by Jason Denzel
“He’s been coming every night,” Dav said, “after supper when Mama sends me out to play. He likes when I give him blackberries from our bush.”
Pomella motioned for Dav to stand beside Bethy, then lifted the crate aside. The creature in the canvas bag stilled. Pomella mentally readied a defense, then lifted one edge of the bag’s opening, and peeked in. “Come out, friend.”
The fay generally became agitated when they were trapped within the human world without an anchor to fixate on and help them remain grounded. Some fay, such as Pomella’s hummingbirds, or the creatures Vivianna regularly summoned, remained docile and friendly when brought from Fayün. But if they became lost, or somehow trapped, they could turn hostile. Pomella had seen it happen a handful of times, including a time when a pack of wolves had been trapped and subsequently abused by Ohzem, the iron Mystic who’d caused so much trouble during her first journey to Kelt Apar.
The bag shifted, and then a shining, silvery nose poked out. Pomella held out her hand, and quick as a luck’n a fay critter ran onto her palm. The children gasped. Even Bethy made a sound and took a step back. It was a silver pineten, no larger than a squirrel. Pomella stroked the pineten’s head with her finger. The poor little thing trembled, seeking the protection Pomella offered.
“I’m surprised you can see her,” Pomella said. “It’s rare that anybody except Mystics can see the fay.”
“I named her Lagnaraste,” Dav said.
The name struck Pomella as unusual and oddly specific. She shivered, unable to help herself. “That’s a funny name. How’d you think of it?”
Dav shrugged. “She told me.”
Pomella pursed her lips. “It seems like you have a natural affinity for the Myst,” she said.
“Really?” Dav said, suddenly brightening.
“Now, Pomella,” Bethy said, “no need to fill his mind with blather. Dav likes helping his fathir with the goaties, and told his grandfathir he wants to learn how to forge iron. Didn’t you, Dav?”
Dav wilted but nodded. “Yah.”
“Things are changing, Bethilla,” said Pomella. “At least, I’m trying to change them.”
Bethy’s look could have seared rock. “Nothing truly changes in Oakspring. Even when it looks different than before.”
They held gazes for an extended heartbeat, but Pomella sighed and nodded. “OK. Well, your friend is a little scared, Dav,” she said, dropping the subject. Little Lagnaraste scrambled up her arm to her shoulder. “I’ll release her, so she can return home and—ouch!”
The pineten bit her shoulder, and Pomella yelped. Bethy also let out a tiny cry of surprise.
Lagnaraste leaped from Pomella’s shoulder and ran toward Dav. Pomella summoned the Myst. She could see the subtle bond, as thin and fragile as thread, chaining the fay animal to Dav.
She snapped the Myst toward the thread and extinguished the link between them.
But instead of misting away as Pomella expected, the pineten darted in a new direction, and scampered into the oak tree, not disturbing a single leaf with her passage.
Pomella frowned to herself but quickly masked it with a smile. “There. Everything is fine now, Dav. She’ll go home and won’t be scared anymore. Just don’t set out any more berry traps.”
Bethy hurried over to Dav and picked him up. She looked from Pomella to the tree. “Are you sure?”
“Yah,” Pomella said. “I doubt you’ll see her again.”
Somehow, the boy’s kindness and his homemade berry trap were enough to link the two of them together. She wasn’t sure what would’ve happened if the pineten had remained chained to Dav over a longer period, but it wouldn’t have turned out well. Not all fay creatures adapted well to humans. Pomella couldn’t imagine the fits Bethy would have if her eldest son had a fay critter running around her house every day.
“Well, I certainly hope we don’t see it,” Bethy said. “Those creatures have no place in Oakspring. They can stay in the Mystwood if they feel the need to visit.”
Pomella’s mind raced. The pineten should have vanished as soon as the bond was removed. Why were the others still able to see her? Pomella didn’t expect the pineten to harm Dav or the rest of Bethy’s family, but she didn’t understand why the creature didn’t return to Fayün.
“Will you be staying for supper?” Bethy said in a tight voice.
