Clockwork Goddess (The Lesbia Chronicles) (20 page)

"Don't listen to her," Vix said. "She doesn't know anything."

"She knows everything," Ayla said. The sorrow in her voice was palpable.

"No she doesn't," Vix's tone lowered to a growl. "She's trying to make you do something terrible by making you think you are terrible. Don't you dare listen to her. Don't you dare even think for a second about listening to her. I mean it!"

Ayla looked down at Vix, who by that time was shaking her finger under Ayla's nose. For a moment, she said nothing, then she reached down and wrapped Vix in a tight hug.

"You are so wise."

"I've spent a lot of time watching people," Vix said, her voice muffled as her face was pressed into Ayla's ample bosom. "Soren isn't any different from a village fishwife. Her sparkly elfness doesn't fool me."

"I believe you frightened Soren," Ayla said to Vix. "She is not the type for easy retreat."

"I doubt she is frightened of me," Vix replied. "I think she's afraid of something else. Do you think maybe your mother is close?"

Ayla frowned as the idea hit her. "You could be right about that," she said. "Soren's request was very unlike her. Elves do not immediately go to murder as a general rule."

"Not just murder, matricide. Soren is either evil or scared out of her mind," Vix agreed. "I could believe either one. Or both, for that matter."

"If Erwydden is close... if she is in this realm..." Ayla looked apprehensive. "I had not ever planned a reunion."

"It looks like a reunion has planned you, or words to that effect," Vix said. "I mean, you can't avoid this, can you?"

"No," Ayla said, taking the deepest of breaths. "I cannot. Let us go after Soren."

Ayla and Vix left their tree home and went to search for Soren. They found her walking nearby with a concerned expression on her handsome face. That expression did not change as Soren looked up and saw them.

"I am sorry," she said. "I asked too much of you. In fact, what I asked of you makes me sick to my core even now."

Ayla did not heed Soren's apology. She had a greater purpose, and a bigger problem. "Is Erwydden here? In this place?"

"She is under the tree," Soren said. "She has taken refuge there these last months."

"
The
tree?" To Vix it seemed they were surrounded by trees. There was no tree which seemed to deserve special the-ness. Ayla seemed to know what Soren meant however.

"I will go to her," Ayla said. "I will see if I can at least convince her to take up residence elsewhere."

"As long as she draws breath she is a danger to all existence," Soren said grimly.

"Well if she's being a danger to all existence somewhere else, perhaps you won't have to worry about your realm, at least. Nor will I."

"You are so eager to leave this place you would draw evil into the world you love," Soren said with no small measure of judgment.

"The world I love is already full of evil," Ayla replied as she began to walk away. "Erwydden would have significant competition."

Vix followed Ayla down a path which lead out of the cluster of homes and soon took on an incline which although mild, went on and on and on until eventually they were up very high indeed surrounded by fields which were no doubt as endless as they seemed to be. There, towering in the mist of the distance was a tree unlike any other. To say that it was large was to say nothing at all. It was so large that to Vix it seemed larger than the world itself.

Their approach took a very long time, for it was so big that it seemed to recede as they walked toward it. Eventually, when Vix's legs were burning with fatigue, they made out a figure sitting at the base of the tree.

"That is Erwydden," Ayla said. "You should not come any further."

"But I want to," Vix said.

"You must understand,” Ayla said in grave tones. “She is no mere woman. No mere elf. She is darkness incarnate. I cannot promise that I will be able to protect you if you insist on going into her presence. She takes lives as if they were nothing at all. She has no heart. No soul. She..."

"I'm sure she's very nice," Vix said blandly. "Let's go."

Ayla nodded and together they approached Erwydden, she who was erased from history, an evil so repugnant and twisted that all those who so much as heard her name cowered from it. Vix expected a twisted old crone with fangs and inhuman eyes and maybe scales, and perhaps a tail.

But Erwydden was nothing like that. She was a tall, lissome elf with raven dark locks and the most bewitching caramel eyes beneath shapely pointed brows. Like Ayla and Soren and the others she did not have much in the way of an age, but she was weighted with a presence which suggested a long existence.

She was dressed in a simple black gown, her fingers in motion as she worked two crochet hooks with a blistering pace. She seemed quite intent on her work and did not acknowledge Ayla and Vix until they were mere feet away from her.

Ayla opened and shut her mouth several times before she gathered the courage to speak.

"Mother?"

