Emerald City Dreamer

by Luna Lindsey

  Jett motioned for Jina to stand at her right hand.

  “To all my house,” she called clearly, allowing her voice to take on the power of her station, “we have a supplicant who has petitioned to become one of us. Kneel here.”

  Jina did not hesitate. Jett began collecting toradh, which Jina radiated more rapidly than the moon radiates light. Glamour collected like smoke around them both.

  “Jina Lynne Harper, you appear bareheaded and weaponless before us. You have come of your own free will, to serve in my house as céile, a dreamer, and artist. I offer you my patronage and the protection of my house. I give you the shelter of my roof, the defense of my walls, the warmth of my hearth, and the freedom of my doors.

  “Nothing is free. Thus all covenants are sworn equally, the powers flowing both ways. With all your being, in the depths of Dream, in the aisling’s rapture, do you bestow fealty and truth to me under the bonds of geas?”

  “Yes,” Jina declared firmly.

  The geas went beyond the words of the moment, its true magic in the oath between both their hearts. Jett felt the breakwater protecting her heart, and knew she must lower it for the remainder of the ceremony.

  “The word ‘cleave’ is its own opposite. What is put together must first be severed.” Jett lifted the knife from the table. Jina eyed it warily, but did not flinch when she took Jina’s wrist.

  “Hold the Chalice of Fates,” Jett commanded.

  Jina hefted the heavy goblet off the edge of the table. The blade glinted in the light.

  “Catch the blood.” She did so, and Pete handed Jina a Kleenex, and she covered the wound.

  Jett took the chalice and held it under her own wrist. She nodded and Jina took the dagger. The blade wasn’t very sharp, so Jina had to press hard with the tip. Her hands shook. The goblet moved almost of its own accord, to catch every drop.

  As the blood mingled, Jett released the glamour she was holding like an exhalation. Her presence reached out across an ethereal span, bridging the separation between their consciousnesses. It wasn’t telepathy. Jina would not be able to read Jett’s thoughts, or feel her feelings. But she moved with Jett, the way ink flowed with the pen, or the way strings in chord vibrated together.

  Jina’s lips moved.

  Something unexpected washed back, like a wave breaking over the levee between them. Jett shook her head, dizzy, struggling to hold the goblet between her fingers.

  Was it the night she’d seen in Jina’s cold blood, the taint of Pogswoth’s spell?

  “What do we do now?” Jina asked. “Drink it?”

  “Someone’s been reading too much Twilight,” Fiz quipped. Kenny snickered.

  Jett frowned at them, yet still poised, she set the cup on the table, dipped her finger, and drew a spiral on the stone tablet, over the deep and ancient spiral carvings. She motioned Jina up, and commanded her to do the same.

  When the stone was covered in spirals, on both sides, the cup was empty. The stone drank their mingled blood. As the lines slowly disappeared, Jett sent her own unspoken wish into the spell, to bind the persistent undertow of Jina’s aisling.

  “Jina Harper, gra mo chroi, my bright love and little flower, I hereby welcome thee to the realm of BrughHaHaus as céile. You shall be loyal and truthful to me in all things, doing all things as I command.” Jett paused, examining her own words as if she were wary of a trick, even though they were her own words. “If you fail in this, your worst fears shall come to pass.”

  Jina nodded, solemnly.

  “And in return, you shall be duine chlainne, that is, one of our clan. I will protect you, harbor you, and see to your every need. This I swear, and should I fail…” Jett hesitated. These final words came to her, unbidden. “Should I fail, then so shall this stone and cup be broken, along with my heart, and so shall the earth swallow me up.”

  She had overcommitted. And yet the words were spoken, and like all the words spoken in this ritual, they were binding for all time.

  “So shall our oath be sworn,” Jett finished.

  Jett took Jina’s cold hands and said, “Welcome home.” She felt Jina’s arms wrap around her, felt the cool tears soak through the kimono, dampen her hair. At last, Jina was hers. And at last, Jett’s soul and substance was no longer at the mercy of this dreamer’s fickle whim.

