by Taki Drake
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Stretching so that she could hear the bones in her neck and back and arms all snapping into alignment Zhanna finally opened her eyes. It was strange, almost lonely, waking up in a room with nobody crying over her, shaking her body, or otherwise doing something to her as she regained consciousness. Maybe that could become the new normal again.
She must’ve made some sort of noise when she stretched, or Dascha had told her grandmother, because Bolormaa’s voice came through the closed door, saying, “Zhanna, are you awake? I have breakfast ready for you if you are.”
“Yes, Baba, I will be right there.”
Zhanna swung her feet over the side of the bed and sat up. Expecting nothing out of the ordinary, she jerked in startlement when her feet touched a cold metallic object on the floor. Quickly glancing down, Zhanna was astonished to see the spirit dagger she had created. Reaching down with a trembling hand, she picked up the dagger. It was the same one. In theory, she knew that spirit daggers did not transfer to the physical world. How had it gotten there? What did this mean?
Dascha was suddenly there, fur fluffed in suppressed reaction mode, claws extended, ready to defend her witch. <
Dumbly, Zhanna pointed to the dagger. Dascha saw the dagger, arched her back, hissed, spat, and teleported out of the room.
Zhanna thought to herself, <
<<<>>>
Fifteen minutes later, Zhanna walked into the small kitchen where Bolormaa had laid out breakfast on the kitchen table. Seating herself carefully down at the table, Zhanna and her grandmother had a quiet, but comfortable breakfast. Bolormaa allowed the relaxation in the quiet to go on for short period of time after the meal but finally recalled Zhanna’s attention and asked her point blank, “Dascha tells me that there’s been an interesting development. Would you care to tell me about it?”
Without a word, Zhanna brought a sack-covered object out from under the table. Pulling the cover off, Bolormaa saw the dagger. Drawing her breath in a sharp implosion of air, the seer said, “Oh dear, what on Earth has happened?”
Zhanna said quietly, “I don’t know, Baba. It was just there when I woke up. I don’t know what it means because my teachers thought that they always stayed on the astral plane. Now I have one here. And it is the same dagger. Grandma, I can feel it.”
The two women stared at the dagger, each occupied with their own thoughts.
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Zhanna was out in the small garden plot in the back of the house. She had changed to work clothes and was busy ferociously weeding the garden. The small garden provided many of the fresh foods that she and her grandmother ate over the year. It was an important part of their livelihood, but today it was the target of Zhanna’s confusion and fury. The young witch worked ferociously, ripping the weeds out as if they were the enemy, restoring order between the rows of vegetables as if it was a way of reclaiming her life.
Her brother was dead that much is not changeable. But perhaps, just perhaps, she might be able to find some modicum of calm and organization in her life. It would be a haven from all of the rest of the chaotic events that were occurring right now. She desperately needed some safe and ordered point in her life, or she felt that she would go mad.
Too many people, too much change, too much grief. Zhanna’s life had turned upside down, and she did not know how to fix it. She knew she had to do something, but she wasn’t sure what. She hated spinning in place. Like a top that would go around and around and around until it fell over from sheer exhaustion, Zhanna was spinning.
Stopping for a moment, Zhanna was standing in the semi-shade watching as Dascha stalked a butterfly. Smiling in amusement at the sight of her dignified cat acting like a kitten, Zhanna was not aware of her grandmother’s approach. Easing into Zhanna’s area of awareness, Bolormaa handed her granddaughter a glass of cool tea. Smiling sadly at Zhanna, her grandmother said, “I think we probably need to talk, dear. Why don’t we go sit over in the shade a bit and have a discussion you really don’t want to have.”
Reluctantly, dragging her feet like a petulant five-year-old, Zhanna followed her grandmother and plopped down on the grass. She hated the sound of whining in her voice when she said, “But Baba I don’t know where to go for training.”
Bolormaa answered, “but I do know where to send you for training, even though I know you are not going to like it. In fact, I’m fairly sure that you are going to fuss at me, get frustrated, and maybe even stalk around in a rage.”
“Where am I going to get this training, Baba? I tried to get one of the mercenaries to teach me, and they see me as competition even though I’m untrained. I tried to go to a different village to get the training, and they attacked me. There’s no formal magic school in all of Russia, and we can’t afford for me to go someplace else. What am I supposed to do?”
Zhanna was almost in tears. She felt like she was in a corner and there was no place to go. What possibly could her grandmother tell her that would get her out of this dilemma?
