‘Enjoying the view?’
Maya gasped and turned around. Three women floated in the air towards her, their faces cold and impassive. They wore white gowns that appeared to be made up of clouds, and on top of their heads they had tiny tiaras from which stars twinkled.
‘We are Urd, Verdandi and Skuld. Past, present and future. Why have you trespassed upon our territory, Eronthite?’
Maya felt fear of the supernatural beings prickle her neck. Now she could see more clearly into the room, she saw a large spinning wheel materialise through the mist to form the wheel where the maidens spun the fate of all beings.
‘I am Maya,’ she said quietly. ‘Born of a union between the Stag Man and —’
‘We know your origins, Eronthite,’ the sisters said as one. ‘Who do you think twined your thread of destiny and threw it to the heavens? It is dangerous to disturb the Norns.’
‘I cannot be held responsible for my transgression,’ Maya said. ‘I am dreaming in my world.’
The sisters hissed and gathered closer to examine her. Maya could feel the cold of their bodies and faces. There was little pity, and no warmth in these beings.
‘The Dreamers have led her to us,’ they said to each other. ‘Her destiny has been decided. Conceived by the Stag Man and the Bindisore Emma. Handfasted to the stone Bwani. Taken to the Underworld by Hecate in her thirty-third Turn of the Wheel.’ With their words, the dream suddenly became real.
‘Hecate?’ Maya said, feeling ice run through her veins at the smug smiles the Norns were giving her. ‘I am going to die young? You say this is the thread I was given?’
The three nodded. ‘Not only given,’ they said in silvery voices, ‘but agreed to willingly pre-incarnation.’
‘I don’t want to die!’ Maya protested. ‘There’s much I have to accomplish and learn, so much good I can perform in Faia.’
‘Of course there is,’ the Norns said smoothly. ‘But the wants of the body are limited, the Norns see more when they throw the threads. It is sad. but all life is filled with such suffering. Threads are decided, but they can be changed.’
‘How?’ Maya seized on that small hope.
‘Offer another in your place,’ they said, laughing behind their hands.
Maya thought for a moment. ‘There is no one,’ she said, then suddenly, ‘What of the Lightcaster? Can I not offer him?’
‘Do not waste our time, Eronthite!’ the sisters hissed. ‘He performs the work of the Goddess in his own way and time. Accept the fate that is dealt you, or offer us another to throw the thread.’
‘Then there is no one,’ Maya said again, and tears burned her eyes. ‘Thirty-three Turns of the Wheel is not enough for me to accomplish all that my heart burns for on Eronth.’
‘Such a tragedy,’ the Norns echoed, smiling to each other their secret, private smiles. ‘Still sister, you will never wrinkle nor atrophy.’
There was a pause, then the sisters’ eyes flashed with triumph. ‘Offer us your own flesh, your unborn child, and we will throw the thread.’
‘No! I cannot! I will not give you the life of an unborn. No woman could be expected to make such a cruel choice! You are all the poets say you are! Evil and cruel, with ice for hearts.’
The Norns shrugged and went to move towards the large wheel. ‘We throw the threads, we spin the threads and we cut the threads. Never again will you be offered this chance by the Norns. Return to your body which decays as you sleep, and your husband of stone. It matters nothing to us whether we take you or your child.’
‘Do you know?’ Maya asked, and there seemed to be large rocks of pain in her mouth when she attempted to talk. ‘Boy or girl?’
The sisters looked at each other, and then one held up a small glistening thread from the loom of the wheel and examined it. ‘Boy,’ they announced as one. ‘We could cast his thread now and tell you his history. He could grow to be a saviour, a killer, to be addicted to love. So many paths, but the thread can tell us the tale.’
‘Tell me this,’ Maya said, the room appeared to be glowing brighter. The spinning wheel turned slowly, and Maya heard the chorus of angelic choirs, the sound of an unseen group of people in the room having a party. Voices tinkled, a woman laughed. ‘Why was I promised to Hecate so early?’
