by Ethan Spears
Many dark thoughts had crossed her mind during her vigil. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d rather die than let her brother’s murderer go free; she would starve herself to death before slinking back to her sister’s clan. Her real problem was that if she starved, her death would be pointless, a futile attempt to do something but accomplishing nothing. The crone didn’t even know she was here and, for all Mergau knew, the crone might not be home at all. Mergau had never heard of this crone before, so surely she never visited the village. How could Elder Arix be sure she was still here? She could have abandoned this house, or maybe she moved as food became scarce, just as the clans did. Maybe she avoided others. Maybe she had long since died. Was Mergau waiting for a woman whose picked-clean corpse was lying in the sand somewhere?
But no. The crone was still alive, wasn’t she? Though she didn’t quite understand magic, Mergau felt certain that there wouldn’t be so much magic here if there were no one making it. Elder Arix had once referred to magic as ‘the song of nature,’ and a song can’t continue if the singer has been silenced so the same could be said of magic, right? But maybe Arix was being metaphorical. Or maybe—
“Ah, to hell with it,” Mergau mumbled, and let the idea drop.
Something flicked at the edge of her vision, causing her to turn. Nothing was there but sheer cliff face. She felt something brush her leg, but there was no creature to be seen. These hallucinations—if that’s what they were because she couldn’t tell if they were due to heat, hunger, fatigue, or magic—were becoming more frequent the longer the day wore on. Sometimes she swore she saw the door of the hut standing wide open, but then she would blink and it would be closed again.
She wanted to close her eyes and ignore these false sights, but if she closed them she might fall asleep and she was uncertain she would wake again. Yet they itched the longer she fought against her sinking lids. She blinked them once, racing the fatigue. Feeling entitled, her eyelids pulled themselves downwards again. She batted them and slapped her face, refusing to drift off to sleep. Her eyelids sank regardless.
I’ll just squint a bit. Just close them a little. So long as I can still see the door.
A sudden slamming noise shook her. She was lying on the rock, the sun low on the horizon. She sat up and rubbed her eyes punishingly with her knuckles. Damn her eyes if she didn’t fall asleep, and for half the day from the looks of it. She looked around, wondering with her sluggish head what had caused the sound, and cursed. Something must have happened with the house. It must have been the crone slamming her door. What else could it be? There was nothing for miles. And she, lying flat on her perch, would be invisible to anyone on the ground below. The crone could easily have walked right by without even noticing her. Incensed, she looked for something to throw and spotted a bowl of murky liquid resting by her feet. She struck it with her hand, sending it skittering across the ground and spilling its contents.
Or she would have. Her hand made contact with the bowl and stopped like it struck solid stone. She yelped in surprise and pulled back her hand, rubbing it as pain pulsed in her palm and elbow.
In the confusion of fresh wakefulness, she hadn’t thought twice about the bowl, but now pain cleared that clumsiness from her mind. Now attentive, Mergau reached forward again, placing her hands on the rim. She tried to lift the bowl. She pulled slowly at first, then steadily harder, using her feet to push off the ground, but the bowl remained stubbornly in place as if carved from the stone itself. She gave up, her strength defeated. The liquid inside did not even ripple from her efforts. She was overcome now with curiosity. She looked about to see if there was anything else around her.
At the base of her rocky perch was a metal spoon, possibly knocked off as she turned in her sleep. She scrambled down the cliff, energized by her excitement. She reached for the spoon but stopped herself. She slowly, delicately, tried to pick it up. Unlike the bowl, it offered no more resistance than a spoon should. She examined it, finding it silver but otherwise ordinary, though that ordinariness struck her just as oddly compared to the bowl.
Whoever left her these items wanted her to use them. It had to be the crone. Had she seen Mergau wasting away in the heat and offered her this soup to keep her alive? Drinking mud-colored soup provided by an unseen stranger wasn’t the wisest course of action, but she wanted neither to offend the crone by refusing her gift nor ignore the first real thing to drink she had seen all day.