“I think you have to go to the place where most of the old witches learned. I think you have to go to the city of the Volkhvy, Blagogarsk. That is where all of the strong witches used to go to be trained. It the only place I can think of that you have a possibility of finding information that will help you train yourself.”
Zhanna was shocked, totally astounded and taken aback by such an unexpected suggestion. It was as if her grandmother had told her that up was no longer up. Ever since Zhanna had been able to understand spoken language, she had heard that the Volkhvy were dead and that their city was forbidden. Around the fires of late-night gatherings, there have been horror stories of those that had tried to loot the unoccupied city.
The retribution of the spirits of the Volkhvy was said to be horrendous. The recounting of the imaginative and long-lasting torments that would be visited upon those that were foolish enough to try to steal from the Volkhvy even after death gave thousands of children nightmares all across Russia.
“You have to be kidding me. It’s a death sentence to go there and try to take anything out of the city. I’ve heard that for my whole life. How can you think to send me there with the idea that I need to take things out of the city?”
“I have scryed until I have a pounding headache, all to try to find something that will help you. I have seen many options for you and most of them show you succeeding. However, there is very little I can do at this point that will help. It will all have to come from you. It will be your ethics, your honor, that will carry you through. I don’t believe there will be a curse or retribution against you. Just a strong sense that you will survive and triumph.”
“What is it that I have to do? At least if I know what I have to do, I can make some plans, Then I can take the things I’m going to need and say the right things and…”
Smiling slightly at a point of inner amusement, the seer continued, “You will know at the right time what to say. You will know what to do because it comes from the essence of you. So you should just get ready to go. It’s as simple as that. Get. Ready. To. Go.”
“Zhanna jumped to her feet, “This is ridiculous! How can I go all that distance when I haven’t ever been far from our village? How can I possibly know what to do and what to say and even what to eat? This is an impossible thing, and I can’t believe you suggested that I do this!”
With that, Zhanna stamped off back to her weeding, muttering the entire time. Bolormaa and Dascha could hear her curs
ing and grumbling as she started once again to pull weeds. The words “stupid” and “impossible” were tossed around randomly in the young witch’s monologue.
Dascha looked over at the seer and said, <
“Check.”
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“Double check.”
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“Triple check.”
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Bolormaa’s nod of agreement was soundless but amused.
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It had been a quiet day overall. Zhanna had been lost in her thoughts most of the afternoon. Her grandmother had continued to work on household tasks, creating a dinner that would be comfortable for both of them. She left Zhanna to think things through. She knew from experience that trying to push the young woman was a guaranteed way of making everything more difficult. Especially for her.
The evening meal had been completed, and the two women were soundlessly cleaning up the kitchen. As if there had been no temper display, no disagreement earlier in the day, Zhanna initiated conversation with a simple statement, “I will go tomorrow.”
The older woman responded, “Good. Most of the packing is done.”
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Zhanna looked at her grandmother with a wry twist to her face, “Cats! Can’t live without them, can never get rid of all the fur.”
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Bolormaa and Zhanna both dissolved into helpless laughter. The tension of the day and the roughness between grandmother and granddaughter had just been diffused.
Catching their breath after the needed break of amusement, Bolormaa asked Zhanna, “What else do you need for your trip?”
“Baba, I have no idea what I’m going to need. First of all, I don’t know how long it’s going to take to travel to get there, and I don’t know what’s between here and there to be able to plan. At this point, it is a leap of faith. I’m willing to try, but there are so many things that are unknown that it’s very scary.”
“I know, sladkiy, my dearest. But if you can trust in the visions of your grandmother, this is what you must do.”
<<<>>>
The discussions were done, and the planning was complete. All that remained was for Zhanna to go to bed and rest in preparation for departure on the following morning. Bolormaa was puttering around in the kitchen when she realized that there was a candle lit in their front parlor. Walking quietly to the doorway, she peered in. Zhanna was sitting there, staring at a picture of her mother and father on their wedding day. It brought a tear to Bolormaa’s eye when she looked at the image of her daughter, Fedosia, and that long ago picture.
She remembered that day. How Fedosia had been so excited and so nervous. Artyr was such a good man. A good mage and an honorable person. He had adored Fedosia, and it showed in everything he had done. Their wedding day had been magical. The joy of that day still set echoes of sadness and joy through the mother who had never stopped grieving for them.
