. Vivian planted her feet at the oaken door with a plastic heart on, and with a trembling hand, turned the doorknob. But for a sliver of moonlight, the darkness was unbroken. Darien’s gentle snores were protruding from underneath a bulky bedcover. Next to him, Aniya was fast asleep with a small pillow over her cheek, her breathing soft and deep.

  She hadn’t really realized, but this was the first time she saw them since the day they had gone. Vivian was now shaking so badly, the oil canister in her hand was spilling its contents all over the place.

  Her pulse beating in her throat, she finally managed to refill the tiny pewte
r lamp on their bedside table, when the canister in her hand slipped out of her grasp and fell to the floor in a loud clatter.

  Still her parents slept on, seemingly undisturbed by the sound that would have awoken a stone gargoyle, and Vivian painfully understood that this too, was a ghost of her part – no more real than the two sleeping people before her. And yet, if she could only see their faces... if she could have just one last look... it would all be worth it. Shrouded in darkness, she steadied herself against a nearby shelf, and thought with every fibre of her being, “ Light ”.

  The bedside lamp sparked into existence, bathing the room in amber light. For the tiniest moment, Vivian thought to have got her wish as her parents faces swam out of the darkness, their eyes open, their features alight, at the same moment as a wild tongue of flame licked the trail of oil Vivian had so clumsily left behind, and engulfed Darien and Aniya completely.

  A raging inferno erupted at once, and Vivian was trapped between two walls of flame, her mouth open in a ghostly scream, a scream her parents returned from beyond the veil of fire and smoke. And it was like she was seeing it all in slow motion: Aniya’s hollowed cheek, blackened and blistered beyond recognition; Darien’s good-natured face melted and mutilated, their hands desperately tearing away at the great wall of flame that consumed them, torso and limb and hair and skin.

  ‘VIVIAN! VIVIAN!’ they screamed.

  And Vivian’s tears flowered freely, but the fire vaporized them all away; and her voice couldn’t have screamed more fiercely, and the pain in her chest was surely worse than the feel of her flesh burning, worse than a thousand woven Taal’kais; and all she wanted was to climb on top of that tall-burning bed and join them on that unintended funeral pyre, for nothing, surely nothing was worse than her grief and shame.

  ‘VIVIAN! VIVIAN! VIVIAN!’ Kate also screamed, and her voice joined that of Lucian, Acciper and Bastijaan.

  But she didn’t care, for she had nothing to live for, no reason at all, for how could she keep on living knowing she had doomed them? The flesh on her body bubbled and seared, and she let it sear, knowing she deserved every bit of it; knowing she deserved the hell she was in.

  ‘Stop the Trial!’ someone was screaming. ‘Get everyone out of here!’

  Vivian didn’t know who was talking or why. All she knew was that the painful decay she felt inside was slowly beginning to change. At the edge of her vision she heard footsteps, and several people rushed into the arena – dark shadows moving against the flames – and the grief in her heart turned outwardly, and exploded into a deafening scream.

  Several Weavers were blasted apart, the tail on their orange cloak flying behind them, and landed on the other side of the arena with a bone-crushing bang . Vivian screamed on – her eyes rolling into the back of her head, her long, velvety black hair floating around her bloodless face as if submerged in water – and her scream echoed the Guild’s scream, as more Orange Cloaks were blasted out of formation by the invisible bubble that had formed around Vivian.

  In the stands, the public was scuttering away like cockroaches. The Guild of Weavers was led out of the arena through the back door by a frightened-looking Bastijaan and his royal escort. Acciper was struggling to evacuate the last remaining spectators, confusion and worry written in his wild expression. Kate and Lucian had to be gagged and dragged away before they finally gave up their seats, and were successfully evacuated along with the rest of the audience. And still Vivian’s scream raged on...

  The very foundations of the Pentahedron were shaking under the amalgam of noise, or perhaps more than noise, for the sand underneath Vivian had inexplicably melted into glass. The clothes on her back were no more, only raw energy randomly exploding out of her hands and eyes and heaving chest.

  The very space around her seemed distorted, twisting and bending like a sail in the wind, and beyond the fabric of reality, Vivian heard a billion voices, some of them weeping in sorrow, some shouting in anger, some even laughing their grotesque laughter; a choir of devilish fiends about to break through the substance of reality. And still Vivian screamed…

  Hundreds of arrows cut through the air only to be vaporized within an inch of Vivian’s skin, their arrowheads dripping molten steel on Vivian’s unfeeling body.

  ‘STOP! You’re killing her, fools! You’re killing her!’

  A shape was moving towards her, friend or foe, Vivian didn’t know, but the arrows immediately desisted. A woman had positioned herself in front of the out-of-control Vivian, her hands stretched horizontally like a human shield.

  ‘DON’T YOU DARE— I COMMANDED YOU TO STAND DOWN!’

  A small hatchet landed only a few feet from the pair of them, and Vivian broke out of her trance enough to distinguish a perfect set of teeth underneath a pair of stunning violet eyes.

