Welcome to The Children of Una series. Here’s a handy index of the published chapters.
In previous chapters, Gowell succeeded at his first hunt and El-Una spoke to him at length of the Osakk drift toward animalistic violence which has made the spirit wolf’s old friends unrecognizable. Gowell feared he would turn out just the same. Meanwhile, under the Gubarashi’s toes, the Elven wife of Lewison decides to summon him to her hiding place after learning that the Human Firstborn, Mannus, is kept in a cavern prison alongside a rare silverine tree.
BLUE MOON
Great heart. Thee are true Osakk.
El-Una’s voice echoed in the cave, beckoning. Gowell got up from his sleeping place and crept through the darkness. Vines he had not noticed before cloaked a narrow passageway. Pressing through them, his heart hammering in his chest, he wondered what he would find beyond this tunnel. Was it another path of the long-lost Osakk, those of his kind who had been great-hearted and generous?
Gowell pushed forward, though he could hardly see anything at all. His keen vision in the dark did not usually betray him, but this felt like pressing through a thick cloud of smoke. His eyes stung from straining to see. Gowell rubbed at them and then reached toward the wall again, to feel his way forward, only, his hands brushed something cold, spongy, almost flesh-like. Shuddering, he curled his fingers over the bumpy edges of it.
Mushrooms? They curved downwards like soft mushroom caps, and broke away under his fingers if he pressed too hard. When had the cave wall become covered in this growing fungi, Gowell wondered. Stepping cautiously forward, he saw a glimmer of light ahead, outlining the cave floor around him. The passage where he walked was full of pillars, it seemed. And each was covered in profuse fungal shapes, some like shelf-types and others sprouting bulbous growths. Gowell pressed his way through the narrow gaps between the pillars, following the light.
He reached another mouth of the cave at last, where the light shone from a full blue moon hanging heavily over the cave mouth. Its stoic face almost seemed to bend low to peer in. Gowell shivered, wondering what there was to see in this strange place of growing mushrooms. He turned around and gazed at the nearest pillar oozing green sludge out from under purple knobs of fleshy caps.
A pair of dead eyes rolling back in the half-hidden face stared back.
Gowell stumbled backwards out of the cave. A twig snapped underfoot, and he whirled to see whether danger were creeping up behind him. But now, where the great moon had been, there was soft, velvety black darkness pricked by beckoning firelight. A camp of hide tents lay in the hollow below the cave. Tall trees surrounding a small clearing chittered with the calming, familiar sounds of insect like and night-loving birds. It was a quiet wood in summer time.
Gowell walked down the slope, glad to leave the creeping mushrooms of the cave behind. Perhaps it had only been a horrifying dream, the way pillar after pillar suggested that a person stood entrapped by carnivorous mycelium. Whether a thing were possible or not was a question Gowell felt ill inclined to ask himself.
He turned toward the nearest tent, which reverberated with the soft, contented sounds of family life. Voices of mothers cajoling children, who laughed and played and argued. Voices of fathers intoning lessons to young ones old enough to listen. The yapping of small dogs, clatter of dishes, and rumble of music deep in the throats of singers. Even the crackle of the fire on the hearth came to Gowell’s ears as he drew near the tent, looking for its entrance.
He turned one corner and stumbled over what he assumed was a tent peg. But looking down, he saw the outline of a prone figure. Shrinking back, he remembered how cold had been the leg he’d tripped over. He hurried to the other side of the tent, feeling certain it was the fourth and final side of the structure. Surely there, the door to light and comfort would be waiting for him!
Gowell staggered to a halt. Piled against the side of the tent lay more bodies. Stiffened at odd angles, the arms and legs sprawled heedless of each other. Heads lolled, some open-mouthed in grimaces bespeaking a painful death. Gowell could see every detail, because he was no longer blind in the darkness. Hurrying on, he assumed he had miscounted. The door would be close by, once he rounded the next corner.
But there, an impossibly high pile of bodies waited for him. They had toppled against the tent itself and pulled at the hide covering, causing it to sag precariously. Soon, if no one dragged the bodies away, the dead would collapse the tent, the fire would be smothered, and all light and cheer would be banished by the invading night.
Gowell sunk to his knees in cold grass and shook his head. He watched the pile of corpses swaying. Someone needed to do something. Soon it would fall. There had to be someone who could stop it.
Great heart. Thee are true Osakk. Thee are . . .