Pomella looked into the oak tree, toward the fay creature whose presence she could not see but could still faintly sense. At the mention of dinner, her stomach grumbled. “Actually, I’m sorry, but I need to return to Kelt Apar.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bethy said, sounding anything but.
“I am, too,” Pomella lied. “But I should return home.”
Home, to Kelt Apar. Because Oakspring was no longer her place.
SIX
THE COLOR OF BLOOD AND FIRE
Three days later, Pomella drifted in a sky of her own making, letting the gentle tides of Myst carry her like a cloud caught in a gust of wind. She focused only on her breathing, and gently diverted stray thoughts that sought to invade her mind. Somewhere distantly she was aware of her body, sitting cross-legged in the corner of her cabin in Kelt Apar.
Even as the Myst carried her mind through an infinite void, she sought a state where she touched both Fayün and the human world at once. Grandmaster spoke of it sometimes, and required her to sit every morning and evening in meditation, trying to search for it. The Crossroads, he called it, or the Joining, the place where worlds met.
Pomella breathed in, filling her body with not only the familiar smoky scent of incense and her cabin but also the Myst itself, where she held it, then released, exhaling the air and Myst around her.
When Pomella managed to find the Crossroads—where she existed both nowhere and everywhere at once—she found the Myst most readily available, most powerful, and most easily shaped.
Today, unfortunately, was not such a morning.
A barrage of thoughts assaulted her mind, each one trying to knock her off that delicate balance between worlds. She thought of Norana, and the fierce scratch she had on her face. She thought of how easily non-Mystics were seeing the fay, and with more frequency. She worried about the growing number of Unclaimed who were being captured by slavers, and what that meant.
Fatigue was another concern, a deep one she felt after her weeklong journey between Port Morrush, Oakspring, and now Kelt Apar. It seemed to her that her head had hardly touched her pillow before the sky lightened and her hummingbirds, Hector and Ena, had arrived at her window, buzzing and tapping the windowpane to wake her. She’d grumbled and waved them away in a very un-Mystic-like manner, before finally dragging herself out of bed to begin the morning routine.
Further distracting her now was the unusual company crawling across Kelt Apar. Normally only four people lived there on the grounds. Grandmaster, Vivianna, Mistress Yarina, and herself each had their own dwellings. Oxillian, the Green Man, and several rangers came and went, but generally, Pomella’s mornings like this were filled with quiet solitude.
A loud rattling, like a pile of firewood being shaken, sounded outside as a laborer pulled a wagon past her cabin. Pomella tried to ignore it, but the clatter pulled her out from her meditation.
She sighed. She wasn’t going to get much more done during this morning meditation. Beyond the rattling carts and road exhaustion, the one overriding fear that crawled into Pomella’s gut and shook her off-balance was Dav’s fay creature. It shouldn’t have been unusual, but for some reason Pomella couldn’t explain, the little pineten felt wrong. There’d been an unusual number of fay creatures in the Mystwood of late, which Yarina said could be expected with Crow Tallin approaching. But there was something else that made Pomella afraid. The name Dav had given the silver animal.
Lagnaraste.
Pomella bit her lip. It wasn’t unusual for tykes to give strange names to critters they encountered. As a young child herself, she’d scampered about, naming trees and other land
marks on the edge of the Mystwood. She’d once given the surname Buttersnatcher to an entire family of rabbits she’d come across, as well as proper names to every one of them.
A loud clicking noise sounded at her window. Hector had jammed the glass pane hard.
“OK, OK, I’m coming,” Pomella said.
She pushed her worries about the fay pineten to the back of her mind. Nothing good would come from dwelling on them.
The scent of flowers and a bright sun greeted her when she finally stepped outside with her Mystic staff in hand. Pomella smiled. This was home. Her garden surrounding the cottage burst with roses and daisies and sunflowers. White lilies, too, which only bloomed in the summer. She’d planted them because they were Lal’s favorite. Her strawberries were red and ripe, so she picked one off the branch and wolfed it down. Glancing up, she saw a flock of geese flying in formation over Kelt Apar’s central tower. As always, the tower, with its green conical roof, was the focus of their community, the heart of the Mystwood, and the most iconic location on Moth.