She dipped the spoon into the bowl and brought up some of the liquid inside. She sniffed at it cautiously, but it smelled little different from the dust on her clothes. Her thirst would allow her to wait no longer, so she pushed the spoon into her mouth.
Before she had even swallowed, she felt nourished and energized. Her body shook gratefully as the liquid flowed down her throat. What a gift to receive! She reached the spoon towards the bowl again, but instead of the splash she expected, the spoon clinked dully against the bottom. The liquid had vanished, the bowl empty and as dry as the air.
Mergau’s wonder was fleeting. That grateful shaking of her body wasn’t subsiding. If anything, it was getting stronger. Soon her legs were quaking so badly that she could barely stand. Her body began jerking violently, causing her to stumble around. She was scared witless, as now every ledge of her perch seemed much too close and the chance of falling much too likely. In a panic, she began scrabbling down the cliff face, hands and feet blindly searching out holds as she slid more than climbed down. She was barely halfway down when a sudden shock ran through her. Her spine arched and her legs locked. She fell backward as her eyes rolled back into her head. Pain bit deep into her as her chest and stomach burned so intensely that she wasn’t even sure when she hit the ground. She could see nothing nor make any sound nor move in any useful way. The pain amplified with each passing moment until she would have been screaming in anguish had she been able.
She didn’t know how long she had lain there, jerking uncontrollably on the ground, when something reached out and touched her arm, sliding upward to her shoulder and around her neck. Though she would not have believed it possible, everywhere it touched burned with even greater intensity. It curled about her torso and legs and squeezed tightly. Her mind was becoming so fogged from the agony that she could barely tell where the pain was coming from anymore. Her body was one giant cloud of conflicting pain signals. She was vaguely aware of being lifted or dragged.
Something scratched at her mouth, wedging its way past her lips. It wriggled between her teeth and pried them apart. Something else followed, and a new liquid was being poured down her throat.
The pain ebbed sharply, the spasms and stiffening vanished as her eyes flickered open. She drew deep, ragged breaths, not recognizing anything for many long moments as her brain recalled how to do things besides register pain, but gradually the scene came together.
Most of her vision was occupied by a tall, thin orcish woman, her skin an unhealthy ashen color. Graying, shoulder-length hair framed a sagging face. Her eyes were narrowed, beady, and black, but they had a quality about them that made Mergau feel violated. This woman tore something personal away from Mergau with the power of her gaze.
She realized then that they were indoors, doubtless in the crone’s house, and likely before the crone herself. Mergau had expected the crone to possess many books and items of a magical nature—cauldrons, crystal balls, animal innards, an inexplicable and bizarre pet—but the walls were exceedingly bare, even more so than Jierta’s poor abode. She felt weightless, finally recognizing that the constricting sensation on her arms and legs were restraints that held her suspended in the air.
The crone stood before her, a wraithish visage, in silence, but something else was making noise. A high-pitched wail that penetrated Mergau’s skull. She had questions to ask, demands to make, and threats to issue, but all she could do was continue her coarse breathing until she had her body back under control.
The crone shifted and loomed above Mergau. “Welcome, prideful one,”
she said, her strange voice ringing in Mergau’s still-foggy head. Each word seemed to carry a different pitch than the one before it as if spoken by different voices. “You come seeking the crone, and at finding the crone you have succeeded. But what does the child do now that she has found the crone?”
Mergau was having trouble interpreting the words being spoken to her. She shook her head to clear it and felt droplets fly in all directions. Sweat ran all down her body, soaking her skin and clothes.
“A lesson,” said the crone, bending her head close to her suspended guest’s. “If one wishes to go places where treacherous people lurk, one must learn to not fall prey to treachery. “
Mergau attempted to move her arm but was far too weak. The restraints didn’t seem strong, but she was still unable to escape them.
“You are held for both safeties, yours and—” her head jerked violently, suppressing some word she was going to speak, “—my own,” she said, shifting again. “You are not one to be reasonable, and our reason is hardly absolute. So things are.”