Gowell woke with a gasp, felt his heart hammering in his mouth, and realized that once again he’d been dreaming. But this time, he hadn’t seen the Osakk as they were. He understood that what he’d seen was impossible.
Sitting up, Gowell fed the fire. He turned the slivers of meat over on their frame. El-Una stirred where it waited sleeplessly in the mouth of the cave. The great wolf head turned to gaze unblinking at Gowell. One pointed ear twitched, listening to something moving in the abating rain.
Thee dreams often, El-Una stated simply.
“What did it mean?” Gowell shivered. He often asked El-Una about his dreams. The wolf-spirit seemed to know of them without having to be told. But it rarely gave Gowell straight answers.
There is a sickness on the Osakk. It eats at them, and they do not know it. It looms and threatens the things they believe are certain, and they do not see it. But thee sees. Thee knows.
Gowell shook himself. He did not want to see such things. It was a very long time since he had last slept well and woken feeling rested.
“What is the sickness?” He demanded. “Is it a real sickness, or merely another picture. I think it is strange that I have these dreams, but can make no sense of them! Are they meant to help me? Or merely torment my sleep? What am I supposed to do about any of it?”
When thee sees what is in thy dreams come to pass in the waking world, thee will know what to do.
“But for now I just get to keep being woken by nightmares, huh?” Gowell grumped.
He was surprised to find himself feeling hungry again. For many days he’d had very little to eat and had kept going anyway. Placing another steak on the hot cooking stones, he listened to the sizzle, to the softening rain, and to El-Una’s silence. Sheepishly, he glanced over his shoulder at the back of the cave. There was no wall of vines hiding a tunnel there. In fact, the roof of the cave and its floor met at such a sharp angle that passing through the back would be quite impossible for someone of Gowell’s stature.
“What is ‘true Osakk’?” He prodded El-Una. “I kept hearing a voice say that. But this was the only dream where someone has spoken to me, apart from the dream with the Elf woman.”
True Osakk is what Una calls thee, Gowell. Una knows thy heart is true, seeking out paths forgotten. Paths which lead to real places. Not the paths of that false-promiser, Mannus.
“Was it Una I heard in my dream?” Gowell was struck by the thought.
What did the voice sound like?
Without bidding it, an answer resounded in Gowell’s heart. Mother.
“It was no one I recognized,” Gowell said quickly, covering his shame at having such a preposterous response. Just because a voice sounds female doesn’t mean one is hearing someone familiar. “Not that I would know what my own mother’s voice sounds like, anyway.”
Perhaps, and perhaps not. El-Una panted, tongue lolling in a doggy-grin at Gowell.
They spoke no more about the dream. After eating his steak, Gowell lay back down and sought more, albeit fitful and dream-haunted, sleep.
**********
The longer Lewison looked at the problem, the more dire it appeared. He’d taken pages worth of notes on the various letters and notices which had originally hinted at a power restructuring. After requesting military census reports from the under-scribes, his concerns had been confirmed and strengthened threefold. It was just as the Elven Council had warned — Celandra’s forces were being gathered, and it was being done very quietly indeed.
His heavy sigh scattered the shavings of the feather pen he’d been sharpening. The twelfth he’d sharpened since supper. His stomach was rumbling again, now that he’d sat up far past his bedtime. If Aster and Danen hadn’t gone down to the mountain lodge, he would be tempted to use a communication spell to send one of them to bring him a midnight snack. The fat time-piece candle on his desk corner was half-gone and his eyes ached from strain. But there was not a minute to waste. It was time he examined this problem from another angle.
With a sharp inhalation, he gathered himself and poured forth all he knew into the imagery spell. His thoughts took on the form of mounted troops, garrisoned levies, and shored-up fortifications. His smoky spell-thought hovered over a mental image of the map of Celandra itself, clarifying and ordering the state of the kingdom’s military forces. Abruptly, a black cloud billowed up from the center, from the peak of the Gubarashi where Lewison was seated, and it engulfed the rest of the spell before dissipating.
With a burst of pent-up breath, Lewison realized his anxiety had sabotaged the spell. All tides turned towards war. Those who were bent on bloodshed were even more prepared than he’d at first realized. It worried him, how out of practice he was after years of the soul-curse diminishing the magic power he could draw upon.