‘Mistaken again! For you were not.’ The Norns shrugged. ‘The threads became tangled. It was Emma whom the Holder of the Keys came to claim as a payment for preventing the Phooka from rising. Emma was offered the test of the choice, but as always in the ways of allkind, the threads became tangled when the incarnating soul, you, pledged to travel to the Mother of Monsters in her place. This offer was accepted by Hecate and you became the chosen one.’
A burning hurt and resentment exploded through Maya at their whispery words directed towards the woman she had never known fully. ‘She was prepared to let her own child die in her place? What sort of mother would allow her child to make such a choice?’
‘One that wanted to live because she still had many things she thought she wanted to accomplish.’ The Norns smirked. ‘A common feeling among allkind and no doubt weaved into their soul essence along with their blood, their aspirations, hair, teeth and cells. A shallow, superficial desire, some unkind ones might judge, but alas! Much good is done in the name of evil, and evil flourishes in the name of good. Still, you have chosen your choice and our meeting is already past in the shadows of time.’
‘Wait,’ Maya said. Her heart was beginning to pound like a drum. She thought of stories she had been told in the Hollow Hills of the peasant women of Eronth giving birth in fields to children who died shortly afterwards. Babies with deformities so debilitating and horrific as a result of forbidden unions between monsters and allkind. Babies smothered quickly. ‘What would be the consequences if I did choose my original thread? It is only fair if I was always meant to live! If I allowed my unborn child to die in my place? Babies and small children die all the time, after all!’ Her voice was a squeak in the immense room. Now even the revellers of the unseen party had fallen silent to listen avidly.
The Norns glanced to each other and began circling Maya, their bodies appearing to melt and re-form before her eyes.
‘The Norns cannot tell allkind the results of the different threads that make their fate. We are the Norns, not Oracles. We are Urdi, Verdandi and Skuld. Past, present and future. We cast the threads and throw them. It is allkind who choose what to make of the pattern.’
‘It is a hard and cruel decision to make,’ Maya said to them. A vision flashed into her mind of Bwani holding a baby boy and laughing. Then another, of Bwani sobbing over her prone body, which was already beginning to discolour with decomposition as the funeral attendants prepared her corpse.
‘So hard, so cruel,’ the Norns hissed. ‘Life is filled with such sweet thorns.’
‘It is you that is hard and cruel,’ Maya said. ‘You don’t care about the threads you cut and cast! You enjoy playing with allkind and offering them impossible situations, you that watch as we suffer and wrestle our destinies.’
‘You are not the first to curse us,’ the Norns said, their faces creasing with sorrow but their eyes and their mouths betraying amusement. ‘Now you have made your choice, Maya of Eronth, and your destiny has been decided. Suns set and moons rise, and we have many threads to cast.’ They moved towards their large spinning wheel, which was beginning to click and spin.
‘Wait!’ Maya moved to follow them and suddenly the distance between them in the room seemed vast. They had been standing so near, their breath touching her face in icy gusts, but now it was as if the room was a cavern so that she had to push past the parts who had materialised more fully. She could feel the warmth of their bodies, the clink of glasses and fluids being poured, even a piano being played, and the scent of expensive perfumes. The room dipped and swayed. The panoramic views of angels and heavens had vanished, and in their place was a long dark corridor dominated by mist and the sound of the wheel spinning. At the end of the p
assage the three Norns sat near their wheel, now dressed in black cloaks.
‘Come no further!’ they called. ‘This world will lead you from your dream into ours, and you will never return. The choice has been made!’ They held out a piece of glistening thread. One of the sisters moved to cut it with gleaming shears.
‘Take the child then!’ Maya called. ‘For in truth it means nothing to me, its life yet unconceived, its actions undetermined. I know I can do some good in Eronth and my original thread may well have been much longer if I had not interfered and offered myself in place of my selfish mother! Bwani will mourn the loss of a child, but there will be others, however the premature death of his bride would not be such an easy knock to recover from!’
‘It is true,’ the Norns agreed, their eyes never leaving her face as their hands worked the wheel. ‘No changing mind,’ they whispered in voices that creaked of leaves and sunlight through dust.