  ‘YOU WILL NOT HURT HER! SHE’S MY SISTER! MY SISTER!’ screamed Daimey, her arms still stretched like a cross in front of what looked like a whole platoon of archers.

  Vivian didn’t understand, and it was perhaps this very confusion that brought her screaming to a close. The fabric of reality resealed itself, and the unseen demons lurking beyond were pushed back into their small world of darkness. Her lank hair fell like a curtain, her coal-black eyes rolled back into focus, and as the true extent of her injuries reclaimed her body, she collapsed in the glass-spiked sand and knew no further.

  The Return of Ashlar

  Vivian woke up in a cocoon of medicinal cloth, with long, metallic Threads peaking out from underneath the acrid-smelling bandages. Propped on an armchair was Lady Saah, her eyes all blotchy from the lack of sleep, a bottle of blue liquid balanced upon her knee. Countless varieties of herbs, potions and spices adorned the room’s many visible shelves, cupboards and cabinets. For the merest seconds, Vivian thought she was back at the Goltgos Haijk – somewhere in the pantry or perhaps a storage-room she had not previously seen. She opened her eyes a little wider only to find herself looking at Palas Lumina’s familiar bas-relief of stone roses.

  ‘L-lady Saah?’ Vivian called, and was shocked to hear how weak her voice sounded.

  The Artisan jumped so quickly, the bottle on her leg fell to the floor and shattered, spilling its emerald liquid across the floor. But then the broken shards reassembled themselves back in Lady Saah’s outstretched hand, and blue liquid poured from within as though it had never been spilt at all.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said, replacing an intact bottle on the table. Once again, Lady Saah pulled a dagger out of her boot, and with one swish of hand, she cut Vivian free from her cocoon of metallic Threads.

  Vivian gave her bandaged face a little tap. The skin underneath it pricked a little. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘You suffered most grievous burns, but I fixed you right. Now that you’re awake, I need to attend to the other injured—’

  Vivian pushed herself upwards and grabbed the Artisan by the arm. ‘Did I hurt anyone?’

  Lady Saah shook her head, her quicksilver eyes resting on the little bandaged hand that had stopped her from leaving. Vivian’s grip did not slack. She needed to know.

  ‘Was it real? The Trial of Fears, did I really—?’

  ‘You did,’ said the Artisan, still not looking at her.

  Vivian’s eyes widened in panic. ‘And the fire – my parents?’

  ‘Also,’ said the Artisan in a voice like a falling iceberg, her eyes still fixed on the door.

  ‘I... I did this to them?’

  ‘Your choice did.’

  ‘M-my choice ?’ Vivian finally let go of Lady Saah’s arm. ‘My choice was to save them, not doom—’ for a moment she froze, as a vision of a little boy covered in honeycomb hives entered her mind.

  “... with every choice, the worst of you must die to validate the better you. Great choices will have demonstrated morals, but bad choices will have taught you purpose”.

  The Artisan
was already at the door when Vivian said, ‘your son knew this would happen.’

  Lady Saah’s hand had frozen on the doorknob, her beautiful ebony face flushing magenta. ’I’m sorry?’

  ‘Matijas. He knew I was going to make that choice. He predicted many things that are happening now,’ said Vivian, a wave of understanding creeping underneath her bandaged face. ‘For Matijas, past, present and future were all the same. He was a Seer, a secret Seer, but you already knew that, didn’t you?’

  Lady Saah’s hand was shaking above the door handle. For a while, all she said was, ‘my son... my poor son,’ before she finally admitted, ‘yes... yes... he was a Seer.’

  ‘And you’re not a Healer either, aren’t you Lady Saah? Not a conventional one, at least. All that powerful stuff you did, that no other Healer in Solidago could do – reattaching limbs, recreating blood, the Featherweight Philtre – all that knowledge you passed onto me – trying to pass onto Kate – that was Weaving, wasn’t it? Only a Weaver would know Lazuli’s Law of Exception. Only a Weaver could weave a Taal’kai. And you learned it all up there, in the School of Thought, with the rest of those Weavers. Isn’t that why the Guild welcomed you back so quickly? You claim to hate them, but you’re just one of them.’

  The Artisan’s hand was shaking more than ever. ‘Yes... I am one of them,’ she said through her teeth, her expression unreadable, ‘a Weaver. But what you really must understand is that—’

  At that moment, the door opened with a creak and made the Lady Saah swallow the remainder of her sentence. In stepped Daimey, whose violet eyes immediately found the Artisan’s.

  ‘Lady Saah!’

  The Artisan’s slightly plump body cowered in a low bow. ‘Your Grace.’

  ‘She’s awake, isn’t she? I heard voices,’ said Daimey, giving the bed-ridden Vivian a contemplating look. ‘May I have a word with my sister?’

  ‘Vivian’s still weak. She needs rest, so I wouldn’t—‘