Spires of Spirit (12 page)

“All right,” she said. “Can you tell me anything of your dreams, Charity?”

The shade did not leave her face. “I . . . I can . . .”

“There is no shame in a dream, Charity.”

“They're so real. I feel like . . . like I actually do those things . . .”

“Roxanne,” said Elizabeth gently, “is this really necessary?”

The witch bit her lip for a moment. “I wish I knew some other way, Elizabeth.”

“It's all right, Mother,” said Charity. Elizabeth did not look convinced, but the girl straightened her shoulders as though preparing to face some punishment. “I do . . . terrible things in my dreams, Roxanne. I hurt people—people I know—like Francis the smith, and Svengard the herder. In my dreams I like doing it . . . I don't know why. I feel very lonely in the dreams, and I want to cry. But I can't. Father is in my dreams, and he wants to help me. And then I'm trying to hurt him too, and when I can't stand it anymore, I wake up screaming.” She looked away, ashamed despite Roxanne's reassurance. “I usually don't know where I am for some time. My sister Mary sleeps with me, and she holds me until I come to myself.”

“How do you hurt them, Charity?”

“Somehow, Roxanne. I just hurt them. That's all I know.”

Roxanne felt as though she were grappling with shreds of fog. Varden had as much as said that Charity's dreams were caused by her memories of a former state, but if an old hatred for the smith or the herder was, in fact, responsible, Roxanne was sure that she would have sensed it.

She looked in Charity's eyes, saw nothing but lake-blue innocence. She could link mentally with Charity, but she did not like the idea: it would be an intrusion . . .

“It's all right, Roxanne.” Charity nodded slowly. “If you have to.”

It took Roxanne a moment to realize that Charity had read her thoughts. The girl had talent. With training, she could do much good in the world. Inwardly, the witch sighed. An empty house. And the Elves were fading, too. “Are you sure, Charity?”

“I am.”

Roxanne could not but admire her courage. Much good, indeed. With a twinge of regret for all that was fading, all that was already lost, then, she offered her hands. “Take my hands and close your eyes. Try not to think of anything in particular.”

Roxanne's mother had trained her well, and in half a minute she was in trance, mentally linked with Charity. Methodically, she sorted through the images of day-to-day living: baking, washing, taking care of her little brother. Soon, she found dim memories, and she followed them into Charity's dreams. The scenes unfolded before her.

There was a little, squalid hut, lit by a meager fire and by a candle, and a pair of old hands that stitched a piece of leather. There was loneliness, and pain, and an iron brace on a leg, and the surety of dying alone.

The images shifted, and she saw the charred hands of Francis the smith. There was satisfaction at the deed. She saw Svengard's flock decimated, saw the herder penniless and hungry. Satisfaction again.

And Roxanne remembered the Leather-woman. Years before, the old hag had lived at the edge of town. Crippled and evil-tempered, she had mended and made bits of harness and tackle for a living, and she had practiced some of the more malign forms of magic against those who had angered her. She had attacked Francis' hands and Svengard's flocks.

But what did Charity have to do with her?

More images. Andrew was reaching across a fire, holding something shining in his hand. Amid a rising roar, as of a great wind, Roxanne saw the shining thing grasped by the old hands and dashed to the ground. The scene erupted in a blast of white light.

Her body went stiff as the light slammed her back in her chair, tearing her hands from Charity's. For a moment, before she came to herself, she saw the night sky again. But etched against the darkness in lines of glittering starlight was a web, a lattice that, she knew instinctively, formed a bar and a closed door capable of holding apart worlds . . . or lifetimes.

A cool cloth touched her forehead, and she opened her eyes. Elizabeth and Charity were standing over her, their faces pale. “I'll be all right,” Roxanne managed. “My fault, really. Don't worry, Charity.”

***

Varden came to her house that night, tapping softly at her door well after the sun had gone down. Roxanne had been expecting him (she had been working her loom with her mind only half on the weave), and she let him in. “Welcome to my home, Fair One,” she said formally.

“I am honored,” he said, bowing. He did not belong within stone walls and among pieces of wooden furniture, but he nevertheless entered and sat down cross-legged before the fire, his back to the flames, his hands resting on his knees. “Tell me,” he said.

