Lightmaker

by Kevin Elliott

  Caliper sighed. ‘If this world sprang from a nut, I wasn’t around, so I’m not knowing world seeds. Go watch Phos doesn’t trip.’

  The girl halted and swung back.

  ‘Sneer as you want, Mitch, but there’re always more questions. If there wasn’t a world seed, where did everything come from? And, Frinelia, our people break their backs at work; I’ve known fishermen lose fingers in nets and seen labourers crushed by falling beams, so why hide this learning?’ Her fists clenched. ‘Do you know how our world started?’

  ‘Might not have been any start,’ Mitch said. ‘Our world’s a ring, and rings don’t have starts.’

  Frinelia kept silent and splayed her hands out for balance as she edged down their gentle slope.

  Phos folded her arms. ‘Your hymns have us singing how nature stays perfect, but you made us sing lies every week. Are you sure there’s nothing outside our world?’

  ‘Here we go. Let’s search her for stupid questions,’ Mitch said.

  ‘I’m not ancient enough to remember so far back.’ Frinelia glanced at her feet. ‘I’ve heard ten thousand arguments, and our own stories confused us. I never knew if we ever said anything original or wanted to keep our mouths moving. But I had a friend who studied ancient documents. We talked by lamplight for hours and explored every way of thinking, but his mind always returned to the question of our origins. I wish you’d met him.’

  Caliper glanced behind; a few figures struggled through the fence, but hiking down the hill threw Torzene’s wreckage out of sight.

  Frinelia eased herself down the incline. ‘My friend gathered pages from antique books. Many were forgeries, but he insisted a handful were genuine. He broke into derelict monasteries with forgotten libraries and spent hours dissecting flowers and seeds, and once I found him hammering rocks into shards. He’d go without meals to visit elders, and travel for weeks at the rumour of a book. And he whispered of a time a thousand generations ago, a time beyond any story or song. He said he’d found stories of tiny machines flowing through plants and soil. Everything too small to see, but these machines helped trees and greenery in their growing and acted like minuscule looms or cogwheels or carts. I suspected he’d brewed up his ideas before finding evidence to fit, but his eyes gleamed when he talked.’

  Mitch pouted. ‘If he couldn’t see them, how did he know these machines existed?’

  ‘He never truly knew, but he believed. We watched other priests burn books and threaten commoners, and we hid what written matter we found in the cellars and roofs of ruined monasteries. One night we turned our lanterns low and stitched his discovered pages together with our drawings to rebuild a book; he showed me pictures of flying metal birds and animals built from corkscrews and gears, breathing trees, and fish that linked with each other. He thought these machines might take our orders, and he taught me two exploits that he said they’d understand. I couldn’t make them work, but spirit flared in his eyes as he described what should happen. The next day he vanished.’

  Phos paused. ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes, a good friend. We’ll search through Morzenthal’s documents; fragments of his writing have survived, and your young eyes may notice evidence we miss.’

  Phos stared ahead as if remembering, before darting forward to pick long blades of grass capped with tiny yellow petals.

  Caliper smiled. ‘Souvenirs?’

  ‘Liramic. I had a liramic cloak. Weave the cloth right, and it glows.’ Phos paused and glanced at Frinelia, and the priestess nodded. The girl tied one stalk into a loop and threaded another through the circle, and her fingers danced to knit a chain. Pressure thrummed in Caliper’s fingers; liramic always beckoned the exploits, but he’d wait.

  ‘Busy hands, busy mind.’ Phos stopped walking and focused on her weaving fingers.

  Frinelia edged closer. ‘Here’s an exploit – can I borrow your necklace?’ Frinelia plucked the chain from Phos’s hands and held one end in each hand before raising it above her head and closing her eyes. The yellow blooms trembled, and the chain vibrated into a blur that expanded into a sheet a yard long and glistened like mist. Frinelia’s gnarled hands twisted, and the fluttering stopped. Now her fingers gripped the top corners of a net built from yellow threads, and she tossed the mesh upward six inches before catching it one-handed. ‘Fishermen would have killed to make nets this way, and to answer your earlier question, Phos, my church wanted people working when they weren’t asleep.’

  Phos held out her hand. ‘Can I see the net?’

