by Cat Bruno
“There is what is seen, but there is also what is thought. For example, I might see a burning house, flaming and falling, yet the fire’s origin could have many explanations. If I feared war, I would think invading armies responsible. If I feared thunder, I might conclude that lightning struck it. If I had many foes, I would assume that one of my enemies was to blame. Do you understand now?”
His words made much sense to her and his explanation was a fine one, yet still she asked, “And if I see this diauxie side by side with my daughter, instructing her and protecting her, what then? Have I concluded falsely?”
“Tell me more of the vision,” he hastily told her. “What age was the girl? Where did they appear to be? You see, one must examine mage-sight with more than just the eyes.”
With a creased forehead, Caryss answered, “She was young, much younger than I would have guessed to be wielding the heavy sword that she carried. Perhaps seven or so moon years. I know not where they were, but the sun was red and the ground burnt. They were in a courtyard of sorts, surrounded by wide-fronded trees.”
“Yet you are certain it was not Tretoria or the Cove?”
They had both paused, although there were none around to hear them. For a moment, Caryss struggled to recall the sight, the memory of her daughter and the diauxie.
“It was a place that I have not yet seen,” she told him finally, angry that she knew no more.
“So the girl will be with him at some point. The vision does not mean that he will come with you now.”
“There is more that I have not told you,” Caryss confessed, wiping at her forehead and the moisture there.
“Caryss,” he moaned.
Giving little heed to his annoyance, she continued, “Remember the boy? The one I saw in the hallways of the palace. The one I said was born from fatigue.”
“You believe that to be mage-sight as well?” he hurriedly asked, already knowing what she implied.
“No. More makes sense to me now, and I am certain that it was no mere vision. He traveled as the girl does, from place to place, as if a ghost. Afterward, days later, I saw him again. But that time it was the sight, and he was with Otieno.”
As he listened, the mage’s eyes grew sharp with interest. “You are convinced that he is Crispin’s son? The prince himself acted as if you were mad to suggest such a thing.”
“He later admitted to me that I was right,” she told him.
Shaking his head as if in disbelief, Aldric sighed, “Caryss, why would you help the boy?”
“She will need him. There will come a time when she will need him.”
Her words were crisp, as if there was no doubt to them.
“You have seen it?” the mage asked.
She knew that she was not wrong and told him so.
“Is it not strange to see so much, Bronwen?”
She smiled at his slip, but didn’t correct him. “It is not I who sees. It is the babe who sees. Once she is born, I will be healer again and nothing more.”
“You will always be more.”
“Healer is enough,” she laughed, under the bright gaze of the sun. The sound echoed around them, and, for the first time in moons, Caryss felt free, as if the gods had lost track of her.
As if she had finally outran them.
*****
He was standing beneath the swaying, feathery leaves of a palm tree when the woman appeared. There was a man with her, but the halo of light that surrounded her blinded him to all others. The sun was midway between cresting and setting, hanging with a slant toward the horizon. For a long moment, she could not see him, but he watched her from afar, unknown and undisturbed. The blaze of her hair, waving in the wind, tendrils of flame dancing across her face, gave him pause.
Beneath his dark jacket, his heart pulsed, fast and fierce, yet he knew not why.
On she walked, and, when the fog behind his eyes cleared and his pulse slowed, Otieno noticed the man beside her. Tall and thin, shadowed where she was bright. The man was not who he would have expected to be with her, and he reached for the curved sword that hung to his right, gripping it with a scarred hand, one that was etched with faded lines.
With his fingers brushing at the hilt, he waited, keeping the sword sheathed.
Again, he looked toward the tainted man, recognizing the scent of blood magic on him.
From where he stood, the diauxie could still not be seen. Hidden, he eyed them as they approached. The woman’s pale skin glowed under the tropical sun, shimmering, tinted the color of the moon. The thin man stood just steps behind her, and Otieno slowly dropped his hand. Wearing a thick riding suit, unusual for the warm climate of the islands, the woman appeared to be without weapon. Her companion had a long sword at his hip, but Otieno wondered if he even had strength to draw it.
