Maria Isabel Pita

by As Above, So Below

  She shook her head, reluctant to repeat the truth to him. She was feeling much too vulnerable to expose herself to his disbelief a third time. And despite how intrigued she was by what had just happened to him, hunger and thirst, not to mention the need to relieve herself, were demanding her attention. She felt very strange, worse than she had ever felt in her life. Was this what wine and desire did to a person? If so, she much preferred love and water.

  She got slowly out of bed, crouched over the chamber pot in the corner and made herself feel a little better.

  Darmond watched her with a confused frown knitting the skin between his eyebrows. “We can’t leave you up here all by yourself…” he muttered.

  A keen thirst rendered mother and father dreamlike abstractions in the achingly clear morning. She hated the way the narrow stairway spiraled downward and especially how the noise of Darmond’s boots following right behind her pounded into her skull. She had not expected the empty room downstairs to affect her the way it did; her mother’s absence hurt like a physical blow. Janlay’s colorful dresses still hung from their pegs but her worktable was covered with the messy remains of last night’s meal instead of clean fabrics and shining sewing needles.

  “Mommy!” she sobbed but only the other two merchants strode through the open doorway.

  “She’s nowhere to be found,” Markan admitted angrily, avoiding Mirabel’s eyes.

  “We’ll just have to bring her with us,” Darmond concluded. “We can’t leave her up here all by herself. Visioncrest Keep should take her.”

  “She doesn’t have any idea where her mother is?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll fix breakfast,” she murmured and quickly took refuge in the small kitchen, which was reassuringly familiar. She ignored Darmond where he stood in the doorway watching her as she resolutely packed dried herbs into a white cloth. The tears came eventually, finding sympathy in the steam from the boiling water in which she steeped the cloth after tying it closed. She was fixing one last meal because she needed time to prepare herself.

  On the one hand, she was bound for a feast of experiences such as she could scarcely imagine. On the other hand, she felt sick to her stomach just thinking about leaving the place that was her very self. There were plenty of eggs, there was an abundance of everything this morning, yet the sunny day felt mysteriously empty. The narrow storage cupboard was stuffed to overflowing with sacks of flour and cornmeal, bundles of salted meat and wheels of cheese but her mother had taken away the food of her love and without it these supplies seemed meager and tasteless, a world away from how she had perceived them only yesterday.

  Squaring her shoulders, she glanced over at Darmond’s webbed brow. “Would you like two eggs or three?”

  *

  Shane and Shannon eagerly led the way down the mountain, followed closely by Markan and Donlan. Mirabel hurried after them as quickly as she could with Darmond walking just behind her. His ready laughter and encouragements were food for her emotions, giving her the courage to feel wonder and anticipation more than sadness and fear.

  He had stuffed the few possessions she chose to bring with her into his own pack along with his share of Janlay’s gowns. The only burdens she carried were her heavy thoughts. Seeing it from the nest of her cottage perched at the summit of the mountains, she had known the world was vast beyond imagining and now she was experiencing the exhausting nature of this otherwise stimulating perception.

  “The girls back home could learn a thing or two from you, Mirabel,” Donlan commented over his shoulder. “You haven’t asked to rest or complained once.”

  “She could also teach our cooks a thing or two!” Markan added fervently.

  “That’s exactly what she’s going to do,” Darmond declared, clutching her arm as she stumbled. “We’ll praise her culinary skills to Visioncrest’s prince and he’ll give her a place in his kitchen. Visioncrest always takes in strays.”

  “That’s true,” Donlan agreed mildly.

  “Why not take her to our own keep?” Markan suggested.

  “No…she belongs at Visioncrest.” Darmond sounded confused by his own certainty but no one questioned him further, especially Mirabel. She didn’t even know what a keep was, so what did she care which one she ended up in? And yet, when she thought about it, she did for some reason prefer Visioncrest, probably because it was the first thing Darmond had said when he returned to himself in her bedroom. Perhaps Visioncrest was where her father wished her to go.

  *

  Late in the afternoon on the first day of her journey down the mountain into the kingdom, Mirabel watched clouds rolling toward them that looked even heavier than she felt inside as the sun disappeared along with her excited energy. Twilight caught them in a small valley surrounded by lush slopes that had turned gray in the prematurely dying light. A short distance from where they stopped she spotted a silver ribbon of water winding through the lush summer grass.

  “We’ll camp here,” Markan announced.

  “But it’s going to rain.” She voiced her first complaint as the men dumped their burdens around them with expressive groans. In the dusk their possessions were dark, rocklike lumps that offered no comfort.

  “It’s all right, Mirabel. That’s what these poles are for, to make a shelter with.”

  “But I’m cold and how can I make a fire for some tea?” Now that she had started, it was impossible to stop bemoaning their lack of desirable amenities.

  “I’m afraid there isn’t much to burn around here,” Darmond agreed patiently.

  Markan grunted. “Which is why we shouldn’t let ourselves get wet,” he retorted. “Help me unfold the canvas.”