  Frinelia lobbed the lattice at Phos, but Caliper snatched it from the air and dangled it from his little finger. Pressure throbbed across his palm as if he held back a stream, and his eyes shut themselves as unseen threads sprouted from his fingertips.

  ‘What are you…?’

  His eyes opened, and Phos’s net hovered before him for a heartbeat before flaring into an eye-watering lattice of fire that drifted upward without sound. The glare winked out to leave fine ash drifting downward, and he smelt charred straw.

  ‘Where’s my necklace?’

  ‘I’ll buy you a new one if we pass a flower seller.’

  ‘Did Christina teach you this?’

  Caliper nodded. ‘This was the first. She talked and I didn’t understand, but when she finished, I had fresh memories I hadn’t earned.’

  ‘Have you used this before?’

  ‘Not around other people, no.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Frinelia said. ‘Never learned it myself, but it’s called Fire Rising, and most say it’s our strongest exploit. And here’s our miller making it brighter than ever – we must talk.’

  ‘Most things are useful,’ Phos said. ‘Plants become clothes or food, and any animals you can’t eat make good workers, so were these exploits designed?’

  Frinelia adjusted her shawl. ‘The world isn’t a puzzle with elegant answers, and there’s always a mess to manage, especially at Morzenthal.’

  ‘Was all the city built at once?’

  ‘Parts look older than others. A few stone floors show wear from centuries of strolling feet, but most appear new, and people say walls and rooms move when nobody’s watching.’

  Frinelia grimaced and pressed her hands into her back as she shuffled towards a small copse of liss trees at the valley’s bottom. ‘In the spirit of staying alive we should share exploits.’

  ‘A contest?’

  ‘Not at all, Caliper: a demonstration. We reveal exploits in turns. Here’s my first.’

  She closed her eyes, and her face wrinkled as she strode downhill. Blue-green footprints glimmered behind her for a few heartbeats. She turned and smiled. ‘You tell grass it’s liramic, though it works better at night.’

  ‘Riders!’ Mitch pointed dawnward.

  Caliper turned. Four horsemen rode over the moor’s dawnward horizon and into their valley. They were minutes away, but the riders swerved towards them and broke into a gallop.

  ‘Churchmen, and we’ll not outrun horses,’ Frinelia said. ‘Leave words to me.’

  ‘Ah, but it’s my turn to share an exploit.’ Ten strides took Caliper to a liss tree, and he sunk his fingers into its gnarled bark as dangling branches scratched his head.

  ‘Let me manage them, Caliper.’

  The horses gobbled up the distance, and their hooves pounded like drums. Caliper stared at their pulsing legs; the intricate scurrying left his eyes watering, but the essence of speed was clear.

  The priest’s yelling flowed over the wind. ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘Caliper!’ Terror poisoned Phos’s voice.

  He faced the tree and let his breathing match the horses’ rhythms. His palms vibrated as if his fingertips were seeping into the tree. Caliper’s eyes closed themselves, and new pictures swarmed into his mind, hazy images of his body hunched over the tree trunk as leaves swirled over his shoulders. Phos’s shouts dissolved into hisses and crackles as pain sliced at his fingers.

  The bark swallowed his thoughts, and his eyes o
pened. Above, the tree’s branches had stiffened to stand out from the trunk like skewers stuck into a log, and energy rattled through their limbs.

  The riders slowed and prepared to dismount. Harsh splintering sounds burst out above as the branches snapped from the trunk and crashed downward before squirming and binding together. One stick slapped his shoulder before softening to slither into the mass piling up behind, and he turned to watch.

  The branches glided and knotted themselves into a seething mob of black worms, and four columns coiled upward from the pile. New branches sprouted from the top of the columns and linked to form a cloudlike body balancing on pillars, and both ends of the cloud swelled outwards. One side grew into a skeleton model of a horse’s head, and the other a tail, a pulsing memory of a horse.

  Leaves rushed inwards to plaster the beast in green and orange, and a tremor shivered across his horse’s body as its eyeless head flailed through the air. Again splintering rang out as the horse’s legs snapped free from their carpet of black branches. His beast strutted forward five yards and tossed its head. Its body tensed for a moment before charging the four priests on horseback. They recoiled and scrabbled at their reins, and their horses whinnied before scattering across the grassland, and one man screamed while clutching his saddle.