A cloudless sky watched them, and a salty breeze fell over them. Yet, as the pair neared, the air around him suddenly stilled. There was a ringing in his ears that he could not quiet. Bright and burning, the sun seemed to turn away from him, yet no light faded. Quickly, he dropped his eyes and backed toward the tree until he was pressed against it.
Pale and flaming, as if born of fire and star, the girl approached. About her was a light that he remembered. A light of another, one whom he longed to forget.
Behind his eyes, blood ran, reddening his vision until the sand beneath his booted feet was murky and crimson. Sticky and thick, streams of blood wrapped around his feet until he could not move.
Her voice was like a song, calling to him, gently at first, but the rhythm intensified, drumming into him with forceful and melodic thumping. Without words, the woman spoke to him. From a distance, she touched him with hands as cool as the glacial lakes of her homeland. Her fingers burned him, ice-hot. Like the atraglacia he long coveted. Lava rock. Black ice. Fire and flame, ice and iron.
Any other man would have fallen to his knees when she neared. Otieno did not, but his legs shook nonetheless.
When she spoke, her words were soft and light, and, with each one, the blood-haze lifted. Just steps from him, he saw her clearly now.
“I have traveled far to find you, Otieno.”
He said nothing, nor did he move. Her words, both warning and song, struck as if a weapon.
“My daughter sends me to you.”
He knew not who the woman was, nor her daughter. That she knew him was no surprise.
Finally, he stepped from the shadow of the tree. “Who is your daughter?” he asked, his voice gruff, as if no words had come from his full lips in moons.
“The girl is not yet born,” she told him, coming to a halt, close enough for him to reach for her.
Beside her, the man stood, strange and silent, abiding and waiting, speechless. His eyes, guarded and intense, betrayed little.
Pulling his eyes from the man, Otieno asked, “How can it be so that one unborn has tasked you to find me?”
She stared at him with eyes gray, gold, and green. Her nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles, as if the gods had painted her cheeks with drops of sunlight. Her fingers, long and fine, trembled slightly where they hung at her side. Yet, in those eyes, he saw no fear.
She let him inspect her, before answering, “I am with child, Otieno, and she is no ordinary child. She speaks to me.”
Otieno looked to the other man for explanation, yet his eyes were low and lidded, so he looked back to the woman, thinking her mad. As with many who were blessed with magic, her mind had become damaged, he realized as the spell of her began to fade.
“Islanders know to not play games with a diauxie. Be gone from here,” he hissed without moving from beneath the tree’s canopy of fronds.
His words were harsh ones, yet the woman smiled. A smile of madness.
“I play no game,” she laughed. “I have come for your aid. And will do what I must to ensure that I have it. In truth, I was warned overmuch about seeking you. Yet I still have come.”
When she looked at him, her eyes shined with desire, one th
at she did nothing to mask.
“Do not seek to seduce me,” he warned, understanding what game she now played. “Do not try to bribe me. Nor threaten me. Many have tried. As many have failed.”
The woman was quiet for several moments, her head low and eyes downcast now, hiding her want.
When she still did not back away, he told her, “Be gone now.”
As if come to life again by his words, she cried, “I have come from afar to find you, and with many risks to myself and to others. Will you not hear me out? What of coin? I have much to offer.”
“What need do I have for coin? I have neither home nor family. I walk with the wind and the Great Mother provides.”
“What if the Great Mother wills you to help my daughter?” the woman asked, her tone serious and stern.
With a furrowed brow, Otieno growled, “Leseda, what right do you have to speak for the Great Mother? You are mad to even attempt such.”
“Must I beg you, Otieno?” the woman pleaded, her voice high and shaky as she jumped toward him.
He nearly grabbed her by the shoulders as she threw herself at him. Pulling at his tunic, she cried, “It must be you. I have seen her with you.”
