by A. L. Brooks
When she spoke, she did not try to compete with the storm howl, yet somehow both Gargaron and Melai heard her clearly, as if she were but talking at their ear. ‘Allow me to firstly apologise,’ she said. ‘We did not get off to a great start. That were partly my fault. But truth is, ye did not trust me and I did not trust ye both either. Yet while ye slept, and forgive me but it were essential, I delved into ye minds. At least now I know ye be who ye say ye be.’
Eve left them, disappearing into kitchen. She returned carrying in one hand a stone mug sloshing with some sort of steaming liquid, and in the other hand what looked to be a twisted, knotted shrub branch growing with pungent yellow moss. Again she knelt, offering mug to Gargaron, and moss to Melai.
‘What poison be this?’ Gargaron hissed.
Eve smiled. ‘Portoluca Tea. And Leanavale Moss.’
Melai eyed Eve closely, intently; she had watched her keenly stroll away to kitchen, had watched her return.
‘And laced with toxins, I take it,’ Gargaron grunted. ‘I’ll not have it.’
‘Nor will I,’ Melai said coldly.
‘Please yourselves. But I shall leave it here in case you change your minds.’
Eve moved away, and Melai grasped the moment. She vanished, the trick her kind employed to evade attacks by predators alien to Thoonsk. One moment Melai were cradled in Gargaron’s arms, the next she were upon witch’s shoulder, jabbing her thorny green thumb into witch’s forehead before another word could be spoken.
The witch fell prone instantly, mug and moss both dropping from her grip, the mug smashing against stone floor, hot tea splashing over Gargaron’s feet and legs. Eve’s eyes rolled upwards, she knew no sound, no sensation, and knelt there unmoving.
REVELATIONS
1
THE vortex storm raged on. The sound beyond the abode were deafening, as if the womb of Xahghis, Afterworld Goddess of eternal pain, had ruptured and her spawn were spilling free. Every now and then some uprooted tree slammed against cottage walls. Every now and then some unfortunate beast were sucked up and dashed against the steel shutters across the windows, its death howls heard loud and terrifying. Rain flurried in, flying horizontal across the room. Shard-light kept blasting the heavens, thunder shook the ground.
‘She tells the truth,’ Melai said from where she sat against wall; green witch-blood dabbed on her thumb, and green witch-blood still seeping from the pockmark in Eve’s forehead, though slowly clotting.
‘She delved into our minds?’ Gargaron asked, looking about, for the first time wondering what the witch had done with Grimah.
‘Aye. I believe she lived out our entire lives through our memories. She be the wood’s witch, Renascentia, born again as Eve, First and Last. Haitharath’s loyal companion. And wife.’
Gargaron frowned. ‘Wife?’ He looked across at Melai, questioningly. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Honestly?’
‘I read her blood. Unlike minds, blood fabricates no lies. Why does it intrigue you so?’
Gargaron shook his head, perplexed. ‘A sorcerer and a witch… mortal enemies. But married? My, what bizarre tale shall my ears be privy to next?’
‘How about this? Eve were once killed. Haitharath returned her to life.’
Gargaron frowned at Melai. ‘Killed? As in she were dead?’
Melai frowned. ‘What other way could I be meaning?’
He watched Melai keenly. ‘There be many forms of death, woods nymph. Like those skeleton folk we witnessed on Claraville. There be also ghouls. Zombeez. But she be none of these.’ He pondered this news further. ‘In what manner did her death occur?’
‘She were but a handful of years into her marriage with Haitharath when it happened. She were out one morning beyond some nearby hills collecting Strange Fruit; a fruit she dries and turns into a tea that enhances ones dreams. That morning she stumbled unawares upon a den of what her blood memory calls ghost wolves. Once they detected her, they set on her and tore her to shreds.’
‘She were torn to shreds?’
‘Aye.’
‘And the sorcerer brought her back to life?’
‘Such as I have learned.’
How? Gargaron wondered. Reanimation were the domain of necromancers and nothing they kissed back to life could sit and hold a conversation; their best efforts returned naught but mindless, soulless ghouls. Gargaron watched Eve who lay there still, her eyes rolled up into her brow. This woman, this witch, if Melai were telling it true, had died… and returned to world of the living. By Thronir, could my Veleyal, my Yarniya, have been returned to life? It were suddenly a conundrum in his mind. He had delivered his girls to the Great Precipice at World’s End when for their salvation, for his own salvation, he could have brought them, had he just known, to this sorcerer.
