Stone and String

by Stephanie Flint

  Edyli squinted. Her eyes widened as she registered a mass of ghostlike figures, men and women whose Cirenan heritage showed in their pale skin as they wandered the field.

  So many of them.

  “Their magic was stolen, same as your sister’s magic,” the goddess explained. “Without their magic, they died.”

  Edyli stared at her, unable to comprehend. “They… they all just died? All at once?”

  The goddess inclined her head. “In some cases, their bodies could not handle the shock. In others, they were in an unfortunate situation that ended in their demise, just as it was with your sister.” Her eyes darkened. “You truly want to return?”

  “Yes.” Edyli watched the wandering horde of mages. How many of them knew where they were? Most were sure to know the tales of Madia, even if they preferred not to acknowledge her. They called her “Madiya,” and rarely looked beyond their high god, preferring instead a personal god or goddess from their vast pantheon. These here must not have pledged their allegiance to one of the other gods.

  The goddess grasped Edyli’s face between her hands and pressed her forehead to hers. “If you stay now, Madia will likely forgive you. She has more to worry about than a child’s foolish dreams. But if you choose to leave, you will not go unscathed. You will not be able to return, and I cannot prevent the consequence of your actions.”

  A thrill of terror locked around Edyli’s throat. She nodded quickly. “What can I do?”

  The goddess released her grasp on the girl’s face and stood. She gestured to the two moons. Their light glinted off her bare arm. “The threads of our universe are thin between those moons. If you travel the path of their light, you may yet awaken in the mortal realm.” She pointed toward the passage of the mages. “If you go that way, you will find the webs Madia weaves. You will awaken in your own consciousness with a vague memory of your death and the freedom to return to your life as happy as you please—perhaps with a few hiccups once Madia has dealt with the crisis at hand. Your sister will be there as a puppet is present in a play.”

  “But she will not be real,” Edyli whispered.

  The goddess lowered her hands to her side and the skin around her eyes softened. “Are any of us more real than the other? We came from Madia and her loneliness. Our bodies were created from the strings of Karewalin, her magic brought to life by Lishivant. Does it matter at what level we exist?”

  Edyli shifted on her feet, her skirt tickling her thighs. “What else do I have?”

  A smile flickered at the edge of the goddess’s lips. “Then run, child. Run with the freedom we were granted so long ago. Not all curses must be terrible. Sican naketonia quisé. Run before Madia finds you.”

  May the immortals grant you long-lasting health.

  The goddess stepped aside and Edyli ran. The grass tickled her feet. Mud spattered her legs and weighed the hem of her skirt. She did not dare look back. She did not care if there were consequences. She would return to her sister. She would see her sister’s rites of magic.

  A breeze took flight around her, swirling in eddies that tickled her cheeks and fluttered her hair. The moons grew large, larger, and then a half-moon expanded behind the others. Edyli staggered to a halt, confused. Three moons? But why had there even been two? She glanced over her shoulder. The goddess was gone. She still had time to turn back.

  Edyli balled her hands into fists.

  She had brought her sister back to the mortal realm. She had seen this realm, but she was not ready to spend her life here. Once she was among the living again, she could seek options to protect herself from Madia’s wrath.

  One foot after another, she raced into the sky. Her feet found invisible stairs. The moons overtook the sky, so large and wide that her vision burned from their light. Running and running, hours that were mere minutes… She gasped for breath, her heart pounding in her ears. The wind was colder here, but damp sweat formed on her skin. The ground pitched far below. She stretched out her fingers, reaching for the moon, reaching for her old life—

  Mist raced in, swooping, diving, thundering like a herd of horses. All light fell away, a cloak upon the land of the dead. The moons vanished behind the shadow of mist. Her momentum faltered and she fell, tumbling head over heels toward the fast-approaching ground with its glistening grass, sharp grass, so spiny and not thread-like at all—

  The mist roiled and the blackness coalesced into a hand. Violet light spilled from the cracks, illuminating the rivulets of a giant woman’s palm. Edyli crashed into that palm. She grunted as the wind flashed from her lungs. Fingers closed around her, firm. The hand lifted her body as if she was no more than a doll. She struggled but could not break free.