  All the others had left them alone. Jina pulled herself from the embrace and looked down at her fingers. A tremor ran through her whole body that Jett almost felt herself through the new nasc, the fluid of duty, between them.

  “I’m still cold,” Jina said.

  Jett nodded solemnly. “Now I can act.”

  Jina looked down at her hands. “The air is warm but my bones are still chilled. Why didn’t it work?”

  “It did work. Now that I am bound to protect you, I can enjoin the Lady Triona, of Undergrow Knowe, to assist me. She will know how to slow the progress of the faestroke.”

  “No!” Jina shouted. “You said the geas would cure me, not Lady Triona.”

  “And so it shall. The Lady of Undergrow Knowe will not grant favor to just anyone. Now that you are mine, she is duty-bound.”

  “You tricked me,” Jina said, anger spreading across her face. “For a moment, I let myself melt in your arms. I trusted you.”

  “No one is more motivated to save your life than I. Now more than ever. The magic of the oath I swore…” Jett remembered what she had sworn. A geas was more than a simple oath. If she failed the requirement, the magic would fulfill the promise. Of the three consequences she had enumerated, she was not sure which would be worse. Jett lifted the cherished Chalice of Fates, where blood dried within its hollow.

  “Your life is now tangled with mine,” Jett finished.

  “That’s just great,” Jina said. “Now if I die, so do you. How fittingly codependent. Plus you get to order me around, and I suppose I will be forced by the geas to obey.”

  Jett did not bother trying to deny it. Jina would calm down and see in time that it was for the best. “How can I do my duty to protect you if I cannot command you?” Jett said. “Dreamers are rash. They abuse their bodies or run unexpectedly into danger. In seeking the thrill of life they sometimes go too far. Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, Joan d’Arc, Edgar Poe, Jimi Hendrix, Beethoven. For every genius you’ve heard of, there are ten who remain nameless because they died too young. Without a master, the dog or the horse would—”

  “I’m not a dog!”

  Jett stepped forward, placing a calming hand on Jina’s cheek. “I did not mean to imply you were my dog. Only that I know more than you, much, much more, and can keep you safe.”

  “Great,” Jina said. “I’ve sworn myself forever, by magic, to a manipulative, lying, inhuman narcissist. With no chance of divorce. Even if I live through this stupid cold-spell, I’m your serf.”

  “Serf?” Jett took a step forward. “You are far more than a serf.”

  “You said I was a vassal.”

  Jett barked a laugh. “A vassal is a lesser noble with property of his own. In your case, your property is the talent of artistic creation. More than that, you are céile, intimately connected.”

  “Serf, vassal, what’s the difference?” Jina asked.

  At this moment more than any, Jett thanked Flidais that Jina’s dreamtide no longer lapped at her partially-eroded shore.

  “A serf is merely a farmhand,” Jett replied. “A doltish tenant capable only of plowing and piling hay into bales. I respect you far more than that. Céile are allowed to advise their betters.” It would be as wrong to silence Jina as it would be to make her thresh grain. And sometimes, they were even right.

  But not this time.

  “I’m so glad you’ll respect me. What a relief!”

  Jett stood with her back straight, spoke with her tone even. “Jina, you will calm down.”

  Jina suddenly took a deep breath. Her shoulders relaxed. “So that’s how it works,” she finally said, her voice soft. “Great. You get to boss me around, and I
’m going to die, just like Ezra. Maybe I deserve it.”

  Jett laughed, barely noticing the tears welling up in Jina’s eyes. “See? You are ignorant. You need my guidance. Faeborn don’t die – their spirits are released. At this moment Ezra likely sits in Norway, mourning the ruins of his beloved cathedral.”

  “Wait, he’s… Oh.” Jett watched it all come together on Jina’s face. She would learn, in time, that compliance would be to her advantage. “I’m glad of that, at least.”

  “Of course you are. It will all be okay,” she assured. “That, and everything else.”

  “What you did, lying to me like that, it wasn’t right. Please apologize.”