Melai went on with her report. ‘Haitharath left here two days past. He feared because he had received no word from survivors such as us, that his metal men had failed in their task. Thus he sets out in search of the witches of Vantasia, for he believes it be they who we have to thank for the blight, for they have cast a great curse upon Godrik’s Vale.’
‘The witches?’ Gargaron asked intrigued, turning his head and casting his eye upon Eve.
‘Aye. He believes the Harbingers, the Dark Ones as you call them, were spawned by witch’s demons, that they spread poison on the air and contaminate our rivers and oceans. He claims the shockwaves that rumble occasionally across the Vale are the result of witch’s Boom weapons.’
‘Never heard of such things.’
‘Neither have I.’
Gargaron let out a long breath as he took this all in. He were still digesting the news about Eve’s reanimation, and now this revelation about the witches, this revelation about demon spawn and Harbingers and so-called Boom weapons. It were much to take on board. It pushed Eve’s death from his thoughts for a moment. Why would the witches set out to destroy the Vale? Why would they orchestrate such widespread killing? He knew of their centuries old conflict with the sorcerers. But rarely had it boiled over and affected so many others. He could not fathom it.
2
He stared long and hard at Eve, thinking that once she awoke he had a good many questions to put to her. ‘Be she well?’
Melai took a while to reply.
‘Melai,’ Gargaron prompted.
She sighed. ‘Her state has me baffled. She should have roused by now.’
‘Let us hope she does and soon,’ Gargaron said, ‘I have much I wish to ask her. Did you happen to discern what she has done with Grimah?’
‘I gather he has been stabled,’ Melai offered.
Gargaron were relieved to hear it.
‘Along with as many deer, goat and bird as she were able to muster before the storm hit,’ Melai added.
‘And our belongings? Our weapons?’
‘Housed safely away to be returned to us on the morrow.’
He pictured a witch in possession of Drenvel’s Bane; he did not wish to imagine the ramifications.
3
The vortex storm passed by morn. By then Melai had long been asleep, troubled and restless though it were. Gargaron had promised her he would stay awake, keep guard, make sure no harm came to them. But he too had fallen to slumber.
Melai awoke first, and with a start; Gargaron’s Nightface watching her. As she rose she gazed about suspiciously and saw the witch were nowhere to be seen. She sat there a while, simply listening. For sounds of the witch. For anything. All were quiet.
She found she could move now without hindrance. Gone were the leaden feeling in her limbs. She moved to the shutters and gazed out at the world, for the first time laying eye on the carnage leftover by the storm. Trees lay scattered down the slope of the vale. Sticks, branches, twisted twigs like broken bones. Leaves, thousands upon thousands upon thousands, a sodden carpet of green, brown, grey. And endless carcasses. Goat and deer, hare and fowl, innards torn free, ribs exposed, gathering slugs, and f
lies as thick as Gargaron’s eyeballs. A mass of carcasses strewn down slope to brook. The raw, acrid smell of meat and guts and spit and scat and the cooling breath seeping from their lungs and the remains of tree and branch drip, drip dripping with water.
Melai took herself from the view and saw Gargaron rolling over, rousing, stretching.
He opened his eyes and looked about. He could smell sizzling bacon. And frying eggs. And steaming tea. (Alien smells to Melai who thought they were but the stench from the dead and murdered beyond the abode, and it did nothing to water her mouth.) He saw Melai and sunlight streaming through the shutters and there were the wondrous sounds of bugs and birds from beyond the cottage walls.
For a strange moment Gargaron thought he were but home again, on a midsummer morn after midsummer storm. Back in Hovel. With all the delightful animal sounds playing out of Summer Wood and delicious smells of breakfast from the kitchen. For a moment he even thought he heard Yarniya singing, and Veleyal playing with her toys.
Eve appeared then, carrying bowls of food to the large oak dining table. Porridge as first course, then eggs with bacon and sausage and black pudding followed. And fresh blended juice of orange, apple and fennel to wash it down.
