Clockwork Goddess (The Lesbia Chronicles)

by Loki Renard

  "But these are such fine chains," Alise said. "Made of the best obsidian..."

  FWOMP! A fireball jetted across the distance from Ayla to Alise.

  There was screaming then, a great deal of it coming from Alise, whose hair had turned to a ball of fire sweeping back and forth on the path as the elf ran in circles, squealing like a suckling pig. Ayla stood with her jaw clenched, her lower lip showing signs of a tremor as she held her hand extended toward Alise, her palm glowing where the fire had boiled out of the ether.

  "Put her out, would you?" Soren spoke to her companions, apparently unmoved by the drama of the situation. "If you wouldn't mind refraining from the use of fire," she said to Ayla. "That would be nice."

  "I will refrain if you take your people and let us pass," Ayla said. "I have not come here to harm you."

  There was a long pause, then Soren nodded. "Very well," she said. "We were eager to greet you, but if you must pass on there will no doubt be another time. Go well, Ayla."

  Moving almost as one the elves retreated back into the trees, even Alise and her singed locks soon disappeared into the forest.

  "Are they gone?" Vix whispered the question to Ayla.

  "I very much doubt it," Ayla said. She was composed as usual, but there were little tell-tale signs about her eyes and lips which spoke to great internal strain. "Let us move, and quickly."

  "That Soren seemed nice," Vix said as they began striding through the forest with greater purpose.

  "She is the worst among them," Ayla replied briefly. "Let us not speak again until we are clear of this place."

  Making all due haste, Vix and Ayla walked and walked but the forest seemed to have no end, and after three hours, Ayla called a halt.

  "We have been fooled," she said. "We are captured."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean this forest is being altered around us. We will not soon find our way out, not even if it were directly before us."

  "What do you mean?" Vix repeated the question because the first answer had not explained a thing.

  "I mean we have been tricked," Ayla said. "Flummoxed."

  "Oh," Vix replied. "Flummoxed."

  "Yes."

  Ayla lifted her voice and spoke to the trees. "Come out, Soren, we tire of your games. What is it you want from me?"

  There was silence. Nothing stirred. Not so much as an ant crawled such was the stillness of the moment.

  "Try setting something on fire again," Vix suggested. "They seem to respond really well to arson."

  Ayla's cheeks dimpled in spite of the strain of the situation. "Yes," she agreed with a smile. "They do, don't they."

  "That will not be necessary." The voice came from behind them. Vix and Ayla turned to find that Soren was standing not a few feet away, an impassive, unreadable expression on her high elven face.

  "I thought you agreed to let us go."

  "I did," Soren replied. "And if you knew the way out, then you would be gone."

  "That is like locking a prisoner in a cage and telling them that they're absolutely free to go as long as they have a key," Vix pointed out. "Which is stupid. And cruel. And mean."

  "Cruel and mean," Soren replied in patronizing tones. "How awful for you."

  Vix was not pleased with the response, but at least there was one. She had been pointedly ignored up until that point, which was not at odds with her experience of life in general, but it was starting to wear rather thin.

  "What do you want, Soren?" Ayla repeated the question somewhat tersely. "I have important business."

  "Oh I am sure you do. You have had a great deal of important business since you left us all those years ago, haven't you?" Soren's tone strongly suggested that she did not approve of most of it.

  "This is Ayla," Vix interrupted. "She's the one who saved Lesbia from being completely destroyed by the Blood Witch by guiding the summoner Atrocious. I mean, I don't believe that, but I don't believe in magical elves either, and here you are, so as far as you're concerned, she saved you. Thanks are in order."

  Soren's brows lifted almost all the way to her hairline. "And who are you to speak so impertinently?"

  "She doesn't know who I am," Vix said to Ayla. "Can you believe she does not know who I am?"

  Ayla was trying to maintain her composure, but it was obvious that she found Vix's unprecedented verbal antics quite amusing. Vix did not quite know where her own verbosity was coming from, aside from the fact that Ayla was clearly thrown off balance by this Soren and her people and Vix desired to even the playing field somewhat.

  "A human mortal," Soren said. "Of little consequence. You will be silent and not meddle in our affairs."

  "But I have already meddled," Vix replied. "And I am much, much more dangerous when I am silent."

  "That is true," Ayla agreed immediately. "I'd keep her talking if I were you."

  Soren's lips thinned. She was clearly not pleased with the way things were going. There was a certain lack of gravitas to the whole affair, coupled with a stubborn resistance which was not fading in spite of apparently insurmountable odds.

  "You have become far too familiar with humans, Ayla. And you have done this one a grave disservice. A mortal should speak with reverence when in the presence of a high elf."

  "I don't care if the elf is high or not," Vix said boldly. "The world has changed. We don't worship myths any more. If you want to prance around in the woods, that's your own affair, but don't expect me to be impressed by it."