  “How did you fit so much in there?” she asked, studying the small boulders of the men’s backpacks. It occurred to her then to admire how they had carried their heavy loads all day long without complaining and here she was, light as a bird, picking irritably at everything. It made her feel ashamed and eager to help out as much as possible now that they were making camp. She saw Donlan walking toward the gleaming surface of the stream and ran up to him, snatching the sagging leather flask out of his hand. “I’ll fill it,” she said, her energy momentarily renewed by his grateful smile.

  When she reached the water, she paused uncertainly. It was absolutely motionless, which meant she would be able to see herself floating beneath the surface. Her mother had been right—she had glimpsed herself in the stream before. If she knelt on the bank and leaned over the water, she knew she would see her ghost staring up at her. The first time this had happened she had leapt back like a startled animal at the impossible sight of another human face in the water. This evening she felt disturbingly uprooted and yet she was certain her other self was peacefully at home below the water’s luminous surface anywhere.

  Such a clearly defined person stared back at her that she stopped breathing for a second. “Mirabel?”

  Hearing Darmond’s voice just behind her, she quickly began filling the flaccid animal skin.

  “Forgotten how to fill a water flask?” he teased. “It’s taking you long enough… Ah, so you were looking at yourself, were you? It’s all right.” He stopped her from running away by grabbing her arm. “There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s perfectly healthy, especially for a girl like you. You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t enjoy how beautiful you are.”

  “Beautiful? Am I beautiful like the mountains and the sky?”

  “No, not like that. There are different kinds of beauty.”

  “But you’re beautiful like the world.” She concentrated on his appearance. “By day your eyes are the sky and yet better because they can see me, and your hair is a sun that never sets and even though it doesn’t give off light or warmth it’s as soft as silk… At least it looks like it is.” She had not touched it and was careful to disguise her desire to do so. “And last night…” She wanted to tell him how last night his features had assumed the proportions of the mountain landscape yet she couldn’t, f
or reasons too numerous to fathom.

  His voice was soft and deep as the evening around them, “Mirabel…”

  “I have to take this to Donlan!” She pulled her arm free of his grasp and ran toward their small camp—an assortment of moving and inanimate silhouettes in the twilight.

  *

  Later that night, lying inside the shelter the men had erected, she strained to hear them talking quietly outside around the small fire they had managed to light.

  “We’ve got a real innocent on our hands.”

  She recognized Markan’s voice.

  “Women will hate her for that because every man will want her.”

  That was Donlan speaking.

  “What the hell happened last night?” Markan demanded quietly. “I must have fallen asleep in the middle of…” He cleared his throat. “We just left her! We took her daughter and left her up there all alone. She could have been picking herbs in some valley we didn’t see behind all those cliffs—”

  “Janlay wasn’t there anymore,” Darmond stated firmly. “I don’t know why I’m so sure and I have no idea where she could have gone but she’s not coming back.”

  “When we mentioned bringing her back down with us did you see how she reacted? Wherever her material was coming from, that’s where she took off to with Mirabel’s father, whoever or whatever he is. It’s the only possible explanation.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Donlan agreed. “There’s sorcery in those dresses. They’re too beautiful to be natural.”

  “Like Janlay herself and like her daughter,” Markan warned. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing bringing her with us?”

  Darmond’s voice rose a notch. “What do you mean?”

  “Quiet, you’ll wake her. I mean she’s the daughter of a murdering witch and a sorcerer. We should have left her up there where she couldn’t do any harm.”

  “You have no proof her father was a sorcerer. That’s just a tall tale if you ask me and if Janlay was a witch she would have used a spell to kill her rival, not a knife,” Donlan argued softly. “There’s an explanation for everything and I’m not sure I’m willing to stake my finances on your instincts, Darmond. How can we be so sure Janlay is never coming back? I’ve been making a very nice living off her dresses for years. Maybe we should say she was taken ill and that she asked us to care for her daughter for a while until she got better, if she got better. That way we can go back next summer and make sure she’s really gone before we give up this very lucrative part of our business.”

  “Good plan.” Markan sounded relieved. “And the more I think about it the happier I am we’re not taking that girl to our keep. There’s something different about her and it’s not just the fact that she’s a wild thing.”

  No one elaborated on this observation and, to her mingled relief and disappointment, Mirabel heard no more that night.

  *

  The trails they followed became less steep and broader as rock-lined streams began appearing everywhere. Shane and Shannon invariably raced toward them, always the first to dip their conveniently placed heads and drink of the clear, cold water.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Darmond informed Mirabel when an amazing sight came into view as they crested a hill. She stopped walking so abruptly he collided with her. “That’s heather, Mirabel.”

  “Heather!” she breathed. It was as though purple velvet from a giant bundle of cloth had been spread across the curving body of the hills. “It’s beautiful!”

  “That it is. We should be in Snowvale by tomorrow evening, if fortune attends us.”

  Suddenly she did not want their journey to end. She had grown accustomed to Darmond and the other merchants. They were safe because her mother had known and liked them.

  “The keep is on the other side of that slope.” Darmond pointed, his hand lightly caressing one of her cheeks on its way down. “It’s a sight to behold. We’ll enjoy fresh food and soft beds for a night before our three-day trek to Starpoint.”

