While the children were preoccupied with harassing the little girl, Van noticed the Cup still didn’t move.
She glanced at the girl being bullied, then at the Cup.
Meh, she’ll be okay. Van was confident the other kids were just teasing the girl. It wasn’t like they were trying to kill her.
Van stepped into the pond, boots and all, and waded to the far side.
The trapped girl became more distressed.
“S-stop,” she sputtered while spitting out mouthfuls of water.
This encouraged the other kids to increase the amount of water they splashed on her. A couple of boys climbed higher on the rocks than the stuck girl and then used their bodies to redirect the nearby waterfall to wash directly on top of her.
They were drowning her.
Van looked at the Cup, it was only about twenty feet from her grasp. Then turned her eyes to the little girl.
No doubt, the girl needed help.
But, if Van got the Cup, she could use it to heal the girl if the other kids injured her.
Unless they drowned her.
Van already knew the Cup couldn’t raise children, or anyone, from the dead.
She sighed and waded over to the group of kids.
“Hey! Knock it off.” Van physically hurled one of them aside, sending him splashing into the shallow water.
She climbed onto the rocks and made her way to the little girl, the kids in the pond stopped splashing and watched.
Van raised her eyes to the two boys redirecting the waterfall. “Knock it off,” she demanded. “Don’t make me come up there! I’ll throw you down onto the rocks—not into the water. I mean it.”
The boys stopped.
As Van bent down to look at the girl’s ankle, the girl squirmed trying to get away from her.
Van hesitated and looked up at the child. “I’m here to help.”
The girl stopped squirming.
Van wrapped her hands around the girl’s dead-cold ankle.
The child said, “I want to help.”
As Van un-wedged her ankle, the girl practically pulled it out herself with no resistance. It wasn’t stuck at all, and there were no signs of injury.
The girl’s daunting blue eyes stared at Van, unblinking.
She and all the other kids held still and became silent, their eyes focused on Van.
The girl extended her arm in the same mannerism as Thalassa, indicating for Van to look at the fissure between the waterfalls.
Van had no idea what was going on, but the Cup remained on the rock pedestal, except this time it was closer to the entrance of the fissure.
Suddenly, all the children turned and walked away as if the end-of-shift bell had rung and their workday had ended. They vanished into the rock walls.
The cavern became comparatively silent, the only sound came from the rushing water from the falls.
With the Cup so close, Van didn’t waste time trying to figure out what had just happened. She descended the rocks, cautiously made her way across the water, and climbed onto the rocky edge of the pond nearest to the fissure.
Weirdest test ever.
She crossed behind one of the waterfalls, the tepid mist sprayed her face, her boots felt heavy from being waterlogged. She made it to the fissure, the Cup was not more than six feet away.
She slipped into the narrow opening.
In a blink, the scenery changed.
Van had entered an enormous circular area, though she was still enclosed by stone. The fissure behind her rumbled, enclosing Van in another cavern.
Spread before her were concentric pathways level to the ground, alternating between rivers and grassy land—a circular labyrinth. Not created by nature, but by, most likely, Thalassa’s magic. The landscape was designed around a pedestal holding a centerpiece—the Cup.
The annular rivers were wide enough for Van to know she couldn’t jump across them to the grassy land pathways, hopping from land to land until she reached the center. She had no desire to test the water by swimming across each of the rivers, having had bad experiences with sea monsters that lurked beneath the surface.
She had to face the test of solving the labyrinth. The concentric rings weren’t continuous, they were broken in certain places like a massive maze. Van needed to navigate the successive land pathways to reach the center.
She scanned the nearest entrance into the labyrinth and dashed over to it. Then she darted down the grassy pathway until it connected to the adjacent inner land ring, and dashed down that strip.
Van came to a crossing river that blocked her path. She turned around and headed back, keeping an eye on the Cup. After quite a bit of fruitless attempts to reach the Cup, she noticed the maze’s center kept changing positions. If she moved to the left, the Cup moved to the right, and vice versa.
She had reached the inner rings, yet had gotten no closer to her goal as more and more rings kept appearing between her and the Cup.
The water in the rivers grew rough as Van became more frustrated. She tried to plot out a course but couldn’t quite grasp the complicated overall structure of the maze. She ran and stopped, forced to changed directions. Then ran again and stopped. Then again and again. Going this way and that way. Over and over.
Every time she discovered a pathway and reached another inner ring, the Cup would move farther away.
She screamed in exasperation.
The waters became more disturbed. The peaks of the waves bobbed up and down and were now almost as tall as Van. Water splashed onto the grassy path where she stood.
The Cup appeared and disappeared from view as the peaks in the waves rolled up and down. It sat, just as far away as when she had entered the first outer ring.
“I’m sick of this!” Van reached into her pocket and pulled out the Coin.
It’s not cheating, she said to herself, hoping to shake the nagging feeling that the truth was the opposite.
She protected the Coin from the splashing water and stared at it in her palm, mulling over whether she should use it or not. The turbulent water continued to roll and crash in the river, spraying her.