Erwydden glanced up at her daughter and frowned maternally. "Well, look who it is," she said, sounding unimpressed.

"It is I," Ayla said, confirming that it was indeed it that was her, or something of that nature.

"You never write," Erwydden tutted, her fingers never ceasing in their work. "You never come to see me."

"You were imprisoned in obsidian in another dimension," Ayla reminded her.

"That's no excuse," Erwydden said.

Vix was most underwhelmed with the experience. She had expected much more from the woman who had made Soren turn white at the mere mention of her name. As Ayla tried to come up with words to respond to her mother's statements of disapproval, it was Vix who went forward and peered at the material forming between Erwydden's crochet hooks.

"What are you making?"

"A doily," Erwydden said, speaking with the indulgence one might show to an idiot pet.

"Is it an evil doily?"

"It might be a little malevolent, but I don't think it rises to the level of evil," Erwydden said thoughtfully. She lifted it up to the light and shook her head. "No," she said. "Certainly not evil I'm afraid."

Vix stared at the woman who had birthed Ayla. If Ayla was legendary, then Erwydden was mythical. It was like meeting the sun, or the moon. Nobody would ever believe her if she told them it had happened, and yet there she was, looking into the face of a woman who did not seem physically all that much older than Ayla, but for the weight of ages in her voice and eyes. Her hair was dark where Ayla's was fair, her eyes were brown where Ayla's were green, and her features were quite sharp where Ayla's were more finely formed, more elegant and broader.

"What thoughts occupy you, mortal?"

"Her father must be beautiful," Vix said.

Erwydden raised a brow. "I do believe that to be a slight," she said. "But of course you do not understand that my appearance now has very little to do with what I actually look like. This form... this body... it is a convenience more than a necessity."

"My body is more of an inconvenience than a necessity," Vix said.

"I see why you did not eat this one," Erwydden said to Ayla. "She amuses me."

Vix dodged back a step. "You eat people?"

"I consume life. As you do."

When she put it that way, it seemed almost reasonable.

Ayla put a hand on Vix's shoulder, moving her out of Erwydden's reach. "Have you eaten lately, mother?"

"I have, as it happens," Erwydden said with a smile. "A most tasty morsel."

"One of the elves? Is that why they are so afraid?"

"No," Erwydden replied. "I needed something larger to sate my hunger and return my strength. Prison tends to sap the energies."

"What did you eat, mother?"

Erwydden smiled and stretched out her hand. From dark fingernails, black tendrils traced up her fingers, winding around and around until she clenched her hand and they were suddenly gone.

Ayla stared and again her mouth performed the motions of speech without actually creating any. "No," she finally said. "It cannot be."

"What cannot be?" Vix's confusion was dire, for Ayla seemed utterly horrified by what to Vix was nothing more than a party trick.

Ayla's voice was hoarse and somewhat thin as she spoke the unspeakable.

"She has eaten Ariadne."

"Eaten Ariadne? How do you eat a goddess? That's like licking the sun. It can't be done," Vix pointed out pragmatically.

"What do you know about what can and cannot be done?" Erwydden's fine brows drew together in unmistakeable irritation. The shift in mood caused Ayla to grip Vix by the back of her neck and physically haul the hengineer behind her.

"What you have done is unthinkable," she said in a voice which shook with barely contained emotion. "You have taken the divine inside you. Worse, you took
Ariadne.
Do you know her, mother?"

"I came upon her weaving in her little house," Erwydden said. "I smelled her power and I consumed her without another thought. She has nourished me quite well."

"Ariadne was no mere goddess," Ayla said. "She was the mother of all witches. She was..." Ayla lost the ability to speak as emotion overwhelmed her. She regained it moments later after obviously significant struggle to calm herself. "You have done many cruel things in your time, but what you have done now is the ultimate cruelty. You have taken the source of an energy which fueled the world beyond this one. You have destroyed the mother of all witches. You have single-handedly lost a battle which has been raging for thousands of years. You have eradicated the last of the magic in the world of the mortals. "

There was a solemn pause in which the weight of Ayla's statement sunk in. Magic gone from the mortal world. The mother of witches consumed. The battle of generations ended by a single thoughtless act of destruction.

The silence was broken when Erwydden made a small sound, like a mouse sneezing. She made it again, and again, the noise growing louder every time. It then turned into a snorting which became a full blown cackle of laughter. As Ayla and Vix stared in stunned amazement, Erwydden whooped with amusement so powerful that little tears formed in her eyes. Her whole body was consumed by the act, so much so that she had to gasp for breath in between gales of hilarity.

