by Jason Denzel
A pair of mailed guards holding pikes stood on either side of the inner keep’s double doors. The guards turned in unison and pulled at the heavy iron rings bolted on as handles. The doors opened, yawning like the maw of a great beast opening into a gullet of shadows.
Lucal bowed in farewell and left Pomella to cross the keep’s threshold by herself. She dismissed her hummingbirds, who flew up and away into the higher portions of the keep. Pomella entered the fortress and sensed the Myst stir, an unseen rush of energy swirling in the entryway, dancing with delight by her presence.
The guards stood at attention, hands on their long weapons. Beyond them, the baroness and her husband waited inside the foyer. Pomella’s attention turned to Kelisia ManHinley, the ninth-generation ruler of the southern Mothic barony, wringing her hands nervously. The baroness bowed to her, followed by her husband, Pandric. Even after all these years, Pomella still felt a rush of anxiety when a noble bowed to her. She fought the urge to bow back, even lower.
“Welcome, Mistress Pomella,” Pandric said. “I understand you rescued some unfortunate victims from the cruelty of slavers. The baroness and I thank you for your efforts. The recent rise of slave trading in our barony is a thorn in our side.” He peered at his nervous wife. “Although I am sad to say that we have more personal matters to discuss.”
Normally, it would’ve been unusual for Pandric to greet her first, since the line of nobility ran through Kelisia, but a quick glance at the circles beneath the baroness’s puffy, bloodshot eyes was enough to tell Pomella that she was barely able to keep her emotions in check. The baroness had dark wavy hair that cascaded down her back all the way to her thighs. Pomella wondered if she’d ever had her hair cut in her life. She had remarkable cheekbones, and stunning brown eyes. But there was a hollowness to her eyes, and a gauntness to her features. Pomella had heard it had been a hard week for the baroness, and for the entire House. Almost certainly the baroness had asked her husband to lead the pleasantries.
Pomella observed the easy manner with which Pandric spoke, as well as his terribly handsome features. Although she’d not met the couple until now, Pomella had heard of their youth and renowned charm. Despite the baroness’s emotionally vulnerable state, the reports of her beauty not only were apparently true but also perhaps fell short. Time would tell, however, whether the noble couple would uphold the old ways of heavy discrimination against the lower castes, or embrace newer ideas.
Pomella slipped her hood back, revealing long dark hair that hung well past her shoulders. The baron and baroness had pale skin, common on Moth, several shades lighter than Pomella’s. “Thank you, Lord Baron. And greetings to you, Lady Baroness.” She inclined her head to each. “What a beautiful home you have here by the sea.”
“You’re too kind, Mistress,” Pandric said. He wore a dark-blue coat, representing the ocean that the fortress overlooked, along with gray trim for the clouds that on most other days cloaked it. Pomella guessed the baron was in his mid-thirties, a little more than a decade older than herself. His short, neatly trimmed hair and beard had a couple of gray hairs just beginning to show. “The landscape is beautiful,” he said, “but the fortress itself can be cold.”
The baroness stepped forward, her anxiety clearly taking precedent over protocol. She took one of Pomella’s hands into her own.
“Please, Mistress,” Kelisia said. “Our Norana. Can you help her?”
Pomella squeezed the baroness’s hand. “Call me Pomella,” she said. “I will do what I can. Tell me what you know.”
“She’s been asleep for five days,” Kelisia said. “Her nurse put her to bed, as usual, and she hasn’t woken since.”
Pandric slid an arm around his wife. “Norana’s very much alive. We can see her breathing, and often smiling or grimacing from her dreams. But no matter what we do, we cannot rouse her.”
The anguish on the baron’s and baroness’s faces broke Pomella’s heart. Unbidden, a memory floated to her of her young brother, Gabor, from when the Coughing Plague had swept through their home village of Oakspring. Not everyone caught the disease, and nobody understood why some folk were affected and others not. Gabor had begun coughing, right when the scare was worst, and Pomella remembered the terror that had gripped her grandmhathir at the thought that his symptoms would progress into the full horrid nightmare. Even their hardened fathir, who normally gave no quarter to his emotions, lingered his hand upon Gabor’s tousled hair a little more often than normal. It turned out that Gabor had just come down with the common chills, thank the Saints. But Pomella remembered the fear her family had shown, and she remembered her own.