  Another hand formed. Edyli blinked, heart pulsing in her throat. The giant fingers picked her up by the shoulders and turned her toward the black mist, which rolled into rivers and poured away. Purple light streamed out like sunlight through thunderheads. A huge nose formed, then lips and eyes, and in the eyes were stars and galaxies, and reflections of webs and a map Edyli knew from her half of the world. Those eyes were black as night with silver specks, then violet and lavender, all colors, all hues, all walks of life and words and thought.

  Edyli collapsed under the weight of their gaze and sat bracing herself in the giant hand. The goddess strode forward. The mist parted. The goddess was a figure as tall as the sky. Her black hair flowed in the warm wind, so long that it tangled with the grass. Her purple robes swished around her ankles, fringed with silver trimming and embroidered with silver stars. Her sleeves draped to her waist, and Edyli had a momentary fear that the gracious goddess would drop her down one of those sleeves and she would be lost, lost forever trying to climb out, and never would see either the mortal realm or the web of the afterlife.

  “Edyli Llambaro Inlleku.” The goddess spoke with the voice of the wind and the crack of thunder. “You traded your life, and now you deny me?”

  Edyli shook her head fast, her eyes wide. “I am going to see my sister.”

  “If you desire time with your sister, you should live your life-that-might-have-been here.”

  Edyli crawled so that she could bow to Madia as she had to the goddess before her… even if this time she knelt in the goddess’s hand, not on solid ground. “Your graciousness, I do not want to live a lie. I want to be with my real sister.”

  The goddess narrowed her eyes. “You insinuate that my tapestry is a lie? You are born of my mind. Do you not consider that the mortal realm is but a different yarn, and no less real?”

  Edyli paused. She had come this far. What did she have to lose? “If this is the case, then why do you prefer that I stay here instead of there? Why can I not live my life with my sister from the same yarn?”

  The goddess blinked, taken aback. She strolled forward again, shrinking until she finally dropped her mortal on the ground before her. Now she was still taller, but her height was only a little above that of the average human. Edyli winced but did not speak.

  “Rise, mortal.”

  Edyli stood, then raised her chin defiantly. “Please, your graciousness. Let me return.”

  The goddess—so, so tall—placed her hand on Edyli’s chest, through her chest, and scowled. “Do not come back.”

  Edyli stared in horror as the goddess yanked her hand free from Edyli’s chest, her thumb and forefinger held together as if she had plucked a feather from a peacock’s tail. A fine string, the finest thread, wavered between her fingers like a hair.

  Edyli couldn’t breathe. She gasped for air. Something was missing. Something essential—

  The wind picked up. The mist receded. Faster, faster, thinning and vanishing, sucked between the moons. The wind tugged at her. Squelching, sucking, yanking her from her feet and flinging her at the sky. The light grew brighter, more and more brilliant, and then her whole body felt like it was being ripped into a million shreds, and all she knew was the whiteness of a burning star.

  Bright lig
ht burned Edyli’s eyes. Hard rock beneath her—

  Air! She gasped for breath, any breath, and stretched her fingers to the sky, flailing, trying to grab what she could not touch. Someone shrieked and there was movement in the corner of her eye. Edyli rolled to her side, crashing through a thick of branches. Wood splintered around her. She collapsed on the stone floor, writhing. Her heart thudded in her chest, irregular, harsh. She blinked tears from her eyes. Then finally—

  Precious, sweet air. The fragrance of rosewood and jasmine. She inhaled a deep breath. In. Out. Chest heaving, cold sweat pooling on the back of her neck. The air chilled her bare skin. Something stretched taut inside her. She pressed her hand to her collarbone, then paused.

  She no longer wore her choli, but a thin silk wrap that covered her chest and waist. She reached her fingers to the back of her ears and found her hair prickly and short. She turned to face her bed.