When first Igor was born and then Zhanna, Fedosia had been full of joy and full of foreboding. While she had never had the training that her mother had, Fedosia had a touch of the seer talent. One that she had obviously passed on to her daughter. Both Artyr and Fedosia had reveled in every new smile, every new skill of their children.
Whether that was the first time they crawled or the first time they walked, it was a time for rejoicing. Bolormaa hoped that somewhere Artyr and Fedosia were looking down and rejoicing in the daughter that they had birthed. She hoped they were proud of her.
Making sure that the tears were wiped from her face, Zhanna’s Baba walked into the room. Assuming a smile that she didn’t really feel, she said, “It is late, and you are looking sad. What are you thinking tonight, my dear? You should be in bed, resting up for tomorrow, not sitting up.”
“I will go to bed soon, Baba. I just wanted to look at Mama and Papa one more time. I think that Igor is with them now, and someday I’ll join them. And no, I’m not sad about that. At least not right now. Instead, I was thinking about Papa and Mama and how they’ve always been described as honorable people. What is honor, Baba? What makes one person honorable and another not?”
“That is a complicated question, my love. A good part of it is doing what you say you are going to do. That is keeping honor with another person. It is also how people these days measure what little honor they have. The creation of contracts and the adherence to the contract is what they see as honorable. However, there’s another aspect to honor that some out there have forgotten. Perhaps it died with the Volkhvy.”
“Does that have to do with following the little voice inside of you that says something is right and it must be done? Is that following the path of honor?” Zhanna turned and looked at her grandmother, and Bolormaa was surprised at the seriousness displayed on her face.
It was not the face of a child anymore. This was a young woman and one that was making decisions that affected not only herself but many others. This was the face of responsibility, of adulthood and maturity.
“For many, that voice just tells them to do the things that will benefit them. It does not stand for an ideal, for a dream. Their little voices lead them to excess of pride and to prey on others.”
“So the ideal, the standard, is important. Caring for those weaker and building the greater good can be seen as the path of honor? Is that how my parents were?”
“Your parents put the good of all over their own personal needs and wants. Only that difficult decision would ever have pulled them away from you. They stayed true to their honor and their faith.”
Unable to speak any longer, Bolormaa stood up a little unsteadily and walked out of the room. Entering her own bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed that she had shared for years with her beloved husband. She just sat there her hands in her lap as she listened to her granddaughter whisper, “Good night Mama, good night Papa. Please hug Igor and tell him how much I miss him.” Then she heard Zhanna go to bed through the veil of her own tears.
Chapter 8
The morning was bright and cheerful, a great day to start a trip. Zhanna had been very efficient in her preparations, so she and Dascha had been on the road before full light. The preparation the night before had been enough to give Zhanna a sketchy map, showing her the roads that had to be taken to get to Blagogarsk, the main city of the Volkhvy. It would be a multiple day trip, perhaps three or four days. She hoped she had good weather because traveling in the mud was always a pain.
Bolormaa had waved goodbye to her, determinedly cheerful. Zhanna worried about her grandmother being left by herself. Knowing that it would do no good to talk to her Baba, the young witch had asked Stefan and one of his other merc friends to check in on her grandmother every day or so. She also mentioned to Marina that her grandma might need a little bit of help. She had done as much as she could and now was the time to focus on her journey.
Dascha walked beside her, flipping her tail occasionally and once even dropping her dignity long enough to chase a tempting butterfly. Zhanna smiled and relaxed just the smallest amount as the rhythm of the road, and the soft warmth of the sun cheered her on.
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Zhanna laughed, letting the crystalline bell sound of her amusement echo through the quiet morning countryside.
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&nbs
p; Bolormaa smiled as she watched her granddaughter move down the road. The scrying bowl felt heavy this morning, some undefinable weight making it heavy in the seer’s hands. She hadn’t planned on looking for Zhanna this early in the trip, but a sense of foreboding had pushed her to look for her granddaughter within a couple hours of her departure.
Pleased that the trip was going well, the old woman was going to put the bowl away when suddenly she was caught up in a strong current of dark visions. Only once before had she been trapped in the sight, pulled along helplessly to witness things that she had never wanted to see.
Dragged into a maelstrom of fragmented images and the sounds of undefinable emotion, Bolormaa prayed that she would not be seeing a massive death this time. She prayed she would see her granddaughter healthy and alive.