Lewison had grown so used to conserving his power, he’d depended on other means of getting work done. Now that he had full use of his power back, he found his endurance was greatly atrophied. The soul curse, not old age, made my well run so dry I though it was going to run out and never return. He’d told the Elven Council he was nearing the end of his days. Perhaps that had been wishful thinking. Sometimes, these troubles felt like too much to bear. Would it really be that awful if he just gave up? He could blame the effects of the soul-curse and let the Council and Danen work out what was needed, while he faded into the background. Perhaps Lady Pearelle was right and it was his fear of failure that kept him from unleashing Danen’s full potential.
Lewison shook his head. No, it wasn’t safe. Danen had no idea what forces were held back by the carefully constructed mechanisms of power in Celandra — mechanisms Lewison had spent decades balancing so that no single force could garner enough strength to threaten them all. The soul-curse was proof that someone wanted Lewison stopped.
He pushed his chair back and stumbled beyond the yellow orb of light cast by the candle. His stiff legs dragged across the dark room until he bumped against his armchair. He knew the curse had served Mervin’s ends well. But part of him still couldn’t believe it was Novena who had cast it. Had she done so at his brother’s request? Or for her own ends? It certainly wasn’t done with the blessing of the Elven Council, or so Lewison hoped.
Novena. Was I so repugnant to her, she had to leave me only her vindictive backlash? Has she no regret?
Outside the wall of windows, the clear night twinkled with stars.
“Oh, Novena,” he sighed out. His voice cracked. “Where are you, my dear? Why did you leave me this burden to bear all alone?”
He stumbled around the armchair and sank into the soft embrace of the wingback. It still smelled of the sweet oil she used to polish the clawed feet and wood frame. His hands raised, shakily, and dug into his hair, finger pads clawing down his face as though to rip away the lines of worry and care. But his worries went too deep to be rid of them so easily. His kingdom was unraveling one thread at a time and he had grown too weak to hold it together anymore.
“Novena, I needed you by my side. Even back then! My fool brother clouded my sight, my own pride and greed fed me easy lies . . . it was you, my dear. You saw through it all and could stop me with a look. And I’d know,” Lewison shook his great grey head in sorrowful remembrance. “I’d know without a moment’s doubt that what I’d been doing was wrong.”
But Novena was gone. And the kingdom was about to implode.
Whether I outlive Mervin or not, he’s planted the seeds of war. What’s the point of countering him, anymore?
The thought was unworthy of the High Mage of Celandra. It was his duty to serve. Whether he succeeded or not shouldn’t matter if he gave it his all.
Lewison’s hands dropped to his lap.
He peered past the cold glass at a warm twinkle of firelight nestled between two mountain peaks. Its mirrored glow wavered in the glassy waters of the mountain lake. Down there, Danen would be embarking on the beginning of his own journey into a hazy and unknown future. But, unlike Lewison’s Novena, Danen’s Elven wife would stick by him. He’d seen that much in those steely blue eyes of hers.
Lewison chuckled, thinking again of how the Elven Lady had put him on the defensive in only two moves on the diplomatic chessboard. She’d give Danen exactly what he needed — someone to match wits against, someone to watch his back. Lady Pearelle was almost as stubborn as his nephew, he’d warrant.
“She was right. I can’t expect the lad to be full of wisdom beyond his years. And he’s sad, now.” The thought struck too close to his own grief. Yes, yes. He’d known before it happened that Maudline had chosen to succumb to her illness. But knowing she’d accepted death didn’t soften the blow of losing his sister for good.
Lewison stroked his fingers through his beard. What would Danen do about the nobles, if he knew what they are plotting? He’s been cozying up to the sons of the northern lords. Does he have a reason for doing so?
Sleep tugged at Lewison’s old mind, beckoning him to let it all go until the morrow. But Sleep is only the mimicry of Death, and Lewison had no intention of leaving this mess always to tomorrow until a new morning failed to dawn for him.
He slapped his hands against the arm of his chair, hard enough to stun his old bones.
“Think! Think!” He commanded himself. “All you need find is the fulcrum. What will be enough to force a jam in their wheels? It’s not like this is the first time, man! You’ve always found something to—”
Some sixth sense, practiced over many close brushes with death, prickled along the back of Lewison’s arms. His scalp tingled. In response to the unseen danger, his old heart pattered in his chest like a landed fish, uneven and jerky.