"I knew she was evil," Vix muttered. "You never said anything about her being an asshole."

Ayla grabbed Vix by the hand, turned and walked away. Erwydden might have done something to stop them leaving, but she was far too incapacitated by her own mirth, slapping her knee and using her malevolent crochet doily to mop up the tears of amusement which traced down her bloodless cheeks.

Chapter Twenty Seven

“I hate you,” Liz declared boldly.

Nobody paid her any mind. She was being carried over Trebuchet's shoulder, and she addressed her loathing to Kira, who brushed it off as inconsequential.

“I mean I hate you with everything I am,” Liz said. “You are betraying me, and betraying your own cause. To take me to Cadentis is beyond blasphemy. You will burn for this. The queen will not welcome you. She will not thank you for bringing me to her. She will have you strung up for your rebellion.”

Kira was not listening. She was rubbing her elbow, a concerned expression on her face.

“What is wrong?” Moon asked the question, seeing that Kira was in some kind of distress.

“My elbow aches,” Kira said, sounding more perplexed than hurt. “It is an old wound, but I have not felt it in many years. Not since... not since Ariadne put her blessing on me. I wonder...”

“Drop your weapons.” A voice like silk came out of the trees. Three dark clad figures stepped out from the foliage, moving like shadows. “You are under arrest for rebellion, treason and witchcraft.”

There was dead silence, then Liz began screaming at the top of her lungs, an incoherent wailing which rent the air and made conversation almost impossible.

“We are not under arrest,” Kira said testily. “We are here to see you. We have bought you a witch.”

“Lay down your weapons,” the lead rider ordered.

Trebuchet complied with the order immediately. Moon dropped her herb pipe. Liz flailed on the ground, wailing, effectively weaponless if one did not count the ear piercing quality of her cries. Only Kira remained defiant.

“I have not dropped my weapon since I took it up in my hands as a young woman,” Kira said. “I will not do it now. Take me to your queen if you wish, but you will not disarm me.”

The lead rider cocked her hooded head to the side. “I cannot allow a warrior bearing weapons into the presence of the queen.”

“I have no intention of harming your queen,” Kira replied honestly. “It is you who sought us out, and by the creaking of my bones I am certain that soon your queen will have more to worry about than my little party of rebels.”

There was a long pause, then the lead rider nodded swift assent. “You will stay by my side,” she said. “And if you make one move toward your weaponry, you will be cut down where you stand.”

“Fair,” Kira agreed.

With that, Trebuchet scooped the still squalling Liz off the ground and the party solemnly made their way through the trees and into the village where Cadentis had taken up residence. There they were taken into an inn, where rooms had been prepared to hold them individually, manned by several soldiers. What had once been a peaceful countryside town now bristled with enough armaments and soldiers to be considered an encampment in its own right.

Kira was the first to be taken before Cadentis, who received her in the empty inn below. The peasants of the town were confined to their homes on strict curfew while royal business was conducted.

“You are the one who has been giving me so much trouble in the provinces, hmm?” Cadentis ran a critical eye over Kira. Kira returned the favor. They could not have been two more disparate female figures, Cadentis' cropped hair, bold jewels and lithe frame in start contrast with Kira's bulk and armor. “Where is the witch? I do not sense any magic here.”

“You will not sense any magic anywhere, your highness,” Kira said. “It is my belief that Ariadne has perished, and with her, magic. I had intended to bring you a witch, but I doubt she is one any longer, and the aching of my arm tells me that my charmed life may soon be at an end.”

Cadentis' left brow rose in disbelief. “Ah. If that were true, that would certainly solve my conundrum, wouldn't it.”

“No.”

“No?”

“All due respect, your highness,” Kira said, “you are a whelp on a throne which has existed for thousands of years. The war on magic has been a legacy of your ancestors, but they understood that it was not a war they needed to win. It was a balance they needed to hold. I do not know how you have killed Ariadne, but I tell you it was a grave error...”

“I have not killed the goddess Ariadne,” Cadentis interjected. “If she has died, it is perhaps due to her age, or anachronism, or the fact that she never existed in the first place and was nothing more than superstition.”