“Take me to her,” Pomella said in her most reassuring voice.
Kelisia squeezed Pomella’s hand before practically running to the carpeted stairwell, which led to a landing that ascended to the upper rooms of the keep.
Pandric walked beside Pomella at a more normal pace. “My wife barely eats or sleeps,” he said as they passed a set of massive stained-glass windows overlooking the landing. The artwork depicted the iconic Saint Brigid shouting commands across a ship’s deck to sailors as they struggled against a storm. “I’m afraid I might lose them both.”
The stained-glass artwork caught Pomella’s attention because she’d never heard of Brigid sailing a ship before. The Saint and her years-long hunt for her son was the defining epic of Moth, and was frequently told on the Continent as well. Pomella knew the Toweren by heart, and often sang it when she visited commoner inns, a pastime she enjoyed but generally kept from Lal and Yarina.
Pomella pulled her attention from the glass artwork as she stepped onto the upper stairs. She focused her mind, easing it into that place where the Myst revealed itself more easily. As she climbed, she called to the Myst, pulling it from the building’s stones, the wooden guardrail on the stairs, the carpet, and even the clothes she wore. The Myst swirled in her vision, like smoke churned by a passing breeze. It whispered wordless secrets with a voice she heard in her heart rather than her ears or mind. Secrets that it had witnessed through the centuries, hinting at what may yet come to pass.
Vague shapes took form within the silvery haze, existing only for moments before disappearing like water vapor on a hot day. Pomella watched as the Myst shaped itself like a painting on the wall, but it vanished as she turned her head to examine its details. Tree branches and vines dipped from the ceiling, making it appear as though for a moment she were walking in a shimmering likeness of the Mystwood.
All of these visions were a reflection of Fayün, the land of the fay, the world that reflected their own, like the opposite side of a coin. They were glimpses of a different realm, one in which the Fortress of Sea and Sky did not exist or, if it did, it existed in a different, unfamiliar form.
Up ahead, Kelisia looked back over her shoulder to ensure Pomella and Pandric still followed. She led them down a hallway that overlooked the entry chamber they’d stood in earlier before cutting into an adjoining passage. Several doors stood along either wall, and it was one of these that the baroness headed for.
Pomella knew which room the child was in before Kelisia approached it. She tightened her grip on her staff. Silver light, blazing bright, seeped from beneath the nearest doorway. Vines and ivy crawled across the door, invisible to everyone except Pomella with her Mystic eyes.
The baroness led them into the room. To Kelisia and her husband, the room likely appeared to be a normal nursery, albeit a wealthy one worthy of the eldest daughter to the nobles living in the Fortress of Sea and Sky. A crib stood against the far wall, which had been painted with a mural depicting the Mystwood, with the green conical tip of Kelt Apar’s central tower rising above the tree line. Soft candles lit the room, while thin drapes rippled from a breath of sea breeze blowing in from a southern-facing window. An elderly nurse rocked in a chair beside the crib, knitting.
But that was not the entirety of the room Pomella beheld.
Instead, she saw the world of Fayün bleeding across into the h
uman world. Usually it was just a single creature or plant that crossed over the veil into their world, and then only briefly. But rising before Pomella was an entire jungle of trees and vines and creatures, running and scattering as she and the nobles walked into the room. Silvery moss-covered boulders rested beside Norana’s crib. It was as if the stone had been carved to fit the baby’s crib.
There could only be one reason to explain the unusual lingering glimpse of Fayün. In recent months Mistress Yarina, the High Mystic of Moth, had been preparing her apprentice, Vivianna, and Pomella for the coming of Crow Tallin, a rare celestial event in which the fay would linger longer than usual in the human world. Pomella only understood a little about it but could think of no other reason for such a phenomenon.
Pomella crossed the room and peered into the crib. Little Norana, not even a year old, lay on her back beneath a thin blanket with her fists balled up beside her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell with slow puffs. She looked like any other sleeping tyke except for four ragged scratches running down her face, across her eye, from her forehead to her neck. The scratch marks weren’t normal. They shimmered with silver light, and lay etched into her skin.
