Bone, Fog, Ash & Star

by Catherine Egan

  You caught the boy as he was crossing between life and death and you brought him back to life. This one has already crossed. There is no bringing him back. This is the way of things. Why can’t you let go?

  “I cannay,” she whispered. “Nay Foss.”

  The Vermilion Bird winged over Di Shang now, and though her eyes were pressed shut Eliza had no choice but to see what it showed her.

  The Citadel soared white and proud as ever at the edge of the desert. A beautiful young witch with black skin and amber eyes received a small, jeweled blade from Kyreth. Eliza recognized it. It was Malferio’s blade. Malferio knelt before the witch and Kyreth, his expression dazed, stupefied. The young woman grabbed him by the hair and drove the blade into the back of his neck, uttering an incantation as she did so. He gave a few rapid, stunned gasps, looking up at the triumphant girl in miserable disbelief. Kyreth watched, expressionless, as Malferio crumpled to the ground. At the same instant, Eliza saw Nia frozen in the Hall of the Ancients, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly before she fell. Eliza felt the Urkleis in her chest give a desperate throb and then crumble.

  Charlie was running through a wood.

  “I cannay watch!” screamed Eliza, unable to turn away or shut the vision out. “Dinnay show me!”

  An arrow pierced him, and then another. He stumbled and fell and in an instant the Thanatosi were upon him, blades flashing. Nell came staggering through the woods after him, bleeding heavily from a wound in her shoulder. The Thanatosi ignored her, leaping away and vanishing, leaving Charlie on the forest floor. Nell was sobbing. She threw herself over the dead body of her friend. “Eliza!” she cried. “Where are you?”

  Eliza could make no reply.

  Your worst fears will come to pass. Everything you dread. But he met his end after hundreds of years. Is it so terrible? An end must come for us all, even for we Immortals. We all will pass. The question is only when.

  She saw her Grandmother Selva laid out by the Faithful, who sang their mourning songs around her funeral pyre. She saw her parents, old and frail, playing chess together in their tent. She saw the Sorma funerals, her parents buried in the desert, the graves unmarked in the Sorma tradition. The endless sands swept over them, their bones lost forever.

  She saw Nell, but so much older that it took a moment to recognize her. There were spidery lines around her violet eyes and her bright chestut hair had faded to grey. She was wearing a lab coat and her hair was pulled back as she examined a series of slides. The room was swaying – she was on a boat of some kind. A bearded man wearing a yellow raincoat entered the room suddenly, saying something with great excitement. Nell looked up from what she was doing and it seemed as if she was looking right into Eliza’s eyes.

  The world continues without you. The survivors will grieve for you and live on, and then they too will pass and be mourned. What can you do? What is it you fear so? Some few extra years of life for some, if you fail or if you succeed? Does it make any difference? In the end, it is the same for us all.

  She saw Nell with grown children laughing around a table, a man whose face she did not recognize. She saw the children, grey-haired and with children and grandchildren of their own, burying their mother. The funeral was in Kalla and there were hundreds of people there. Of course, in a lifetime, so many would come to love Nell.

  She saw Kyreth in his passing, and Ka succeeding him as Supreme Mancer – the Citadel unchanged, but without a Sorceress.

  You disappeared from the story. It carries on without you.

  The Vermilion Bird blinked its black eyes and centuries flew by.

  Four hundred years after you left the worlds, what do you see?

  The Mancers doing their Magic in the Citadel. The Faeries recovering from their disastrous failure to obtain the Gehemmis. Emyr deposed, Alvar crowned. Another wizard, far less benevolent than Uri, lives in Lil now, and most of the womi have left. A young witch in Tian Xia hears for the first time the story of the last Sorceress. How the Shang Sorceress defeated the Xia Sorceress and then disappeared in the South. Legend has it she became one of the lights in the Sparkling Deluder’s Hanging Gardens. That one, you see, that winking light at the top of the spire: we call that one Eliza. Immortal Amarantha still wreaks havoc from her home in the Irahok mountains.