  Jina’s eyes implored, yet there was something more, a spark that leapt between them, and before Jett could refuse, she found her mouth opening. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, though she hadn’t meant to.

  Was it the dreamtide? No, it couldn’t be. Jett had contained it as she had for a hundred dreamer-lovers before Jina. This felt different, as though she were locked into Jina’s request by glamour…

  By the geas.

  “What have you done?” Jett said.

  “A little trick of my own,” Jina said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Insurance.” Jina dragged out the silence before expounding. “I made the geas equal in all ways.”

  “It was already equal.”

  “Really? That was your definition of equal?”

  “Yes, we each give equal parts.”

  “Of different things. You give commands and I give toradh? Well I disagree, and now maybe the peanut butter is spread a little more evenly.”

  “This is betrayal.” Jett said it, but the dream did not assent.

  “How can you blame me? I swore under duress, to save my life, except apparently I don’t even have that.” Jina tried to look strong; instead she shivered, taken by cold.

  She was a dreamer, though she didn’t understand how the dream really worked. She had committed a great wrong by meddling with the geas, but Jett could muster no anger. She only wanted to warm the little flower in her arms.

  “We need to get you back in the bath,” she said, “and then I can contact Lady Triona.”

  “First, I command you to release Sandy from her curse. Let her go.”

  Fear tickled Jett’s heart, and she tried to resist the power of the geas. But there was nothing to resist. She smiled, triumphant. “Perhaps the oath is more equal than you wished. Tit for tat. If I never to ask too much of you, I will be free from your control.”

  “Good,” Jina said. “That’s as much protection as I’d hoped for. If you want to order me around, it will cost you.”

  “Likewise, I assume you are as bound now to protect me as I am to you.”

  “Probably,” Jina said. “But… I would have done that anyway, as long as you treated me well.” Jina kissed Jett then, a light little brush, forgiving, yet she still reserved so much. “Is it possible?” she asked. “For me to see him? Ezra?”

  “His nykk is called Orven. Maybe you could speak with him after you’re cured.”

  “No,” Jina said. “I want to see him now.”

  Jett almost ordered her to drop the subject, and stopped herself just in time. “This is the very reason for the geas, Jina. Your impulses are amplified when you are immersed by the dream.”

  “Please?”

  Jett sighed. “At least refresh your tea and warm yourself a little. We are going below, to Cloncahir.”

  CHAPTER 52

  *

  A VOICE CALLED TO HIM from across the world. The elf Bé Chuille spoke to him through the fathoms of soil and rock, from one point on the round earth to another. He arose and traveled the furrows until he stood once again in that dark cave beneath the basement of a simple house a hill, in the city of Seattle, in the New World.

  His stooped head and shoulders pressed against the ceiling, causing crumbles of dirt to fall to the floor. He settled in against the wall.

  Jett stood before him, and at her side, that girl, the kind one, Jina. Now she seemed so young and small, not powerful in the slightest. Her eyes were red, tear-streamed. Her name was…

  “Jina, isn’t it?” he asked. “How nice to see you again.”

  “Ezra?” she asked, tentatively.

  “Yes,” he said with the patience of stone. “This is me, all grown up. In nykkform.”

  “You’re not dead,” she breathed in relief. “I thought we’d killed you.”

  “Not dead,” he said, his voice feeling weary. “But no longer able to live.”

  “I don’t understand…” she said.

  The elf wrapped her arm lovingly around the dreamer who was also a hunter. After thousands of years, one thing never changed: the stories kept telling themselves.

  “Here he is,” Jett said. “And now I must contact Lady Triona without delay.” She disappeared up the darkened tunnel to the surface.

  “I’m sorry,” Jina said. “I never thought… I never meant to…”

  Orven reached out to comfort her. “You destroyed a shell that contained me. I have had many such lives.”

  “How can you be so dismissive?” she said. “What we did was a crime, a tragedy.”

  Ezra shook his head. “Your mortal mind cannot know what it is to live for thousands of years, to be reborn again and again, and to exist without material form. You do not understand the real tragedy.”

  “What can be more tragic than death?”