“I would think that I should be the one to speak those words.” Roxanne stood before him. “Tell
me
, Varden: what happened before Charity came to Saint Brigid?”

“Why do you ask?” His tone was guarded.

“I linked with Charity this afternoon, and I saw some unpleasant things that had to do with the old Leather-woman. Then there was a great light. I do believe my head dented the back of Elizabeth's best chair.”

The Elf dropped his eyes. “So that is what I felt.”

Roxanne sat down on the floor facing him, arranging her skirts as best she could. Despite the idiocy inherent in any thought of a human attempting to soothe an Elf, she tried to make her voice gentle. “Varden, if I'm supposed to help Charity—and if you're supposed to help me—maybe it would be best if you share what you know.”

He shifted uneasily. “Best for whom? Me? You? Charity?”

“Don't give me riddles, Varden, please.”

“I am not,” he said. “You are speaking of what is best, and that is precisely what I am concerned with. Charity's past is buried, save in her dreams, and in those dreams it comes to her only darkly, in an obscure fashion. She is shielded from much horror by that. For this reason, it would not be good for her if anyone knew of what went before.”

“Anyone,” said Roxanne, “except for Varden of the Elves.”

He rested his gaze on her, and Roxanne suddenly felt the absolute otherness of Varden. She had been speaking to him as though he were a man, forgetting that he was no more like her than peas were like crickets. But: “Roxanne,” he said softly, and she heard a plea in his voice, an element of supplication for understanding that bewildered her, “this is part of what I am here for, part of what the Elves are here for. Healing and comfort. Aid. In this time of fading, we realize how much our human cousins need us, and despite the persecution, despite atrocity, we reach out to them. And sometimes it seems as if we mar as much as we make. Five years ago, I helped Charity, and unfortunately, because of my ignorance, I did not shield her from her past. No, Roxanne, I will not say all that I know about Charity, for I fear that so doing would harm her even more than her nightmares. I will tell you what I can. I beg you, for Charity's sake, to accept that limitation.”

She stared at him. He was an Elf. Immortal. Powerful beyond belief. And yet . . . he begged her. “Varden . . .” She searched for words. “I . . . I didn't realize. I'm sorry.”

“There is no need to be sorry, Roxanne. The responsibility is not yours. I can tell you this: Charity's life before she came to live with Elizabeth and Andrew was one of great hardship and pain. The task of living each day was too much for her, and yet it was beyond her will to end her life. Andrew took pity on her, and I aided him. Charity remembers nothing now, save in her dreams. I regret my error. Elves do not sleep. Our understanding of the phenomenon is cloudy.”

Hesitantly, she reached out, laid her hand on his. “Varden . . . I sleep. I understand something of it.”

“And you are a witch, Roxanne. You can indeed help.” He hesitated, as though now afraid to ask. “Will you, then? Knowing as little as you do?”

She looked past him, looked into the fire that burned on the hearth. She loved Charity. Everyone did. The nightmares, she knew, would only grow worse. Charity would cease to be able to sleep at night. The flower would wither, trampled by dreams.

She felt Varden take her hand. “Will you shield me in my work?” she said.

“I will.”

“Then I'll do whatever I can.”

His grip tightened for a moment. “What
we
can, Roxanne. The hand of the Lady be on you.”

Maybe it was that she was becoming more used to him, and maybe it was that she was holding hands with him, and maybe it was that the concern she shared with him had bridged the abyss of immortality that separated him—regardless, Roxanne could see the depth of love and compassion in the Elf, could feel it stretching off into distances that she could only vaguely comprehend. She could not help but love in return. Trembling, she leaned forward, reached out with her free hand, drew him to her, pressed her lips to his.

“Merry meet, Varden,” she said, shaking now half at her audacity, half in profound joy.

He smiled softly, his face shadowed by the firelight, but lit with the radiance of the stars. “Merry meet, Roxanne.”

Her hand lay still on his shoulder, half about his neck. She was inclined to leave it there, and the Elf did not seem to mind. “I take it, then, that you do not wish me to pry into Charity's past on my own . . . in Circle.”