“One who has not yet been born cannot speak!”
“She speaks,” the woman gasped, sobbing as her fingers fell from him.
“Do not seek to woo me with tears. My path is my own, and it is one that none can follow,” he chided her.
“She will walk where others cannot,” the woman cried, tears shaking her body until she fell to her knees in the soft sand at his feet.
Behind her, the man moved, crouching beside her and placing an arm around her shoulders.
Into her neck, he whispered, loud enough for Otieno to hear, “Caryss, we will find another way. There are others who can teach her.”
She flung the man’s arm from her and scrambled to her knees, anger flushing her face. With a tear-stained face, red and wet, she looked to him.
With a gaze full of accusation, she screamed, “What of glory?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but she silenced him. “She will be like none before her.”
The man pulled at her until she stood.
“Do not beg him. If he will not come willingly, then the girl will not want him at her side,” he scolded her.
Stepping back from him, the woman spit, “I will not beg him, Aldric. I will show him.”
Otieno watched as she turned toward the man. Her next words were spoken too low for him to hear, but the dark-clothed man released her, although his eyes blazed and his lips tightened.
Again the woman fell to her knees, but this time the man did not move. Otieno noticed how he looked about, as if on guard. His hands, yellowed and lined, rose, until they were above his head. Otieno had seen such done before, and recognized the faint hum of the air as a warding.
“You would be a fool to seek to harm me, mage,” Otieno warned, reaching for his scimitar.
The man said nothing. Yet Otieno sensed the humming air and recognized mage-skill. Instead, he turned toward the woman, who reached for a pouch hanging from a braided belt. When next he looked, the woman gripped a dark-bladed dagger. Near his boots knelt a half-mad woman, with child, a child she claimed spoke to her. In hands that were unmarked and smooth was a dagger, one ancient and tainted. A blade carved of ice and smoldered in fire.
Atraglacia.
Before he could stop her, she drew a long, thin line across the palm of her left hand with the tip of the ebony ice. Blood bubbled, from edge to edge, perfectly straight, until it grew too thick and dripped down toward her wrist and over the creased sides of her hand. The blood sought the earth, falling and falling again until it reached sand and dirt.
Blood magic. The magic of his people, not hers. But with a weapon that none here would recognize.
No one talked, nor did any try to stop her, not even the man who stood white-faced and chanting. Otieno could not take his eyes from the woman, the leseda, as she dipped her forehead to the ground, resting it there, in submission. Except for her pale skin and black blade, she was like so many before her who sought the Great Mother’s power. Knees dirtied and hands bloodied, in supplication.
Blood was blood, rich and red, all the same to the Great Mother.
Lifting her head from the ground, the woman raised the back of her right hand, the clean hand. When fingers reached forehead, she paused, marking the mother’s sign there. Next, those fingers landed on lips that were red and full, swollen under the island sun. Again she traced the mother’s circle.
When she moved next to above her heart, Otieno shuddered, remembering how often he too searched for the origin of the life pulse. While she sought blessing, he had sought death. Until the Great Mother had called him elsewhere. On her knees before him, the pale-faced Northern girl now called to his gods, not her own. He watched as she rested her hands over her womb, already rounded, he now noticed. Cupped and open, red with still-wet blood, her hands trembled, yet she did not rise.
They all waited.
Her blood was strong, her dagger god-touched.
The Great Mother did not make them wait long. But, it was not the goddess who came.
Steps from the mage, a woman appeared, dark-hair piled high on her head, plaited and twisted in a style that spoke of talented hands. He knew the girl to be a vision, glimmering and faded, yet still he stepped closer.
Moon-dipped fabric, nearly sheer silver and cream, wrapped her body from neck to ankle, a style of dress more suited to warm climates than the cool, Northern ones. Small jewels dotted her dark hair, glittering like stars in a sea of night. Her feet were bare, as if she had rushed off.
