Chapter 1: Prelude to Passivity
Dreams into Obscurity
The air was thin in the mountains. That was a given. But in the Aerie, thin was a kindness the air could not afford. And yet the snowpetal bloomed wild, watched and protected for ages. A millennium of caretakers, one followed by another, living for one purpose and dying for one cause.
Snow, hail, wind, lightning, quakes, lava flow. No natural event would end the bloom, nor the cycle.
At the last, when years expired and time had fled, the sentinels would breathe their last, cradled by their Lady. Her white hair laden with the smell of cold and despair, she held them and bid them sweet dreams.
Waiting until the end, calling them her special one, and ushering another soul into the darkness. It is cruel, really. And a dream I have had at least once per moon since I was a younger girl.
But the Aerie called to me, just as it called to every one before me.
I asked folks about it around the phobward region, but they didn't know it by name or description.
"Aerie? Of course! Plenty of air outside, silly Nyxara!"
"Mountains? Well sure there are mountains. You can see them as the sun ends, far eveward of us."
"What in all of Lafleur is a snowpetal Nyxara? What are you on about now? Is this more of your silly games?"
"By the goddess, woman, your dreams aren't life. They're just in your head!"
Worse than that, I told myself those things after a while. And I eventually forgot about the Aerie. Letting myself forget was like giving up a part of me, even so I gave in. And I became ordinary. A dire misfortune that the dreams followed, no longer haunting my sleep once I forced myself to be someone else.
I was, I believe, twenty-seven when the dreams returned after almost a decade without. But something was different about them. The tone or the clarity or the eyes I dreamed from, I couldn't say. One thing was certain: it was the first time I knew the woman's name.
Gormlaith.
Somehow, I was certain she was the original guardian of the Aerie. She and her Lady walked those rocky heights not quite as equals, but as dear friends. Gormlaith loved her Lady like a mother. I got the feeling that the feeling was reciprocated, her Lady saw Gormlaith as a daughter.
The first dream of her found Gormlaith sitting on a high pedestal, looking out over a vast city, her Lady seated to her left. A great ivory warhammer stood before Gormlaith, awaiting her skilled hands.
Gormlaith's Lady leaned in and spoke in a fine voice, cool yet cosy. "Beloved," she smiled in a peculiar way, "I believe it is time for us to retire from the city. As I understand, there is unrest in our lands phobward, and we have been requested. Besides. I miss the Aerie"
Gormlaith's voice was a steady rasp, the wind through a great canyon. "As you speak, my Lady," she bowed her head, "so it shall be."
And that was it. The dream faded, and I awoke. For the first time in my adult years, I yearned for that seat high up in the mountains, looking over all the phobward lands of Lafleur. Waiting patiently for my Lady to call me special and assure me I had done well.
Even the thought was too much. I was disgusted with myself.
I tried to ignore it, but every night was the same. I dreamed of Gormlaith and her Lady deciding to leave the city and travel phobward. For two moons I dreamt of nothing else. It interfered with my work. It disrupted my life. It shook my resolve enough that I let myself question the truth.
There is a library in Greywatch Spire. Or what passes for one. Most of the books were ransacked by queen's guard generations ago, censored for vulgar material not suited to the general populace. If they weren't dreadfully littered with it, then the content was redacted. Otherwise, the whole book was taken.
Despite that effort, I found something. A woman called Gormlaith. Directions to the Aerie written in code.
Phobward towers, a fortress and cradle to Togha's Longsuffering.
Unconquered by wind, it thrives atop the Aerie.Mountain iris, mornward Spire, watchful eyes climbing higher.
The Lady stands above it all. Her Scion proudly standing tall.
It certainly helped that the primary language in Greywatch was terribly similar to Old Fleurian, even if they couldn't write poetry to save their lives. But it was all I needed. The Aerie existed, and it was calling me. Now I had a path.
Even so, I wasn't about to just throw away my life because I dreamed a thing that I also found in a book. So I ignored everything, and went back to my life as a baker, albeit one who was plagued with dreams of a place that had been all but forgotten by history.
Unwatched, Unwavering
The decision to leave was less defeat and more pragmatism. I'd spent two full moons studying, fighting, avoiding. And once I knew something, I decided that was enough. But that didn't stop everything piling up against me, forcing me to choose something else.
One sun, I awoke with a songbird's hymn in my spirit, and it held me for the whole morning as I baked. Something equally peaceful and ominous, the humming of it put a unique pep into my step. I had the sun's prep work finished almost an hour early, and I stepped outside to watch the sun rise as the bread did the same inside.
