by Glenda Larke
“How can a shrine disappear?” she whispered. “How was it possible?”
He shook his head. “There’s just a mist there.” A tear trickled down his cheek. “I still try to enter it, every now and then. Not just the main Hornbeam shrine, but some of the smaller ones as well…”
“And what happens when you try?”
“I see things I shouldn’t. Dead people. I don’t know where I am. I walk into brambles I don’t see. Scratch my arms and legs until I bleed.” He shook his head. “Don’t ever try, lass. It’s not… natural in there any more. They are haunted places now.”
“And you don’t know why it happened, or who did it?”
“Hm. Mayhap the Grey Lancers worked out how to destroy shrines and witchery folk all at once, in one fell swoop, or… Or else, someone worked out how to save the shrines and the witchery folk, all at once, by making them disappear.”
“Who are the Grey Lancers? Where did they come from?”
He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Hmm, madness, I’d call it, lass. At first, people thought they were saving us all from Primordials, from the Horned Death, from Va knows what. Folk flocked to join them or support them.” He snorted. “Lost the sense they were born with, if you ask me. Now everyone is too scared to say aught, and the Grey Lancers rule.”
“But the king? The king’s army?”
“Don’t see much o’ them round here.”
She was silent, not knowing what to ask next.
“Summat did happen recent-like, here in Hornbeam,” he said suddenly. “The fellow who led the lancers got killed in his own lodgings, right here in town. Vicious fellow he was, sickly, with dead eyes.”
“Who killed him?”
“Not sure. All kinds of tales afterwards. Some says it was a woman and her son did it, though I don’t know the truth of that, or who they were. For a while afterward, local lancers were like headless hens, flapping this way and that, killing folk for no reason, arguing among themselves like they was demented. Some of the local lads among ’em crept back home, useless featherwits plucked raw from what I saw of those brought in to see me. The rest marched away, hunting another head fellow, I suppose. They haven’t come back yet, but they will, I reckon. Hm.”
Sorrel listened, and decided there was simply nothing she could say, so she kept silent.
He lowered his voice still further. “If I was you, I’d not admit my witchery was anything other than healing, lass. Hm. In fact, I wouldn’t tell anyone you had one. Reckon any healers you meet won’t blab, either.”
She nodded. Her stomach roiled. They’d been sailing to other worlds, hoping to find a cure for Piper, when their own world was fracturing.
When she stood up to leave a few minutes later, she asked, “Your spectacles… Is there no healer here who can mend your sight?”
“Ah, ’tis only close work I need them for. I bought these from a Pashali sailor on board a trader, and they’re good enough. We did have a sightmender, but she died a year ago. I was hoping an unseen guardian would find us another soon, but now…” His words trailed away.
Now there was no access to unseen guardians.
Sorrel shivered. Without them, there would never be another witchery.
She had arranged to meet Saker and Ardhi inside the town chapel. They were not there when she arrived, so she sat down on one of the pews at the back to wait. As she looked around, she wondered why anyone could ever have preferred such a place, built of cold stone, when they could have worshipped at an oak shrine. Her closeness to Va shrivelled in a place like this. It had a clean elegance, true, but it lacked warmth; there was no vitality, no movement, nothing alive. No beauty but its artificial symmetry.
By the time Ardhi and Saker arrived, she was almost in tears just thinking about what had happened since they had left the Va-cherished Hemisphere.
What did we do wrong, Va? Did we get too complacent, too indifferent to the suffering of others? We had a wonderful land, once…
When Ardhi and Saker arrived together an hour later, she insisted on leaving. “I want to get into the fresh air. Away from the port. I want to go to the main shrine now.”
“So do we,” Saker said. “We can swap what we’ve found out as we walk.”
She told them all she had learned and, as she’d expected, the information they’d garnered was similar. Saker added more details about divisions within the hierarchy of Va-faith. Pontifect Fritillary, forewarned, had done her best to thwart Prime Fox, but she’d failed. “None of the clerics I spoke to believe Fox is a sorcerer, or if they do they aren’t going to say it aloud. I suspect that those who did believe it went to fight for her and died in Vavala, or maybe even earlier when they first voiced their opposition to the Prime. The main problem is that the king was – and still is – on Fox’s side. So moving against Fox is treated as treason.”
He added, worried, “Everyone seems to think Fritillary died, which I don’t believe. The idiots are pleased Fox has taken over as Pontifect, saying he’ll do a better job of mollifying Va…” He kicked savagely at a stone on the path. “Fobbing lackwits. What did you hear in the docklands, Ardhi?”
“Complaints. People are really unhappy about the lack of folk with witcheries because it’s affecting their livelihoods. Everyone had a tale to tell. There’s a rat plague in the cargo that’s stored awaiting transport, something a vermin witchery would once have dealt with in a day. The cooper used to employ someone with a witchery to bend his wood; now there’s no one. Someone told me a tale of a slime mould that got into the holding sheds along the river, and there was no one with the right witchery to save the root crops stored there. A carter had his horses die of a disease that folk with witcheries used to treat. The worst of it? People aren’t blaming Fox; they’re blaming shrines and shrine keepers and unseen guardians.”
