by Fran Jacobs
Mayrila was calm as she sat there, taking notes, listening to me with narrowed eyes, scribbling her way through page after page of parchment. The prophecies I had written down for her were now surrounded by her own added comments and soon she knew what I had been through better than I did myself.
But none of this made me feel any better. So Mayrila knew everything about me and my prophecies; it hadn't actually changed anything for me. I felt as though I were no closer to having any control of my gifts, as though I were getting nowhere with them, and every day that I didn't find a way to deal with them, was one more day that someone could notice how differently I was behaving and become suspicious. The whole situation was making me frustrated and irritable. And to make everything so much worse, my insomnia had returned.
***
I woke, with a start, when something icy cold touched the back of my hand. I sat upright in my bed, gasping for air, struggling to see in the darkness, with my heart racing inside my chest like a trapped bird in a cage. Someone was in the room with me, someone I didn't know. I opened my mouth to call for Trellany, to call for help, when a soft voice, a familiar voice, spoke. "Seer," was all it said.
I rolled over, struggling through the thick covers until I could reach the edge of the bed and lean over to my bedside table. I scrambled blindly for the tinderbox and lit my lantern, flooding the room with a warm glow of orange light.
There, next to my bed, stood the dead eyed child, dark hair curling around its face, as always, black eyes wide and sad and focused on me.
"Hello," I said. I didn't know what else to say.
There was a pause and then the child smiled at me. There was something about that, about this bruised and ragged child smiling, that was very unnerving. "Hello," it said.
"I ... I've been wanting to talk to you for a while, wanting to ask you ... Who are you? Where do you come from? How did you find me? How do you know who I am? Why do you need my help? And Ellenessia, what do you mean, she's coming? What does that song mean? It is you I heard singing it, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," the child said slowly. "My name is Illiyana." So the child was a girl. Now I knew, after all this time, she was a girl. "And I came to you because you're the only one who I could find, the only one I could reach, but I had to wait for her to go first."
"Her?"
"My mother," the child replied sadly. "She has a shield on me, controlling my gifts. I can't talk to anyone when she's around, but now that she's gone, the shield is weaker and I can talk, I can reach you. I tried before, but she came back before I could explain things to you. Then she left again, but when I came to you last time I could tell that something was wrong, so I didn't stay too long."
"It was at a ball," I said quietly. "I was afraid of what people would say if they saw me talking to myself."
The child nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry for that. I come when I can. It isn't easy for me and I can't know what the situation is like with you before I reach you."
"It's all right," I said. "We can talk now, no one will disturb us." The child nodded again. "Your mother, the one who shielded you, is she also the one who hurt you? Did she give you that black eye and the bruises?"
"Yes," Illiyana replied, eyes downcast and thin shoulders shaking. She was the one who taught me that song, too. The one about Ellenessia. She told me that the demon was coming for me and always sang me that song before I went to sleep. My dreams were filled with those dark visions, images of the shadow, of the demon, at least it was, until I found you. Now I dream of you, Seer. I dream that you will save me."
"From your mother and the demon?" I said slowly. The child nodded. "Was your mother the one who put you in that cell where I first saw you?"
Illiyana shook her head. "No. You created that cell," she said. "You brought me to it."
"Why? Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. Perhaps it's because that's what you fear."
I swallowed. That was true. I did fear being locked in a cell, but only since I'd met Talira and she had told me of the prophecy of me being locked away, and that had been after I had first seen Illiyana in that cell. Why would I create that, before I even feared it? It made no sense to me.
Then Illiyana's dark eyes became very wide and she gasped. "Or perhaps it wasn't you," she breathed.
"It wasn't me?" I asked. "What wasn't me?"
Illiyana jerked back suddenly, moving away from me so quickly that I barely had time to blink. "She's here with you," she said, in that same hushed voice. "She is here with you!"
"She who?" I asked, struggling towards the end of the bed. I reached out towards her, but my legs got tangled up in the covers and I ended up in a knot, face down on the bed, still trying to reach her with one outstretched arm. "Your mother?"