As Pomella exited the little gate encircling her garden onto soft grass, Hector and Ena greeted her, swirling around her with their trails of silvery light.
“Hello, dear ones,” she said, holding out her fingertip for Hector to alight onto. The little bird’s silvery feathers shone as brightly as always. Hector and his smaller sister were seven years old now, which Pomella understood to be older than most hummingbirds from the human realm lived. But her birds didn’t seem to age like normal birds. They stayed forever young, eager as always to please her and cause mischief.
“What’s your secret, huh?” she asked the bird. Hector buzzed his wings. Not wanting to be left out, Ena zoomed past her brother, trying to harass him into a game of chase. Pomella could feel the siblings’ rivalry dancing around them. She’d never been able to truly explain her connection to the birds. She’d saved them from a fay crow when they were babies, and ever since they’d followed her around, seemingly attached to her in such a way that she could often distinguish their emotions. Grandmaster once told her it was rare for Mystics to permanently bond with fay creatures. Even Vivianna, who had a strong affinity for the fay, never managed to form a full bond.
As if summoned by Pomella’s thoughts, Vivianna emerged from around the corner of her nearby cabin, a storm of thoughts and nervous energy plain on her face. Her raven-dark hair was tied into a loose bun, but several strands hung loose. Shady bags circled her eyes, making it plain that sleep had eluded her. Yet despite Vivianna’s apparent fatigue, Pomella was amazed at the grace and competence her friend showed. Like Yarina, Vivianna exuded an aura of intelligence and confidence that had been bred into them with their noble upbringing. They both seemed to drift across the ground rather than walk. Perhaps it had to do with their noble upbringing. As children of wealth and privilege, both the High Mystic and her apprentice had been taught from an early age to display elegance with every action.
Pomella wiped her runny nose with her sleeve. She had no such upbringing. “Not much sleep, yah?”
Vivianna brushed a long twist of hair from her oval face. “Not a moment’s rest. I hope you enjoyed sleeping in your cottage last night,” Vivianna said.
Pomella’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Vivianna gave her a long stare. “Because all our cottages are being given to the visiting High Mystics for their stay.”
“Oh, shite,” Pomella said. She’d forgotten that.
Crow Tallin occurred only once every sixty years. For centuries, the High Mystics of the world gathered in Kelt Apar to observe a rare celestial event. Yarina had placed Vivianna in charge of overseeing many of the logistics. Pomella had offered to help, of course, but Grandmaster had surprised her by insisting she stay focused on her meditative studies instead.
“What did you expect would happen?” Vivianna said. “You don’t expect High Mystic Bhairatonix of Qin to sleep in a tent, do you?”
“Don’t they bring their own fortresses and towers and hidden fay realms to retreat to? These are High Mystics, after all.”
Vivianna’s expression didn’t change. Clearly she wasn’t going to lower herself to Pomella’s sarcasm.
“Fine. I’ll sleep on Lal’s floor,” Pomella said. “They won’t push a boot against a grandmaster’s back. Where will you be staying?”
“In the tower, attending Mistress Yarina.”
Pomella quirked an eyebrow. She and Vivianna were rarely invited into Kelt Apar’s central tower. When she’d begun her apprenticeship, she’d imagined that she would live in the tower with the High Mystic. But in all the years studying here, she and Vivianna were only brought into it for certain rituals, or for private meetings with Yarina. Vivianna, on account of actually being Yarina’s apprentice, saw the inside of the tower far more than Pomella, but still not on a regular basis. An overnight stay was all but unheard of and, in Pomella’s case, had never occurred.
Vivianna glanced at her forearm. Faint runes glowed on her skin. Vivianna traced them with her finger. It appeared to Pomella to be some sort of list.
“It’s tradition to wear red during the days leading up to Crow Tallin,” Vivianna said. “The ‘color of blood and fire,’ according to the old writings in the tower’s library.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Pomella said. “Blood and fire are different colors.”