Drawing a deep breath, he gazed again at her face and gasped. As if she had heard his escaping breath, the girl looked to him. Just steps from him, close enough for him to reach, she watched, waiting for the questions that she could see in his startled face.
Otieno said nothing, for his mouth had gone suddenly dry and words would not form. Instead, he stared at the three black stripes, as long as his thumb, one on top of another, lining her high-boned cheek just beneath her left eye. She had been marked, her face inked in permanence.
In tribute, he knew.
When she noticed where he looked, the girl bowed, more deeply than he liked, for he was no king, nor prince, despite the stories that followed him.
“Akkachi,” she said, the word deep and swirling, accented with a lilt he did not recognize.
The term was one of the Cove, yet hearing her speak it caused him pause.
“I am no god, nor am I his warrior,” he told her with sharp words when his lips finally parted.
“And so it begins, Otieno,” she stated as her image steadied.
Behind her, the healer and the mage exchanged glances, yet neither spoke.
When he realized the woman would say nothing, he hurriedly explained, “I know you not, nor your mother. What game is played here?”
“Why did she tell you that she is here?” the girl asked, pulling at the fine garment she wore, as if unaccustomed to such dress.
Beside his face hung clay-tinted braids, which shook as he called, “She seeks my help.”
He stepped closer to the flickering girl. She glowed as if she had been cut from the moon, yet she wore no halo like her mother. There was a shadow upon her, even if few could see it.
“Are those the stripes of the great cat upon your cheek?” he asked, looking upon her face again.
When the girl smiled, his hands trembled, and he nearly reached for a sword.
“Newly stained, yes. You were with me, Akkachi, and watched as I earned them.”
“You are but a girl,” he grunted. “Your skills cannot be so great.”
Her laughter pierced him, sharper than any sword tip, and, again, he noticed the others watching.
The girl had come closer, until her fingers, edged in soft light, pointed at his scabbard. “Drop your weapons. I will show you my womanly skills, Akkachi.
You are a greater teacher than you even know.”
“Then you should know that I would never be without weapon,” he chastised her, unable to look away from the shining, spectacular girl.
Again she laughed, the sound child-like, high and without restraint, reminding him of her youth.
With twinkling eyes, she pointed toward his back, “Give me Enyo then.”
Scowling, he retorted, “You would not be able to lift it, let alone wield it, girl.”
“Let me show you,” she shrugged, swirling away from him.
The girl appeared younger than the healer, yet she was taller and her arms were tight, her shoulders curved with muscle. Few could lift the Greatsword. Even fewer could swing it. Yet the girl had called for it by name. A name that none but he knew, for the blacksmith who had made it was long dead.
No longer understanding what was happening or who the girl was, he unclasped the sword and swung it around and over his head until the thick tip was buried in the sand between his boots.
“Do not name it again, child,” he growled.
Bowing her head, she said, “Yes, master. Now drop it to the sand. I cannot pick it up if it is still in your possession.”
Still uncertain, he did as she asked, but placed his hand on the hilt of the curved sword.
“You couldn’t just go with her?” the girl called to him as she danced nearer. “You must make everything difficult, Akkachi, and turn all into a lesson. Now stand back,” she warned, motioning to the others.
With a laugh that was honey-sweet, she teased, “As Otieno has said, I might not even be able to lift the Greatsword.”
She smiled and her emerald-colored eyes shimmered in jest, but all did as she had requested.
Her right hand, shining yet solid, reached for the blade, and the girl wrapped her fingers across the hilt, placing her left hand under it. With a tight grip around the wide hilt, she lifted Enyo off the ground, with more ease than Otieno would have believed possible. The sword was long and heavy, but she wielded it well, swinging it from right to left, letting it cross her body with power and force, striking down at an imaginary target. The girl lifted it again, this time bringing it from beside her left hip, slashing upward, across and into the air. Next, she lunged with it, a difficult move for even Otieno himself, parrying and twisting after the thrust. On and on, she flowed, swinging, slashing, spinning away then back toward them with a strike.