  His branches had sewn themselves into imitations of throbbing slabs of muscle, and leaves trailed behind Caliper’s horse as it galloped. Two of the flesh horses bolted forward with their clinging riders. One rider slipped sideways but scrabbled upright as Caliper’s beast capered around its prey.

  The priests fled eveward and scattered up the valley’s slope, and his horse broke into the loping gait he’d seen in sheepdogs, snapping and swerving to force the men away. The five vanished over the hill’s brow, and Caliper flicked dust from his shoulder.

  The others stared at him, and Mitch picked up a broken branch to tap it against the grass.

  ‘Let’s see, Frinelia. Your glowing footsteps against my horse. Fancy another contest?’

  Frinelia’s mouth stayed open, but Phos looked ravenous. ‘Where was that from?’

  ‘Christina said trees took orders, and I wanted to try things out.’

  ‘Did she say what would happen?’

  ‘Not so much. She’ll teach the skill, but leave you to explore its uses.’ A few amber leaves drifted past his face, and the puddle of remaining branches creaked.

  Frinelia swallowed. ‘I’ve never heard the faintest whisper of this. If I had one tenth of your…well…. Imagination has a place, but let’s focus on our situation. What will these men tell their masters?’

  ‘The church might not believe them.’

  ‘Four riders with the same story? They’ll believe and we must move. What happens to your horse?’

  ‘I told it to chase the priests, so it’ll keep going as long as they do.’

  ‘If they lead it to a church keep…. We should draw up a list of your skills, Caliper. I should have said earlier – some priests can detect exploits from afar, so you may have rung an alarm.’ She glanced down. ‘Are your leftover sticks safe?’

  ‘I’ve had no problems.’

  ‘Here’s one the right length.’ She stooped to grasp a straight branch and tested it with two steps.

  ‘Be careful,’ Mitch said. ‘If guards spot you using crutches….’

  ‘One of the riders recognised me, so our ability laws aren’t a bother. Let’s move.’

  Caliper stepped forward, but nausea left him staggering, and Phos’s image split into two as he lurched sideways. He closed one eye and waited before following the girl through the copse as his spine ground out waves of pain.

  They climbed the valley’s other side as night fell. Ahead, the grassland rolled on into a faint green shimmer and an expanse of forest where he might shake off fatigue. Rose scents nuzzled the cooling air as branches scratched the growing darkness. He stumbled over a knot of grass but kept going, and he fought sleep by listing Christina’s exploits in his mind. He’d never asked for any fighting exploit; once the priests learned his horse was a toothless threat, their hunting parties would scour this moor. His back grumbled, so he’d not squeeze out another exploit for hours, and like a poacher’s footprints on a muddy riverbank, he’d set a path for the church to follow; he’d not one scrap of doubt there.

  Chapter 13: your clothes will change colour

  Damp clawed at Phos’s body. She was thirsty for sleep, but pepper scents invaded her nostrils, and she kept coiling into new positions. The dangling branches wheezed out a pale blue glimmer, and wind set the leaves murmuring as drizzle spattered the ground.

  Her thoughts raced. She’d left home with a single-syllable name, and she’d mumbled the words of stepping to herself while Mitch had scoffed, but the words sounded hollow. Growing up meant more than longer names; she had to live through stories and endure their changes.

  Leester still beckoned. She knew the path, and Mum would ferret through bushes to strip out berries, and barter for furniture to remake their broken cottage.

  Phos sat upright and hunched forward as night air left her shivering, and Caliper’s snoring marked out time as his chest quivered in the gloom. His exploit had won them a few hours, but the church would follow, and capture meant she’d never visit Dad’s museum or return to Mum’s embrace.

  Her fingers toyed with a finger-sized twig she’d rescued from the remains of Caliper’s exploit. The sprig was soot-coloured but as light as balsa. Before they’d slept she’d pressed her hands against a liss tree, but her fingers had only slid over its dank trunk, and copying the miller’s posture had brought nothing. Caliper said he’d rigged up another exploit for protection, and Phos had demanded details, but he’d only smiled and sliced his hands through the air. She’d try teasing out more details at dawn.