An elder woman running early morning errands in town joined me in my calming vigil, silently enjoying the brilliant dance of colours that greeted the Spire. Her darker skin, the shade of earth after rain, was common in the phobward region. A full half the town, including myself, shared that trait. Though my own fiery hair was markedly brighter than her coal black locs.
The song returned, and I resumed humming. After a refrain of the song, the elder woman began singing.
The wind through the mountain calls
Our mourning for heavy palls
Even as our lady sings
Her sorrow the cold gust bringsWe raise a wing against painful nights
Our feathers a ward against the dark
With strong beak we win our fight
In a new land at last alight
"It's funny, young Nyxara," she said when she finished her refrain, "that you would know such a song. No one's sung that song since your great aunt. Did your Nan teach you?"
My great aunt. She was a local legend, and not in a good way. Nan's sister caused more trouble in a single moon than most women caused in their lives. She'd sing and dance and frolic about Greywatch like some sort of creature possessed.
And then one moon, she left.
"She must have," I lied. "It came to me this morn, and I've not been able to shake it."
As the elder woman stood to leave, she gave me a kind smile. "Well, let's hope you don't turn up like her." She giggled. "Where would anyone in the Spire get decent bread if you were gone."
The rest of my sun was soured with the thought. What happened to my great aunt? Is that what was happening to me?
Five suns passed after that incident before it all hit me again. At least if I had to dream of the Aerie, I had been safe in the waking world. But it's a challenge avoiding a message from beyond when a weaver hawk falls in town centre, overburdened by something grasped in its claws.
We were lucky in a way that it didn't fall on any townsfolk, though my lot might have been easier had it landed atop my own head.
It wasn't uncommon in the Spire for birds to rest atop roofs or in the shade of houses. Equally ordinary was the variety we saw taking our hospitality for given. A rogue slime pigeon might even show up if the conditions were fair enough for a season. But weaver hawks were a different matter, as they tended to stay their course far from towns.
Most of the town saw it as some ill omen, a great bird falling so ungraciously. I took it as a warning of future despair. That dread was intensified when its burden was revealed to be a warhammer built for one of my stature.
I couldn't say how the bird managed the weight, but I didn't sleep that night or the next while I awaited the inevitable request that I handle the thing and remove it to a more suitable spot. A wait that was rewarded after a further five suns.
None in the town could seem to lift it, so they called me. It was an eyesore. Who could blame them.
So I did what any concerned citizen might, and took it in hand, dragged the thing unceremoniously to the nearest lake, and lobbed it as far toward the middle as I could, marvelling that a weaver hawk could carry it at all, let alone so far as it must have.
And then I went home, had tea, and tried uselessly to relax.
For a moon, I took to a new game beloved by all: Hunt for a Lake the Warhammer Likes. Each morn I woke with my bedclothes soaked to the fibre and my lungs near full of lakewater. Each afternoon I'd haul the thing to another damned lake and hope to be rid of it. My persistence rivalled that of Tarys the Resolute and his iron-willed kin, but even I had my limits.
Which is why I lasted a moon and no more, given that I'd run out of lakes that were suited to the task of avoiding the Aerie. But also it was getting tiresome to launder a sevensun of clothes every two suns. Besides. The warhammer wasn't so great an eyesore that it was worth a full sun's journey to be rid of it in the deepest lake within walking range of the Spire.
So on the final night of that moon, I hung the goddess-cursed thing on the wall. Never mind that now it was an eyesore that guests would be subjected to.
And if I maybe found some comfort holding the thing and swinging it about every so often, that was my business alone.
Shortly after I hung the conversation piece, a group of friends gathered for supper at my home. One of the last couples had finally paired up proper – a union several years in the making – and were planning a marriage, so I offered my home as a place to commune in celebration.
The affair was proceeding flawlessly, everyone pleased with the food and company. I even got a few compliments on the hideous thing that laughed at me from the wall. It wasn't until I choked on a white petal mid-laugh that things began collapsing. At first it was just one, then another mid-sentence as I told a delightful story about 'baking hands' and kneading bread.
A torrential cascade of petals kicked in full force as I attempted to retrieve dessert, leaving me coughing up the damned things by the mouthful until I nearly blacked out. My guests joined me as the flood began to subside, and it was clear I was the only one who recognised the petals. I did what I could to ease their fears.
"I'm fine," I choked out between mouthfuls of the velvety things, knowing it was the opposite of truth. "I don't even remember eating all these flowers."
The laughter broke the tension for the most part, but the damage had been done. And I received a visit from our local healer, who told me to stop eating flowers if I didn't know their origins. My insistence of innocence was ignored outright.
And that incident left me with more snowpetal than any ordinary person would have a use for. I didn't dare try to dispose of the evidence. Waking up with my clothes and hair charred off wasn't something I needed in my sun.
