Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  Vivian would have found Lucian Blossom’s sudden foray into the life of a furry bell-ringer quite hilarious, if the situation hadn’t been so severe.

  ‘That’s Mama Vadda’s wristlet!’ said Vivian in a note of panic. ‘Kate, you shouldn’t have! Humans can’t be woven upon—’

  ‘I told you, they knew how we looked. If I hadn’t, they would’ve taken him!’ said Kate defensively. ‘So I nicked the wristlet out of your room—’

  ‘You were in my room?’ Vivian frowned.

  ‘Course I was! How else would I have taken these ?’

  Kate lifted her feet, where a very old and manky pair of boots covered her otherwise delicate feet.

  ‘My anti-gravity boots?’ she frowned. ‘But, if you were in my room, how come I didn’t hear you come in?’

  ‘Because you were already gone, silly. Off to the Trial before everyone else.’

  ‘Kate, how come you can move around while the rest of them are frozen?’

  ‘Time isn’t really frozen,’ said Kate, giving Lucian’s contorted hand an encouraging pat. ’Not everywhere, at least. It’s more like a bubble, really, with Time flowing at a normal pace outside it.’

  ‘How do you even know all this?’

  ‘I saw it. When I overheard the soldiers talking about surrounding the Pattern, I tried to warn everyone – but no one believed me. No one except Acciper,’ said Kate in one breath. ‘Him and I rushed downtown, determined to report everything to the city guard, but the attack had already started, and Acciper and I got caught outside the time-bubble.’

  Vivian gave the audience a surveying look. Next to the disfigured Lucian sat Acciper, his metallic eyes closed, his chin planted in his chest.

  ‘What’s wrong with him? Why is he all— stiff ?’

  ‘What? He isn’t stiff! He’s—’

  A horrible screech parted the skies and the great feathery beast descended upon the arena like an angel of death, shrouding the army of the north in darkness.

  ‘That’s Acciper’s hawk, Shéy!’

  But the magnificent hawk had more than a few aces up its sleeves – or better yet, talons. A distant sound of clinking glassware and the arena was covered in simmering green smoke, and everywhere the smoke travelled, soldiers fell in the sand like wooden puppets whose strings had been cut.

  ‘What’s that she’s dropping?’

  ‘My many failed experiments,’ said Kate.

  Countless armoured bodies were curled up on the high noon sand, asleep, and still the great hawk fought, turning in mid-air like a leaf on the wind. The more phials of sleeping gas rained down on the army, the less defenders Hoarfrosta had.

  ‘A’right men. On my order now: NOCK!’ screamed Captain Mavrik, and the platoon behind him readied their bows and arrows. ‘Steady now, steady. DRAW—’

  ‘They’re gonna shoot her down!’

  ‘LOOSE!’

  The soldiers had released their arrows, determined to bring down the menace from above, but Shéy was too agile for them, avoiding their blows with incredible ease.

  Acciper’s eyes sprang open, making both Kate and Vivian jump.

  ‘Bad news,’ mumbled Acciper, seizing his head with both hands as though afraid he would lose it. ‘Got in too late. Guild fallen. Pattern survived but the Weavers, they’re— they’re all dead.’

  ‘What about Runar’s troops?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Hundred of them boarded ships to Hoarfrosta – tried to follow – but Runar sent his archers forward. Barely got Shéy out alive—’

  Acciper leaned over the edge of his seat and vomited freely. Vivian lifted him by the forehead, giving him a concerned look.

  ‘Lie still Ace. You’ve been out of your body too long—’

  ‘No, must catch that ship!’ he struggled to get up, his arms waving about like the wings of a bird. ’Runar’s on it with our regent. Daimey, she’s his prisoner…’

  ‘I’m telling you, lie still!’

  Kate was tapping her on the shoulder. ‘Err, Viv?’ she said. ‘If Runar’s on the ship, w-who is that?’

  A tall man in a cloak had entered the arena, the golden mask on his face catching the orange light of high noon. Beside him was a second figure, whose hooded face was shrouded in absolute darkness.

  ‘Oh no...’ said Vivian under her breath. ‘I got it wrong. So wrong. ’

  ‘Is that... Ashlar ? With the Unwirer?’ Kate whispered back. ‘What in the blaze are they doing—’

  ‘Shhh, listen!’

