The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (29 page)

“I know,” Dalah said looking at Grace. “You are not getting me, Grace. I told you that when you first came here; I told you that I didn’t want to get involved.”

“But you are, Dalah. Do you not see that?” Grace asked taking a step toward her friend. “We are all involved. Porillon already has one of Sylvie’s children, and it is obvious by the actions of the Tall Stranger that she intends to take another. Just wait until she finds that Angelica and Jovian are much more than they appear.” Grace muttered the last to herself as if taking mental inventory of the crucible she now found herself in. “At any rate, the Well of Wyrding has been breached, all the Wyrders in the Great Realms will know this, and all of them will be working to stop it. The only difference is that the two of us, Rosalee, and Porillon are the only four left alive that know where it is and know how to influence it.” Grace now grabbed Dalah’s arm. “It takes a sorcerer to affect change within it, and you are the only sorcerer among the three of us that still serve the Goddess.”

“I understand your urgency ,Grace, really I do, but I told you before I can’t do it.” Dalah broke away from her old friend then and began briskly retreating back to Fairview Heights with her cloak billowing in the still air. Grace did not follow, standing in silence broken only by the occasional chirp of nature, until she finally called to Dalah’s back.

“All wyrd will be affected by this, Dalah; you know that. Fairview Heights will also be affected being as it is a construct of wyrd. The blackness in Porillon’s heart will creep into the Well of Wyrding and infect all things wyrd touches. All things will be corrupted; your precious establishment might as well never have been built for all its worth.” She slowly made her way toward Dalah, who had stopped again once Grace started talking. “Once a pinnacle of hope and light, even in the darkest of times, now Fairview Heights will be a bastion of Chaos and hate. Wyrd is in the very wood of Fairview Heights; it would be a shame to see that turn to darkness, your life, your dreams scattered to the Otherworld.”

“Stop,” Dalah said, tears streaming down her face. “You will try anything, won’t you?” The words came out in a hoarse whisper, and the pain in her voice pierced like a knife in Grace’s heart. “I know what it will do, but look at me, Grace. I am not a heroine any longer; I am just Dalah, the proprietor of Fairview Heights. The only Chaos I am concerned with now is that which you brought to my establishment when you killed a man this night. I want you out by tomorrow afternoon.”

As she stalked away from Grace she called over her shoulder, “If you need a sorcerer, use one of Sylvie’s children.”

“You honestly think that we will get Amber back that easily?” Grace said to herself as Dalah disappeared into the night. “Porillon has her now, in her clutches like a great raptor. We might never get her back.”

G
race and Dalah were not the only ones in the group to feel the breaching of the Well of Wyrding. They only felt the warning within their wyrd; the sensation was very much different for Angelica and Jovian.

Angelica had not been able to sleep. She had taken Jovian’s advice and consulted Joya’s book of sorcery, and where Joya had been able to read bits and pieces here and there, more being revealed as she touched more and more of her wyrd, Angelica was a different case altogether. She had sat there at first boggled as the strange, blocky letters began to rearrange themselves before her eyes, becoming words that she could actually decipher.

The whole book had been revealed to her, but a fat lot of good it did as some of the things she had read several times she was not able to comprehend.

But it wasn’t misunderstanding that kept her lying awake, unable to sleep despite her best efforts. It was that one passage …

She had not heard Grace leave, or come back. For at the time the confrontation happened with the Tall Stranger, Angelica had just sat down with the book and had been swept away with interest in discovering what the book held.

Now she was unsure if she ever wanted to pick the book up again.

She rolled over with a sigh, pressing her hand to her forehead hoping the touch of her flesh on flesh might help in clearing some of the cobwebs and some of the worries.

The passage had been clear in what it said, though it had taken a lot of skimming through nonsense for her to find it:

The Carloso tells us through the Silver Law that we are all one. The Goddess and all her creatures are one, as there cannot be a place where the Goddess is not. The Goddess is infinite, making up space and reality, even our corrupt view of time.

Therein lies a fallacy, for that very same book tells us of the horrors of Chaos and the corruption of Arael. How can there be Chaos and dalua if the Goddess is in all things? There is some truth to this passage, however, and that is the Goddess is one with all her followers. Those that turn from her are one with another force, a force that has been in existence as long as the Goddess herself: Chaos. In a sense the Carloso is right, that all of her creatures, her followers, are one with the Goddess, and though the Goddess is indeed infinite, making up our views of space and reality, there is also another infinite force that sketches a completely different image of space and reality for others, and all it takes is a shift in perception for one to follow the other infinite.

There are some, however, that do not get to make this choice for themselves. Some creations have been claimed by one or the other no matter what their theological views are.

 However, as creatures of the Goddess, that is followers, we have a spark of her within us, the spark that we often call the soul. It is interesting how our most holy books tell us that we and the Goddess are the same, and yet people refuse to see it.

In times past sorcerers and other wyrders were able to work wyrd in a rudimentary fashion using components and spell formulas; however, it is by tapping into the Goddess force that we are able to do much more as we are using the raw form of wyrd.

