by M. C. Elam
Still no reply...
“All right, all right, I understand. You do not respond because I spoke aloud.” She projected the thought.
“Yes, girl, yes. Now you have it, and so easily I can hardly believe my good fortune.”
“A woman named Granny Stone taught me. I have practiced long to learn. But why do you seek me out?”
“A fine old woman, and so wise. I mourn her passing. I’m not surprised that she’d teach mind speak. I remember her talent for the old ways. As to what I want, I‘ve come to teach you the path of the Mother. But for now, show me your talent. Concentrate on Knight Marcus. See his face, his essence in your mind. See only him and ask him to start a fire to cook the fish you caught. We will see how well you do.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Why, nothing at all. Only the fish will be longer from the table.”
“I suppose it’s harmless enough.”
Evan let her mind drift back along the path she took to reach the stream. Her mind twisted through the forest until she broke free of the trees and saw Baline. And then she was flying over the ground through the open sky, like a bird soaring home across the distance toward the inn where Marcus worked repairing the roof. She pictured her hand reaching out to touch his arm, pictured him looking at her. Finally, she cast her thoughts, and they traveled through her mind on the gentle winds of Ascalla.
“Marcus, make a fire. I bring fresh flatfish for our supper.”
She saw him raise his head and look around, saw him move his mouth and knew he spoke her name. He turned back to the work, raked his fingers through the reeds to blend them in with the rest of the thatch on the roof. She knew when he descended the ladder to the ground, gathered kindling from a stack near the porch, and entered the tavern. The black pearl felt hot where it lay between her breasts, and she lifted it free of her chemise. The reddish glow that seemed to throb from the pearl’s core frightened her, and she lost Marcus’s image.
“Don’t be alarmed, child. The pearl reflects the magic that grows inside you. It answers your bidding.”
Melendarius again, inside her head, but as he spoke, the heat left the pearl and the reddish glow paled.
“My bidding?”
“Come, let us return to Baline and see if you were successful with Marcus.
“Don’t you know? I mean don’t you know?”
She felt him smile, and somehow that pleased her.
“Nay, Evangeline, I couldn’t feel the message you projected to Marcus. Excellent, concentration. Sending thoughts to a single mind can be difficult.”
“Gram…”
“Gram told you the way, Evangeline. The Mother’s gift is inborn.”
“What mother?”
“The one you must follow. Come now, gather your fish, and let us see how Marcus fairs with the fire.”
Chinera fell in beside her, and they started toward the village. The voice in her head turned silent, and she wondered if she had imagined it. The residue of gritty sand rubbed against the bottoms of her feet, and she sat on a fallen tree beside the path to clean her shoes. Chinera bumped against her arm whining and ready to go home to the pups.
“Just a minute, sweet wolf.” Evan brushed the rest of the sand away and put the shoes back on her feet. Chinera bumped her again and ran in a tight little circle, pouncing like a pup. “What’s up, my girl? Miss your pups so much, do you? Well, go ahead then. I’ll be along.”
***
Chinera cocked her head sideways, listening, and then bounded along the trail and out of sight. The fishing pole made a fine walking staff, and Evan followed along swinging the string of fish. The trail meandered through a heavily wooded area, and every bend obscured her view. Even with the leaves thinning and the trees preparing for winter sleep, dense growth concealed hidden thickets on each side of her. The trail shifted left ahead. Evan rounded the bend and stopped. On the ground, his back against a stump, sat an old man dressed in a dark blue robe of some sort of shiny silk-like fabric embroidered with silver thread. His beard was long and yellowed around the mouth, stained from drinking brewed tea, or she supposed by pipe smoke. Chinera lay beside him, her head across his lap.
“She knows you?” said Evan.
“Ah, there you are at last. Chinera and I thought to give up the wait and head into Baline without you.”
“You are Melendarius?”
“I am, and you are Evangeline.” He laughed a funny kind of low chuckle. “I took a tumble coming to find you and seem to be at odds with my right foot just now.”
“Your foot?”
“Nothing serious I assure you, but if you could just find it in you to retrieve my staff, I’ll pull my old body up, and we can be off to see if Marcus built that fire.”