  In the noiselessness of the arena, Ashlar’s voice boomed like thunder. It was a voice made of anger, and pain, and despair, all combined.

  ‘The Weave, Shinn’shaan. I told you to take down the Weave.’

  ‘I have tried, Master. I have tried,’ said the Unwirer in a wispy voice that betrayed fear. ‘The life of Weavers was mine to take, but the loom wouldn’t bend to my will.’

  ‘But you are the Shinn’shaan. The Keeper of Souls. The Unwirer of lives and all Threads alike—‘

  ‘The Pattern is bound by more than just Death,’ said Rolf the Unwirer. ‘Its Threads are the woven paths of choosers— the winding destinies of living beings. And yet the Weave is more, a lot more than Souls. There are Threads in the Pattern I cannot unweave.’

  ‘Threads like Time...’ stated Ashlar, his heavy feet carrying him towards the arena’s central hub, and the dais there present.

  ‘Yes, Master,’ said the Unwirer, lowering his gaze. ‘You alone can unweave Time.’

  ‘Not completely. Not absolutely. Like a river flowing downhill, I run with it – at times, delay it – dent without bending, twist without stretching, but try as I might, I cannot change its course,’ said Ashlar in the same booming voice that would have made rivers run dry.

  ‘But Master can stop the rapid flow of Time, if only for a moment.’

  ‘Because I live outside it, Shinn’shaan. Time does not exist for me, although each day I feel its ghastly, deathly sting.’

  ‘Yes, Master.’

  Ashlar brought his pacing to a halt, approached the dais and picked up a small ornate box. ‘I believe, however, to have found a way around that.’

  The Gold Mask Man opened the ornate box, and removing the Tear of the Goddess, he said, ‘did you know there is a reality underneath this very one, populated by all the paths we have never walked? A universe of choices we have never made?’

  ‘Tylorria... the Subexistence.’ the Unwirer recited. ‘The World Below, as lesser minds dare call it.’

  ‘The very same, Shinn’shaan. Legend has it, when the Mother of Reality saw what became of her creation, it felt like bereavement, and so she wept in grief... for the Soul of the World had fallen cold and beings no longer cared for one another. She wept for an age, and one of her tears fell in this world—’

  Ashlar pressed the light-giving crystal against his eye. ‘The Tear of the Goddess... a mysterious artefact, unbound by cosmic laws. The Weaver Trials – what joke! How typical of Weavers to use its infinite properties for petty entertainment. How ignorant of them to place it in the hands of wannabe Weavers, when this stone can open doorways into the hidden dimension of Subexistence— the key to all outcomes; the path that leads to all paths—’

  With a gauntleted hand, Ashlar lifted the Tear of the Goddess and pushed it into his golden mask where it lodged itself as readily as a jewel in a kingly crown. The space around him began to wobble and twist, as though someone had thrown a large boulder in the substance of all things. Something was causing the fabric of space to stretch and constrict like an oversized accordion, playing its last tune.

  On the other side of the arena, Kate had thrown herself flat on her stomach, her tongue lolling out, her mouth open in a silent scream. Acciper had both his fists pushed into his eye sockets, his breath ragged and irregular. Vivian felt her bones catching fire, and her mind knew nothin
g but Kaap’s ongoing screech, pushing against the back of her mind like a helpless child who felt his end was near.

  Hold on Kaap. Hold on , Vivian kept repeating, hoping against hope that her thoughts would find the little furry creature currently by her side – his fur a bright red, his toddler-like body spread-eagled, his large yellow eyes closed.

  Something large, at least twice her size, collapsed next to her and Vivian turned in horror to see Acciper Sparrowhawk’s handsome face pressed against the sand—and Kate crying out loud in pain, her limbs folded underneath her.

  ‘Ace... K-Kate...’

  Kate’s scream acted like a tonic, strengthened only by the suffering of her friends – their eyes popping, their expression wooden – for before she knew what she was doing, Vivian was on her feet, a shard of liquid light protruding from her tightened fist.

