by Jason Denzel
“I am a Mystic and student of Grandmaster Faywong,” Pomella said. “The days of Crow Tallin is upon us and I tire of your antagonism.”
Mantepis thrashed beneath her unseen grip. A tingling sensation tickled the back of her neck. She turned just as Quentin rushed her. Without movement, and nearly without thought, Pomella hurled the Myst at him, knocking him back as if he’d been hit by a massive club.
Returning her attention to Mantepis, she saw the fay creature claw his way to his thin legs. He recoiled and hissed at her, “How dare you?”
“No,” Pomella stormed. “You reside in the human realm in the domain of the High Mystic of Moth. You’ve enslaved a man and withheld information I require. Lives are at stake. Give me the information I seek.”
“It won’t matter,” Mantepis said. “You can meddle all you like, but the High Mystics are the ones truly in control.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Mantepis thrashed in vain against the bonds holding him down. He glared at her with his slitted eyes for a long moment. She remained steady atop her wave, radiating power. Somewhere in the back of her mind she marveled at how easily she Unveiled the Myst.
Finally, Mantepis wilted. “Very well. You are more powerful than I thought,” he admitted. “Treorel burns in you. Good. May that fire spark the return of the true Mystics to this land.”
“Lagnaraste,” Pomella prompted.
“None have asked me of her since Brigid herself, nearly a thousand years ago,” Mantepis said. “If it is the queens and barons and sadans of your world who rule the human realm, then it is Lagnaraste who reigns as queen over Fayün. All fay pay homage to her.”
“All fay, except you,” Pomella said.
A shadow crossed Mantepis’ long face. “I reside in Fayün no longer. Lagnaraste saw to that, long ago, when he cast me out.”
Pomella frowned. “He? Moments ago you referred to Lagnaraste as queen.”
“Your High Mystic Willwhite is not the only being whose gender changes. Lagnaraste was once the king with a name, but now is queen with another.”
“Must you always speak in riddles?” Pomella said.
“I say it as plainly as I can. If you want answers, go to Lagnaraste.”
“How can I find her?” Pomella asked.
Mantepis stretched his neck closer to Pomella. “For that, you must go through the veil, where the worlds meet, and enter Fayün itself.”
Pomella considered Mantepis a moment longer, then released the Myst. She silently commanded the water to lower her back to the shore and let it retreat to the stillness of being a pond.
Freed of his invisible shackles, Mantepis wobbled to his legs. “You should be careful what you seek. I had an apprentice once, who fled from me and entered Fayün, but became trapped. The fool only took his pet, and nothing else. You would be wise to avoid his fate.”
Pomella knew of the veil, of course, the insubstantial barrier separating Fayün and the human world. But she sensed there was more. “How do I get there?”
Mantepis lifted his foreleg to the thick tree branch and climbed back up before entwining himself around the branch. “The passages between worlds change, but you will know it when you see it.”
As he came to a comfortable rest, Pomella felt a moment of pity for the creature. It had been so easy to throw him. He appeared far less intimidating than he had before. Pomella suddenly wondered if he lacked the power he so boastfully claimed to have.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said. “I owe you a debt, which I will repay after Crow Tallin.”
Mantepis flicked his tongue and considered her. “You owe me nothing,” he said. “You remind me of Brigid. She, too, had … unconventional … methods of seeking information. Interestingly, you share similar goals.”
Pomella’s mind raced. In the Toweren, Saint Brigid had visited a number of powerful beings in her hunt to find her son. One particular creature had proven more challenging than others to tame.
“Corenach,” Pomella whispered.
Mantepis slinked back into his tree. “When you live long enough, you gather many names,” he said. “I wonder, Pomella AnDone, the Hummingbird, what names will they give you when you take your last breath? Will those names be a praise, or a curse? My last advice to you, given freely, is that you release your hubris. If you fail to do that, you may share Brigid’s fate.”
Mantepis’ eyes shimmered once, then closed, and he was gone.