  The Vermilion Bird blinks again. Millenia pass. Amarantha offends the Horogarth and he topples the Irahok mountains, trapping her beneath them forever. The visionary King Jalo, son of Nikias, leads the Faeries to the land in the west, all of them together, their Realm of Illusion abandoned. The old stories are forgotten.

  Do you still wish to go back to the changed world?

  Her heart thrums. She wants to go back. Even now, even thousands of years too late, with no one who will know her or love her, she wants to go back.

  “Yes. Send me back.”

  You can stay here if you wish. My brightest star. Eliza.

  “I want to go back.”

  You want to live.

  “Yes.”

  For a few years.

  “However long I can. Yes.”

  But look. There is more.

  The Vermilion Bird blinks. Eliza feels herself wheeling away from the worlds, their past and their future, into vast, empty space. Beyond the sun and the circling planets, and out and out, galaxies spinning, and then nothingness, nothingness, forever nothingness. She can’t hold on to this strip of light. She slips away from it. The vastness is unfathomable. Her mind bursts into black winged shapes that flee the awful truth. Life is dwarfed by emptiness, lifelessness; it is a quivering speck in an endless dead sea. She opens her eyes, slow, like a newborn. She is lying in a pool of light. No. She is cupped in the hand of the Sparkling Deluder. The bright face overhead. Still, even now, beauty can fill her up.

  “You dinnay know what it’s like to love,” says Eliza. What a tiny voice. What a fragile little body. She almost wants to laugh at herself for bothering to speak at all. And yet.

  Perhaps that is why I brought you here. To teach me about love.

  She feels as if she is coming to pieces slowly. She holds out a hand and watches, fascinated: a darkness forms on her skin, swells wetly, like black water dripping out of her. It takes shape and as it drops away from her becomes a raven. It happens again and again, not just in her hand but all over her. She is leaking ravens. They disappear into space. There is nowhere they can fly to. There is nowhere to go.

  I know what pity feels like. You feel it now.

  For the ravens with nowhere to go. For herself, lost from her own life. For those she loves who will die in fear, clinging to their one brief life. For those she does not love or know, who live and die baffled and hoping, but for what? For life, wonderful and strange, marked with sorrow. Time and Space are unthinkable but they are barren too. Only life is truly beautiful, truly pitiful.

  You can step out of the story and it continues without you, and it is not so terrible. Do you remember, even, what you meant to do, or why you came?

  Eliza thinks. The ravens slipping out of her, slipping away, make her feel weaker by the moment and it is difficult to think straight. There was a reason, something important. She came for an object, but she can’t think why she should need it. She remembers a boy running in a wood. She wanted to help him. That was it. She wanted to save him. She came here to save him. But he is dead now. They are all dead now.

  Come.

  She is on the solitary strip of light again, standing at the edge of it, looking out over the emptiness of space. The Sparkling Deluder is behind her, beckoning her back towards the Hanging Gardens.

  You will be my purest star, Eliza, so full of pity, so full of love. You will shine here forever, until the end of the worlds, when the universe closes up again, folds itself up and disappears.

  “I want to go back.”

  Look at you. You are too old now. You would not live long in any case.

  She looks at her hands. They are shriveled and wrinkled, speckled with liver spots. She snatch
es at her hair, which hangs to her waist, ash-grey. She touches her face, feels the grooves and lines. She has grown old here, an old woman.

  “How long have I been here?”

  Again, that pealing laugh. The Sparkling Deluder shines brighter and brighter.

  Come, Eliza. They are all gone. It is finished. Be my purest star.

  “Send me back.”

  Send you back to die?

  “Yes.”

  I will send you back mad, with a wild stutter and terrible visions. You will stumble to and fro, a crazed old witch, until you drop dead or some other being puts you out of your misery. You will be a warning to all. They will know you came from me and that I am not to be approached lightly. You come and say you are in love, you ask me to give you the gift of my parents, the Ancients, and I show you time and space and still you want to go back, you want to go back. Then go back. Go back toothless and gibbering and remembering nothing. Go back sick and frail and ridiculous. Go back and be mocked and spurned. You may enjoy a sunset or two before you die.

  “I havenay asked you for the Gehemmis yet.”