“Your staff?”
“Yes, girl, over there a smidgen. What’s this anyway? Have you gone a bit wiggy on me? Repeating every word like Benjamin here, and looking bewildered like you’ve just had too great a draught of elder wine.”
“Benjamin? Someone else is here?”
“Heh, there you go again. Not someone, girl. A something, though I dare say he’d consider someone a truer representation.” He lifted his arm shoulder high and whistled. A large raven dropped from the branch of the tree and lit on his wrist. “Bid good day to the lady, Benjamin.”
The raven squawked something that did sound like good day, flew to her, perched on her shoulder and fluttered its wings. “Ello, ello,”
“It talks?”
“Talks, talks, talks,” Benjamin tittered and stepped from right to left on her shoulder.
“Aye, he does, and sometimes too much. My staff, if you will, over there?”
“Stick a wood, stick a wood.”
“Off with you Benjamin. You can fly while others must walk.”
The bird gave a tentative little hop and then flew back into the tree.
“Oh don’t send him away.”
“He’ll be along. Just a whistle away.”
“He’s wonderful.”
“You’ve a feel for the creatures. Good. I’d hoped as much. Now, my staff if you please.” He pointed to a gnarled old stick on the ground a few feet away.
Evan picked it up. “You can’t mean this. It’s only a dried up stick.”
“Aye, that’s the one. Hand it here, dear girl.”
And he thought she was wiggy? The stick felt as if it would crumble if she gave it the slightest squeeze. Yet, he seemed determined. She walked a step closer, barely near enough to hand the stick to him if she stretched her arm as far as possible.
“Ah, thank you.” He curled his blue-veined old fingers around the stick and brought it against his chest. “You see I had a little accident coming to greet you.”
“Accident?”
“Aye, I miscalculated a bit and took a tumble. Lunarey took the worst of it, I’m afraid.”
Evan gave him a confused look. “Lunarey?”
“Aye, Lunarey, my staff. Never happened before and I do hate to admit I am getting a little past my prime.” He ran his hands the length of the stick, and the wood seemed greener. “All the more reason to start my most important work.”
“Your most important work?”
“Aye.” He smiled at her. “You, my dear, you are my most important work.”
Evan stepped away from him. Marcus warned her to take care mixing with those she did not know, but he looked harmless enough. “What have I to do with you?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Should I be?”
“Tit for tat. Tit for tat. Careful, aren’t you, and a quick tongue, too. I don’t blame you. I’ve come to teach you the way of the Mother.”
Evan cocked her head sideways. Peculiar old fellow, she thought. And talk of the mother. Gram had talked of the mother. Marcus too, sometimes. What mother did he mean? She knew old folk sometimes turned a little strange at the end of their years, but Melendarius seemed to know exactly what he was doing, not ‘wiggy’ at all really. Now he spoke
directly to her, not in thought but with his powdery old voice.
“When in the company of the person with whom you converse, manners call for vocal oration, dear Evangeline. That is unless of course the situation might require the alternative. And, I might add that while I am old, and you have no clue how old, I assure you, my mind is still as keen as ever.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bits and pieces, girl, bits and pieces. All will come clear soon. Once my belly’s filled and I’ve a chance to talk with Marcus. Now if you don’t mind, my dear, I’ll mend Lunarey and we can be off.”
He took what appeared to be a smooth, nondescript stone from his pocket and tried to push it into a hollow place at the end of the stick. “My good fortune the crystal landed so near.”
The wood resisted his manipulations. “Obey.” His voice held a commanding tone, and he ground the stone harder against the end. “There now, much better.”
The stick thickened and took on a polished sheen.
“Present.” He opened his hand. The stick, which was no longer a stick but the length of a cane, rose in the air and spun around a few times between them before standing upright at attention. The stone he had pushed into the end sparkled with brilliant colors.
“Grow,” he said. The cane stretched and twisted until it was the exact length of a staff to suit a man of his stature. Intricate ivy carving appeared along its length and crawled from end to end. Transformed from a dried-up old stick to a beautiful, handcrafted walking staff, the wood glistened.