“I would wish otherwise, it is true.”

“How am I to help, then?” She saw the radiance about him even more clearly now, as though her own eyes were becoming used to seeing such things. She could not be sure, but she seemed to be partaking of it herself, her skin flickering ever so faintly with lambency.

“When you linked with Charity today, did you see anything besides the images of the Leather-woman?”

“I saw the stars at the very end. As I did in the forest. They seemed different, though: there was some kind of barrier.”

“It is indeed a barrier, Roxanne. A closed door. Andrew helped Charity, and I set a seal on his work. That was what you saw. It bars Charity's memories.”

“Save in her dreams.”

“It is so. You must help me reconstruct that web, adding to my work your knowledge of sleep and dream.”

She thought about what she had seen. It was obvious that the energies comprising the barrier were immense: lifetime tensioned against lifetime, memory counterpoised by innocence. She quailed at the thought of putting her hands on such power in such an unfamiliar form. She was human. How could she possibly consider working with the magic of the Elves?

Varden's eyes shone. “Fear not. I will help you.”

“Master Elf, I am mortal. Are you—”

She stopped, realizing that he was looking at her hand, at the light that, now distinctly, played over it. “Mortal, Roxanne?” he said. “What is mortal for a witch may be quite different from the usual meaning of the word.”

She snatched her hand away, examined it closely. The light had changed it, added deep and obscure qualities to it, as though her slightest gesture would not be fraught with meanings that would extend far beyond the world.

“What . . . what did you do to me, Varden?”

“I did nothing, Roxanne. You are a witch, you work with magic, you manifest your Goddess. You are not so unlike my people. It may be that you see yourself now as we see you, but I did nothing save give you a vision of the stars. Your being appears to be sympathetic to such energies. Perhaps you should be careful: continued intercourse with the Elves might lead to . . . alterations.”

She stared at the light. It was different from that which shone about Varden, and yet not exceedingly so: the cool radiance of the moon rather than the crystalline shimmer of the stars. She reached out, touched him. As she did, radiance and shimmer flowed, merged gently. Varden's eyes flickered . . . or maybe they twinkled.

Retreat or go on, the decision was hers to make, but she knew, as surely as she knew that an immortal sat inches away from her, that the Goddess had brought about this meeting, had called Her priestess to duty, had touched her with enough of the essence of the Elves so that she now partook of their vision. She felt the smile spreading on her face as though she stood once again before the dawn, thirteen and new-initiated, lifting her arms in an instinctive embrace of the Infinite.
Whatever, My Lady
, she though.
You call, and I answer gladly. Wherever You lead me
. . .

“When shall we work, Varden?”

“Tomorrow night,” he said. “You should rest well: the link you had with Charity has shaken you, and we will both need all our strength. We may well have to partly disassemble the barrier, and if that is the case, we will have to hold Charity's past away from her. That will take much power.” His brow furrowed. “I was quite serious when I spoke of alterations. Channeling so much starlight may affect you profoundly. I do not know in what fashion.”

He looked at her carefully, much as she herself might examine a bolt of new-woven cloth: searching out the quality of the wave, the way of the pattern.

She saw him to the door, and before he left, he kissed her in farewell. She smiled shyly, as did he. “Merry part, Varden.”

“Merry part,” he said. “And merry meet again.”

***

In her dreams that night, Roxanne saw the stars blazing brilliantly in the night sky. Their light was a palpable presence, and as though she floated in deep water, she felt its currents, drank in its energy, let it flow through her. Once, just past midnight, she awoke, not from any disturbance or discomfort, but more because, with the soft light still playing over her skin, waking and sleeping were not so very different from one another. She went to the window then, and looked up at the nearly full moon and at the stars that mirrored those of her dreams. For long minutes she stood, watching, before she at last returned to bed and to that inner vision.

And the next morning she awoke just at dawn, refreshed, alert. She did her morning housekeeping, and it seemed to her that there was, in the touch of the simple implements she used—broom and mop, brush and rag—a tranquillity and a joy that she had never felt before, for the wood and cloth in her hands were now just as much an intimation of the divine as her own flesh.