  Like a bad dream twisted out of shape, reality was collapsing. Ikko and Jaari were spiralling across a two-dimensional sky, their light extinguished by a mounting darkness. Hardly aware of where the sky ended and the ground began, Vivian launched herself next to her semi-conscious friends, kicked her own shoes aside and pulled the anti-gravity boots off Kate’s twitching feet.

  The Pentahedron had turned into a quicksand pit, and reality was rocking harder than ever, with grounds and skies churned together in a melting pot, and yet Vivian found that she could stand, her boots firmly planted into the simmering sands. Determined to stop the madman, she rushed towards the hub of the arena, the Agi Blade firm in hand.

  Not zigzags, think in straight lines, Vivian repeated to herself, as she jumped over gaping holes, and dodged pillars of twisting matter. In straight lines.

  The sound of her own thoughts felt distorted, alien almost, but she kept to the path, united in her mad, singular intention to reach the Gold Mask Man... and stop him, whatever the costs.

  In the corner of her eye, a shadow glided across the arena, leaving deep footprints of molten glass wherever his feet touched the sand, and before she could react, Rolf the Unwirer was upon her, a large silver spindle pointing at her chest.

  Vivian found herself back at the Manor, safely wrapped in the arms of Darien Amberville. By her side was her half-sister Mira, who looked healthier than she had ever appeared in family photos.

  ‘You’re home,’ said Aniya, who had tears of joy in her eyes. ‘You came back to us.’

  Rejecting their love had been such a childish thing to do... and she felt stupid, really stupid, for not having truly appreciated their care. To be in their presence again was sheer bliss, and the Unwirer twisted his spindle, rolling a dark Thread around its spool, and Vivian was falling – falling into the endless abyss under his hood.

  ‘M-mom? D-dad?’ she whispered keenly, her arms stretched wide towards the people she loved, the people she so desperately missed.

  Vivian’s nose dripped blood as Darien, Aniya and Mira pulled her in a constricting hug. She had so much to tell them, so much to apologize for, and Vivian no longer cared it was not real; that the warm arms she was embracing were Death’s. She wanted to stay with them forever; she wanted that hug to last an eternity—

  ‘VIVIAN, NO! NOOO!!’ Kate’s agonizing shriek reverberated across the soundless arena and Vivian fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  ‘You killed... her... You killed— You beast! You lowly b-beast‘, Kate was moaning somewhere in the distance, and the Unwirer stepped over Vivian’s lifeless body, brushing his hand across the silver spindle that trembled at the pleasure of taking another innocent soul. Behind him, Ashlar continued ripping his surroundings to shreds, as large holes began opening in the twisting, contorting substance of reality.

  Kaalà sizzled through the air like electricity through water, and the Unwirer crumpled like an old curtain. He screamed, and the spindle in his hand shattered into a thousand pieces.

  ‘Vivian!’ Kate called out, the tears still etched across her porcelain features. ‘You’re... you’re okay!’

  ‘Impossible. To the cosmos, you are dead!’ yelled the Unwirer, flourishing a short, black Thread that used to be Vivian’s life. ‘To the Pattern of Threads, you are dead!’

  ‘You didn’t kill me. You set me free ,’ Vivian called, her long black hair whipping across her face, as the holes in the fabric of reality slowly began to shrink. ‘No more Guild strings on me!’

  ‘No one survives an unwiring. NO ONE! Your Thread is your life! Your fate and freewill!’

  ‘And I am in control of all three,’ said Vivian. ‘All thanks to you, Unwirer. When you severed the connection between me and the Pattern, I saw a strong, vibrant Thread – a Thread of my own making – replacing the dark one the Guild had forced upon me. I saw the hole in the loom resealing; the emptiness of its void, dispersing. I saw my strings being cut from the machinery of circumstance, and me coming back, a master of it—’

  ‘Impossible!’

  Like a rubber band returning to its original form, the fabric of reality was slowly coming together. Across the empty arena, Ashlar’s hurricane voice propagated like an angry tongue of flame, licking everything in its path.

  ‘You have deceived me, Shinn’shaan...’

  ‘Master, my Master—’

  ‘The Pattern was to be mine. You assured me no Weaver would stand in my way,’ rang Ashlar’s voice, reducing Rolf the Unwirer to his knees.