  "... Prance around in the woods?" Soren spluttered the phrase. "In all my considerable years, I have not heard such a description."

  "How nice for you," Ayla replied. "Isn't it good to know that there are new things still left in the world?"

  "Take these two and chain them up," Soren said, speaking to the trees. "They wish to be arrogant and disrespectful. We will see what a hundred years of confinement does to that attitude."

  "A hundred years! I'll be a dried up skeleton by then," Vix protested as the elves emerged from the forest to do Soren's bidding.

  "How unfortunate for you," Soren replied. "That will make you far less obnoxious, I imagine."

  "You will not imprison either of us," Ayla hissed, pulling Vix close. "If a single one of you lays a hand on either one of us I will call down a fire upon this forest which will not end for a thousand years. I will burn the very heart out of this place, and I will make you rue the day you decided to stop me. Now open the path and let us go, before you find yourselves in a world of agony."

  "My," Soren said with a little smile, apparently unmoved by Ayla's threats. "The blood runs strong in you, doesn't it. Alise was right. You are your mother's child."

  "You have waylaid me. You have lied to me. You have threatened me and my companion. One does not need to be the daughter of your collective nightmare to be annoyed by that."

  "The daughter of our collective nightmare," Soren said. "That is a good way to put it. I cannot let you leave, Ayla, you have been gone too long and there is much we need to discuss. You have been of the world. You have seen what is taking place there. The truth is, we need you."

  Vix almost burst out of her skin upon hearing the last part of Soren's confession. "This is how you act when you need someone? You lie to them? You trick them? You make them walk for three hours and threaten them with life in prison?!"

  "She very much needs to stop talking," Soren said to Ayla. "Her voice grates."

  "Vix's voice is the least of your troubles," Ayla replied. "My truth is I don't care if you need me. Your needs are of no importance to me whatsoever. Open the way before us and let us go."

  "You should care," Soren replied. "Your mother is loose."

  Ayla stopped. For a moment it was as if she was made of stone. Everything about her became still. Even her hair ceased to move in the breeze and her face became hard like Vix had never seen.

  "My mother is dead." Ayla's voice cracked as she said the words.

  "She is not."

  "She was
buried under a mountain of rock sharp obsidian."

  "She found her way out."

  "I don't believe you."

  Soren's eyes narrowed until they were almost feline. "Yes you do. Now. Come with us. Please." Soren gestured toward the nearest tree. "We have much to talk about and time grows short."

  Ayla let out her breath in a long sigh. "Very well," she said. "If what you say is true, then I have no choice but to follow."

  "Thank you, Ayla," Soren said in resonant tones. "Come this way." She gestured elegantly toward an oak with a thick trunk.

  Vix did not see how she was going to walk into a tree the way the elves did, but she followed in Ayla's wake and to her surprise found that solid matter shimmered around her when she lifted her foot toward the tree. She stepped through the bark as if she'd been doing it all her life and found herself in another wooded world.

  The forest beyond the forest was nothing like the one they had left. It was a place lit by a light brighter and yet softer than any natural light. She soon realized that it was being shed by millions of little flying creatures, like fireflies but a thousand times more luminescent. This was a much greater, much older forest, she could feel it in the every breath she took.

  The surrounding trees towered toward a sky she could barely make out for the canopy which was high, high above. They were many times larger than any she had ever seen before, so great that she felt positively dwarfed by them. The grass between the trees was soft but also long, it brushed her knees with every step she took and the flowers that bloomed nearby did so with petals as big as her head.

  "Have we become incredibly small?"

  Soren turned toward her with a smile of genuine warmth. It transformed her face and made her look almost kindly. "Very good," she said. "Most humans are slow to realize what this place really is."

  "I don't know what this place really is," Vix said. "I just know that flowers used to be much smaller."

  Soren's smile broadened, but she said no more.

  Ayla did not seem at all comfortable. In spite of the wonders of the place which held Vix so in thrall, Ayla held herself tall and walked with a stiff gait, her expression inscrutable. She did not seem impressed, or surprised, or happy or sad. She seemed almost as though she weren't really there, as if her mind had taken her very far away.

  There were other elves about the place, but they paid the visitors no mind. All the elves who had come to capture them went about their business, leaving Soren to lead Ayla and Vix to a house which was built into the roots of one of the great trees. The gnarled growths of its roots stretched out along a path, rising higher than Vix's head where they met the trunk itself. Smaller and smaller they were and Vix grew curiouser and curiouser.

  "Think of this as your home," Soren said as she turned the door handle.

  "I will not think of any place here as my home," Ayla replied stiffly.

  "This is your home," Soren contradicted her. "Just because you fear it, doesn't mean it's not yours. Please, take some time to clear your head and rest your body. I will speak with you soon."

