“But how did you get here?” Aidan began bombarding him with questions. “Do you have one of those portal stones? Is there another way back? Or are you stuck here like us?”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here but–”
“Ah, I see,” Tat interrupted the boy, “I’ve heard of your people. You’re acolytes of the Goddess Fortuna, right?”
“Well I wouldn’t say acolyte, but yeah; she taught our people and marked us to be different from the rest of the humans during the time of the separation of worlds. And to answer your question,” he looked at Aidan, “I don’t need a keystone. I just walk through the gates and back through when I need to leave. I can also see the fae without a problem. Fortuna gave my people those abilities but not everyone still knows how to do it, just people like me that have been awakened and are taught how.”
The boy noticed Aidan’s smile and continued, “And no! I can’t bring anyone else through or back with me if that’s what you’re after. And yeah, Fortuna taught our people a lot of things, especially how to tell fortunes. That’s why the people back in the Otherworld call us ‘gypsy’ fortune tellers.”
Aidan looked shocked, unsure of why this shocked him of all the things he’d seen and heard about so far. This whole thing with different worlds and humans being separated; the entirety of it was starting to really unhinge him. What right did these ‘gods’ have to choose the fates of all humanity and other living creatures? He sighed. Just another piece of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit right.
“Anyway, I’ve got to find another wyren. My amma needs it if she’s going to survive. That’s why I’m here.”
“Hey, well man, we’re sorry,” Aidan tried to apologize without being too awkward.
“No I’m not!” Tat sneered, gripping Tok a little too tightly. “I don’t care what your am-mel person needs. That poor creature, you’ve got no right to capture it and dry its skin out and grind it down!”
“What? Who said anything about drying it out or grinding it down? And it’s my amma, you know, my grams, uhm… my grandmother? I don’t want to take it forever, just for a bit. It’s said that wyrens can heal the sick by humming to them. My amma is in some kind of a coma, and we’re thinking it’s more magical than physical. My mom decided to send me here to get one since Amma trained me and I know about the creatures of this world.
So, we thought if I asked one to come with me over there it would heal her, and I asked, but he got scared and didn’t want to come. And well, that’s the first one I’ve seen in a month. And time, well you know, moves differently. And I need to get back, so I grabbed him and put him in the bag. I thought maybe I could persuade him on my way back to the gate. I know it wasn’t the best thing to do, but what choice did I have?”
“Tat, we’ve got to help him. It’s our fault he lost that plant thing,” Aidan added.
“You promise you won’t hurt him and you will bring him back when she’s better?” Tat asked the boy with a stern look on her face.
“Yes, of course I do. But it’s ok, you guys don’t need to waste your time. You said you had business in Breah Dorn.”
“Well, like Tat said earlier, why don’t you come with us? We can help one another out. We can help you look and you seem like you know your way around here, and we could definitely use a guide,” he paused looking at Tat who was glaring at them both now. “By the way, I’m Aidan, and I’m from your world, and this is Tatyana, and she’s… not.”
“Yeah, I figured,” the boy sighed and was silent for a bit, weighing the choice he now had to make. “I guess three pair of eyes are better than one, so we might as well. The name is Rowen for the record. If you’re Errata, then let me guess. You’re looking for a temple of the Fates?”
“Something like that. That’s what I’m doing anyway, Tat’s just here to help me out.” Aidan paused. She scowled back so he decided to tease, “since she was the one who came to my world with a stolen pooka’s keystone and made me Errata then dragged me here into the Notherworld in the first place.”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Tat pouted and Tok mewed as if she agreed, “besides, you were the one that bumped into me! It wasn’t something I planned, it was an accident and you know it.”
“Yeah, this should be interesting.” Rowen shook his head, half laughing, half sighing.
Chapter Five
And Then There Were Three
A fter setting up camp for the night, Rowen eagerly waited near the hole, hoping maybe there was a slight chance that the wyren could show itself again. Tat wasn’t so sure though and told him that many plant folks used underground tunnels to get around from area to area and it was probably long gone by now. Once it was too dark to see and the little campfire ring had burned itself out, they did their best to get a good night’s sleep.
Aidan hated it. The small bed roll the pooka’s packed for him would’ve been adequate, had he been pooka sized, but he was simply too tall. He tossed most of the night, stretched out with more than half of his body exposed to the hard ground. He began to wonder if every night was going to be this hard to get to sleep.
Rowen didn’t sleep well either. He couldn’t help being sad because he’d failed at his mission, but he could hear his amma’s voice plain as day, ‘you won’t eat burnt beans, but the chickens won’t complain’. While he never really got that saying, he knew it was her way of saying to make the best of it.
To Rowen’s dissatisfaction there wasn’t any sign of a plant that wasn’t well rooted in place, and figured Tat was probably right. He probably would have kept looking for the critter, if there had been better lighting, but he knew better than to search for too long in the woods at night.
Early the next morning the small clearing filled with a thin layer of fog, gently covering everything with a thin mystically appearing gossamer mist, making the forest look even more magical.