  I won’t send you back. I will put you atop that spire, my purest star, lovely Eliza. The last Sorceress, from the last days of Tian Di. I will go and call the Mancers back and the Crossing will dry up. Di Shang will be alone, as it was meant to be. The end. The end of the story. Eliza. Come.

  Her heart ached. Ravens dripped from her skin. What was there to fear, now? This was only what she knew would happen. That it would all end here. But she would not go and be a star. That would be surrender.

  “You dinnay know pity,” she said. “You are cruel and pitiless. I willnay be your star. You dinnay deserve me.”

  Justice! A very human notion. Well then, old woman, what will you do?

  Eliza jumped.

  The Hanging Gardens reeled above and she fell into the blackness, ravens pulling out of her skin, peeling themselves out of her veins, her blood all dark feathers and wing and claw now, her flesh disappearing into a thousand ravens or more, becoming one with the dark.

  She fell forever, until the last of her became a bird, became the dark, and nothing, nothing at all.

  ~~~

  It’s funny that you think you have a choice.

  (To be light. Not like the stars of the galaxies, vast orbs of gas and flame, but light itself. A brilliance among brilliance, unfading forever. There is consciousness, too, though of a different kind. The star holds certain things within: the sensation of flight, the smell of the sea, her father’s voice. These are the clearest. And then there is the boy running through the wood; that is important. Again and again memories rise up and fade. Certain among them repeat over and over. A beautiful woman in red pajamas eating ice-cream on a divan. She throws aside the ice-cream, leaps to her feet crying out joyfully, Eliza! I’m so glad you’ve come! And she is so glad too that for a moment she is almost Eliza, almost a girl standing there, cold and frightened. But why frightened, when this woman is so warm in her greeting? Why be afraid? She can’t remember that. She shines with longing.)

  You still want to go back.

  (She smells the sea. She tastes honey on her tongue. She hears her father laughing. Sand between her toes and the sizzle of the barbecue.)

  The Sparkling Deluder is holding a box. The box is made of darkness and symbols are etched on it with light. Inside the box is the first star.

  You imagine you can use the Gehemmis to stop the Thanatosi.

  (She sees the boy running through the wood. An arrow cuts right through him and she wants to scream but can’t.)

  But nothing can stop the Thanatosi. Not the greatest Magic in the world. Pursuit is what they are and to stop them you would have to stop them existing. Some things, once done, cannot be undone.

  (Sand between her toes. The running boy. She wants to scream. The taste of honey. Laughter. Send me back.)

  Eliza, your love is terrible, beautiful. It is selfish and giving at once. It can survive time and space and all things. Love is what you are. To snuff it out, I would have to stop you existing. Some things, once felt, cannot be unfelt.

  (Blue sky, blue sea, two girls on the cliff. A voice, her own? “I seriously doubt that Nat Fillion really jumped off here.” The other girl looks at her with violet eyes, adjusts the straps of her swimsuit, and opens her mouth to reply.)

  Though it will not be what you hope or expect it to be, I will give you the Gehemmis and send you back to the world, to the very moment you left it. But you must make me two promises.

  (The way his eyebrows turn up at the ends. Her father on horseback, grinning down at her. A shining being beams at her, “Do not be discouraged!” Anything. I’ll do anything.)

  You must separate the worlds. Then you may live out your life, be it a few days or a hundred years. When your time comes, I will send the Vermilion Bird to bear you back here. Then you will become my brightest star and remain here always.

  (Hope like a salty breeze, something almost forgotten. I promise.)

  You will not like what must be done to separate the worlds. But if you break your promise to me, I will pluck you out of the worlds as if you had never existed.

  ~~~

  The Sparkling Deluder walked out into the blackness, the star in its palm of webbed light. They left the Hanging Gardens twinkling behind them. With one finger, the Deluder drew a circle in the black and through it they saw the world again. The star became a raven.

  I will see you soon, Eliza, my purest star.

  The Sparkling Deluder cast the bird out through the eye, and the eye winked shut.