‘Here is your thread.’ A long silvery thread was twirled briefly then tossed out the dusty long corridor. ‘Here is the child.’ A smaller thread was plucked from the wheel, held to the heart of one Norn for a moment, an ache, an anguished regret and that too was thrown.
‘What age will he be?’ Maya said. She suddenly felt terribly afraid of the consequences of her decision.
The Norns looked at her. ‘It is not wise to ask questions of the Norns,’ they said. ‘Now you must leave and return to your body of bones and blood. You will remember us from the land of dreams and the bargain you have made. You now have your original thread back, Maya of Eronth!’ They looked to each other and laughed for a terrible few moments.
‘If you have deceived me with some stupid trick, you’ll be sorry!’ Maya shouted. ‘What was my original thread?’
The three sisters shrugged, and then laughed again, harder peals of mirth. ‘So sad,’ they chorused and bent their heads over their wheel. The whirr of its spinning filled Maya’s senses.
Maya awoke. For a moment she hung between worlds, sick and disorientated. She could still hear the laughter as the Norns mocked her and the sounds of glasses clinking in the ghostly eternal party. Realisation of the bargain she had made flooded her and she lay against Bwani’s warm chest, listening to his snore and fighting her panic. What sort of person am I to sacrifice our child for my own life? What will be the consequences of that bargain?
She remembered the harsh tones of the Norns’ laughter and shivered. Outside early morning birds called, it was raining. The occupants of Shellhome were beginning to stir as they woke to go about their daily routines. Maya lay in Bwani’s arms, her breath a shallow pant. Dread slowly permeated every cell of her being. She remembered that small, glistening thread carefully placed against the Norn’s heart and her own heart contracted in pity. Then she thought again of the mother she had known only for a very brief time, the woman Emma, who had been willing to offer her to Hecate in place of herself. She sat upright in bed, her dread shifting away.
Crossing to the window, her feet touched the cold boards of the floor. She willed Bwani not to wake for fear he would read what she had done on her face. Through the cold glass she looked at a grey, wintery world outside. Early morning frost laced the trees and grass, life seemed infinite and filled with possibilities and dreams.
‘So hard and cruel.’ The words of the Norns returned to mock her. ‘Life is filled with such sweet thorns.’
A movement in the pristine, frigid air caught her attention. Something was out there . . . what was it? She craned her head to see. A wolf? Solumbi? At this time of year some of the worst predators of Eronth came closer into Faia, hoping to feed. The movement came again, along with the sense that something was not quite right out there. But then nothing. Maya shivered slightly, and told herself it was a trick of her eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
You, of roads and crossways,
Of heaven, of earth, and sea as well
You, the saffron-clad among the tombs,
Dancing with dead souls the Bacchic rite
You daughter of Perses, lover of desolation
Taking joy in deer and dogs, in the night
You, terrible Queen! Devourer of beasts!
— ORIGINAL ORPHIC ‘HYMN’
TRANSLATED BY SHWN EYER
Brier continued to fly and feed. The more she fed, the more confident she became. She learned to select vulnerable targets — two-leggeds on their own, smaller two-leggeds, older two-leggeds. This kind of prey succumbed easily, with less effort on her part before the blood flowed from their eyes and mouth. She learned how to fly to the Eom quickly when he needed her, faster than a flutter of an eyelash. She learned to drink the hot sweet blood she craved so intensely until her stomach felt bloated and full; for that meant there was longer between feeding times, more time to replenish her energy. It became important to drink quickly, so the blood was less tainted by fear, which did not taste as pleasant.
When she had first witnessed the dark beings slipping from the Eom, she had been curious. What were these black shadows that vanished as quickly as they appeared? Her high-pitched singing voice did not seem to affect them in the same way it affected the two-leggeds, who would fall to the floor with the delicious blood streaming from their ears and nose. Brier loved to see that precious red fluid emerge. But these dark shadow beings only glanced at her with little interest and moved into worlds where she was forbidden to follow. Words came into her mind when she glimpsed them: rape, genocide, war, extinction, chaos, terrorism, madness, destruction, fire. But words meant nothing to Brier when she was tasting the red fluid. In some part of her brain she knew the beings emerging from the Eom were linked with her, that the sweet blood she fed on, and brought back to the Eom in her small glass body, assisted the shadows to emerge from the dark crystal. Yet she also knew she was different from these beings. If she had a word to define that difference in her limited vocabulary, it would be complete. She was more complete than these beings.