Aidan stretched, he felt drained, but couldn’t sleep another wink even if it were still in the early twilight morning hours.
Tat sat waiting on a long log they’d found when making camp the night before. She’d already started a small fire and pulled out pots and pans to warm some of the food they had left over from the night before.
Rowen was the last to wake, needing to find a private place to relieve himself, he then gathered some small twigs to stoke the fire. Looking at his two new travel companions Rowen smiled, realizing how tense they looked; hoping it might get them loosened up a bit if he himself seemed more relaxed. After all, what’s done is done – no wyren in sight, but he knew his amma would want him to help these two out if she were here.
Everyone felt very odd over the prior evening’s events, so they did what most people do when thrown together for long periods of time, they filled it with anything but awkward silence. Rowen began by describing more about his fate-kin people. He continued to explain that the word ‘‘gypsy” is generally despised since people often used it in a hateful way, but he still used it, even if it was in jest most of the time.
He went on, explaining that his amma Emelda is their Kralis, a leader of sorts among his people. Rambling about how everyone looked up to her for just about everything, from medicinal herbs for doctoring, to general day to day advice. He explained that not a single child was born into the tribe, nor any other important event took place that didn’t involve Emelda in some way or another.
Aidan found a stick to poke at the poorly lit campfire Tat had built in the tiny stone ring while he listened to Rowen talk. He was bored, but he figured the more he knew about this guy the better off they’d be. Tat listened with intent, just as she’d been curious about the things Aidan told her, she was just as enthralled by what Rowen explained.
“Like she did with all the children born into the tribe, Amma done a tarot card reading for me and saw that I was destined to be a great leader, so she wanted to train me to be the next Kralis. Mom didn’t agree though. She thinks the old ways are just a way to scam fools out of their money. Amma always sai
d that despite her best efforts, my mom never paid any attention to anything she tried teaching her. Amma hopes I’ll be different. And I am. I love everything about it.”
As Aidan listened he learned that Rowen didn’t make it beyond the third grade in the public school system. His mother homeschooled him after that due to an anger management problem, which apparently suited both Rowen and his amma just fine.
Rowen continued explaining that he learned all the same things they teach children in public schools by his mom, but his amma slipped in a lesson here and there on what she called ‘true magick’. He learned many things about this fantastic world and visited it often with her. He talked about the many wonderful things he’d seen in his eight years of visiting this place; he swore he couldn’t recount them all.
“So you’ve come here a lot then?” Aidan interrupted him.
“Yeah, but this is the first time I ever came without Amma.”
“Does it scare you? I mean to be in a different world?” Aidan asked, trying to hide the obvious fact that he was asking to make sure he wasn’t the only one scared.
“Nah. I love this place. If it weren’t for being the tribes’ leader someday, I would move to the Notherworld for good, even if it meant I’d never see my family again. I mean sure, I’d miss my mom and Amma and all, but they’d come see me. But I guess there’s no point in wishing about things that can never happen.”
“Is Rowen your only name?” Tat interrupted him, asking him a question that seem to come out of nowhere.
“Nah, my last name is Ardwyn. I don’t have a middle name for some strange reason,” he shrugged. “But I don’t really care. I don’t see the point in it anyway. The last name I think is some kind of tree or something from over on this side of the gates. Or I think that’s what Amma told me. But I think it’s stupid. Last names are for Other’s, and as far as I’m concerned I’m fate-kin; and therefore, a Nother.”
“Well I’ve got a last name too,” she added, “It’s Briarden, because my last name comes from where I’m from. I thought all last names did. I wonder if your people were from a grove of Ardwyn trees or something?”
Rowen shrugged, not really caring.
“You forgot to mention that you’ve got a middle name too Tatty Buttons,” Aidan teased and Tat blushed as she tried to swat at him and missed.
“Well don’t forget your first name Ollie,” she teased back.
“Hey now. You know I don’t like that name.”
“And you promised not to call me Tatty Buttons!”
“Ollie?” Rowen looked at Aidan and tried to piece the puzzle together.
“Yeah, my first name is actually Oliver but I go by my middle name. The folks call me Ollie. But like I told Tat, I hate that name.”
Rowen shrugged again and then the awkward silence rooted itself in place once more, so he decided to fix the issue, “So what temple are you heading to?”
“Sere–” Tat started to answer but Aidan interrupted, not sure he could fully trust the boy with that info or not.
“Well, we’re not sure really. We were told to try Serendi’s, but we might look elsewhere too.”
Tat gave Aidan an angry look for cutting her answer short. Tok stretched a bit before jumping off her lap, it was still mostly dark and prime time for hunting.
“You should try the Lady Fortuna, the blessed Goddess of Fate,” he told them explaining that his people, or at least the ones who still studied the old ways, were still somewhat reverent to her.
Rowen told them he’d seen a portrait of the Goddess once in one of the many old and musty but well-used books his amma had him study.
He remembered reading a description of her that said, ‘her skin was a subtle white with a translucency that glistened like the moon, and her eyes were like opals that refracted different colors depending on her mood’.