Slowly, Lewison stood to his feet and turned his back on the windows. There was not even enough moonlight to cast his shadow, and the whole black throat of the living-library-room yawned before him. At the farther end, the orange glow of flames seemed a small and distant comfort. Because whatever it was he sensed was very close.
He was no longer alone.
The old mage blinked rapidly, unable to comprehend what he witnessed when a hand stretched out of the emptiness and grasped the back of his armchair. As though it were a curtain, the darkness parted like a pool rippling in a breeze. Then the figure of a stranger stepped forward, moving around the chair, and halted at arm’s length to face the High Mage.
He was taller than Lewison. One side of his face was backlit by the fire’s orange glow in the distance silhouetting the pointed tip of an Elven ear. Other than those details, there was nothing else by which Lewison might identify him. The old man stumbled backwards, reaching for something to steady himself.
I’ve trusted the Elves all my life. And with my life!
But the malevolence emanating from this dark figure robbed him of that sense of security. His fingers brushed the freezing cold glass of the window. Lewison stood against it, shivering.
“Do you not recognize me?” the visitor asked. He did not move closer or take a seat. If Lewison could have seen him clearly, he might’ve been surprised to see the young fellow trembling more than he! But all he heard was the grating of words pushed between clenched teeth.
Lewison squinted at him, his panic easing toward puzzlement. “How did you come here? Was that a plane-walking spell?”
There was a long moment of silence, during which Lewison finally noticed the figure’s shoulders quaking. He stepped closer, still full of caution. A thought nudged at his mind. Some ray of memory.
“I am only a messenger.” The stranger proclaimed, as though to remind himself not to speak on his own behalf.
That was the last clue Lewison needed. He stumbled forward, a guttural cry clawing its way between his crooked teeth. “My son!”
Roe flinched, but endured the falling embrace of his father. Lewison clung to him, overwhelmed at the realizations that washed over him — his son was alive, he was here, he’d grown taller than Lewison himself, he was hale and smelled of clean goodness, he was here to speak with Lewison. Roe, at last, was found! He’d arrived by the sort of transportive spell both rare and exclusively Elven, which provided Lewison the first satisfactory answer for why he hadn’t discovered a trace of his wife or son during all their years of vanishment. No one could track a person who moved through the planes.
“Roe, where’s your mother? Is Novena well?” Lewison pushed himself off his son’s shoulder, but gripped the thin upper arms as though he’d never let him go again. “Tell me where you’re staying, son. I must know.”
Roe was taut with unspent anger. Lewison could feel it squirming inside the young man like a parasite. But the youth kept it locked behind a stoic face. His even voice was almost passionless as he delivered his summons.
“My message is from Lady Novena. She requests your presence at a banquet held by Lord Forgail the Ezerite. I am to bring you at once.”
The Ezerites were not unknown to Lewison. But they had known him by another name than High Mage. He’d been their ‘haunt of death’ in Celandra’s Dwarven wars, when he was young and foolish enough to believe any creature who crossed the border of his country with weapon in hand deserved whatever agonizing death a mage could contrive to give him — be it by the funneling of his blood through every orifice, or the twisting of his guts, be it by fire or lightning, or the earth opening up to swallow him whole. The war was an excuse to push the mages to their limits. An opportunity to try whatever dark spells their darker imaginations conjured up. Even all these years later, Lewison could not stomach the sight of a Dwarf, for dread of the horrors his mind’s eye would show him.
He sunk, weak-kneed, into his armchair.
“Y-y-your mother is with a Lord of the Dwarvenkind? Is she being kept for ransom?”
Roe sniffed derisively. “No. The Dwarf-lord is called Forgail, as I said. He has sheltered her, employed her, and courted her for twenty-odd years. She is quite safe.”
Lewison tried to muffle his sigh of relief. He sunk back against the chair and summoned enough courage to cast a small, comforting spell. With a flicker, a blue orb of moonlight came to life in the bowl on the low tea-table.
Roe blinked, flinching away from the sudden brightness. He still had the pouting mouth and bouquet of freckles, which together had always made a mockery of his attempts at seriousness. Lewison smiled, his gaze softening. He could still recall the round-cheeked toddler face, chubby and framed by golden curls that had warmed to auburn as he grew older. Now, Roe wore his hair long and straight, like a dignitary.
“Will you come?” His son demanded, still standing at attention beside Lewison’s chair.