  ‘Master, please!’ pleaded Rolf, like a cornered animal facing its hunter. ‘The girl – Vivian – she is different . She can weave into the Immaterial—’

  ‘You gave me your word, Shinn’shaan!’

  ‘Clemency, Master! Clemency!’ snivelled the hooded figure, but Ashlar vigorously shook his head, the mask on his face an orange blur.

  ‘Your punishment will equate your crime,’ said Ashlar, and his words landed like an anvil upon the still-trembling fabric of reality. A gaping hole opened into empty space, and the Unwirer disappeared through it, his dark robes bellowing behind his falling figure.

  Kate gave Vivian a panicked look as the Gold Mask Man raised himself to full height, the Tear of the Goddess on his forehead glowing bright. Once again Vivian felt that sudden disturbance in the natural order of things as a fresh rippling of energy left Ashlar’s body, and Kate fell outside the reach of Time, as quiet and still as a statue.

  ‘Kate!’

  Behind his mask of gold, two cold lights were watching Vivian as though they had never seen anything quite like her.

  ‘You... resist me. You do not bind to Time. What... what kind of Weaver of Reality are you?’

  Vivian pointed her Æbe’trax knife into Ashlar’s masked face. ‘The kind that creates her own!’

  There was a sound like a gunshot as Ashlar’s gauntlet found Vivian’s small chest and the Phial o’ Tears around her neck exploded in a shower of crystal, water and flame. Vivian watched an imperceptibly-small tear detach from its shattered prison of glass, flip a few times in the hot air, and land on the fitted crystal on Ashlar’s forehead.

  The Tear of Goddess burst out with light. The fabric of reality split in two, and Vivian found herself floating between two distinct realities, both possible, both true.

  ‘M-mom?’ Vivian rubbed her eyes, wondering whether what she was seeing was true, or just another trickery.

  From beyond a hole in reality, a pale woman lifted her gaze, her bloodshot eyes a blotchy pink.

  ‘Vivian, is that—?’ the corners of her mouth lifted, as though moved by unseen strings, and colour rushed back into Aniya Amberville’s tear-stained face. ‘Vivian?’

  ‘It’s… it’s me!’

  ‘Good gracious Darien, it’s her ! She’s— she’s alright! Our daughter’s alive!’ said Aniya in one breath, tears flowing freely down her face like the first day Vivian met her.

  Vivian reached a trembling hand towards the reality of her parents when a second familiar voice crept
on her from behind.

  ‘Little miss? Is that you, little miss?’ and Miles Fenn’s great old face detached itself from the second reality, his snowy eyebrows curved above his reading glasses. ‘Has little miss returned to the old crib?’

  ‘Miles?’

  But something other than Miles had caught her attention. A portal had opened behind Miles – a doorway into the very shroud of reality, leading into her old sleeping room – and Vivian’s couldn’t believe her eyes. It was herself... with Kate... and what she thought to have been a portal was none other than—

  ‘Kaap?’

  And from beyond the veil, a voice identical to her own chimed through.

  ‘ See Kaap? Didn’t I say you could do it? Didn’t I say you could tunnel through anything, even the Shroud? ’

  ‘Sweetheart, over here!’ said the voice of Darien, making Vivian jump.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Oh sweetheart, we’re so relieved to have found you!’ Aniya Amberville’s loving voice echoed away from the first reality. ‘Daddy and I are sorry – so sorry – we didn’t listen to you. We were too strict and you – you ran away, but you’re alright now. You’re alright. We’ve found you... we’ve found one another—’

  ‘Little miss, if you are there, come back to us,’ said Miles, his old and veiny hand pushing against the surface of his reality. ‘Should you not return soon, the Madhad state will close the Shelter for Strays. Little miss must return soon.’

  Vivian didn’t know what to make of it all. She gathered her hands around the shattered remains of what used to be the phial of Seer’s tears, her eyes darting back and forth between the reality of her parents – alive and well – and the reality as she had come to know it. How did she enter the Subexistence? Did Matijas know his tears would bring her here?

  Before she could imagine the answer, the hole containing the first reality widened and Vivian saw herself rejoin her family in their Manor. She grew to a ripe old age – Darien and Aniya by her side – before reality itself was shredded apart and the cosmos was replaced by an impenetrable Darkness.