Tapestry of Dark Souls

by Elaine Bergstrom

  “I wonder what I should do with it,” Maeve commented, as she looked down at the ring resting in her hand. “Return it to him … or to his wife?”

  “You would do that?” Surprise mingled with a thrill in my voice. She would dare anything!

  Maeve turned to me, her violet eyes filled with sorrow. “Do you think I would be so cruel?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know you at all.”

  “Yes, you do, Leith. You know me well. I am alone in this land. I have no mate and no family. I live as best I can, and I will allow no man to threaten me. That is something you must learn as well if you intend to raise your child unassisted.”

  She yawned and stretched, then went to take a nap, leaving me to meditate on her advice. I thought of how I must look to her—my plain brown hair tied in a tight knot at the nape of my neck, my simpering and apologetic manners. I went to her dresser, took down my hair and began to rearrange it in soft ringlets around my face. I dabbed a bit of her rouge on my cheeks and dusted kohl over my eyes. They seemed more upturned than they had been, my smile more wicked. I unhooked the front of my blouse, exposing the pendant I wore. For all its power, it seemed so plain compared to Maeve’s beautiful jewelry. I held a golden link necklace to my neck then put it quickly down. Heavy, beautifully formed. What had she done to earn it?

  “Use my blue scarf to tie back your hair,” Maeve called from her bed. Blushing, I complied. When I couldn’t tie the bow, she came and helped me.

  Viktor chose that moment to reappear. Maeve purred a soothing welcome. I rehooked my blouse and left them, walking down the dusty road to the inn to purchase bread from Dirca. She had baked trays of sweet buns as well, and I sat with her for awhile, pleased by her compliments on my appearance. “If you think you’re ready, Andor would have work for you. We could exchange part of your salary for a room here if you want to leave that woman’s house.”

  Her words told me exactly what she thought of Maeve. I hardly cared. Though I was loath to return home so soon, I did, and found Viktor just leaving, his expression pleasant, his ring back on his finger.

  In the days that followed, Maeve’s hunting went well. She had gathered more than two dozen beautiful pelts for her designs. As soon as she had finished them, she sold them to a trader bound to Nova Vaasa. “I’ve made enough money to keep us comfortable for the winter,” she said happily. “We’re celebrating tonight. This time I won’t let you refuse.”

  She arranged my hair, applied my make-up, and took me to the inn with her. Men from Linde and the small villages to the east were attentive to us both. I found myself teasing them, much as she did. When the banter grew serious, I slipped out the back.

  It was near dark and the road was already empty. I had walked nearly halfway to our house when I heard someone following me, closing the distance stealthily. I ran the rest of the way to our cottage and was just opening the door when someone grabbed me. “Let me in,” one of the men from the tavern whispered in my ear. He was huge and smelled of ale and sweat. His arms held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. I wondered if someone would come to my aid if I screamed.

  But someone already had. “Let her go!” Maeve commanded.

  The man spun. “You! Go back to your lovers, I’ve found mine.”

  Maeve grabbed his arm, pulling him away from our door. “Go inside and bar the door,” she ordered, but I refused. I had my knife.

  I didn’t need it. Faster than I ever thought a person could move, Maeve pulled her own blade and spun the man around, locking one of his arms behind him, the curved steel at his throat. “Touch her again and you’ll never touch another,” she told him and kicked him away to land in the dust. He pushed himself up and traveled back down the street, cursing us all the while. “May the goblins devour him,” Maeve said and followed me inside. There I fell into a chair and began to cry.

  Maeve knelt in front of me and pulled my hands from my face. “I didn’t encourage that,” I whispered.

  “Of course you didn’t, but it makes no difference. Evil devours the weak. If you wish to see your child reach adulthood, you must remember that, particularly since the babe you carry will be your only one.”

  “How can you know?”

  She pointed to the pendant I wore. “Nothing can stop the change. Once it is complete, you will be barren. Know that and live accordingly.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Deny your strength, and the land will destroy you and your child. Use it instead, and you will both live, and live well.”