  Not a bed—a pyre. The stone altar from which she had tumbled, with dry tinder scattered around the floor and beneath her. Bronze sconces hung suspended from the ceiling, wisps of oily smoke rising from the incense. A large round hole opened above her, an escape for the smoke of a funeral pyre.

  Her pyre.

  She gasped, half-laughing, hysterical. She had almost burned, and then would she have still returned to the mortal realm?

  But she was alive!

  A bronze-skinned woman in long, silver and black robes of a Madian priestess held her hands palms-forward, as if to ward Edyli away. She narrowed her thin eyebrows into angry arches. “Be la kagiméan vegornis duhan so ma moctra drat la be.”

  Make the monster before me speak only truth.

  Monster? Edyli blinked. “I am no—” Her voice froze and she choked on her words. Her tongue stuck in her mouth. She stared at the smooth tiles beneath her fingers. She was not a monster, was she?

  “Speak your name,” the priestess commanded.

  “Edyli Llambaro Inlleku,” she whispered, stunned. She was not being forced to speak, but the words she said… she could not lie, even if she desired to. The woman had used word magic, and as Edyli was only an acolyte in the ways of the practice, she did not have the strength to resist the woman’s focus. She bowed her head. “I am returned from the realm of Madia.”

  The priestess took a hesitant step back and called to a man standing behind her. He wore a black sarong and a loose, dark purple shirt that opened at the front, revealing his lean torso. “Bring me a vial of tethvios,” the priestess ordered. The acolyte bowed at the waist, his hands clasped before his head, then hurried under the archway.

  “Where is my vera? Where is my sister?” Edyli tried to catch the priestess’s eyes, but the woman refused her gaze. Edyli’s chest tightened, forcing an aching pain to surge, and she flinched.

  “What hurts you?” the priestess asked.

  “My chest. Something is missing.”

  The priestess dipped her head as if that confirmed what she suspected. “You were dead,” she said flatly.

  Her acolyte returned with a bamboo bowl and a glass vial. He sat the bowl on a preparation table behind him, uncorked the vial, and poured the thick liquid.

  The priestess passed the bowl to Edyli. “Drink.”

  Edyli stared at the liquid, apprehensive as the man cleared branches from the altar. The potion was pearly white, but thick, like yogurt. “What is this?”

  “An anesthetic,” the priestess explained. “I must perform a test which will not be comfortable.”

  The acolyte placed a cloth pad overtop the hard stone.

  What kind of test did they plan—

  Her eyes widened. The emptiness within her and the warning the goddess had given—the moment Madia removed a string and told her not to return—

  She pressed her fingers to her chest. Death magic. That was the magic Madia took.

  Edyli could not die.

  She shook her head fiercely. “No. No—please do not make me drink that.” Her eyes watered. “I know I do not have death magic.”

  The priestess merely pushed the bowl into her hands. “Drink.”

  No! She could reconcile that she had returned to the land of the living, but not at the cost of never dying. She flung the bowl aside and darted through the open archway. Her feet slapped the cool tile and the rough mortar holding the tiles in place. She raced down the curved corridor with all its intricate lattice work that detailed the tales of Madia. Memories shot rapid-fire through Edyli’s brain, memories of the goddess and the ghosts who wandered her realm. She could not return. Could never return—

  Something lashed whip-quick around her ankles and yanked her feet together. She screamed as she tumbled, barely bracing her fall. She struggled to untangle the cord around her feet, but the acolyte descended and caught her hands in his. He held her wrists firm and their eyes met.

  “Please return willingly.” His dark brown eyes held a sorrowful understanding. “If you cooperate, I will try to make this as painless as possible. If you cooperate, it will not be so traumatic.”

  She blinked. “What if I cannot die?”

  “Priestess Jahillva is skilled with her tongue. She can heal you with word magic before you pass on a second time, or heal you so that you are no longer in pain.”

  Edyli squeezed her eyes shut. “I just want to see my sister and her first rites of magic.”

  “You will. But we need to know if you are fa nor.”

  Unbalanced.

  The acolyte helped her stand and then braced her against him, his silky shirt warm against her waist. She closed her eyes, following his steady movements, dreading what was to come.