"No, Ellenessia," Illiyana cried. There were tears running down her face now and her dark eyes were wide with fear, as her body trembled with waves of it. "She's here with you. She has touched you! You can't help me. You're trapped, just like I am. You can't help me, Seer. You're dead, just like I am ..."
Suddenly she was gone and I was sitting up in my bed, in the dark. It had been a dream, a sign that I'd finally managed to get to sleep, if only for a handful of minutes, but I still knew that the child had been here. Dream or no dream, I could still sense her presence, and it unsettled me.
I turned over to strike up my lantern, not wanting to lie alone in the dark. In the flickering light I could see that there were bruises across the back of my hand in the shape of fingers, just as there had been the last time she had touched me. Proof that she had been here.
I shivered, miserably, and lay back down, hugging my knees. It took a long time for the heat to slowly return to my body and when it had, and I felt safe again, I turned to blow out the lantern. Then I lay flat on my back, staring up at the dark roof of my bedroom, my mind whirling with thoughts.
Her visit had been strange, stranger than usual, and I didn't feel any more comforted about her presence even though we had now spoken. In fact, talking to her had unsettled me even more than just seeing her had. She had the body of a child, covered in bruises, yet she had spoken and carried herself more like an adult. And the things that she'd said, about Ellenessia, that she was here with me, that I was trapped, that I was dead ... I didn't understand what that meant, but it sent a chill through me all the same. As did the idea that Ellenessia, a demon, had touched me.
Then I remembered the shadowy mist in the stables, the one that had taken on a woman's form and touched me. Was that what that misty form was, a demon? Was that Ellenessia? Could I have seen a demon and not realised that was what she was? Illiyana certainly seemed to believe in her. Her fear had been all too real, and I knew that she was real, the bruises on my hand were evidence enough of that. But did that mean the demon was real? I had been told so many cautionary tales as a child, to stop me doing foolish things, the song about Ellenessia could just be something like that. Do as you're told or the demon will get you? It sounded a little harsh, but it was a possibility, wasn't it? But the mages, who had used the sign of protection with their magical rites, had certainly believed in demons. And the mist in the stable had certainly spooked the horses.
My head was starting to pound. I felt as though my brain was full, full of questions and wonderings and none of them could be answered. I couldn't even begin to get a handle on it all, on what it might mean and what it could be about. I was starting to feel as though I was drowning. That the waves of myths and facts, illusion and reality, were going to drag me down. I could no longer tell what was real and what wasn't anymore and I couldn't seem to rise above it, to make my mind go silent. My thoughts just kept going around and around in my head. What was the mist I'd seen? Was the demon Illiyana feared real, or was it just a childhood nightmare? A song sung to her, by her mother, to scare her into behaving ... A song sung to her ...
Then it snapped in my mind, so fast that it took my breath away. The song Mayrila had been whistling, it was the same one
that Illiyana had sung to me, the same one her mother, who had now left her, had sung to her.
When I saw Illiyana at the betrothal, Mayrila would have just left her home, to come here, to Carnia Castle. And when I first saw her before, Mayrila was at Court, helping me recover from my illness. Not to mention the fact that Teveriel had said that if Illiyana was real, then it was likely that she was psychic and had reached me along a blood-bond. He had also said that 'offspring', in the Seer prophecies, could mean more than one child!
Gods, what if Mayrila had another child! What if Illiyana was that child? What if she was my sister! What if ...
I sprang out of my bed and scrambled into the first pair of breeches I could find when I opened closet. I stamped my feet into my boots, with no stockings to protect them, snatched up my sword, just in case, and, wearing my nightshirt as a tunic, I whirled out of the room.
I raced to Mayrila's rooms, through the silent, dark corridors, and once there I hammered on her door, over and over, until the skin tore on my knuckles and they started to bleed, leaving a trail of blood streaking across the wood. Then I started to kick her door, until she finally opened it, dressed white lace nightgown, with a dark satin robe wrapped over it, clutching a lantern in her hands. There were rings of sleeplessness around her eyes and her dark hair was everywhere, a wild mess, cascading into her eyes.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
"I want to know why you didn't tell me that you had a daughter."