I found it for a reason, she said inwardly, convincing herself it was the right thing to do. If using the Coin was wrong, well, she never claimed to be perfect.
She asked the Coin to show her the best path to reach the center of the maze.
The Coin pointed, and she dashed away.
The ground dropped from under her feet.
It happened so fast, Van’s legs continued running even as she fell.
She kept falling and falling—never ending—into a black abyss.
Did the Coin betray me?
Van recalled the guidance given to her by Jacynthia, about not searching for an easy solution to her problems. “Do not act out of a desire to escape the circumstances or you will fall into an abysmal pit,” Jacynthia had said.
Van had done the opposite of her spirit guide’s advice and now found herself plunging into a literal abyss.
More words came back to her, but they weren’t Jacynthia’s. “An abyss cannot be filled to overflowing.” Who said them? She couldn’t remember.
No matter. It gave Van an idea.
To save herself, she needed to get in touch with the base of her power—her feelings.
She had accepted her right to have power last year, and, now, also acknowledged her right to feel her power. She was born with the ability to reconnect with the force that made her—the Creator’s infinite power.
What does the Creator do? Create.
Although she continued to grip the Coin, Van focused instead on her blood magic, her Anchoress connection made and given to her by the Creator. Not an easy task while descending through endless darkness.
I call on my infinite power, passed down to me by my ancestors, given to me by the Creator, to fill this abyss to overflowing.
A massive amount of water rushed upward, and Van plummeted into it, slowing her descent.
Soon, Van found
herself submerged under the water with her oxygen running out.
Jacynthia had told her the Creator detached a piece of itself and made a place for Van’s existence in the worlds. To survive, Van needed to reclaim this space, to be fully present in her body so she could connect the physical and spiritual parts of her Self. She reached deep inside, to her inner light, and felt the power of the Anchoress magic as it coursed through her veins.
In her head, she said her own version of the protective mantra she had learned in school. This is my space, given to me by the Creator. I have the right to feel my power. Nothing shall enter my space that is not for my highest good. Nothing can harm me. I will it so, and so it is.
An invisible protective sphere encircled her, preventing her from drowning and giving her much needed oxygen.
Van peacefully floated upward, safe in her bubble. She tucked the Coin into her pocket.
The sphere broke the surface and disappeared, causing her to scramble to keep her head above water.
Once she became oriented, Van realized she was in one of the concentric rivers surrounding the Cup. The water in the rings had calmed and now only rippled.
Van continued to feel the connection to her power—to the Creator—and did not fear it, she trusted it.
“You can never manifest anything without feeling.” Jacynthia’s words filled her head.
With every emotional fiber of her being, and without using the Coin, Van declared her desire for the fastest route to the Cup. “I need a bridge.”
A wood bridged appeared, rolling out plank by plank over the surface of the rivers and the grassy pathways from Van to the center of the maze.
Treading water, she stared at the suspiciously formed bridge.
Van thought about it, loved the idea, said it out loud, and it had appeared.
She hauled herself out of the water and onto the bridge. Van felt so confident and trusting of her creation that she rushed across the planks without caution, keeping a steady eye on her goal.
Van reached the pedestal and, without even waiting to catch her breath, she snatched the Cup.
Her vision grew blurry.
She became dizzy.
Everything turned to black.
Chapter 50
Van was in Zurial’s bedroom in Balefire. She felt an excruciating pain in her pelvic area as blood gushed between her legs onto the bedsheets.
“Queen Zurial, you delivered early,” the midwife said. She was the only other person in the room.
Zurial knew the baby wasn’t early, she’d been two months pregnant when she married Manik. Zurial felt certain the midwife was aware of this and simply played along with the official word.
“That’s why you are bleeding so much,” the midwife continued. Her pinched face pulled even tighter.
With dread, Zurial became aware that one of Goustav’s followers stood before her and had delivered her baby. “Where is Mehal?”
The midwife turned her back to Zurial, busily fussing with the dirty linens.“Safe.”
Zurial tried to sit up but was too feeble from blood loss. She could barely lift her hand, never mind her body. “Enough with the pretense. Where is my baby?”
“Fine.” The midwife twisted around. “We know you’re poisoning the water supply,” she said with such rage saliva flew from her mouth. “Twisting the minds of every person who takes but a drink in Aduro.”
“Not poisoning.” Zurial lay helpless on the bed. “Healing.”
“You’re not healing.” The midwife snarled full of anger. “Forcing unwitting people to drink your spell!” She waved a fist in the air to emphasize the horror of Zurial’s action.
“I-I—” Zurial felt drained as it took all of her energy and concentration to speak. “I did it for peace. To placate the opposers. To stop Goustav’s rebellion.”
“Nothing could stop His rebellion!”
“I did it for the good of our people.”
The midwife snorted. “You will never be our people.”
“I wanted to spread the feeling that I shared with Manik, our love for each other. Manik and I were making our society better.”
“Everyone knows you used magic to put a love spell on King Manik.” Spittle flew from her lips with the word magic. “You’re too different, your beliefs too strange for our tribes to ever get along.”
“Accepting other’s differences is a form of healing,” Zurial muttered. The room began to spin.