  *****

  "This place is nice," Vix said when she and Ayla were alone.

  The tree house was nice. Every single stick of furniture gleamed with care and was hand hewn with the utmost skill. It was comfortable in every way, curving lines and soothing shining surfaces. The little home was just one room, but that one room contained all one could ever need. There was a big soft looking bed covered in wool coverlets, a table with two chairs and a fireplace and several shelves and cupboards stocked with bowls and foodstuffs and other necessities of life. Simple, but elegant.

  Ayla did not say anything in response to Vix's comment. She stood staring into the ether until Vix wandered up and tapped her on the shoulder.

  "Are you still in there?"

  "I swore I would never come here as long as I drew breath," Ayla said eventually.

  "Bad memories of this place?"

  "No memories. I've never been here," Ayla replied. "I was not allowed when I was younger and now I am old I have no desire to make the acquaintance of those who shunned me."

  Vix nodded slowly. "They didn't like you, so now you don't want to like them."

  "It's not that simple." Ayla crouched before the fireplace and began to stack kindling. She moved without any real purpose, operating more like an automaton than a woman. Vix had seen mechanical hens with more soul than Ayla seemed to possess in that moment.

  She frowned slightly as she watched the witch work. "Is there really a fireplace inside a tree? That seems like a bad idea."

  "It won't burn with real flame," Ayla told her. "It will burn with faelight which nourishes the tree."

  "Isn't that convenient," Vix noted. "Faelight. I've never heard of such a thing."

  "You will see many things here you have never heard of, and you will forget them all when you leave," Ayla told her. "Human minds cannot contain the elven realm for long."

  "I'm not going to forget a giant forest," Vix replied. "Or houses in the roots of trees. And I'm definitely not going to forget daisies bigger than my brain, or bugs that light the world, or.... or any of this."

  Ayla snapped her fingers next to the kindling. A bright purple light leaped from her fingertips and began playing about the wood vaguely after the manner of fire. It emitted warmth and a scent like lavender and berries.

  "Forgetting is a blessing," she said as she took a seat in one of the chairs. "Be glad for it."

  "Be glad for what?"

  Ayla looked at Vix with a dour expression.

  "See what I did there?" Vix tried for a little grin, but it withered under Ayla's unimpressed, unamused stare. "You said I should be glad to forget and then I pretended to forget..." she trailed off, knowing full well that the best jokes did not need to be explained to stony faced witch elves.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  In a little town hall in a little town in a little known part of the middle of nowhere, the queen of Lesbia was holding audience amid the peasants. Surrounded by her guard, she made an imposing sight even in the most humble of surroundings as she sat upon a chair made of rough hewn wood and looked out over a small gathering of her subjects.

  While the queen gestured for proceedings to begin, one of her guards kept giggling. The one in the middle. The one whose clothes didn't seem to fit quite right. The one who didn't have the same militaristic precision to her step as the others had.

  The peasants did not notice that, for they were far too awestruck by Queen Cadentis, or who they assumed to be Queen Cadentis by the emerald of her station. They marveled at how tall and well formed she was, how full of grace and wisdom and mercy. The queen's party had been in residence of the little townlet of Swansong for three days and would have to remain some time longer, for one of their horses had gone lame and needed to be rested for a time. Now she had agreed to settle a dispute which was threatening to tear the town apart as it became increasingly acrimonious.

  "Fyour majefty," a young peasant woman said. Her voice was muffled because she was on her knees and she had pressed her face to the floor. Her hair was red and her buttocks ample beneath her oft mended skirt. She was certainly a buxom lass and her genuflection showed her figure very well. She lifted her head to speak the next words. "My name is Lugwilde. I am in need of your justice."

  The queen looked down with regal solemn patience. "What troubles you?"

  "Hildegarde has a swine and it trampled my beets. She killed the swine and I asked for half the meat, but she will only give me a leg."

  "Because beets and swines are not the same thing," another young woman with blonde braids and buck teeth and who was probably the aforementioned Hildegarde said. "My pig trampled maybe twenty beets, that's barely a meal."

  "I could make twenty beets last six months with a little onion," Lugwilde replied. "Your pig's leg has hardly any meat on it. It was a scrawny thing to begin with. Too stupid to at least eat the beets it walked all over."

  "Then you won't
want to eat it in case it makes you even stupider than you already are," Hildegarde snapped back.

  "Enough!" Minerva spoke the word with just enough force to stop the squabbling peasants in their tracks. "You speak of pork and beets to a queen?"

  At that moment the short rider with the overly long cloak shuffled forward and murmured something in the substitute queen's ear. Minerva listened for a moment, then nodded.

  "My edict is that all shall share their produce in the amount that each finds necessary for sustenance. None shall allow another to go hungry and should you two be found squabbling again, you will both be whipped for it."