  Phos mouthed her longer name to herself, but her second syllable felt lifeless and meaningless. She slumped back on the damp grass and stared between the soft glow of the leaves at the vault’s blackness. Vault – the strangest word. She’d asked Dad why no one called it a ceiling, and he’d said ceilings only made an inside; you’d have a roof outside to fend off rain. The vault had no outside, so it deserved a different name. Sleep came as Dad’s face lingered in her mind.

  She woke late as misty rays of light stretched past the trunks and branches, and her chest squelched as she rolled onto her side. Liss trees usually trickled vanilla scents into the morning air, but this breeze reeked of compost. The others had breakfasted, and Caliper handed her bread and cheese.

  ‘Do we have plates?’

  ‘Plates?’ Caliper chuckled and tossed his backpack onto the earth before flattening it. ‘Your plate, my priestess.’

  ‘Are your defence exploits working?’

  ‘Christina helped me bond with our forest, and if these trees smell flesh horses, they’ll spit out another stallion.’

  ‘Christina came?’

  ‘She taps into my dreams.’

  Phos stared at the miller’s overgrown eyebrows. ‘What do you sense inside when you’re working an exploit? What’s scurrying through your mind?’

  ‘You’re after the learning, Phos?’ Caliper shook his head. ‘I could teach you bricklaying or carpentry in a trice, but exploits are a different flavour of learning.’

  ‘How different? Can you teach me?’

  ‘With bricks and wood it’s the copying that teaches: my hands follow the boss’s hands, and my mind grows around the new skills. Exploits are another world.’

  Frinelia sat beside Phos with her hands in her lap, and Caliper leaned back.

  ‘When Christina comes, it’s hard knowing if I’m awake or dreaming, but afterwards extra thoughts circle my head. I was a cook for a landlord once and got left in a kitchen full of spices in glass jars every colour you could imagine. Nothing I recognised, but I asked around and got up early to try stuff out, and in the end, I cooked up decent fodder. One day the landlord’s daughter waltzed into the kitchen for the first time. She w
as only six, but she knew what worked. Pinch here, fistful there, and she cooked stuff to make your tongue dance.’

  ‘Natural cook,’ Mitch said.

  ‘No learning. The knowledge sat inside her head without any learning, and that’s what happens to me after Christina comes.’ He paused. ‘Not much of a teacher, am I?’

  Frinelia sighed. ‘I read your file, Caliper, and even wrote part of it; even as a boy you showed talent.’

  ‘Fine, it’s not all Christina, but I don’t know the explaining. Frinelia has the exploits and words, so she’ll make a fine tutor.’

  Phos scowled. ‘Trees spawning horses versus glowing footsteps? Maybe later.’

  ‘You’re best starting small,’ Caliper said. Mitch gnawed a crust.

  ‘Did you start by burning dresses?’

  ‘My first exploit was Fire Rising, which wasn’t so grand, but on my life, I don’t have the wit to explain an exploit’s guts. It’s like tiny threads spool from my fingertips, and they’re roads for my thoughts, though there’s nothing to see. Christina might show more if we meet.’

  ‘She’ll see me?’

  ‘She’s after me, but she wanted my friends too. Not sure you count as a friend with your sour face, but behave yourself, and she might drop new ideas inside your skull.’

  Mitch lobbed a crust at Phos’s head. ‘They won’t fit: her head’s full of stupid.’

  Three black beetles raced out from under a log to skitter over the bread. ‘I keep thinking of Mum heading back to Leester.’

  ‘You want to join her?’ Caliper stood.

  ‘Part of me does.’ Phos glanced at her feet. ‘But if you’re right about Christina….’

  ‘I can’t be sure, Phos, but I know we’re connected, and she’s nearby even when she’s not touching my dreams. Christina’s plans grow like a tree: I can touch the trunk, but there’s no finding the roots. What I’m sure of is danger if we stay in this forest now the priests know we’re here.’

  They packed as daylight surged through the canopy of leaves, and Phos shook a set of twigs from her tunic. Three buttons had snapped off in the night, and the garment flapped in the breeze. Frinelia led them through knee-high undergrowth along an overgrown path.