  She left me. I barred the doors and shutters and sat in the darkness, meditating on all she had told me.

  Maeve didn’t return for three days. I passed the time doing my usual work—cleaning the cottage, clearing weeds from the herb garden in back, boring holes in the cut goblin hides so that Maeve could sew her patterns with greater ease.

  Viktor also disappeared. Though the villagers hunted for him, they did so resignedly and, as they expected, found no trace of him. He was the third man lost that summer. All had been accomplished hunters who should have been safe in the wild, even at night. Though I thought Maeve and Viktor might have left together, I lied to hide her absence. At last she returned, stealing through the garden door, her clothing dirty and torn and a huge bundle of hides beneath one arm. I didn’t ask about Viktor. Maeve had been hunting. Now she was safe. Nothing else mattered.

  I brought her food and sat with her throughout the afternoon. She told me tales of her travels through southern Tepest and into Markovia.

  “I’m so accustomed to the goblins—the way they move and think. They’re such an easy hunt,” she said. “But the mountains of Markovia held different creatures. They walk on two legs and look almost like men. They even speak the language of men, but their eyes are strange and empty, as if a priest of G’Henna had stolen their souls.”

  “Enchanted,” I suggested, thinking of our village mage and the minds ruined by his forgetfulness spells.

  “Perhaps. And vicious.” Her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. “I have never been attacked so cruelly. I killed eight before I was forced to retreat. They attacked me twice, but I managed to reach the border, and they wouldn’t follow me into Tepest. Perhaps they can’t. If so, Linde is fortunate. The Guardians must have a hard time with them.”

  She was testing me, I knew. She had done it before. “You killed eight?” I asked instead.

  “I inherited my skills from my mother.”

  “You said I reminded you of your mother. But I’m hardly a fighter, as you know.”

  “There are many ways to fight, Leith, as you know. Let me rest awhile and tonight I’ll tell you of my family.”

  I sat by the window, boring holes in pelts while she slept. When she stirred, I prepared dinner.

  After we had eaten, she poured herself a second cup of tea and began. “My father loved my mother deeply. He thought she was a mortal woman with a bit of elvish blood, but the truth was tragic. She had been infected by a vixen, not long enough before to make her barren, but enough that I was her only child.”

  “What is a vixen?” I asked.

  “The most beautiful of the lycanthropes, and the most charming. Only women are infected, and they assume the shape of a silver fox instead of a wolf. Often their human hair is silver, their features sharp and delicate.”

  Maeve smiled ruefully and went on. “While my mother carried me, she warded off the change. I was told, however, that even as I emerged from her womb, her features sharpened, and her ears took on an elvish point. She survived my birth, but her will was no longer her own. Instead, she longed constantly for the companionship of the woman who had infected her. She viewed my father not as a husband, but a jailor. When not watched, she left him, wandering Kartakass in search of the vixen who had created her. Like you, she wore an amulet to keep her from changing. She denied the better part of her nature, and, in the end, that denial drove her mad.

  “Her fate enraged my father. He prowled
the land, seeking the woman who had infected my mother. He killed every silver-haired woman he met, destroying them brutally. He hoped that killing the one who enslaved my mother would release her from her curse. He never found the woman or, if he did, her death made no difference.”

  Maeve stood and began to pace the room. Tense though the silence was, I chose not to interrupt. When she finally continued, her voice was filled with anguish and hate. “The Kartakans trapped and burned him. They built a pyre around him. I stood with my mad mother and, though I shut my eyes and covered my ears, I couldn’t block out his screams.

  “My father’s brother sheltered us. He came to love Mother with no less devotion and far more sense than Father had shown. But I despised my uncle—he could have stopped my father’s death if he had been less cowardly. When old enough, I took what vengeance I could on those who murdered my father, and left Kartakass. I’ve little desire to return.”