  She was not a bird. She was on a bird and the world wheeled beneath her. Oh the world! The crimson soft feathers under her cheek, the Yellow Mountains below, bright gold in the sun, the throb of the Urkleis in her chest, the weight of her body and the smell of the air. Beyond the mountains was the inland sea and the sickle island of the Blind Enchanter. It all came rushing back to her, everything she had lost and been given again, love twined close to its shadowy twin, fear, and the painful squeeze of hope. She wept and laughed and wept.

  Only when the Vermilion Bird landed outside the stone cabin did she realize that in her hands she held a dark box inscribed with light, the Gehemmis of the Sparkling Deluder.

  The door of the cabin opened and Ka stepped out.

  Chapter

  ~24~

  Bees buzzed in the flowers around her ankles and the breeze carried the sharp, salty smell of the sea. It felt as if a hundred years had passed since she had been herself in the worlds, and it felt as if no time had passed at all.

  “Is Foss alive?” she asked, and her own voice sounded strange to her, like a voice she had not heard in a long time.

  “He lives,” said Ka. “But he has little time left. A day, perhaps two.”

  His flaming eyes fell on the box in her hands, darkness inscribed with light.

  “The Gehemmis,” he said. “Eliza, you are more remarkable than any of us gave you credit for.”

  She felt strangely calm. What could frighten her now? She had lost the worlds, her loved ones, she had lost everything, and now it was all returned to her. Perhaps only to lose again, but all was not lost yet, it was not too late.

  “Kyreth murdered Aysu,” said Eliza. “I saw you find her, aye. You know he did it. He would have given me to Obrad against my will. He has stolen books from the Library about Karbek’s spell. He has Malferio in a tower. He’s insane, and a liar, and dangerous.”

  Obrad stepped out of the house and joined Ka. Eliza fell silent.

  “Our Sorceress has turned up after all,” said Obrad, his voice betraying no feeling.

  Eliza spoke only to Ka. “Dinnay let Foss die,” she begged.

  “Eliza, we are Mancers. We cannot be something else,” said Ka. “Do you think that Foss’s treachery is noble? I know about Malferio. Kyreth intends to rid the worlds of Nia and we have been lending him our strength that he may complete the Magic necessary to do it. If Foss didn’t know, it is
because nobody trusted him enough to tell him. He has brought this exile on himself. He is beyond our help.”

  “Coward,” Eliza spat out clearly. Ka’s eyes flickered.

  Anargul, Trahaearn, and a young Mancer Eliza did not recognize stepped out of the house. Ka and Obrad immediately stepped aside to let Anargul face Eliza. Ka murmured something to her.

  “Where are the other Gehemmis?” demanded Anargul.

  So they had not found the Gehemmis she had left with the Enchanter, thought Eliza. She gave no answer, closing her mind against the Mancers.

  Anargul looked at Eliza closely. “Very well. I will ask you only once to give me the Gehemmis you hold in your hands.”

  The moment Eliza reached for her dagger, something twisted her arm back sharply. Ravens burst out of the ground like big black flowers, shrieking. But Anargul had the Gehemmis already.

  “Now the others,” she said grimly.

  A lovely, fluting voice overhead called out an unfamiliar word. Eliza looked up. Eight myrkestras were descending on the island. Golden-haired Faeries in flowing, feathered cloaks sat astride them. She looked to the Mancers but they were entirely still, did not even react.

  “Faeries!” she shouted. Anargul did not move.

  “Cursed them with immobility,” said a Faery cheerfully, leaping from the back of his myrkestra and striding over to Eliza. “Works particularly well on Mancers, since they rather tend to stillness anyway. Mind you, it will only last the day. We don’t want to do anything more extreme until we know for sure whether they’re in league with you, little thief.”

  He was still smiling, but there was something dangerous in his eyes. The other Faeries joined him, prodding the frozen Mancers gleefully.

  “Very exciting to be the first to find you. No doubt there’s a fine reward in it for us,” the Faery continued jovially. “There will be others coming soon, but things will go better for you if you give us the Gehemmis you stole right away.”

  “I gave it to the Mancers a few days ago,” said Eliza, her mind racing. “A liaison was waiting for me in the Irahok Mountains and he took it back to the Citadel.”