“How?” said Evan. “How did you make that happen? It was only a stick. I held it in my hand.”
“Just a little magic.” His bright blue eyes caught the mottled shards of sunlight that filtered through the trees and glittered in his wrinkled old face. “Now, let’s be off. I’m hungry for some of that fish of yours. Tell me, will you spit them up or fry them in a black pan?”
“Black pan. Marcus likes flatfish best from a black pan.”
“As do I.” He offered his free arm, looked pleased when she took it, and they started off in the direction of Baline.
Evan didn’t know what to make of him; cheerful, commanding, and the strange episode with the staff, not to mention a talking raven. Most country folk she knew shooed them away. Of course, there was nothing magical about a talking raven; she had seen dozens like it in Falmora? Fine mimics, too, but Benjamin seemed more than a mimic. He seemed to understand and not simply ape sounds. The staff business puzzled her most of all, the way it moved when he spoke. Magic seemed the only answer. Chinera found him charming, no doubt about that. She walked beside him, pressing against his leg in that familiar way she had. Evan felt a jealous little twinge that she would take up with him so easily. She pushed the feeling away, but not before she saw Melendarius run a lazy hand over the wolf’s silky ears. Chinera quit his side and came to walk beside her. She had the distinct feeling he had told her to do so. Mind speak again, was that magic, too?
If Marcus had set the fire, she might start thinking it was. After Gram taught her, she had never tried to use it with anyone but Hawk. That had failed miserably, at least from Hawk’s perspective but had it? She remembered a day when they were children and played at hide-and-seek. Hawk hid in an old trunk, and the lid slammed shut. Until now, she always thought she heard him calling her, but she couldn’t have. She was too far away.
***
“Grasp it tight in your hand, child. Think about a place you know. Let nothing else enter your mind but the image of that place.”
Marcus had gone off to hunt, and they were alone in the tavern. Evan closed her fingers around the black pearl. She thought of her cottage at the edge of Pandera’s Forest, pictured the closed door and the stoop, the garden space overgrown with weeds but still full of winter squash and overripe tomatoes. Across the room in front of her, ripples formed and reformed in a widening arc. A small slit, the height of a man, appeared in the center. She saw it happen, the ripples, the opening, but beyond that, the image was foggy.
“I can’t do it, Melendarius. The heat from the pearl burns my fingers.” As soon as she stopped concentrating, the golden light left its smoky surface, and the pearl cooled. “I know I am disappointing you. I just can’t open a portal, not the way you do.”
“When you are ready, the portal will open at your bidding. Part of you still lacks faith, but that will come.” He produced a jar filled with greenish gel. “Take a bit of that. It will cool the sting of the pearl.”
Evan dipped her fingers into the aloe ointment. “Why does it turn hot and burn me?”
“Not like that, little one. A more generous amount. Here, give me those hands.”
She presented them to him, open palmed, and he massaged the gel over the reddened flesh.
“Better?”
“Aye, mostly gone now. But why does it burn that way?”
Melendarius rocked against the back of the chair. “In the ways of the Mother, casting with a talisman creates a duality of good and bad. The good that would come from what you attempted would be your ability to open a portal.”
“And the bad?”
“The bad is a warning. Should someone of evil intent choose to discover the power it holds, the fire will dissuade them from using it.”
“But why did it burn me? I harbor no evil intent.” She looked at the palms of her hands, still red from the pearl’s heat.
“Of course you didn’t. But the object is mindless and does not know the difference. The portal is but a small effort. Were you to focus on something more difficult, the heat could sear the flesh from your hands.”
“Even if the need is strong and the intent good.”
“Aye, even then. The Mother intercedes at such times and heals the one stricken.”
Across the room, Runt worried a rag ball Marcus had made for her. Two weeks ago, Chinera and the other pups had disappeared into the forest with Rogue. Evan missed her.
“How did you know her, Melendarius?”