  Once at the pyre room, he lifted her to the pallet that covered the altar. The priestess scowled as she handed Edyli a bowl with fresh contents. “Drink,” she said, her voice curt.

  Edyli swallowed hard, raised the bowl to her chin, then drank. The liquid tasted of coconut and milk and death. A flowery fragrance broke through the smell and she gagged. The warm liquid dribbled on her chin. She hurried to brush it away, but the room wavered. She blinked, trying to sit straight. Her skin tingled and her ears thrummed. Cold—she felt cold and giggly, but nothing gave her a reason to laugh.

  The acolyte helped her lay on the pallet. She tried brushing her fingers on the cloth, but only felt pressure. She could sense her limbs, knew they were there, but no sensation came.

  “Try not to bite yourself if you speak,” he warned. “You will not feel much.”

  Much? She felt nothing at all. All of her senses screamed that this was wrong, that she should not be here, that she should feel something. She tried to swallow but her tongue stuck and she tried again and again…

  The acolyte pressed his hand lightly on her throat. “Calm yourself, please.” He tilted his head sympathetically.

  She averted her eyes to the opening in the ceiling. She did not want his pity. The clouds in the evening sky glowed orange and gray, hinting at a coming rain.

  “I have the spell ready.” Priestess Jahillva rolled a parchment between her fingers and set it aside. She caught Edyli’s gaze and sniffed. “I will activate it once we know your curse.”

  Edyli stiffened. This woman… she did not like her at all. She tried to protest that she knew her curse, but her numb tongue flubbed her words.

  The priestess passed the acolyte a jewel-encrusted box crafted from rosewood. He unlatched the clasp and removed a slender knife from the silk inside. Edyli tried to push herself from the pallet, but he placed a single hand on her collar bone and she fell in place, her limbs useless from the tethvios potion.

  “I am sorry, but we need to know,” the acolyte said. He swiped the knife’s curved edge along her throat. She squeaked. She felt the pressure and the separation rather than the cut itself, and the warm liquid dribbled over her throat.

  And air… She gasped. Numb, mind reeling—the room spun. The clouds blurred. She reached her fingers to her throat, her hands useless against the warm liq
uid—blood, her blood— and her heart beat-beat-beated faster and harder, and if she had her death magic then the world should go black, or white, and she should wake again in the land of dream webs and brown sky—

  The world did not fade.

  She saw the blur of the acolyte looking into her eyes. Someone spoke. The words… she did not understand the words over the crying of her own heart. But then she felt a tightness at her throat. Her heart calmed, regular again. She became distinctly aware of the warm mist spraying into the temple through the roof. And then she could feel again. The rough dampness of the cloth that the acolyte dabbed along her throat, cleaning her. The grain of the cloth fabric beneath her. Air washing across her face.

  Human. She felt human again.

  The priestess scowled. “Fa nor,” she announced. “By way of death magic.”

  The acolyte helped Edyli sit. She turned toward the priest and rubbed her throat uncomfortably. The smoothness of a scar remained there, a reminder of who—what—she was. Unbalanced. Fa nor. Lacking in one of three key elements, life magic, or death magic, or a body to speak from.

  “Get her fresh clothing,” the priestess ordered. The acolyte bowed and took the bloodied rags with him. The priestess eyed Edyli. “You returned from the realm of the dead. Why? How?”

  “I wanted to see my sister again. I… raced to the moons.”

  The priestess arched an eyebrow. “Moons? You remember being there?” Edyli nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but the priestess shook her head. “I do not wish to know. I hope to find out someday for myself.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her scarf drifting across the floor. “Still, I suppose your family will be happy that you have returned to them.”

  Her family… She would see her sister!

  The acolyte returned with a clean red skirt and choli and the priestess left the room. He bowed his head and produced the clothing before Edyli. “Take these. You should find something else to wear before you go to your sister’s rites, if you do not wish to be stared at. They mark you as fa nor, a warning of anyone who is unbalanced. You should hurry. The evening draws near, and your sister’s rites will begin within the hour.”