It seems that when we realize what we truly are, a part of the Goddess, there is little that we cannot do. Yet even the ones that accept this truth, being one with the Creator, do not grasp the entirety of it.

Our minds are the only limitation on what we can do. What I have understood, and why people call me the Child of the Goddess, has led to my mastering of wyrd. Sorcerers more than anyone else can control wyrd because of this understanding, or it may be our link with the wyrd that allows us to understand this better than the common folk. My understanding has gone further, and for that my sister and I are called Messiahs, or Ahksala.

Our understanding runs thus: If the Goddess is infinite then there is no limitation on her. She is in every one of her followers and every one of her creations; she is the all and the void, and if she is so grand and we have a part of that grandeur within us then we, also, are limitless for there cannot be a segment of something that has no end. If there is no end then you cannot give a part of that, for you would be limiting what is not able to, by its very nature, be limited.

So then it becomes a matter of the mind conceiving what is real and what is not that limits our true potential.

With wyrd there is little that cannot be done, as many have already seen and harnessed.

That being said, there are few limitations the Goddess herself has placed on her wyrders:

One shall not un-create what another has created.

One shall not take into themselves another’s wyrd, thereby depriving another of their Goddess-given ability.

This changed when Arael fell. There are many names the dalua wyrder goes by: Alarist, dalua, Chaos wyrder, and so on. However, their wyrding differs slightly from ours as they are marked with the ability to un-create and steal the Wyrd of others. They are able to do this as they have no allegiance to the Goddess and therefore no limitations imposed by her.

Here we see how powerful the mind is, for a simple change in thought can affect Wyrd. Belief is the most powerful tool.

“But I worship the Goddess, not Chaos!” Angelica exclaimed at the book and her aunt whose words were written therein.

Then we come to those cases that are preordained to be a follower of one or the other. It does not matter what they follow or believe in their hearts; all that matters is the wyrd that has been woven for them before their births. In this case their wyrd operates as stated above; being characteristic with un-creating and drawing out another’s wyrd.

“But how can someone have their wyrd chosen for them? How could the Goddess do that? Why would the Goddess do that? You don’t make any sense!” Angelica yelled in frustration at the book. She slammed the book shut and cast it away from herself where it landed with a heavy thud on the floor. Turning out the light she rolled over, but no matter how she argued with herself, passing the hours, she could not stop her mind from going back to the proclamation of her Chaotic deed.

“Am I dalua?” she whispered into the night, staring at the white dots on her palms. The stigmata used to mean salvation to her, until her wyrd came from them. Now they were her damnation. “Feeding off another’s wyrd and un-creating,” she scoffed.

“Am I the Mask?” she asked, startled by the very real possibility. The question sounded ludicrous out loud, but in her mind there was valid reasoning for such a query.

The feeling came on her then, and all of her muscles cramped at the same time, fire burning each nerve ending. She shrieked as the world seemed to catch fire. She expected to hear screaming from other rooms and in the street below. Certainly what she was feeling was something so large that others were also feeling it, but the answering cries never came. Only an unnatural hush fell over the city of Fairview. The hush was worse than screaming, for in all her life she never expected a place as large as Fairview to ever be completely silent.

The burning and the cramping only lasted for a minute, but the hush went on for a good time after, as if the whole of the city were in mourning.

When the bustle of city life started up again—the silent buzzing of nightlife filling Angelica’s ears—Jovian’s voice intruded on her.

What the Otherworld was that?
he asked, his voice thick from what Angelica imagined was sleep.

I am not sure. Did you feel the same thing?

You mean did it feel like I had just been thrown into the Lake of Fire? Yes!

What does it mean?
she asked him.

I am not sure. Maybe Grace knows. It sounds like she just came back in.

She left?

Yeah some hours ago. What were you doing?

Checking out Joya’s book. You?

Nothing important,
but the tone of his voice sounded like he had been doing something important.
It could be that my room is by the door. What did you find out?

Nothing really.

You mean nothing you want to talk about?

That too.

It sounds like whatever you found did nothing to calm your unease.

That would be an accurate summation. But there are more important things going on right now that I think we should deal with first.

Like what that was just now?

Exactly. You ready to confront Grace?

For some reason I don’t think we need to confront her.
Just as Angelica was going to ask why, a knock resounded against the wood of her door followed by Grace saying, “Get dressed and get out here. We have some things to discuss.”

Angelica was slightly surprised when she stepped out of her room, binding the dressing robe around her while a fire roared merrily in the common room. Tea, coffee, cream, honey, and cakes sat out on the table.

“No eggs or fruit?” Maeven asked, stepping out of the bathroom as Jovian came out of his room.

Grace smiled, but only halfheartedly. “Sit. There are many things to discuss, and little time to do it in if we want to get any sleep before we start back out.” They all gathered around the table taking chairs and cups of coffee or tea. Angelica laced her coffee with ample amounts of honey and cream before she even realized that another figure darkened the corner.

“Joya!” Angelica said going to check her sister, as if it were just a mirage propped in the corner.

“When did you find her?” Jovian asked.

“It was Dalah who found her. She did not tell me where or how she came about her, and I think it is best left unasked anyway.” Grace took a drink of her tea and lit her pipe.