SIXTEEN
SITTING MOTHER
Four Years Before Crow Tallin
The early-morning sun rose above the mountains of Qin that had become Sim’s home. Snow sparkled on the peaks surrounding him, left by late-winter storms that only recently passed. The gentler weather meant that the trails would be open now, giving Sim an opportunity to move on.
But first, he had to burn the remains of an entire village.
For the rest of the world, winter had ended, but here in the highlands, its cold embrace lingered, clutching most of the land as well as Sim’s heart. The villagers laid out before him would never feel the warmth of the spring sun again.
Sim fingered the fox orchids he’d found in a patch of sunlight near a spring west of the village. The flowers were the first hopeful sign he’d seen in months that the nightmare season was coming to an end. The Qina word Swiko and the rest of the villagers used for the geyser near their home meant “Mother’s Water.” Year round, even in the deepest cold, it emerged from the mountainside, steaming-hot water that would then cool and eventually freeze. The fox orchids had grown on the banks of the foggy pool.
Look for the unusual petal shapes that resemble a fox’s face, Rochella had taught him years ago before they’d come to the village. They only grow in the Qin highlands, and are one of the few orchids you can eat. Their seeds, too, can be gathered and consumed, although if you’re less desperate you can powder them and use them as a seasoning.
He let Rochella’s voice fade into the silence that surrounded him. He was alone, but the memory of her, and the more recent memories of Swiko and the other villagers. They’d joined Dane’s voice in the chorus of people he’d lost. Sim didn’t think he’d ever stop hearing those people, nor did he want to.
He stepped forward to place the flowers on the funeral pyre he’d erected. Swiko had been the first to welcome him into the village, and the last to die from the plague. In his arrogance Sim had hoped she and the other villagers wouldn’t catch the disease he knew he carried. How he could carry it, and have skin rashes, but not die was something he still didn’t understand.
After only a handful of weeks the skin rashes had begun to appear on the villagers. Unable to leave because of the snow, Sim quarantined himself in Bith Yab’s old house, but it was too late. One by one the villagers died the same horrible deaths that had taken Dane and Pomella’s mhathir all those years ago.
Angry challengers had come to the hut, demanding that Sim be thrown out of the village. But Jal Yab, the old man who’d given him the onkai staves, insisted that wasn’t their way. Sim realized that the elderly man must’ve known it was too late anyway.
During his time in Bith Yab’s home, Sim found a strange parchment letter mixed with the clutter that had resulted from the Mystic’s attempted escape from the laghart wivan. The letter was written in Qina, which he couldn’t read, but at the top was the same twisted-serpent symbol that he’d seen on the cave where he’d died. He would’ve asked Swiko to read it to him, but by then she was too far gone.
No tears ran down Sim’s face as he laid the flowers across the villagers’ bodies. The winter had frozen his heart, locking his emotions in cold ice. He’d come to love Swiko, first for her kindness and affection, and later as her lover and constant companion. Even when the rashes appeared on her body, she continued to care for the others, and came to visit him in his hut on the edge of the village. He brewed cloudcap tea for her every day until his modest stash was gone. There was none more to be found during the winter. The herb slowed the
plague, but as soon as it was gone Swiko succumbed. In her final days Sim did what he could to keep her comfortable.
“When spring arrives,” she had whispered, “go to Sitting Mother. Look for her on the mountain.” At her whispered request, he’d given her an overwhelming dose of silverbane that night, which caused her to drift into a sleep she’d never wake from. She died snuggled into his shoulder.
“Thank you for teaching me,” he said to her corpse, speaking in Qina. “May you eat at Sitting Mother’s table.”
He lit the pyre with a torch, then stood back and let his gaze linger upon her peaceful face one last time. He’d dressed her himself, and placed herbs in her mouth, in accordance with their tradition, so that when she came to Sitting Mother she could contribute to the peh-cha tea that was really the ocean stretching across the world. He’d done the same for all the other villagers, including Jal Yab.