Gargaron felt wary about eating when Eve offered him a seat at the table. For one, he remained suspicious of her, and two, he felt uncomfortable eating while Melai went without.
‘Sit giant,’ Eve commanded, ‘your friend here will not leave this cottage hungry.’ She strode off outdoors, and like inquisitive children, Melai and Gargaron gathered at one of the rear windows (Melai perched upon the sill itself, and Gargaron stooping to see) and off went Eve to a large greenhouse and from there she steered a wheelbarrow filled with living plants, either housed in large ceramic pots, or their roots were wound about old logs or around the carcasses of what Gargaron thought looked like badgers, and returned to cottage.
Melai remained quietly impressed that this Eve knew how to feed a forest nymph such as she.
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Eve said. ‘Fill ye bellies. Ye have a long day ahead of ye’selves, ye ought te know.’
They sat; Melai dwarfed by the huge oak dining chairs and propped up by cushions; and Gargaron finding the oak chairs a bit of a squeeze for his large girth. Yet they both touched no food.
‘Eat,’ Eve implored impatiently. ‘It not be poisoned. If I’d wanted ye both dead I would have done it in the wee hours when I had ye both under me spell.’
So… they ate… and in silence. Melai eating directly from the plants as she were accustomed. Standing in her large seat and biting off small red Fayngul bulbs that popped deliciously in her mouth. Tearing off chewy toad lichen. Slurping up then chomping down mouthfuls of soft, succulent Cravet pondweed. Melai asked between mouthfuls, ‘How have you sourced all of this, pray tell? It be wonderful. It be as Mother Thoonsk would have provided.’
Eve had no more answer than this: ‘Meself and me dear Hawkmoth have both lived long and know much. We have communion with all manner of sentient soul. Even ye Mother Thoonsk. Although, we call her by another name. Nethusoonsk.’
Melai frowned, curious. Mother Thoonsk indeed did bare that name, but as far as she were aware, it were known only to her children and it were forbidden to speak it to outsiders.
‘My dear Hawkmoth has had a long association with many entities of the world. Particularly those of nature and the natural world. Thus he has fostered an enduring friendship with the entity Thoonsk for almost a hundred years.’
Aye, Melai thought, Haitharath indeed be friend of Mother. She ate the remainder of her breakfast in silence.
4
Beyond the windows, the suns were rising, red streaks of warm light poking through the bare vortex-blasted hillocks. Birds tweeted and twittered and darted about the now leafless trees.
‘Anyhow,’ Eve declared with that grin of hers, ‘a productive night, I declare.’ She still bore the young face that she had swapped into many hours before. ‘Little did we speak yet much did we learn of each other, I feel.’ She eyed them. ‘Do you both agree?’
Gargaron sat, sipping hot tea, the searing brew warming his mouth and innards. Personally he had chosen not to delve into the mind of the witch for there were some folk his kind did not parley with in such a manner and witches were one of them. Witches were sly and cunning and had been known to feign certain states of being in order to trip up an unwary giant. Gargaron had heard many times the stories of the Seven of Morgane, the seven giants who had set out to put an end to the Morgane witches who had been killing and pillaging and spreading rot-sickness across the realm. When the witches were found they were said to be close to death, weakened and unconscious. It were said that some mysterious illness or foe had struck them down. In order to learn what, the seven giants joined minds with them not knowing it were a trap. Of the seven who set out to take down the witches, seven returned… with their minds corrupted. Returning as naught but Morgane thralls. Before they were ultimately clobbered to death by giant warriors, the seven had ransacked and destroyed a dozen towns and villages and slaughtered upwards of nine hundred innocent souls.
So, Gargaron had stayed clear of the unconscious witch. Still, he pondered what Melai had gleaned from the connection she had made and thus he replied, ‘Aye, much have we learned.’
Eve sat and joined them. Sipping tea. Eating eggs and spinach and crab meat. None spoke for a time. Then as if to make conversation Eve eyed Gargaron and said, ‘I must say, I have been intrigued by the visage on the rear of your skull, giant. It watched me most closely while you slept, I will say.’
‘As is its purpose,’ Gargaron said. His Nightface were often an endless topic of conversation for people who had spent little time in the company of giant folk. He found it most tedious. ‘Though, let me say, I am intrigued by your own visage. When we first met I would swear that you wore an entirely different face.’