  The room had grown dark. I lit the oil lamp on the table, filled Maeve’s teacup again, and took it to her, standing beside the shuttered window. Tears filled my eyes. Hers were dry. “You wouldn’t return even to see your mother?” I asked.

  “My mother died soon after I was born. The being that replaced her, even though she made me what I am, was someone I never loved. My father used to speak longingly of her wit and beauty before the change. I think she could have reclaimed it any time she wished, but she was too cowardly to leave him. Instead, she allowed herself to be trapped by him, then by my uncle, and then the town.”

  “What did you do for vengeance?”

  “It happened years ago. I was twenty then. I’m twice that now. The deed is best forgotten.”

  I had thought her half that age, and said so.

  “One benefit of my curse, if it is a curse, is that I don’t age. But, sadly, I can never have children.” She blew out the candles and opened the shutters. She undressed in the shadows and stepped into the light of the half moon, which flowed like cold water into the room. As I watched, her features melted and changed. Silver fur grew on her long arms and legs. Her ears lengthened, her features shifted into something different, but no less characteristic of Maeve. I had always thought of the were as ugly, but Maeve was beautiful; more beautiful than any creature I had ever seen. I walked slowly forward, my hand extended, and rubbed the soft down covering her still-human face.

  “Take off the necklace,” she said, her violet eyes fixed on mine, her voice elegant.

  My hands shook, but I did as she asked, laying the tiny silver wolf on the table beside my bed. My clothes followed and, as I stepped into the moonlight, she took my hands. “Change, but don’t forget who you are. Remember before you make your choice,” she whispered and shifted form again. In moments, a large silver fox stood before me, its head tilted, its expression expectant.

  I did as she asked, stifling a scream as the pain coursed through me. Then, in moments, I released a yip of pleasure at the power of my wolf body. I followed Maeve through the open window into the scented night. The night’s shadows whirled past me as I ran, for the first time free of guilt, through Tepest’s misty forests.

  I slipped the amulet on as soon as the night ended, then took it off when the sun next set. It became a ritual with me, and one dusk flowed into another. Maeve and I hunted deer and goblins in the thick forests of Tepest, climbed the snow-covered mountains surrounding Lake Kronov, and stole back to our cottage before the first morning light.

  We began ranging farther, beyond the southern border of Tepest. One night we even reached the mountain where the Guardians kept their cloth. I tried to turn our path away, but Maeve glimpsed the castle on its high pinnacle. The following morning, she questioned me about the fortress. I said I could remember little about it, save that it held dark secrets and was best left unexplored.

  “Legends say the walls are protected and that no one may enter,” she responded, knowing full well that I had just confessed to having been inside. “The tapestry’s there. That’s where you took it, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer her. I suppose there was no need. “I’m going there,” she said.

  “It’s protected. You won’t be able to enter.”

  She paused in her pacing, her face animated with so many emotions I couldn’t distinguish them. “Answer me one thing. Is that where you were infected?”

  “No. A wolf attacked me in the forest on my way to the fortress.”

  She said nothing, staring instead at my bare arms. The scars confessed clearly how many times I had been bitten. She looked from them to my face, as if seeking some answer in my features.

  “We live well, Maeve,” I told her. “Do you want that all to end?”

  She moved close to me and cupped my chin, forcing me to look into her eyes. “The moon is full tomorrow night. You will go with me to the fortress and you will enter the gates and return with the cloth. I order it, my child, and you will do as I ask.”

  I was stunned by my need to obey, but my will was still my own. I loved her as I would a sister, well enough that I wouldn’t allow her to be destroyed. I said as much, then asked what she would do if she possessed the cloth.

  The question seemed natural enough, but it took her some time to reply. When she did, her anger told me the words were genuine. “Shall I tell you how my father’s family treated me after he was burned? They beat me for every small display of vanity, as if I were responsible for my parents’ fate. Though they knew my vixen nature made marriage abhorrent to me, they forced me to take a husband I barely knew. He was as demanding as they were. Yes, I will have my vengeance on all of them. I will release the creatures on the cloth, charm them as I have the elders of this town. I will lead them to Kartakass and order them to destroy my enemies.”