Sim watched the fire consume his lover and her community. The smoke and embers drifted skyward, joining wispy clouds that sailed overhead like ghosts leaving their bodies. And like a ghost himself, Sim gathered his pack and onkai staves and left the village forever.
* * *
Months ago, as the winter storms had rolled over the highlands like a fat noble storming a commoner wedding to demand wine, Swiko had told Sim of Sitting Mother, who lived atop the great mountain to the northeast. It was there, at the summit, that Sim’s wounds could be healed, his burdens eased, and the way forward revealed. Many people on Qin sought Sitting Mother’s wisdom.
Sim didn’t know what he would actually find at the summit, if anything. Perhaps Sitting Mother was a reclusive Mystic, or perhaps a Saint. But whoever, or whatever, she was, he felt obligated to find her for Swiko and the other villagers. And maybe for himself, although he didn’t really think that Sitting Mother would have anything for him.
Perhaps, he thought to himself as he trudged away from the mountain village, he went because he had nowhere else to go.
We are rangers. We do what we always do. We move, and we survive.
Rochella’s ghost, again.
By the time the sun hung directly overhead on his first day away from the village, Sim’s boots were soaked from ice and snow. He adjusted the scarf around his face to keep the cold off. He had no guide, no map, and, if he was being honest with himself, no practical idea of how he’d get to the mountain where Sitting Mother lived. All he could do was walk toward it and hope for the best. He’d learned much about wilderness survival from Rochella, and now it was time to put that knowledge to practical use.
For the first handful of days, he survived on rations he’d brought from the village. When those thinned, he set about tracking animals in the snow, hoping to follow tracks to a den where he could maybe snare a rabbit or fox.
It still snowed some days, but the snowflakes were thin, and melted as soon as they touched anything but existing snow. When Sim descended the side of any mountain, he found less snow, and more signs of springtime. He managed to track and kill a skinny deer with Rochella’s bow. Even though the snow was melting in these valleys, winter hung on to the higher slopes. When it was time to ascend a new slope on the far side of whichever valley he’d come to, Sim found less wildlife and more obstacles. When he summited each crest, he looked back across the valley he’d crossed, and looked ahead toward Sitting Mother’s mountain.
Keeping warm and dry was his priority. Between his rations, including what he’d preserved from his deer, and what he managed to forage, he had enough to eat for now. More than ever, he was grateful for Rochella’s lessons on understanding which plants and roots he could safely consume. His greatest fear was a late-winter storm blowing in and burying him. If he wanted to make it to Sitting Mother, he had to hurry across the many valleys and hard terrain ahead
Rangers roam to the places where there are no trails, Rochella’s voice reminded him as he trekked through dense underbrush. What makes a true ranger is not only the ability to survive, but finding a way through seemingly impossible obstacles.
At night, Sim set campfires and huddled beneath furs. He slept in hollowed-out trees whenever possible with the fire crackling nearby, letting it go as long as he could in order to discourage hungry mountain animals. On evenings when he was lucky, he managed to find a dry hollow or cave he could sleep in.
He tried his hand at whittling a flute from some elderberry. The branches were hollow, so even his crude attempts at creating an instrument resulted in something that produced sounds when he blew through it.
He also read from The Book of Songs. It had been Pomella’s book, finely made originally, but now worn and weathered. The book hadn’t been crafted to weather long journeys on the road. Over the years it had been thrown into bushes, rained on, dropped, misplaced, and found again. He knew each page by memory now but still thumbed through it every night.
Sim didn’t understand the musical notations within the pages, nor had he been taught to read the noble rune language. But he could read the common runes scattered through the book, and he could decipher at least a few of the simpler noble runes using context.
On the tenth night out from the mountain village, under a sleepy crescent moon, the fire crackled as Sim roasted a small rabbit on a spit. He began to sing, surprising himself with his own voice. He used words he’d memorized from The Book of Songs:
“Listen Once,
Hear Me thrice.