“Why does she call me? Why now?” Lewison motioned for Roe to sit. “I assume Lord Forgail has been a generous and genteel host. Whether or not she wishes to remain there, she is not a prisoner, I gather. Novena would not be welcomed warmly among her people, but neither would the Elves turn her away. What need has she of me? A better question — does she ask for her husband, Lewison Coblaine, or Celandra’s High Mage?”
“The two cannot be separated!” Roe hissed. He swallowed hard to avoid continuing.
“Very well, tell me this — ” Lewison leaned forward, trying to capture his son’s attention. But Roe seemed intent on glaring out the window, past him. “Does Lord Forgail know who I am?”
A muddied display of emotion passed over Roe. His jaw clenched, then he grew sad, finally, a sort of haughty amusement flit behind his eyes, while his mouth drew down into a disapproving frown.
“I don’t know. But he will after tonight, if you answer my summons.”
Lewison was puzzled. How did Roe not know? “Are you also Lord Forgail’s guest at this banquet?”
Roe faltered. “No.”
“Then he does not know you exist,” Lewison guessed. Judging by Roe’s pallid noncommittal expression, he had guessed correctly.
She’s staying among the Ezerites, Roe has remained hidden by his planes-spell, and that means that she can’t have told this Lord Forgail who she really is. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have employed her. Didn’t Roe mention he courted her? Has she implied herself a widow, then? Dear me, Novena. What a web you’ve entangled yourself in. But it seems unlikely she’d be desperate enough to send Roe to fetch her old nemesis if she needed rescuing. Could this be some sort of elaborate trap? Was she still working against him at King Mervin’s behest?
He couldn’t see how his brother or the noble houses of Celandra could benefit from his removal as High Mage. In fact, such an event would throw the kingdom into disarray. Like a stick in the spokes, if Lewison were to vanish without a trace, leaving an uninitiated novice in his place, the engines of power would grind to a halt and—
Lewison’s heart skipped, and a jolt of excitement shot straight up his spine. He sat taller.
“My son,” he commanded. “Tell me with absolute honesty — if I go with you now, would I be able to return on my own, or would I be completely at your mercy?”
Roe’s frown deepened. Then, as though a realization had just dawned on him, his lips parted in a crooked smile. A fire burned in his young face, as he declared, with absolute certainty, “If I don’t take you away from them, the Ezerites will have you completely in their power. I don’t doubt they’d recognize you instantly. I can’t promise they won’t kill you, but I can assure you that no one ever leaves their stronghold without their knowledge or permission. At least, no one who can’t travel my way.”
It was plain that Roe didn’t want his father to come. His hatred for Lewison still burned hot, and he assumed that fear of the Ezerites would be an effective deterrent. His smile was self-satisfied. He rose to stand, believing without doubt he would shortly be bidding his father a cold farewell. That smile faded when he saw Lewison rise painfully to join him. Reaching out and resting a hand on Roe’s forearm, the High Mage stepped closer.
“Allow me a moment to leave my acolyte a note. Then I’ll accompany you.” Lewison raised his hand to cup his son’s face. “You’ve no idea how I’ve longed for a chance to go back and do even one thing differently. This isn’t the same as a second chance, Roe. But it’s close enough.”
Roe watched him shuffle off toward the grand desk. He saw the robed figure of the supreme power in Celandra bending over paper and pen, stooped below the spreading wings of the phoenix emblazoned on the royal tapestry above him. The creature’s gaping jaw released its eternal, silent scream that defied death outright. The mountain of papers surrounding the High Mage looked like they could bury a small kingdom, but there was only one paper that mattered to Lewison now.
He finished with a scrawling line and signature — Don’t forget it’s all in your Root. ~L — and then he deposited it in the wooden nib-knife box. With a click, it shut. All of Lewison’s hopes and all his wisdom combined, left behind for the steady hand and heart who would take them up in his absence.
Roe drew nearer until he stood at the corner of the desk, waiting.
“Now, my son,” Lewison said, with shameless tears beginning to spill from his eyes. “Take me to your mother.”
Dear Reader,
After much parent-child strife in this story, I am so happy to be writing something a little closer to reconciliation. From Lewison’s perspective, anyway, there is movement toward something better than past regrets.
As for Roe, it’s easy to hold on to harm with the belief that you deserved to be treated better. Much harder is being open to the fact that someone who harmed you might be changing, and for the better.
Cheers,
~LL