As I couldn't very well rid myself of the demonic flowers without risking further incident, I set to work identifying possible uses of the things. I knew some flowers served well in baking or cooking, and they were said to improve the overall experience of food, so I looked into whether snowpetal was safe to eat.
It was not.
Starting a list was my best bet. Perfectly Plain Plans for a Personal Plethora of Prolific Petals. I tacked a sheet of paper to my wall and set to work. Never mind that the pile I'd amassed seemed to be growing larger by the sun.
At the top of the list, I had written 'cooking?' and 'baking?'. But I couldn't well test the flowers on people. Or animals. So I returned to the modest library and found a book on herbs. There was an entry on 'mountain iris', but not one on snowpetal or Togha's Longsuffering. At the top of the page were the bold words 'do not consume', which I would normally take as a challenge, but I liked my neighbours too well to risk it.
So I marched back home and scribbled furiously over my two best bets. Under that I wrote 'pillow?' and set to stuffing handfuls of the things into my pillowcasing. If it worked, I'd have removed almost a tenth of the pile in my kitchen that the warhammer watched with deliberate intensity.
It wasn't the softest surface I'd laid my head but it worked. After several sevensuns, I had a list of twelve unique items amidst almost fifty violent scribbles. I'd made progress on the list, even if the pile seemed just as large as ever.
Perfectly Plain Plans for a Personal Plethora of Prolific Petals
- Pillow. Not bad. Not great. Whole room smelled of stone and ash, but I slept well.
- Seat Cushion. Surprisingly terrible after the pillow. Just use wool or down.
- Ink. Crushed petals in a small amount of water. Decent ink, even if it faded by sundown. Paper smelled of disappointment. Had to throw the whole thing out.
- Lamp Cover. Pasted several together into a globe for a cold-flame lamp. A bit too functional. Couldn't see to undress for bed.
- Insulation. Well, the draft stopped, but so did every bug that tried to eat the things, and cleaning that was a nightmare.
- Kindling. Fire burned white like my cold-flame. Lasted five seconds before it sort of froze, mid-flare. Do not recommend.
- Gifts. Don't. Just don't. My pockets were full before any of the recipients could have made it home. Worse, they came back and fussed that the gift had vanished.
- Soap. Tested as soap fragrance. Dirt clung harder to me, and I had to bathe five more times with normal soap to get it off. No thanks.
- Shoe Cushion. Functional. Soft. But for whatever reason, I kept finding myself at the edge of town looking toward the mountains.
- Polish Grit. If the warhammer is stuck with me, at least it will look nice. A fine ivory sheen made the thing pop. Ground some extra up and put in a jar for future use.
- Preservative. Dipped some flowers in water that I had used to soak the petals.
ThreeFive sevensuns later, they look like new. - Kitchen Obstacle. Easiest and best use. Ten out of ten. No notes. And then I can just ignore them like ordinary people ignore most flowers. Win-win.
The final trouble came when I was visited by the elder woman who had sat with me at sunrise.
"Young Nyxara," she said as I greeted her at my door, "I've been told by your neighbour Tareth that you seem to have a flower problem."
Understatement, but I wasn't opposed to help. "Yes, ma'am. I've been working hard to come up with ways to use them that were less than destructive, but I never seem to run out."
She didn't laugh. Her expression was less worry and more severe. "Show me."
I led her to the kitchen with the neverending supply of petals and the bully of a warhammer. She didn't say anything at first, just stared at the pile, walking around it and occasionally leaning in for a closer look.
"You haven't tried to feed these to anyone have you?" Her question startled me, as I had almost let myself forget she was in the room.
"No ma'am."
"Good girl," she smiled softly. "When your great aunt left, a proper flower with petals like these was all she left behind. You know, it's still just as fresh as the day I found it."
My jaw hung limp. "I didn't know that."
"Now you do," her tone was gentle. "It's a shame, really."
I didn't have to ask what the shame was. She meant that I would be leaving soon. I'd get sick of it. Just like my great aunt. And just like every one I'd dreamed of when I was a kid.
"When you leave, young Nyxara," she said when I didn't respond, "be sure you say your proper good-byes to those you love. If you return, it will be a blessing. But —" She let her voice trail off. I knew she was holding back 'you won't return', and that somehow stung more.
"Yes ma'am."
That was the night I finally made the choice to go. It was only hurting me to stay. And there was no telling when it would begin to hurt those around me. So I began the long and difficult process of gathering necessities, packing everything for travel, and preparing myself for a journey I could no longer avoid.
Before I left, I added a final item to my list, rolled it up, and packed it away.
- Omen. Fine. I'm going. But I'm leaving the goddess-cursed warhammer. And singing is out of the question.