Mayrila's violet eyes widened with surprise and I saw a glint of humour there, as though she were laughing at me. Then she did laugh, brightly. "I don't have a daughter, Candale. I just have you, for all my pains. Just you, the Shadow Seer, the ungrateful brat who has woken me in the middle of the night. No daughter, just you!"
"No. She told me that the person who hurt her, her mother, had left her, and you have just left your home. She has the same dark hair that you do --"
"Silnia has dark hair," Mayrila said smoothly. "Why are you not assuming that all women who have dark hair have a secret daughter in the form of this girl?"
"Because ... because the girl said that she could only visit me when her mother was gone, and that nearly always happened when you were here. And ... and because Tev told me that only someone who shared a blood bond, or who had met a psychic could be touched by one, as she is touching me and --"
"You are rambling now, Candale. And I'm surprised to hear that a bard has such knowledge of magic and psychic gifts."
"He asked Calran at White Oaks."
Mayrila shrugged and drew her robe closer with white, cold fingers. "So, because you heard that only someone who has met a psychic or is related to one, can be reached by one, you believe this girl is my daughter?"
"A-and because --"
"And because someone who was hurting her isn't around to do so anymore, yes, yes, I heard." She yawned and then moved back into her room, letting me in. "Let's talk about this in more comfort," she said. "You can rant and rave at me about this, I will try and convince you that I have no other children, then you can go and I can get some sleep."
"At least you can sleep," I muttered, following her into her bedroom. "My insomnia has come back. I finally managed to get some sleep only to be woken when that damn child visited me, or, at least, I woke after she had visited me. I think it was a dream ..."
"If it was a dream, then why are you here?" Mayrila asked me, over her shoulder. She was leading me into her private bedroom. I suddenly felt anxious at being in so private an inner sanctum with a woman, even if she was my mother. I watched her, as she climbed back into her bed, drawing her dark coverings up around her. In the glow from the lantern, that she'd set back on her bedside table, the covers seemed red, as did the walls, with its peeling paint. "Well?" Mayrila inquired. "If it was just a dream, why did you wake me?"
"It wasn't 'just' a dream," I replied. "Her touch left bruises on my hand. Again."
"May I have a look?" Mayrila asked, reaching out for my hand. I set my sword down and let her take it, bringing it closer to the light so she could study the bruises better. The glass of the lantern was painted with red diamonds so it made my pale skin appear red in its light, but the bruises were still clear, those finger marks, touching the back of my hand. "All right, these bruises look real enough, and you say a girl did these to you, in your dream?" I nodded. "It does sound like a telepathic bond, Candale, and the bard is right about how that is formed. Are you sure you've never met her?" I nodded again. "Then I don't know how she's doing it. As I've already told you, I don't have any other children. You were more than enough for me."
"You both know the same song," I said quietly. "The one about Ellenessia, a song that Teveriel, a bard, doesn't even know."
For the first time I saw a look of fear in her eyes and her face turned very pale, even in the red tinted light. She sank back on the bed, releasing me. "That song ..." She shook her head. "Oh, gods, yes. That's where I had heard the song before. That is what I was whistling." She struggled to regain her composure. "How do you know that name?"
"From the song," I said. "I heard it for the first time after you healed me and then the little girl visited me and spoke of it and sometimes I just hear her singing it."
Mayrila was still pale, as white as the moon, but her voice was steady when she spoke, "It's an old song, Candale. It was sung to me as a child by my grandmother, who had it sung to her by her grandmother. I was expected to teach it to my child, my daughter, when I had one. Of course I didn't, I had you ... But that's beside the point, that this child and I both know this song isn't proof of anything."
"Even though no one else seems to have heard of it, even Teveriel?"
"Teveriel is a young man, he can't know all the songs ever composed. I can't explain how the child knows it, or how she can reach you, or why her visits coincide with mine. I can only tell you what I do know and that's that you're my only child."