Saker blanched. “How could things have come to this?” he asked in a murmur, not expecting an answer.
Ardhi glanced across at her, troubled. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Miserable,” she replied. “And angry too, I suppose. I thought I’d be working to protect Piper’s future, and her brother’s. Instead, I’m further away from her than ever, and nowhere near any solutions. Our ternion – that’s all we have. And we are faced with – with—” Words failed her.
“Anarchy,” Saker said. “I suppose as a one time cleric, I ought to be saying, ‘Have faith. Pray. Va will provide.’ And all those other platitudes.”
Appalled, she asked, “You don’t believe in that any more?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I do see a land curdled by misrule and an evil man’s ambition, but I also see us. Three people singled out – granted our witcheries and the support of the sakti of the Chenderawasi – for a reason. I don’t know if we’ll survive this, but I do know we can make a difference.” He looked up into the sky where his eagle sailed effortlessly overhead. “No, more than that. We will make a difference.”
“We don’t even know how to use the plume pieces we have,” she said, fingering the bambu pendant at her neck. “Unless we swallow them the way you did.”
Saker shuddered. “That only worked because the sea eagle ate the other half.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Although… maybe that tells us something: a feather can make a connection. A ternion connection?”
“All those Chenderawasi legends speak of holding tight to a piece of feather and asking for help in dire need,” Ardhi said.
“As long as you don’t mind what kind of help you get,” Saker added dryly.
This, she thought, doesn’t bode well.
“That’s it,” Saker said, and waved a hand at what lay in front of them.
To Sorrel, it was like looking through layers of gauzy mist, all of it tinged with a golden glow resembling a vague witchery glimmer.
“I guess,” Ardhi asked, in that thoughtful way of his, “that we are all seeing the same thing? No tree. No shrine. No people. It’s like looking through glowing spiderwebs
…”
They both nodded.
He said, “Strong sakti.” He took a step forward into the beginning of the mist, but stopped abruptly. “Adua! That hurt! I walked into some prickles.” He shook his head. “If we can’t see where we’re going, then it’s too dangerous to try.”
Saker looked up at the eagle again, and the bird spilled air from under its wings, whiffling downwards towards them. “Let’s see what he does… I’m asking him to perch on the shrine tree.”
Which wasn’t there.
They watched in silence. The bird extended its feet, as if readying itself to land, entered the mist and disappeared.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“It thinks it’s on the tree. But when I look through its eyes, I see only mist.”
“Ask it to stay there,” Ardhi said.
“I don’t think we can just walk into that haze without help,” Sorrel said, remembering what the healer had told her. She unstoppered her bambu pendant and took out one tiny piece of golden feather. “What we have to decide is if this is important enough to use up one of these pieces.”
“We do need to discover what happened to the shrines,” Saker said.
“Perhaps we can rely on connections,” Ardhi said. “Links between Chenderawasi sakti and your witcheries.”
“Physical links?” she asked.
“Yes. Maybe if Saker and I both hold the dagger, and you hold Saker’s other hand with the feather between your palms. Then we’ll step into the haze and see what happens. We won’t ask for anything. We’ll let the sakti decide.”
That seemed as good an idea as any, so Sorrel did as he asked. Hand-in-hand they all stepped forward together. Although she could still feel their clasp, she was surrounded by a golden haze and couldn’t see either of them properly.
The mist surrounded them, but it drifted by in strands, sometimes thick and opaque, sometimes parting so she glimpsed random snatches of unconnected places and people – a clump of reeds beside a stream, the glowing coals of a blacksmith’s fire, a woman winnowing grain. Their progress was tentative, edging forward when they saw a safe path to take. Every time she thought they had arrived somewhere, the scene vanished and she saw another place, glimpsed different folk, heard other sounds. There was no sign of a shrine-oak anywhere.
Just when she decided that it was all completely random, she saw a child in front of her a few paces away. Shock raced her heart.
Heather.
Her distress immobilised her.
Heather, the way she had been just before she died. Beautiful, happy, with an intent expression on her face as if she were fascinated by what she was seeing.
“Heather?” She spoke the word, but whether aloud, or just in her head, she wasn’t sure.
The child did not move. Of course she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have heard.
Sorrel stumbled forward, or thought she did, wanting to gather her daughter into her arms, but when she reached out, her fingers felt nothing to clasp.
No, wait. She was still standing holding hands with Saker and Ardhi. Heather was not there.
Yes, she was. But she was still just as far away.
I didn’t move. I just thought I did…
Heather was sitting as she had been, still looking at something that had her full attention. Everything about her was familiar: the tilt of her head, the way her hair wisped around her face, the curl of her lips when she smiled.
No, something’s wrong. She’s dead.
But I can see her.
She strained to see what had caught the child’s eye. There were vague shapes in the mist. Children playing, perhaps. She thought she caught the sound of childish voices. A coloured ball, bouncing. When one of the children missed the catch and the ball tumbled towards Heather, she laughed. A boy came running to get it, a transparent figure. He did not appear to see Heather. As he gathered up the ball, he shouted at one of the other children, and Heather jumped, startled.