From stars to shore,
Across paradise.
I cry, I call, I plea.
My lost one,
Come Back to Me.
Come Back to Me.”
The tune he used probably wasn’t the one the Book called for, but there was no other way for him to know. He contended himself with singing what he thought sounded nice.
The next day he came at last to Sitting Mother’s mountain. The summit towered above him, lost, for the moment, behind an iron-gray storm cloud. Not wanting to risk being caught out in the open, he decided to set his camp and reserve his strength for a long climb tomorrow.
As he set about looking for shelter, a brief break in the clouds allowed him to see the summit more clearly. He stopped, and his heart raced.
A figure sat at the top of the mountain. The tiny form was hard to distinguish from a distance, forcing Sim to squint against the fading light. It appeared to be a person sitting cross-legged on the ground, peering toward him. Cursing, Sim leaped behind a tree and waited. The hair on his arms stood on end and shivers ran up his spine. He waited as long as he dared before he slunk away and found a safe place to peer at the person.
When he looked again, the clouds blocked his view. His heart raced. Sitting Mother. He was close.
But like a vengeful tyrant, the storm clouds tore into the mountainside, dumping snow. By whatever grace that cared two clips’ worth for his life, Sim managed to find a shallow alcove on the lee side of several boulders. Trembling from fear and bone-deep cold, he started his fire and attempted to occupy his attention by carving another flute from his bundle of elderberry.
Thunder and snow rocked the mountain, sending waves of terror through his heart. He clutched his knees hard to his chest, trying to convince himself that it was just a storm. He was a ranger, not a cowardly child. Rochella had never hugged herself and cried in fear. Vlenar didn’t cower at what he knew was only some snow and thunder.
Hold a healthy dose of respect for nature, Rochella’s voice said from the past, for it is surely a mighty expression of the Myst.
More thunder hammered the mountain, and Sim found that he couldn’t hold back his tears. He forced himself to play his flute and sang as if it were a peace offering to the storm.
If the storm accepted his offering, it did not say. But the music gave him strength. He let his tears fall but straightened his back. The storm could take his life, but it could not hurt his heart. He’d already lost his closest loved ones. His body was walking death to anyone he met. Perhaps Sitting Mother had seen him or sensed his poisonous presence and
had sent the storm to eradicate him.
“I won’t be afraid,” he said to himself. “The worst has already happened to me.”
The winds howled, the skies roared, and within his little shelter Sim waited to die, alone.
* * *
It took most of the next day to dig himself out of his cave. In that time he consumed the rest of his food. He preserved his fire as long as he could, using it on makeshift torches to help melt a path out and keep his canteens full.
Exhaustion clawed at him, but he pressed on, seeking escape. He refused the easy seduction of giving up, of lying down and letting the mountain put him to sleep forever in a blanket of snow. He would continue on. Move onward.
Like a ranger.
Eventually, Sim punched a numb fist out of the tunnel he’d dug and exited his snowed-in alcove. Blue skies greeted him. He collapsed to his knees, trying to catch his breath. Weakened from hunger and feeling the effects of high mountain air, Sim forced himself to stand once more.
He gathered his remaining supplies and set off, leaning more heavily than normal on his onkai staves.
There was no food to be found this high up on the mountain. Only icy winds and snow. From this height he could look back across all the valleys and lesser mountains he’d traversed to get here. Down below, Spring stretched forth its hand, bringing warmth and greenery. But here, in the highest steps of the world, winter was ever present and unyielding. Patches of bare rock were rare, and plant life all but extinct.
He was close, though. Sitting Mother waited for him on a high rock outcropping that he could just barely see from his angle.
It took him the better part of the day to find a way to the summit. His body screamed in hunger, but at this point he refused to stop until he found Sitting Mother. She had to have food if she was surviving up here. Even Saints needed nourishment. Sim prayed that she would have food and answers and a cure for the plague he carried.
He stopped.