  “You’ll never get so far. The cloth will destroy you first. It has that power.”

  “We’ll go to the fortress tomorrow.”

  “You’ll go alone.”

  She glared at me, but my gaze was as strong and as steady as hers. I expected the battle of wills to continue, but, inexplicably, she shrugged and turned away. In the nights that followed, we hunted in the mountains to the east, never crossing the border. She didn’t mention the tapestry again.

  The child growing inside me began to make me awkward in either form. Nonetheless, I went on hunting with Maeve until the first time the baby kicked. The quiet reminder of the life inside me made me feel guilty and maternal. I put on the amulet and, though Maeve begged me to join her, I refused to remove it. My child was more important than my night pleasures, than Maeve, than even my life.

  Maeve took to hunting alone. She stayed away for days while I sat in the shade of our garden, growing heavy and complacent. When she was home, she slept like a cat in a sunny window. I tiptoed around the cottage, trying not to disturb her, or I walked to the inn to share a meal and gossip with Andor or Dirca. I was lonely, but I wouldn’t confess it to Maeve. Now that I had shared her world, I understood her needs and would never deny them to her.

  One day, when Maeve had been absent for some time, a tinker came to our door. His name was Fian. He had the same raven hair as Maeve, the same violet eyes. I asked if he were Kartakan. “Kartakan and gypsy,” he replied. “Accepted by neither, though I have more than my rightful share of gypsy wanderlust.”

  I gave him work to do. As he did it, he told me tales of Kartakass. By the time he had finished mending two of our pots, the sun was setting. He had no money for the inn and, concerned that he might be killed by the goblins, I said he could sleep in our garden. It seemed natural that I would share supper with him, then share his wine. So sweet it was, so honey-thick, so full of power. I woke with him beside me. Later, I lay in bed and let him fix my morning meal and bring with it another glass of that potent vintage.

  When Maeve returned, she sniffed the air in the room. “Someone was here?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Who was it?”

  I told her. She reacted with alarm when I told her his nam
e, checking her jewelry to be certain he hadn’t stolen any of it, then voicing the concern that he might have been sent from Kartakass to spy on her.

  “Am I so ugly that no one would want me for myself?” I asked, bristling at her implied insult.

  “No. Actually, you have no idea how beautiful you have become. As for Fian, he sounds like the sort who could charm his way into your arms with no need for any potion. What do you suppose you told him in those hours you cannot recall?” Her anger grew with the last words. She checked it and added more softly, “I have powerful enemies in Kartakass. I am constantly on guard. I will never be able to rest until I find a way to destroy them. I had hoped … well, I will question your tinker if he returns.”

  One winter evening in the middle of my sixth month of pregnancy, Fian reappeared at dusk. I was coming back from the inn when I saw his tall form at our door. Hurrying toward him, I noticed that Maeve was drawing him inside, like a spider into a web. Her questions wouldn’t be pleasant, and I decided I would rather not listen to his replies. Instead, I walked to the center of town and sat on a stone bench across from the inn. The shepherds were calling to one another in the hills, and cattle bells clanged peacefully, echoing through the valley as the herds returned to their sturdy barns.

  Such a peaceful place, yet Maeve could have no peace, even here. Musing darkly, I tried to push thoughts of Fian from my mind. In time, I decided I should start home. When I was nearly there, I heard Maeve fearfully call my name, and I rushed to meet her, pausing for a moment at the doorway to make sense of the battle inside.

  The bureau was overturned, one of the beautifully carved sitting chairs shattered. Maeve, gripped by Fian’s strong arms, had tried to shapechange, but each time, he had recited some incantation that prevented it. She was growing weak. I didn’t know what Fian intended, but my loyalty was to her, not him. Skirting the pair, I pulled my knife from its hiding place under the bed. Careful not to touch Maeve with the silver blade, I stabbed deeply into Fian’s shoulder.