I sighed wearily. If Mayrila was lying, she wasn't going to admit it to me and there was nothing else I could do. My grandfather would never let me question her on a Truth Stone about this. "All right," I said wearily. "Can you at least tell me what the song means? Or what Ellenessia is? I know it's a demon, but ... ?"
Mayrila leaned over to reach for a glass of water she had by her bed. She spilt a little down her chin as she drank, droplets falling onto the dark coverings. Even though she spoke in her normal voice, she was still nervous and uncomfortable. Her actions showed me that. "I don't know what the song means. I have no idea what the rings of gold or stone are, just as my grandmother didn't. All I do know is what it means for me, that it was meant to remind me and all the women of my family, of what has been foretold, of why you're important."
"How does it do that?" I whispered.
"You know the story of Lelnassar?" she asked. I nodded slowly. "The devourer of souls. Who came in through windows or doors at nights, seeping in like a dark fog, to steal the soul of sleeping men and women through their breath. In small towns and villages you can still find the bundle of herbs and rags that hang on doors to ward her away, a superstitious charm. But the demon is gone, long bound."
"Because a witch trapped her," I said. "I know the story. A witch woke in the night and saw the demon stealing her lover's soul. She cast a spell on Lelnassar that drew the demon into herself, tying Lelnassar to her soul, then she killed herself. This pulled the demon into limbo, where she was trapped. She couldn't pass on into the afterlife, as she's a demon, not a human soul, but she couldn't return to this world either."
"Yes," Mayrila said. "Exactly. Ellenessia is an ancient name for Lelnassar. She's a real demon, and elements of the story that you know about Lelnassar are true, too. She did devour the souls of those who slept, and she was bound. But before the witch, Medyna, died, she put a spell on her own daughter to ensure that Ellenessia would stay in limbo, by making sure that their blood line would continue, as it was to her blood that the demon was tied, not her soul. Unfortunately, Elle
nessia had power of her own and she cursed that same line in retaliation. Her curse was that one day a boy would be born. He would be Ellenessia's prophet and speak the words that she couldn't, words that would foretell the fall of the kingdoms, Ellenessia's revenge on mankind for Medyna's actions. He would also mark the end of the witch's line, of her power over the demon, and the start of the demon's release from limbo. The song speaks of that time, of when Ellenessia will be freed and what will happen if her revenge happens."
"But what does this have to do with me?" I asked.
Mayrila laughed coldly. "What do you think?" she asked. "We are the children of that witch's line, Candale. I am the product of Medyna's curse and you of the demon's! You are a demon's prophet, Candale."
"No!"
"Yes. You are. I'm sorry, I didn't want to have to tell you. I certainly didn't want you to find out this way, but you know about the song. There seems little point in hiding it from you. You are a demon's prophet. And, unlike what I believe is true for other prophets, what you see isn't an accident. Your visions are deliberate, and they're dark, because they come from Ellenessia herself and are her planned revenge."
My head was reeling as I stared at her, my heart thundering, my body trembling, but as much as I wanted to shake my head, to tell her she was lying, that she was just trying to hurt me again, I knew that what she was saying was true. The visions, those awful things that I saw, they couldn't come from anywhere good, only a dark creature, a demon, could be behind them.
"W-what about the Oracle of Light?" I whispered harshly.
"Oh," Mayrila said calmly, "you know about that as well. You surprise me, son, you really do." I frowned at her and she just smiled, as she continued. "I don't really know anything about him, or what he has to do with all this. Some say he was the witch's lover and Ellenessia killed him because she didn't like what he was saying, preaching about a time without demons and the evil that men can do. Others say that he was just a man, chosen by the gods, to be the opposite of the demon's own prophet. I don't know about that, Candale. And to be honest, I don't care. I never did. My whole life was brought up around you, around the legend of the Shadow Seer, and that was more than enough for me. Every night I was sung that song, until I thought my head would explode. And every day I was told the story of our line, of our curse, and that I'm worthless, that I'm nothing and all that matters is that I have a daughter, and that she has a daughter, that the curse continues, until one day, you, the Shadow Seer are born."