“If you want to object, talk to the past masters,” Vivianna said. “Mistress Yarina approved some gowns for us to wear. I had them brought from Port Morrush, and they arrived this morning. The merchants from that town nearly came to blows over who would have the privilege of making them for us. I’ll have yours sent over to your cabin before highsun.”
“Thanks,” Pomella said, her mind still on the strange fay occurrences.
“How did the summons to Oakspring fare?” Vivianna asked, still not looking up.
“About as well as milk and mudshite stew,” Pomella said.
Vivianna raised an eyebrow.
“Something strange happened with a fay there,” Pomella said. She didn’t feel like explaining her interaction with Bethy. “A child somehow trapped a fay. A pineten. The entire family could see her, and the little critter didn’t dissolve back to Fayün after I severed the thin bond she had with the tyke.”
Vivianna rolled her forearm to stare at some runes on the opposite side. She pursed her lips as she consulted the information there. “There have been three other instances of fay that were visible to everyone in the area. One of those reports claimed a swarm of rats was seen in the streets of Sentry. In each instance, the fay lingered far longer than expected.”
“Have you ever heard the name Lagnaraste?” Pomella asked. “That’s what the boy named the pinten. It sounded strange to me.”
Vivianna shook her head. “Sounds like the fruit of a child with an active imagination.”
“I suppose,” Pomella said. Hector, who had lost interest in their conversation, leaped from Pomella’s hand and flew away.
Pomella noticed Vivianna watching him go. If Pomella possessed one thing that Vivianna desired, it was her bond with her hummingbirds.
“Perhaps your birds can teach us something about these other fay,” Vivianna said.
“How?” Pomella said.
“I don’t know exactly. But Mistress Yarina says all of the fay are connected. Perhaps, by better understanding the ones closest to us—to you, I mean—we can better understand their nature.”
“Perhaps,” Pomella said, glancing at her hummingbirds as they chased each other around. As far as she was concerned, these two just liked to stir up trouble.
“Just because a creature or object from Fayün looks like something you’re familiar with doesn’t mean it will behave that way,” Vivianna said. “There are many classes of fay. The ones that most commonly cross over are animals, like your hummingbirds or the pineten. But there are other, more intelligent, sometimes malevolent, creatures.”
Pomella quirked an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Well, there’s the axthos, for instance,” Vivianna said. “I’ve never seen one, but I’ve seen references to them in the tower library. They’re supposed to be nasty little creatures that delight in harming others.”
“Sounds lovely,” Pomella said, frowning.
“Then there’s worse things, such as wivans,” Vivianna said. “They’re extremely rare. They’re what you get when a fay creature ensnares—or possesses—something from the human realm. Individually the fay and the human might be fine, but when they’re merged together it’s supposed to be awful.”
Pomella thought of Dav and the pineten. The creature certainly hadn’t possessed him, but Pomella shuddered to think of what that would have been like if the pineten had.
“Awful in what way?” Pomella asked.
Vivianna shrugged. “The books I read are pretty vague. What I understand is that our world and Fayün naturally repel each other. They are content to exist beside each other, but facing apart. If something from one world becomes stuck in the other, the resulting friction aggravates its emotions, causing it to be aggressive or unbalanced.”
“Unless it has an anchor,” Pomella said, thinking of her hummingbirds and how they bonded early in their existence with her.
“Yes,” Vivianna said. “Like that.”
A familiar figure approached. Pomella and Vivianna turned at the same time as Vlenar, the laghart ranger, joined them. He wore his usual set of padded leather clothes over his scaled body. Pomella had become used to his strange, almost surreal, way of moving that was the result of both his biology and years of training.
He bowed his head as he reached them. “Misstressses,” he hissed in greeting to them both.
“Hello, Vlenar,” Vivianna said. “Any news from beyond the tree line?”
Vlenar’s tongue zipped out, its tip tasting the air, before returning. “The number of people gathered is far beyond what we expected. We are keeping them outside Kelt Apar’s borders for now, but I don’t know if we’ll have enough rangers to enforce that for very long.”
“What people?” Pomella asked.