In another small portrait he had seen of Fortuna hanging in his amma’s library, her hair was a shimmery tawny auburn hue that seemed frayed with some of it frozen in ringlets that framed her plump face. Rowen decided she was beautiful, but the best thing in the image of her was her smile. Even in the portrait it seemed mesmerizing. Perhaps that was where the blessing ‘may fortune smile upon you’ originated.
He explained that while it was Khaos who created and loved the humans and gave them free will, it was Fortuna that realized that some humans were different and shouldn’t suffer the same fate as the rest. She decided that it was up to her to save those few, ignoring Kismet’s orders to not intervene in their plight.
Fortuna’s chosen few were just a minor group of several families, maybe even a few tribes, and at the time probably barely numbered in the hundreds. While she couldn’t keep them from being lumped in with the rest of the humans and being banished with their creator to the Otherworld, she decided she could make them remember the true World from which they originated by fixing a seal on them marking them eternally as hers.
“That was the first of the seals given by the gods of Fate. Her seals, however, would also allow them to walk through the gates that were meant only for the Gods at the time, a fact she kept hidden from the other Gods. And that’s why I’m able to be here now.”
“I think I remember something about that,” Tat interrupted Rowen’s retelling of his tribes history. “That’s part of the history lesson about the Gods of Fate that Biscuit taught me.” Pausing for a moment, she drew in a breath and then did her best imitation of Biscuit, “Fortuna chose a small tribe because they seemed to have a gentle and simple way about them. She taught them things like survival without magick and foraging for herbs that they could make into medicine to help heal their sick or wounded.”
“Yeah but she taught them more than just survival,” Rowen added. “She taught them some basic forms of magick like divination, and how to read fortunes of others using cards or other things such as the lines on a person’s face or hand, or to read the traces and patterns of tea left behind in a cup. ‘Everything is a form of divine communication if one knows how to translate it’,” Rowen parroted the common phrase he’d heard his amma say a thousand times, now doing his best impression of her to add to the show.
He continued, adding that Fortuna also warned them of the transition that was coming, and how all the humans except her chosen would forget this world and magic. They would be skilled and have a beautiful culture, but their strange ways of course would set them apart from the rest of the humans, although Fortuna didn’t consider that a bad thing.
“And this is why her people will forever consider her as sacred, carry her symbols and secretly pray to her; or at least the ones that still remember and believe the ancient stories,” Rowen continued to mimic his amma.
As Aidan listened to Rowen, he began to accept things as fact that would normally sound like pure fiction. This had been something he’d struggled with since he arrived. None of it seemed real, so how could he be sure it was? Until this moment, his brain was muddled as if he were in shock, and he’d just gone with the flow because he never fully believed any of it.
He’d been in this world for going on three whole days! He’d seen and experienced things that his mind couldn’t have imagined even in his craziest dreams. Seeing Rowen and listening to him speak about it as if it were all just so natural, a person like him from his own world! This was the strongest proof that it had to be real.
He had convinced himself that he’d slipped on some wet cardboard when he chased that black cat. Did he really fall on Tatyana that night? Maybe she never really existed. Maybe he just tripped, knocking himself out or something and he was having some sort of lucid dream. And maybe he had some sort of concussion induced coma and his body was still back in the alley next to his apartment building. Perhaps his mind was just making all of this up because the monotony of the real world had finally gotten to him.
But now, the longer he was here, the more he began to accept it. No matter how bizarre it all seemed, this was no fantasy, no illusion and no maybes about it – it
was all very real.
And here the three of them were, three humans going on some incredible journey in a faerie world together. Just sitting around the fire talking about themselves as if it were the most common thing to do. There was no need for him to do much of the talking. What could he really explain about his life anyway? All anyone really needed to know was that he needed to get back to his own world. Still, if he were really being truthful to himself, he knew it wasn’t like he needed to get back with any urgency.
Knowing that the time difference between worlds never moved at the same rate and there was no way to calculate it, he figured that it wouldn’t be possible to get back around the same time he left.
He couldn’t understand any of this time difference stuff at all, but he figured a lot of time might have passed already. He just wasn’t sure how much. It seemed to be a well-known common fact that it was all screwed up and that two days here could mean two hours or two years there.
And then there was the question that he tried to avoid, but it insisted on staying firmly in his mind. Did anyone back home even notice he was gone at all?
He figured his parents weren’t missing him much. They were extremely self-focused, especially since the divorce. His father moved out of state, and he was lucky if he got a video chat with him on his birthday. His mother was just as preoccupied. She stayed with the house she won in the divorce, but now that she’s a ‘career woman’ again, she had little time for anything else.
He was also sure that Elaine wouldn’t notice his absence. He paused for a moment when he thought about his now ex-girlfriend, he’d been so stupid that night. Elaine, she probably thinks I’m the biggest jerk in the world. Maybe I’m the biggest jerk in two worlds. He’d broken up with her, and over the phone no less, because she was getting too attached, too clingy, and he was too much of a coward to do it in person.
The Fateless: Errata Page 6