“What...” Mergau managed. She ran her tongue along her dry lips. How could she sweat so much and still have such dry lips? “What did I drink?”
“Brown-Spine Centipede soup,” said the crone, drifting slowly backward, her motion oddly fluid. “They are frightfully poisonous, and that poison is now in your body. But it was necessary to give you the poison.”
“Necessary? Why?”
The woman blinked in lieu of an answer.
Mergau’s vision was clearing. The crone had an expression on her face that Mergau wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t happy or sad or angry or curious, but a strange look filled with emotions, all alien to Mergau. Terror rose within her. The crone spoke all wrong and looked like a dead thing come back to life. Was this woman even an orc, or just a hideous doppelganger? The crone approached and Mergau began to tremble.
“Please,” Mergau said, practically panting with fear, “I don’t know why you’ve chained me up, but I didn’t mean any harm. I came here for help, nothing more.”
“But you do mean harm,” the crone cooed gently. She pressed her hands together and pulled them apart, a globe of green light expanding between them. Inside the globe was a forest littered with the bodies of a hundred orcs, among them a group of elves with their bows directed at her. She recognized the scene as one she had seen through her own eyes. And at the head of the group of elves was him, his yellow hair and sharp, wicked face sneering at her.
She saw her hand reaching out of its own accord, swiping at the globe and dispersing it into a cloud of light and mist. Her hand painfully snapped back, reeled in by the restraints. She tried to move it forward again, but she couldn’t bring it past her face. How she managed such a savage strike while so exhausted was beyond her.
“You have purposes,” the crone whispered. “Some might consider them dark. We? Not mine to judge. Others will find use for you, just as, we are shamed to admit, they have for I.” She shook her head, disappointed. “Being a pawn for any sits not well with me.”
A splash of water hit Mergau’s face. She didn’t know from whence the water came but it was cooling and quenching and she didn’t care.
“Thank you,” Mergau was able to gasp, then felt silly for thanking her captor. She pulled feebly at the chains again to make up for it.
“That was my parting gift to you, from one tool to another.” The crone moved back once more, and Mergau could see the crone’s feet dangling below her a foot off the floor. Was the crone flying? Was Mergau hallucinating? Or dreaming? Nothing seemed real at the moment.
“Parting? I don’t...” her words left her as she stared at the floating figure before her.
“May your next host be as generous, though we predict this will not be.”
With those words, the crone’s head rolled back and her eyes closed. Without warning, she fell limp from the air, crashing hard to the ground. Mergau jumped in the restraints, but she was otherwise unable to react. The keening noise faded and the fog retreated from her head. Now acutely aware of her circumstances, the terror returned.
“Are you alright?” Mergau called to the still body below her. “Hey!” she jerked one of her arms. “I can’t get out of this thing. I need you to get me out of this thing before you go and die!” She pulled at the restraints again and again, calling out to the woman lying on the floor, but received no response. She could feel a dangerous fatigue setting in and knew she was wasting what precious little energy her starving body had.
She gave up against the restraints and hung in silence, staring at the body below her. The crone’s chest was rising and falling steadily, so at least she wasn’t dead. Yet, anyway; she wasn’t exactly healthy-looking. Mergau twisted her body trying to look at her restraints, but nothing seemed to be holding her in place. More magic. She had experienced more magic in the past three days than she had since her birth. Kuric and Pononon, the shamans of Pon Gundruc, occasionally used their magic to make the rains come or the plants grow, but they were always measured with its use. The crone was different: the bowl, the floating, the green vision orb, the restraints; magic was easy for her, perhaps even necessary.
But why did the restraints hold her still? Whenever the shamans used magic, they needed to sit and wait, talk and chant. If the crone was unconscious, how could Mergau still be held? There was so much about magic she didn’t understand yet, but she didn’t think there was that much. Perhaps even the shamans didn’t know?
But thinking of the shamans reminded her that they were dead, killed in the forest with her brother, and she stopped thinking about them.