Pomella bit her lip. Norana’s parents wouldn’t be able to see the scratches. Something from Fayün had caused them. Just as Mystics could Unveil the Myst and Fayün to manipulate it, so could the denizens and environment of the fay realm sometimes affect the human world. It was extremely rare, happening only a few times on Moth every year, which was high compared to other nations because, of all places in the world, the island was said to be where Fayün overlapped the most with the humans’ own world.
The old nurse stood and silently bowed her way out of the room. She closed the door as she left. Leaning her staff against the wall, Pomella placed her hand over Norana’s head. The little girl had no fever, but Pomella found herself remarking at how soft the child’s hair and skin were.
She glanced around the crib, looking for signs of the fay creature that might have caused the scratches. Silver walnut shells, leaves, and broken twigs lay scattered around the baby. Turning her gaze upward, Pomella glimpsed a pair of silver eyes lurking in the branches of a large tree. The eyes blinked once, then faded into the tree.
Kelisia approached Pomella. “Do you know what ails her?”
“She’s been injured by a fay creature,” Pomella said. “The veil between the fortress and Fayün is thin here. In the fay realm, this very spot isn’t a child’s nursery, but a den to some sort of wild animal.”
Kelisia’s eyes narrowed in fierce determination. Pomella admired how, upon learning this information, the baroness didn’t wail or despair.
“Then how do we purge this infestation?”
Pomella shook her head. “That isn’t an option. There are ways to strengthen the veil to prevent this from happening, but for the moment, it would be best to move the nursery elsewhere and lock this room off from the rest of the fortress.”
Kelisia’s eyes burned. Before she could speak, though, Pandric placed a calming hand onto his wife’s shoulder. “Please, Pomella. We will do anything to help her.”
Pomella gestured to the tyke. “May I?”
“Of course.”
After easing her hands beneath the child’s neck and lower back, Pomella lifted Norana into her arms. She remarked at how wee the child was, so thin and frail. She cradled the tyke in her arms and bounced her lightly. “I’ll need a handful of moments alone with her, please. She is safe.”
Kelisia seemed as though she was about to protest, but Pandric patted her arm and pulled her toward the hallway outside.
“Oh, and Baron?” Pomella said in a quiet voice. He paused at the doorway. “There is a large enclave of Unclaimed outside your city who need food. What I do here is given freely, but I hope you will consider acting generously on their behalf as well.” She gave them both a reassuring smile.
Pandric nodded in understanding, then closed the door.
“Oh, you sweet warrum,” Pomella said to Norana, using the old term her grandmhathir had used for small children. “What scratched you?”
Pomella closed her eyes and reached out with the Myst. She sought the child’s emotions, and perhaps, if she was lucky, a glimpse of her memory of what had happened. Like most of her skills, reaching into memories was one talent she’d somehow taught herself over the years. She’d never done it with a child, however.
Pomella began to hum a gentle lullaby. Singing had always been at the heart of her relationship to the Myst. In her years as a Mystic apprentice, it helped her Unveil the Myst and grow. And today, seven years later as a full Mystic, she was still empowered by singing.
Her footsteps sank into the soft rug that filled most of the room. Pomella walked around it, gliding around the whole room with Norana in her arms. She sang an old lullaby she remembered from her grandmhathir. It was a song she’d never forget because it had been sung to her throughout her early life, and that of her brother. Supposedly, the song was another one associated with the Brigid legend, a lullaby the Saint supposedly sang to her infant son. Pomella wondered if that was true, or whether it had been adopted and assimilated by the people of Moth who could never get enough of their beloved Saint. Whatever its origin, Pomella measured her footsteps to the slow rhythm of the song.
“Bab-bie wonder
Bab-bie light
How’d you fall into my sight?”
As she walked and sang, Pomella willed the Myst to accompany her with a gentle tune. It was something she’d taught herself to do during her apprentice years. She found that she could make the Myst play music only she could hear and, because it came from her, it was always in perfect harmony with what she sang.