  “Being exiled from birth. May the body of man be terror to thee. I have worn my last blaosc.”

  “I can’t imagine…” she whispered. “Is there any way I can repay you?”

  With fingers the size of branches, he leaned down and picked up a small stone which had been dislodged from the ceiling by his own head. He pinched it until it dissolved into dust. “You can no more repay me than you can put together this pebble. Although if you listen to my tale, you may have my forgiveness. It would mean something to me, to confess my sins and sorrows to a dreamer.”

  Jina clutched her arms close to her body and sat against the wall, in a fetal position. Despite her closed posture, she smiled and warmly said, “I would love to hear it.”

  So he told her, all about Father Sigurd, King Olaf, and the gyoja, about being turned to stone, and his lives-long pursuit to fulfill his dream. He spilled forth his soul in the telling, and she listened carefully, accepting all of it, accepting him.

  “Thank you for telling me your story,” she said when he finished. “I will treasure it always.”

  The gratitude of a dreamer exuded a special kind of aisling. Orven’s heart filled with warmth and he smiled.

  “King Olaf stole a great gift from the world,” she added. “People will do anything in service to their beliefs.”

  This made Orven remember the chanting in that candlelit room. “They’ll do worse when they’re afraid,” he said, heaving a forgiving sigh that blew against Jina’s face. “My timthreall as Ezra was just another failure in a long string of failures. As a nykk, I cannot grasp the structure of reason, and the secrets of architecture are denied me. How will I ever rebuild the cathedral?” He drew each breath of sorrow from the earth, yet no matter how much he exhaled, it would never depart.

  “All those lifetimes, and you never solved your problem,” Jina said, shaking her head. “Could it be you were looking for the wrong thing?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Jina stood and began pacing, rubbing her arms with her hands. She paused and asked him a simple question. “From all the lives you have lived, what have you learned?”

  It seemed to Orven a silly exercise. Yet there was a hint of toradh in it, like a clever riddle, or the spark of an idea not fully formed, so he reflected. “I have learned that priests were unsuccessful in completely destroying the ways of my people. Six days of the week are named after our gods: Tyr, Wodan, Thor, Frigg, the Sun, and the Moon. Many of the practices of Yule are observed at Christmas, worldwide. The people o
f my old lands still celebrate Midsummer. My own tale is still told as a fairy story in Norway. Only in it, Olaf is the hero, and I am a devil, trying to steal Olaf’s soul. But what use is all this?”

  “There is more to my question,” she said, a glint in her eye. “Sometimes when I fixate on the steps of a goal, I forget why I started in the first place. Then it turns out some of those steps were wrong, even though my goal is still right. For example, I once thought the best way to protect the earth from fae was to kill every one. Then I learned there are some worth saving, like you. So are you sure you want to learn architecture? Is that your real goal? “

  Orven smiled a great, old smile. “You are as wise as I should be, little dreamer. What I really desire is a place of beauty to share, something magnificent to inspire men’s hearts and the souls of the fae. I want mankind to remember their stories and dreams.”

  “They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Perhaps you learned everything you need to know in a single lifetime. What did being Ezra teach you?”

  It was the riddle, asked again, a different way. He thought aloud: “I learned that I have a tendency to run from a bad place to a worse place. That no matter how hidden my talents are, they will shine through. That I should be less trusting of some, and more trusting of others. These lessons are of no use to me now.”

  He leaned against the wall and puzzled for a long, long time. His timthreall as Ezra seemed like such a waste, and yet, when forced to reflect on it, he did find something of value. “The Wanderers of the Way reminded me of something ancient, something I’d forgotten: Worship need not be housed in a building. Reverence can be a shady forest or a cool breeze. That is something I knew well, before I met Father Sigurd, when I lived my long solitary life in that ancient wood.”

  Jina picked up a pinch of dust that was left from the stone he had crushed. She held it up in the palm of her hand. He noticed for the first time that her hands were red and knobby.

  “You told me I could never put this pebble back together, just like I could never give your life back.” She dusted off her hands. “Yet here you are, alive. Isn’t it just like your cathedral?”