It felt a long time before the crone shifted, letting loose a low groan. Shakily, she pushed herself up to her knees, struggling to stay even that short distance off the ground.
“Ugh,” she moaned, her voice husky. “How long was I gone this time?” she mumbled to herself.
“It felt like a few hours,” said Mergau.
At the sound of Mergau’s voice, the crone’s head snapped up, her index finger extended and pointed at Mergau’s chest, attempting to squint Mergau into focus. Mergau dangled defiantly at her, however, and the crone lowered her hand once more.
“How did you get into my house?” said the crone from her position on the floor. Mergau noticed that her voice had become normal, if perhaps a bit deep for a woman. Likewise, her skin was regaining a healthy green color and her hair was darkening like it was soaking up ink from the scalp. The wrinkles and folds ironed themselves out until her face was smooth. Her eyes were still hard, but lost much of that unsettling piercing quality, though not all of it. Soon, she looked like a normal orcish woman; though not exceedingly attractive, she was at least not the hideous thing she was before.
At length, Mergau stopped studying the crone and registered her question. She frowned, thinking the woman was toying with her. “You poisoned me and dragged me here. I was happy to wait outside until that happened.”
“Ah, of course,” the crone said sluggishly, pressing a palm to her forehead. She sounded more confused than Mergau was.
Mergau didn’t have time to make sense of this comment before she felt herself falling, released from her restraints. She landed roughly, knocking the wind from her.
“The one you were speaking to was not me,” the crone said matter-of-factly like she picking up a conversation that had recently stalled. “I was not myself… but what do 'I' or 'myself' even mean in this situation?” She paused in consideration, then shook her head. “What you spoke to was a sprite, a mind-dweller that swims in time. It had control of my faculties. Any actions it took were not by any whim of mine.”
Mergau rolled to her back and caught her breath. “Well, you, or it, or whatever, poisoned me,” she said, sitting up.
The crone nodded, testing her balance as she rose to her feet. “Sprites are strange beings, to say the least. They possess seers who overuse their powers, which I had foolishly done. It’s one of the dangers of staring too long into the f
low of time, for the future was not meant to be known, nor the past relived. They’re not malicious, but they know no sympathy, either. It’s best not to find out about them the hard way. That is my first lesson to you.”
Mergau rubbed her legs, trying to soothe the tingling in them. Her backside sank into the dirt floor which had been soaked to mud from her sweat. “Lesson?” Then, more excitedly, “First?”
The crone crossed her arms, smiling in a self-satisfied way. Then her arms came uncrossed as she tottered and had to catch herself on the wall. Trying not to look embarrassed, she said, “You’re speaking to a seer, girl. I knew you would come, as I know why you’ve come. I decided to let you be my student years ago.”
Mergau’s heart jumped. “Really?”
“Did I not just say so? Training can start that much sooner if we bypass all the pointless questions. Now, are you going to introduce yourself?”
Mergau gave her a suspicious look. “You must know my name if what you’ve said is true.”
For this, she received a glare. “That’s no reason to throw manners out the window,” the crone snapped. “Now state your name!”
Mergau winced under the crone’s angry gaze. She got on her knees and bowed, speaking quickly. “My name is Mergau of Pon Gundruc. I’ve come to plead with you to let me learn the ways of magic. I beg you not to reject me.” She blushed furiously. “I mean—sorry. I was practicing my begging while I was waiting. I didn’t expect…” she trailed off, mumbling into the mud.
The crone nodded and softened her voice. “As I said, I know why you’ve come. I’ve seen you hunting the elf for vengeance.”
Mergau’s face lifted. “Do I kill him?”
She received another scowl from the crone. “Will knowing the answer help your training?” Mergau stared at her open-mouthed. “When I ask a question, answer me promptly!”
Mergau jolted. “I-I suppose not,” she admitted unhappily.
“Then you have no reason to know. Honestly,” the crone muttered as she twirled her hand in the air and a book appeared in its grasp, causing Mergau to marvel, “do parents not teach their children to answer questions these days?”