Eve’s eyes strayed to her eggs as she ate. ‘Aye. A fortunate result from a tragic happening.’ She did not elaborate.
Yet Gargaron were keen to hear it. ‘Your death?’ he asked.
She looked up at him once more. ‘Aye. My death.’
Silence fell over the group.
Eve smiled, feeling the discomfort of her guests. ‘I were attacked and torn asunder, you may have learned. My face were ruined. Yet my good husband found ways to restore my looks. And made it so that I can now choose my face.’
Gargaron watched her closely for a time. After a while he said, ‘I have naught heard of a slain soul being brought back. Not to such an unsullied condition. Tell me, what strange magic might have returned to me my dear departed daughter?’
Eve smiled, studying Gargaron for a few moments. ‘Ye have lost much, giant, I know. So too Melai of Willowgarde. We have all lost much. But how long has my dear Hawkmoth known his arcane secrets? Even he has not divulged that to me. It be something he keeps to himself. But I see the question in ye eyes, giant. Had those lost to ye been brought here upon their death, could they have been saved and regifted with life, brought back, as you put it, to such unsullied a condition? I cannot answer that. Only Hawkmoth may give ye an answer ye seek. As for myself, all I know is that I am here, reawoken after death. The method, to me, remains a mystery. So let us leave it at that.’
Gargaron did not wish to leave it at that. But if Eve were fibbing about her knowledge as to the secrets of her reanimation then it were obvious she were not going to tell him. With a sigh Gargaron resigned himself to asking the sorcerer when he caught up with him.
5
Once breakfast were done Eve fetched a map from a side bench and lay it upon table top, spreading her hands out across its surface, flattening out its creases. A delicate fingernail traced a straight line above a meandering roadway heading westways. ‘Hawkmoth departed here two days gone, taking with him his war-steed Razor, and traveling upon his remaining zeppelin. This were his projected route. And this be his projected destination.’ She tapped a remote a
rea of the map along its western fringe. ‘This be Vantasia inside Dark Wood, the witch realm. Travel here by zeppelin may take as much a week. Except, if one were to become grounded, of course.’
Gargaron smiled ruefully. ‘Aye, if he flies his zeppelin through one of the shockwaves that have been assailing us then his journey will be cut short, I assure you.’
‘Well then, travel by horseback will indeed take longer,’ Eve said. ‘Though Razor be as swift a horse as I have ever seen. Anyhow, I will shortly post Hawkmoth news of ye arrival. Once he receives word that ye set out to trail him, he will delay his push westwards, put down his zeppelin and make camp to wait for ye to catch him up.’
‘Others have come before us?’ Melai asked. ‘Other survivors?’
Eve shook her head in jerky movements. ‘Sadly, as yet, there have been none but yeselves. We remain hopeful that others be out there still forging their way here. Hawkmoth detected many of ye. And, as far as I learned, he managed to dispatch word or transport to ye all.’
‘What were his method, if I may ask?’ Gargaron asked intrigued. ‘To trace us. I used the Skysight in Autumn Town yet found no-one alive anywhere.’
Eve smiled. ‘My dear Hawkmoth possesses many a strange and fanciful ability, giant. I do not profess to understand how they work. Except, as I said, he detected many of ye out there, alone, wandering. But enough talk of this,’ she said. ‘Time slithers ever onwards, and I must speed ye both on ye way.’
6
Gargaron and Melai took turns soaking briefly in a mighty tub of fresh fire-heated water. And once dressed, feeling clean and revitalised, Gargaron found Eve beyond the rear of cottage with their belongings packed together on the ground. He were relieved to see both his sword and Drenvel’s Bane lying across his pack.
The world out here beyond the confines of the cottage dripped with water, and the trees of the hill had almost all been torn free from their perch. Most had been flung away to distant places it seemed. Perhaps still twirling inside the vortex. Others, and there seemed no end to them, were scattered and thrown every which way, twisted and matted and knotted and uprooted. The walking beast-trees that had threatened Melai and Gargaron the day before, those not ripped free and swallowed by storm, ambled about like lost souls. The hill were also scattered with the corpses of deer and goat and bird.