“The Cup is only to be used to combat true evil,” the midwife snarled. “Not for your personal gain.”
“If Lodians and Balish can heal their emotional differences, we can live in peace. Vichors can love terrigens. Balish can love Lodians. We can pray to both the moon and the sun. Some can worship the Balish king, others the Creator. Together we all balance, like everything in nature.”
“No good comes from casting spells. Only evil.” The midwife bent, close to Zurial’s ear, making sure the queen heard every word. “I know the folklore. I know what happens when you misuse and Item of Creation. Your soul becomes darkened by its magic.”
“I should have returned the Cup to the Elementals after the war ended when the truce was in place. But—”
“You were selfish.” The midwife curled her lip in disgust at Zurial. “Always wanting more. Always pushing your agenda onto those who opposed your very existence. Using your authority, your spells. Taking away our power!” She beat her fist into her chest. “Incorrect use! The healer turns to hurting.”
Zurial could see the midwife’s point-of-view. Her overuse of the powers of the Cup had corrupted her soul. Zurial’s possession of the Cup had turned into a gluttonous obsession.
The midwife tensed as Zurial raised her trembling hand, reaching for the Cup on her bed stand, to heal herself, and then dropped it back onto the bed, too weak to grasp the item. The consequences of her misuse of the Cup resulted in the ultimate irony: the healer cannot heal herself.
“It won’t be long now.” The midwife looked relieved.
Zurial knew she meant the rebellion and Zurial’s death. Even if the Cup had healed Zurial, the midwife would have made sure the rebels slaughtered her.
Screaming and banging of furniture carried to Zurial’s ears. The clanking of swords, running feet, and slamming doors could be heard through the walls of the bedroom.
The midwife smirked as she turned and fled from the room.
Zurial felt blood continue to pour from the place between her legs, and she grew tranquil.
She knew her life was fading, and yet did not fear death.
Images of Manik, baby Mehal, Amaryl, Zurial’s parents, King Halldor and Queen Cordelia streamed through Zurial’s thoughts, along with the love Zurial felt for them—but she did not connect to this love in physical form. She connected to it in eternal form, by way of the Creator.
She found comfort in the few remaining seconds of her life, knowing that the love she shared with Manik would live on through Mehal. That the Mother Tree, where they met, would stand long after everyone they knew had died. And that her sister, Amaryl, would pass the Anchoress magic onto her first-born girl, continuing the protective bloodline.
“It’s okay that I loved Manik,” Zurial muttered to herself. “I have a right to feel the way I feel. A right to act on what is in my heart, despite opposition by other people.”
And Zurial felt she had a right to be sad that her life was slipping away…
Zurial released Van from her vision.
Van regained consciousness. The maze of concentric rivers and grassy pathways had disappeared. She was back in the lagoon, sprawled on the beach near the feet of Thalassa.
Or at least, she assumed it was Thalassa. The Water Elemental stood in front of her grand throne. She wore the same crown, but her appearance had changed. Now, her eyes were the color of mist over the sea. Her hair, a blue and white ombre that cascaded down to her waist. Her robe had been replaced by a glorious dress made entirely of seashells.
Van got to her
feet. She held the Cup in one hand and attempted to brush the sand off her damp clothes with the other. She faced Thalassa, relieved that she had passed the Elemental’s test, which seemed pretty easy compared to what she had gone through to get the Coin.
“You completed the Walk of Faith, and you were able to retrieve the Cup,” Thalassa said without any fanfare.
Van didn’t react. She waited, expecting more commentary and wasn’t disappointed.
“You arrived here estranged from your own truth,” Thalassa said. “The concentric philter cut through the weeds of falseness and fear. When doubt exists at the heart level, when you are unsure of what you feel, mistakes will be made in the direction you take. Feeling is an important step in fully connecting to your power.”
Van thought of herself back in Uxa’s office before she went on this mission. She was astounded by how much she had grown since then. The emotional numbness she felt at the beginning of her journey had been blocking her power, cutting off her connection to the Creator.
“You trusted in your Self to create that what you needed to pass the test of the concentric philter by tapping into the infinite abundance of the divine force. If one lives in connection with their higher Self through trust and faith, true creativity is effortless.”
Van felt proud over Thalassa’s confirmation that she had, indeed, manifested the water in the abyss and the bridge. She felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. “And the kids? What kind of test was that?”
“Reclaiming your right to feel is only one part of your empowerment,” Thalassa said. “Emotions must be expressed correctly to aid in the will of the Creator.”
“Correctly?” Van didn’t have any agenda when she encountered the children, other than to retrieve the Cup.
“True expression of the Self enables you to convey your feelings, but at the same time you must have consideration for others, to look at them with love and compassion,” Thalassa said. “Those who will tell any lie to avoid hurting others do not walk in accordance with the Creator. Same as those who tell the truth about how they think and feel, blurting their perception without consideration of the pain they might cause to others. To reach a balance, one must be truthful about their feelings while at the same time remain aware of how the recipient will respond. This is an important lesson to learn in regard to relationships—what you give is what you get back.”
Plague of Death Page 38