The Eom purred, singing to her in the tongue of the sea, the sky, the air. She heard the Eom wherever she flew, her small wings beating hard, her eyes and senses honed for the blood carriers she coveted. The approval of the Eom sustained her, communicating in the language of the night, with the tongue of dreams of fire. She was fed by, and in turn, fed the Eom. It she knew love, it was love for the dark crystal that made her replace it, under its guidance, in the dungeons of the Azephim castle. Brier had no knowledge of how main times she had tasted the thick wine that flowed from the jerking white bodies of the two-leggeds. Her hunger never lasted long: her glass body quickly filled with blood, causing her to make many trips to the Eom where it waited for her salty embrace, her glass body to press against it, their fluids exchanged in an ecstatic pulsing moment, the sweet loss as Eom drained her of the blood she carried to it — the child suckling the mother, eternal testament of love.
As days passed Brier observed the spark of fear over the sea city of New Baffin and the surrounding countryside, but she had no concern or interest for the whitish-grey flashes of emotion she could see pricking the land of Eronth. Nor did she think or care about the white mucous that dripped from between her small legs after she had fed. All she knew was the heat of the night that spoke to her through the Eom, the song of the land that gave her solitary flight and feeding joy.
When Diomonna, Queen of the Imomm Faery tribe, first spotted the glass Faery glistening in the early morning grey-peach sky near the Hollow Hills, she took it for a flash of sunlight. Then, with a burst of adrenaline, she realised the glass being, heading swiftly towards her, was in fact the blood Faery, the mysterious being Diomonna had observed drinking human prey for some time now. If she had thought quicker, she would have dematerialised herself and vanished, but fascination with the shining figure caused Diomonna to hover for a moment as it approached.
A moment was all Brier needed. A sound in the air: a high-pitched terrible sound. Diomonna screamed. Her hands went to her ears which felt as if they were on fire and she jerked
her head back, screeching. Blood poured from her ears. She screamed again, losing her balance and plummeting thousands of feet. Shocked, she saw the blood Faery dive towards her. All she could do was watch, paralysed, as the winged being continued its collision course. The glass Faery was so much bigger than it seemed when she had watched it feeding on others.
‘Halt! I am the Queen of the Imomrn!’ she tried to shout, but the Faery ignored her. Faster it flew, making a terrible keening that made Diomonna feel as if her head was about to explode. Faster and faster. Her large dark green wings beat the air. Now she could make out a tiny Faery face with long silver-white hair. The face was screaming at her. The mouth, filled with jagged sharp little teeth stretched wide open, releasing the sounds of hell. Suddenly the thing was over Diomonna, its eyes fixed on her, two needle-sharp fangs protruding from its mouth. Diomonna was unable to speak or move. Death, so unexpected in the sharp winter morning, had come uninvited to her. The glass being was closer now, the screaming had intensified and Diomonna could feel her blood quickly moving from her body. Her heart was slowing down. She was stunned by the knowledge she had been attacked and was not going to survive. She saw herself reflected in the eyes of the creature; helpless, beautiful and badly damaged. It looked as if part of her head had caved in.
The wings of the Faery stretched out over her, vivid with stripes of pink and black. No Faery in Eronth possessed wings with markings like these. Its eyes held Diomonna’s. The head bent to her throat and the Imomm Queen understood then how she was going to die. The vital fluids giving Diomonna her energy were going to be transmuted into this nightmare’s glass body. In the Faery’s knowing eyes she saw herself, one last look at her reflection. The Faery began to drink.
‘If she discovers where you’ve gone, there’ll be trouble,’ Edwen said, winking at Steppm as they approached the Shellhome stables where Bwani had ordered three ilkamas to be saddled and prepared. Bwani ignored the comment, although privately he hoped Maya would be too distracted in tending Khartyn to notice his absence.
A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3 Page 20