  “You traveled all this way for my mother’s dresses?” She was beginning to appreciate just what these merchantmen endured for those flat golden seeds they called coins. It was also dawning on her just how isolated she had been all her life. Glancing over her shoulder, she shuddered at the memory of her distant home, which was still there somewhere, not far below the eternally snow-covered peaks.

  “If you knew how much we make off each dress you’d understand, Mirabel.”

  *

  Snowvale was not merely a bunch of cottages strung together like beads on a string as she had pictured it would be—the keep was part of the mountain itself. Even when they were still half a day’s journey away the sight of it made her breathless, as though the world was alive in a way she had never understood before. The distant structure resembled debris left over from a massive avalanche, except that there was nothing messy or random about the hauntingly controlled upheaval of pinnacles and planes, all too neatly arranged to have been caused by the earth’s irrational fury.

  Darmond grinned at her expression. “When we get up closer to it you won’t even be able to see all of it.”

  “It must have taken forever to build! All those tiny black specks in the rock… Are they the entrances to caves where the people live?”

  “Those are windows, you little witch,” Markan cut in gruffly. “We’re not animals!”

  Mirabel was glad to finally ask the question that had been perched on her lips like a butterfly ever since she heard them whispering about her in the dark. “What is a witch?” She couldn’t ask what a sorcerer was without giving herself away.

  “Don’t ever say that word around other people,” Darmond commanded, clutching her arm yet again. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but he said it first,” she protested, hurt by his reprimand as well as by the strength of his fingers.

  “I’m sorry.” He let go of her abruptly. “But it’s for your own good.”

  As they drew closer to Snowvale a sort of terror tightened her chest as she was forced to acknowledge the fact that it was not just a fantastic mountain. “What are those straight yet round shapes sticking up everywhere?” she inquired breathlessly.

  “Those are towers,” Darmond answered, having unofficially appointed himself her teacher, “and each one belongs to a lord.”

  “Why is it called a keep? What do they keep in there that is so important?”

  His replies were sometimes delayed by laughter. “The governing of the kingdom, I suppose. You see, Mirabel, every keep has five lords and each one possesses his own color and authority, while one prince rules over them all and is subject only to the king in Goldentower.”

  *

  Later that day, after the sun had vanished behind the mountains to their right, a smile lifted Darmond’s tired face when Mirabel screamed in terror of the beasts she spotted approaching them that were half men and half huge, furless dogs. He explained they were two of the keep’s sentinels riding out to greet them on horseback and these terms were like spoons enabling her to calmly sip the utterly new experience and savor its exciting flavor without choking on fear and confusion.

  Thus verbally reassured, she found herself mesmerized by the powerful beauty of the largest creatures she had ever seen. When they paused before their small party, the smell wafting from them was very strong but not unpleasant and she made note of the fact that they liked the taste of leather as she watched them chew on belts the riders had flung over their gleaming necks.

  They stayed one night in Snowvale, at an inn located just inside the towering walls. It was dark by the time they passed through the gates, which might explain why she didn’t recall many details. At night the keep was as amorphous as a huge storm cloud swallowing her in its depths, which very soon became the intimate refuge of a bed with wondrously soft light-blue sheets. She didn’t even remember eating supper she was so exhausted and they’d left so early the next morning she was still half asleep. Snowvale remained strangely u
nreal.

  Their brief sojourn in Starpoint was much sharper in her memory. Once again they arrived at dusk and she discovered that in every keep the sentries were ruled by the Brown Lord. They wore brown leather leggings and vests and soft black shirts tucked beneath them for which too much material appeared to have been cut for the sleeves. The sentries were six young men like Darmond, their long hair pulled back from their hard, sun-browned faces, which broke into welcoming smiles as soon as they determined the travelers posed no threat. They stared intently at Mirabel, especially when Markan told them she was the daughter of Janlay the Seamstress, and it made her feel proud that they knew who her mother was.

  Once again it was dark when they walked through the gates but this time she was captivated by the countless windows rising all around them in which lamps had been lit that shone more brightly than the distant stars. She was disappointed when one of the sentries led them across a stone-paved courtyard to a cluster of lights on ground level.

  The inn at Starpoint was almost as comfortable and familiar as her cottage only much bigger, as everything seemed to be down in the kingdom. It was full of merchants just as her house had been in the summer, although Janlay had never entertained so many men at once. The atmosphere was reassuringly warm and thick from all the bodies crowded into one unbelievably large room between four crackling fires. She was grateful Darmond kept her under the heavy featherless wing of his arm because she felt helpless as a chick fallen from her high nest. She didn’t mind that Markan and Donlan disappeared—she enjoyed sitting alone with Darmond in a shadowy corner. The oldest man she had ever seen brought them bread that was not as fluffy as the loaves she baked and no savory herbs had been added to the batter.

  She was given a room to herself—an expense Markan complained about—in which she spent more time than she could measure kneeling on the cushioned window seat with her upper body leaning out into the cold night gazing up at the light-budding stalks of the keep’s towers.