Sorrel closed her eyes tight, biting her lip hard.
Heather had been deaf.
An age passed, or no time at all. Saker’s hand in hers, gripping her hard, and his voice, saying, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
When she opened her eyes, she could see him and Ardhi, but nothing more except the enveloping mist. Heather had gone.
Someone said once that in the land of the dead, the blind can see…
She swayed, her head spinning. Ardhi let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her shoulder instead to give her support. She leaned into him, glad of his strength. “What happened?” she asked in a whisper. “Where is this place? I saw my daughter!” But she’s dead. “Are we dead too?” Stupid question, but nothing was making sense any more.
At least neither of them mocked her for asking it. “I don’t think so,” Saker said calmly, but she knew him well enough to see that he was unsettled.
“I didn’t see anyone I knew,” Ardhi said. “Just places and people.”
“I saw Heather. She was happy, watching other children play. She didn’t see me. She didn’t hear me. And – and there, where she was, she wasn’t deaf. But she’s dead. I think – I think I saw her in her afterlife.”
Neither of them spoke.
“Va-faith believes that you can choose the place to watch the living world from your afterlife,” Saker explained for Ardhi’s benefit.
“Maybe we came too far,” she said.
“You mean, you think we died?” Ardhi asked.
“No.” Saker’s denial was flat and convincing. “I think I know what happened to the shrines now. Or at least what happened to this one. I think the unseen guardian’s power took it and the surrounding land out of time. Time in our world moved on, but the shrine stayed still, stationary in its own time, which was the hour – the moment – that it disappeared.”
Shaking with shock and trying desperately not to think of Heather, she considered his words. “So… we went to the wrong place in time. We don’t belong here.”
“No. And we’re not in the right time for the shrine, either,” Saker said. “We went too far back.”
Pickle it. It was me. I took us all to the time of Heather’s death.
“So how do we get to the shrine from here?” Ardhi asked.
“We try again,” Saker said. “With the feathers and the dagger, as before. But this time you try to think only of me, of holding on to me, of staying with me. I will concentrate on the shrine and its keeper, because I’ve been here before. That might be enough to take us there, in the right time frame.”
She shivered again, and Ardhi bent to murmur in her ear. “You can do it. Grip our hands tight and concentrate on that hold. Empty your mind of everything else.”
Nodding, she took hold of their hands, closed her eyes, and thought of nothing except the clasp of the two men who had come to mean so much to her. A moment later her head was spinning, and the world around her was a blur of colour and sound and touch and aroma, all of it one amorphous mix.
16
The Shrine That Wasn’t There
Saker drew in a deep breath and turned his whole being towards the destination he wanted. He knew before he began that it was problematical: he had only visited the Hornbeam shrine once, and that was more than five years previously, when he’d first started working for the Pontifect. It was hard to remember the exact details now, and the shrine could have changed. All he knew for sure was that it had vanished at a time when it should have been in leaf, so that was how he tried to imagine it. He closed his eyes and built a picture…
The vast oak tree, centuries old, its limbs drooping, its roots wide and thick. He recalled the man who was the shrine keeper, named for plants as most were: Wintercress. No, Wintergreen. Vervain Wintergreen. At least he wouldn’t have altered much. When someone was that ancient, there wasn’t much that could age. His memory of Vervain was of skin already crinkled like a withered leaf, a back bent like a wind-blown bough, hands gnarled, neck loose-skinned like old bark.
Wherever they had landed, it was not the right place. He couldn’t see it properly because of the thickness of the mist. In consternation, he whipped his head around. Nothing.
Damn you to beggary, Saker, what have you done?
All he wanted to do right then was panic, but Sorrel’s hand clasped his, her trust implicit. Yet the ternion was doomed if he couldn’t find a way out of this for them all.
Think, you beef-wit. Think.
They had moved. From the feel of the air against his face, they were still moving. Hunting for something that approximated to his recollection.
His memory of the shrine must have been faulty. Neither the witchery nor the sakti knew where he wanted to go. After five years, what did you expect, you daft dewberry?
They were moving around in an infinity of time. Va, but it was cold. Wrong season. Depth of winter. He thought of warmth, and felt the move from winter to spring against his skin, but there was still no visible oak, no shrine, no people.
Sweet Va. Help me. I am so lost… Don’t panic, just decide: where can you get a better memory from?
The answer was obvious.
The eagle.
The bird knew exactly what the shrine looked like now. A bird from the Summer Seas which could drop into a tree that was somewhere in a different time. A Chenderawasi bird.
Reaching out to find the connection, he released something of his humanity in order to drift free so he could be drawn to an alien mind. It made no difference if he opened or closed his eyes; he saw nothing. He lost track of time. A few seconds? Days? He had no idea. All he could be certain of was that he was holding on to two people who meant the world to him, and he must never let go. The ternion, linked not just by magic, but forged by the courage and integrity of his companions. Sorrel, as close to him as any sister. Ardhi, the brother he’d never had in his own family. He was their only hope; they were his anchor to reality in a place which had no time.