REDBIRD
“Very good,” Grandmother said when Lala showed her
the knot of red yarn. “You have a natural knack for the
art.”
“Lalala goot!” cried
Gubba. The old groundmite sat across the fire from them, beaming at
them with a toothless grin.
In the evenings when
they paused in their journey through the forest, Grandmother had
taken to teaching Lala more of the craft once taught to her by her
own mother and grandmother. The protection provided by the
groundmites had removed some of the responsibility from
Grandmother, and it was now they who guided her and her people. The
groundmites also provided them with fresh meat and water, and all
of them were feeling the stronger for it. Such relative ease,
compared to the beginnings of their journey, allowed Grandmother
the leisure to teach Lala.
If only Lala could
speak. Without speech, many spells would prove inaccessible to
her.
Her granddaughter’s
inability had always saddened her, but now it angered her. It was
unfair. She wanted Lala to carry on the craft of her ancestors, to
have a voice. When Grandmother finally surrendered her soul to God
as all mortals must, who would carry on the art for Second
Empire?
There was also that
music, the flow of an almost otherworldly voice that came into her
mind sometimes, its source at the wall. It mocked her with its
power and made Lala’s silence all the more difficult to accept. She
had decided it was high time to do something about it. To lash out,
as it were. So here they sat, Lala tying a very special
knot.
Grandmother
appraised it critically, looking for imperfections, but it was well
executed, with extra knots that were Lala’s personal expression. It
was, after all, an art. The girl had the aptitude, and now
Grandmother wished she’d done more with the girl
sooner.
“You understand the
next step?” she asked.
Lala nodded and
picked up the knife from the blanket between them.
“Remember to pour
your intent into it.”
Lala closed her
eyes, looking much older than her years, even beneath the dirt
smudged on her face. In one swift motion, she slashed the blade
across her palm. Grandmother grabbed her wrist and pushed the
knotted yarn into the wound so it would absorb the blood. Lala
clenched her fingers around it. They could have used a nail
clipping or a lock of Lala’s hair for the spell, but nothing was as
potent as fresh blood.
Grandmother spoke
the words of power, words as ancient as the roots of the empire
itself, her voice a singsong, and a red glow seeped between Lala’s
fingers.
Gubba, who was
accustomed to the unpredictability of Blackveil’s etherea, chanted
in counterpoint to buffer them from some devastating
backlash.
When Grandmother
finished, the glow captured in Lala’s hand flickered red against
her face like firelight.
“You may release the
seeker,” Grandmother said.
Lala carefully
uncurled her fingers, the glow blooming, then coalescing into a
redbird perched on her bloody palm. The remnant glow settled into
its feathers as it preened.
The detail!
Grandmother looked at it in awe. From its black face mask to its
crest, it was every bit the real thing. The dear child had made
more than a seeker—she’d taken the art to a higher level. The
aesthetic alone revealed more sophistication than those so gifted
showed in a lifetime. The art should not be just a tool,
Grandmother thought. Too often she had used it as a means to an
end, forgetting about its inherent beauty.
“Well done, child,
well done.”
Everyone in camp
paused to admire Lala’s creation. The redbird fluttered its wings
as though impatient to be off. Without further prompting, Lala
tossed the bird into the air. It stretched its wings and circled
above their heads once before veering north. It would fly the
quickest route to seek the one who sang.
As the bird
disappeared into the misty night, Gubba clapped and chortled, and
Grandmother turned her attention to tending Lala’s cut
hand.
Despite all the
groundmites provided for Grandmother and her people, the endless
walking was wearying. Grandmother wished she had wings so she could
fly like Lala’s redbird. Alas, she was confined to the Earth with
all the other ground-dwelling creatures, forced to labor to reach a
destination when birds easily flew over all obstacles. At least the
ruins that appeared more frequently alongside the road lent more
interest to their surroundings and indicated they were nearing
their destination.
Most of the ruins
were entangled in vines and roots. Trees grew through roofs. Ferns
and brush shrouded entrances and facades. The forest was nothing if
not resilient, obscuring even the pedigree of the architecture—was
it Eletian or of the empire? They did not stop to investigate the
ruins, but Gubba jabbered on beside Grandmother, pointing out this
and that as if they were on a pleasure outing to see the sights.
Grandmother understood none of it.
Instead, she ignored
Gubba and thought of the task that lay ahead, when they reached
their destination. How was she supposed to awaken the Sleepers? As
much as she prayed on it, the answer never came to her. It was, she
guessed, a test placed before her by God. Truly, up till now she’d
been more worried about just surviving long enough to reach the
grove of the Sleepers. The groundmites, with their help, had lifted
much of that worry from her, leaving her more time to concern
herself with the how of the task before her.
She did not
understand the Eletians, or how they Slept as they did. All she
knew was that it was going to take some powerful art to rouse them.
Would she have the ability?
She’d been so deep
in her own thoughts, ignoring Gubba and watching the road just
ahead of her feet, that she was startled when she bumped into
Sarat, who had stopped in the road. In fact, everyone else had
stopped to gaze ahead, and she gasped when she saw
why.
The forest fell
away, revealing a black lake, tendrils of fog coiling just above
its flat, oily surface. She thrilled to see that a statue of
Mornhavon the Great stood in the center of the lake looking defiant
and courageous, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, and the
other fisted as if to show whose realm this really was and by what
means it was acquired. The details of his features were blurred and
moss-draped. The lake level had risen at some point, and now lapped
at his knees. To Grandmother he seemed to be rising from the water,
not sinking. Around the edges of the lake were the roofs of drowned
buildings, also attesting to the deepened water.
One of the great,
black avians Grandmother had seen and heard signs of in the forest
skimmed across the water, leaving ripples in its wake. The creature
circled the statue, then landed on the head of Mornhavon. It loosed
a screech that echoed right through her and swiveled its head
around on its serpentine neck to gaze at its
surroundings.
As magnificent as
the statue was, it was the backdrop that she found truly arresting.
Towers rose out of the forest into the sky, pale phantoms of what
they must have once been, but still a powerful vision, their
slender forms like graceful stems growing from the earth, their
pinnacles lost to the ceiling of clouds that hung overhead. There
was just enough grayness of day that the towers reflected on the
lake.
“What is that
place?” Min whispered in awe.
“Our destination,”
Grandmother replied. “Castle Argenthyne.”