Kira let out a derisive snort. “You have so little knowledge of the world and its workings. You see only what is on the immediate surface. Because you cannot find it or hold it or turn it into a clockwork toy you believe it does not exist. But you will soon learn otherwise. Lesbia has depended on Ariadne for thousands of years. By her grace have we lived in a land of bounty. Without her...” Kira lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “This world will crumble in ways too numerous to name.”

“I would not have expected such words from someone who alleges herself to be the greatest witch hunter of all time,” Cadentis observed.

“I was a witch hunter. I was shown the error of my ways,” Kira said. “I fear you will not have the chance to be shown the error of yours.”

“No,” Cadentis said with a small, but oh so cocky smile. “That tends to be the effect of victory. My lessons are the ones you shall learn.”

Kira's eyes narrowed a little as she looked upon the queen with an expression which lacked any fear. “There is no lesson you could teach me,” she said. “Our capture means death. But it matters little, for the death of Ariadne is the death of Lesbia.”

“You think the countryside will roll up upon itself like a rug and go away?”

“I think life will wither,” Kira replied. “I think songs will lose their sweetness, mead its taste. I think all will be a shadow of what it was, mere meat grist for the mortal mill.”

“I will tell you why you are wrong,” Cadentis replied, stepping boldly up to Kira, though the position forced her to look up at the warrior. She lifted her finger and put it to Kira's breast. “This is where the spirit of Lesbia resides,” she said. “In the hearts of the women who live here. Ariadne's magic, any magic, has only ever served to turn free mortals into vassals. We will not only survive without magic. We will thrive.”

“It is my greatest hope that you might be correct,” Kira said grimly.

“Now,” Cadentis said, stepping away. “My question is what to do with the four of you. If I were my ancestors, I am sure I would have your heads, but being a...
whelp
upon the throne, I have other notions of justice.”

“Liz is a fanatic, and Moon is nothing by the partner of Trebuchet,” Kira replied. “Who in turn is little more than a warrior for hire....”

“I know who you all are,” Cadentis said, waving her hand. “You see, when one does not rely on spells and incantations, one collects information. I know you are at the core of all this. And I know equally well that you were acting on what you believed to be the wishes of Ariadne, who you now claim to be deceased.” She paused and gave Kira a long look. “How old are you?”

“Exceptionally old,” Kira replied.

Cadentis smirked. “Not so much a whelp as a weathered old veteran,” she said. “If I were to grant you mercy, what would you do with your remaining days?”

“I do not imagine I have many left,” Kira replied. “I have lived on borrowed time for far too many years. Without Ariadne's protection, nature will have her way with me. My life was lost a very long time ago.”

“We are all born containing our own deaths,” Cadentis said, her expression perhaps sympathetic. “I must say,” she said with a sigh. “I always thought my victory would be a little more... dramatic. Of course, I am yet to find Ayla. Where is she?”

“I do not know. She may also be dead. She left one morning not long ago and has not returned. Her disappearance was coincident with Ariadne's passing, I believe. Or linked to it in some respect.”

Cadentis' eyes brightened. “Do you think Ayla might have killed Ariadne? The stories say that it was Ariadne who took Ayla's lover, Atrocious.”

“Age took Atrocious,” Kira replied. “Ariadne made her passing pleasant. Ayla's anger at Ariadne was nothing more than misplaced grief. As for whether Ayla killed Ariadne... I cannot say. I do know that she has been possessed of a deep anger for a very long time. It was bound to boil over eventually...”

“So your Ayla could have been the one to win my battle for me,” Cadentis smiled slowly. “I take it back. This isn't anti-climactic. This is deliciously ironic.”

Kira let out a little growl.

“What, would you like to cut me down where I stand?” Cadentis smirked. “You have my rider at your side. You would not lift your blade one inch before you fell.”

“Cut you down? No. I would much prefer to cut a switch and have the satisfaction of seeing your upstart little hide welted by my hand,” Kira replied. “You should be in a nursery, not wearing a crown.”

Cadentis scowled. “I have three decades of life behind me. I may not be as old as you, but I am no child.”

“You could die an old woman and not reach full maturity,” Kira said in turn. “You gloat over what you do not understand. You should be grieving. We all should.”

“Take her out of my sight, Minerva, and guard her well,” Cadentis ordered. “We will take our prisoners and return to Clitera City in triumph, where we shall make examples of them all.”

As Minerva put her hand on Kira's shoulder and lead her outside, a single crystalline snowflake fell from the sky and landed upon her flesh. It melted almost instantly, but was followed by dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of similar flakes as quite unseasonably, it began to snow.