“Bab-bie star
Bab-bie night
Let me hold you under moonlight.
With eyes so gentle
Soft and down
Take me with you into town.
Bab-bie wonder
Bab-bie light.”
Before Pomella could begin the next stanza, Norana twitched in her arms. The child remained asleep, but her face scrunched up as if to cry. Pomella let her Myst music continue, but she shifted from singing to humming in order to concentrate on what was happening.
Silvery light rolled off Norana now. The scratches on her face pulsed angrily. Pomella pinched her fingers just above the child’s face and pulled, as if she were tugging an invisible string. As she did so, she willed the Myst to bring forth the child’s recent memory.
A tendril of light rose from the center of Norana’s forehead, twisting around Pomella’s fingers. Rising with it came blurry memories. In that moment, Pomella was able to recall, as if it were her own memory, a time when she—as Norana—lay in her crib, sucking on her fist. A cat, striped with different shades of silver, slinked across the crib. It hissed at her, and Norana cried. The cat came closer, and Norana flailed, smacking it with a tiny fist. The creature dodged and hissed and fled, but not before taking a hard swipe at the child.
Pomella steadied herself with a deep breath. Even if Norana could somehow see fay creatures at this early age, it was unlikely she could affect or hurt them.
Or so Pomella had believed.
She looked upward into the silver tree growing above the crib, searching for the pair of eyes she’d seen earlier. Sure enough, as she peered into the branches they appeared. Pomella reached out with the Myst, and pulled the creature forward. It was the same cat from Norana’s memory, twice as large as the child herself.
The cat hissed and spit, but Pomella pinned it down with the Myst. “You will leave this child alone,” she said to the cat. “I will have her relocated to a new room, but this is the human realm. Remain in yours. Go.”
She released the fay creature, and it fled into the branches before misting away.
“There. It shouldn’t hurt you again,” Pomella said to Norana. “And I will keep this memory so it no longer haunts you. Now, let’s do something about those scratches and wake you up.”
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She hummed again as she summoned the Myst. She touched Norana’s face, gently rubbing the wounds. Slowly they faded, soothed away by her touch. It wasn’t that the baby had received a physical wound, or that Pomella had been able to heal her directly, but rather she was able to erase the connection that bound the child to the wound that linked her to Fayün.
Sometimes it all made Pomella’s head hurt. Being a Mystic wasn’t easy.
When the scars vanished, Norana opened her eyes. Deep brown pools stared up at her.
Pomella smiled. “Hello.” Norana’s chin quivered and then she began to wail.
Pomella figured this was a good time to hand her back to her parents.
TWO
THE WOODSMITH
A grizzled hermit, known to the few scattered villagers in the area as the Woodsmith, strode through the hidden paths of Broken Fist Mountain in northern Qin. He hiked with confidence, his stride optimizing his pace while conserving energy. Layers of animal skin and fur covered his body. Two chest-high walking sticks served as extensions of his arms, helping him blaze a trail.
Angry red and purple rashes covered his exposed skin, but the Woodsmith paid them no mind. Long hair and a scraggly blond beard hid most of the blemishes on his face.
His eyes swept over every bush and every stone that crossed his path. A white fox watched him from a nearby shrub. The Woodsmith couldn’t see the fox, but he knew it was there because of the faint tracks in the snow, along with partially buried scat dotted with iceberry seeds. Ignoring the fox, he sniffed the air.
The smoke he’d smelled earlier was stronger here. He followed it south.
As he trekked through the thawing snow, he glimpsed Whitepaw and the rest of the pack following the same course further up the mountain’s slope. The wolves were as curious as he was about the scent. Before he’d caught it on the wind, it had been the pack who had alerted him to the unusual activity.
Few visitors came to the northern highlands of Qin, and that was how the Woodsmith liked it. For four years he’d lived here alone, avoiding humans as much as he could. On the rare occasion that a passing band of travelers came near, he’d vanished into the woods and watched silently until they were gone. If an overeager youth from one of the nearby villages dared to investigate his hut, he’d scare them off. And on the rare occasion where somebody became lost, he’d guided them home from afar, leaving obvious clues they could see and follow, but never interacting with them directly.