She meant Chinera. When she had asked before, he always managed to avoid the subject. She saw him look toward the door and asked again before he could make an excuse. Resigned, he reached for her hands and closed them inside his own. She read grief in his gaze and almost wished she hadn’t pressed him to answer, but he drew her to a chair and sat across from her.
“She’ll never be far from you Evan. Even now, I can see her with Rogue. If you need her, she’ll come to you.”
“But you knew her before you found me swimming that day.”
“Aye, I knew her more than forty years ago when she began in the womb. I saw her born and watched her grow.”
“I don’t understand.” He couldn’t mean Chinera. No wolf lived so long.
“Listen, now, and I will tell you her story.”
The soft whisper of his voice came into her with vivid images of old Baline and the birthing of a red-haired girl they named Chinera. The whispers stopped. Melendarius held her firmly, not her hands, but her spirit, and she felt safe with him beside her. His spirit lifted away from the chair, and she knew he meant for her to follow. The ceiling fell open, and they drifted into the serene blue overhead. Beyond Baline, over the treetops, to a mountain path and a wall of rock that melted like butter before his pure thought. She followed him inside, and the portal closed. Darkness swallowed her. She tried to call out but had no breath for words, no mouth to form them even if she could speak.
“I am afraid,” she thought. “It’s so dark.”
“Fear not. Your physical body is still inside the inn. Still sitting in your chair by the fire.”
The darkness lifted and she saw the Chinera he described, older now. She worked with mortar and pestle adding liquid and forming a paste of some substance. Evan recognized the pungent odor. Gram mixed such salves and used them to heal skin ulcers. Chinera turned to show the mixture to someone just out of her line of vision. Evan followed her gaze and saw Melendarius take up the concoction, smell it, and nod his approval. No
t her Melendarius, but another who was years younger, He had a high wide brow, and deep-set blue eyes. He looked almost the same, but his beard held a few dark strands, and the wrinkled face seemed a bit smoother.
The image blurred. The cavern disappeared, and with lightning speed, they moved through a narrow tunnel of brilliant, color. Swirling streams of blue, orange, rose, purple, green, and yellow, shifted and changed, shifted and changed, until her head was spinning, and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she stood in a field of freshly turned earth surrounded by a circle of celebration fires. A girl entered the circle. Her long red hair billowed on the night breeze. The moon hung bright and full in the night sky. Evan could see it reflected in the girl’s eyes. From the opposite side a man stepped inside the circle and came to stand beside the girl. They turned to face each other, and a bearded man stepped forward. He bound their hands with flowering vines and bid them speak their hearts. Chinera’s wedding, she thought, not like the weddings she had witnessed in the Falmora Cathedral, a wedding in the old way. How happy Chinera looked, how beautiful in her creamy robe. She wanted to examine the young man’s face, but the image changed, and she streaked through the tunnel again until Melendarius pulled her into a forest clearing.
The man from the harvest celebration, Chinera’s husband, stood in the doorway of a small cottage. Evan heard his anxious voice promise to return with help as soon as he could.
Morning shadows lengthened, and the day turned dismal. Heavy rain pelted the little cottage. Bright flashes of lightning crisscrossed the sky. Evan barely had time to realize she stood in a downpour without a single drop touching her when a high-pitched wail pierced the rolling din of the summer storm. Something was wrong, inside the cottage. She wanted to go inside, but her feet stuck fast to the ground. Rain pounded the earth, sometimes so hard she thought the cottage might wash away. Rivers of water spread across the clearing. Through the gloom, Evan saw a tall man with a long wooden staff marking his step. He crossed the clearing and entered the cottage. Because she knew she could move now, Evan followed him inside.
A fire burned low on the hearth and the man, another Melendarius, lit a single candle. The glow stretched across the room to the bed where Chinera lay. The new Melendarius filled a cup with cool water. He took a small, square envelope from the sleeve of his robe, emptied a powder, into the cup, and swirled the mixture until it dissolved. He sat next to Chinera and coaxed her to drink the liquid. She grimaced at the first swallow, and Evan knew it must have a bitter taste. Ground hops, she thought, he gives her hops to bring on sleep. Despite Chinera’s resistance, he urged her to drink it all.