Gallel's Heir Chapter 3.3: Power of Life

ghostwriter (63)in #story • 7 years ago (edited)

And he will seize his destiny, let the world fall into chaos. For only through his chaos will the world know perfect peace.
---Minara Elkek of Toopek

"We chose our path, Minara. You could not choose it for us."

The exultation of absorbing the old crone's heart jolted as Minara turned. Gizelle and Amara looked down on her, both high and mighty. What gave them the right to be so blastedly self-assured? Something bright shined on them despite the evening's dusk, and their silvery clothing blinded her. "I see you have both finally consented to make yourselves properly youthful. You were both so ugly before, though your blue skin still looks ridiculous." Minara straitened her skirts as she stiffened her back.

"I have long refused to kill and cannibalize potential to make myself beautiful," said Amara.

"Yes," scoffed Minara as she touched her hair, "a pure soul has its own beauty."

Amara lifted her chin as though she preached to a stupid congregation. "Thanks to your efforts, you will never be able to kill Lianna's mother."

"She is with Death even now and he refuses to cut," said Gizelle.

Perspiration beaded only a little on Minara's brow. She didn't need to be lectured to by these old betrayers. "Did he at least cut your thread, Zelle?"

"I chose my path and now my rest awaits. My life is complete. Is yours?"

"My life is my own," said Minara. "I, at least, know how to take and use what is available. I took your heart, and your life was delicious." Minara shifted uncomfortably. She looked forward to her lovely bed in Turbia. "That little mother is dead. You are dead."

Gizelle pointed. "Look over at my body, Minara. We have already healed it."

Some bit of gunk caught in Minara's throat and words came with difficulty. "That doesn't matter, I don't really care if you live and suffer, or if your soul is sent to the Void where it belongs."

"No one can be taken before her time," said Gizelle, pointing.

Their insistence caused Minara to turn. In the grass before her lay Gizelle's mangled body. Not so mangled, as blood faded. Muscle, fat and tissue rolled into place.

"No..." She stepped back.

"Minara, I pity you," said Gizelle.

"You think you have true power," said Amara. "But what you have is nothing compared to the Taleni."

"Hallel means hope," said Gizelle. "He means love."

They took a step closer, though they walked on nothing but air. She backed away.

"You have seen but a glimmer of my power," whispered Minara. "This little episode was but an exercise. You know nothing of what we have planned."

One voice then the next hounded her as they came ever closer to her, as though they wanted her to step on the girl.

"You have lost this battle and you will lose the war."

"Now go your own way and crawl back to that seething mass of darkness and despair you call master."

"Let him know that you failed."

"He is nothing but hate"

"And fear"

"And anger"

"And emptiness."

"He is a spoiled child and one day he will break you."

Gizelle's body stood, and said, "Just like any spoiled child will eventually break his toys."

Minara shrieked, then ran. A void enveloped her, black as the cave at the base of her tower. It was a void filled with a familiar presence. "Tavaris," Minara cried. "My love!"

"What are you doing here?" The tone of his voice indicated genuine surprise. Anything which surprised him must by its nature be frightful. Even in the blackness his face appeared as it did in the Ball of Shadows, clear and pale and delicious. Darkness shrouded the rest of him.

"I can finally touch you!" She ran to him, the object of her fantasies, her partner. When her fingers stretched to his chest, she blinked and she ran into the stone wall of her tower study. Her mouth filled with the sweet taste of blood where she'd bitten her lip, her face throbbed, and she collapsed to her floor. After spitting out an incisor, she pounded her fist onto the floor and did what she hadn't done since she was a little girl. She wept.

Dylin stood next to Gizelle, who adjusted her dress to cover her bare chest.

"I've been too long away from them," said Gizelle. Amara and the Escort hovered above. "I'm ready for the next adventure there."

Hands clasped together, the Escort nodded. "Before I cut her thread, Gizelle has her gift."

"As a mind mage connected to my body again, I can do this." Gizelle placed her head against Dylin's. An energy tingled, like the feeling of holding her hand above rubbed wool and sensing the shiver of electricity without touching anything solid. Cold and hot at the same time. Tingled her spine.

Time and space unfolded before her, all that Gizelle had experienced in her long life. Sensations from the tiny, secluded village she'd grown up in, her healing from blindness by a kind ruler, her learning in the wari arts at an actual mage school somewhere to the east, in the middle of the ocean — so many wari arts, Dylin had no idea! And an actual school! — countless ways wari can be manipulated. How to heal — this sensation burned into Dylin's heart like nothing else. She grasped the intricacies of muscle, bone, and nerve tissue, how to set them right. She understood how to take a person's life, but also how to save it. Saving a life gave the mage so much more strength of soul.

Dylin felt Gizelle's affection for that village boy who had befriended the old woman when so many others had been frightened of her. Respect blossomed in Dylin's heart for that boy, who refused to let anyone tell him what to think or feel about someone. Gizelle perceived, through her wari sense, the boy's great potential. His impending greatness put her in awe, and the feeling bled into Dylin's heart and she feared she may shrivel in his presence. Such as he would never consider her; he would be kind to her, but he would deserve someone so much greater than Dylin, though she was siran by right.

Her mind filled so full she thought it would burst, akin to the stretching of her belly when Lianna lived there and grew. More and more flooded into her awareness. The thread in her hand grew warm, and then hot, and she felt as though she could embrace the very sun without pain.

Dylin gasped, then shivered. Trees and pale morning sky filled her vision. She lay on her back several paces from the path. Frost touched tips of grass still lying in shadow.

She looked at her arm, no longer severed.

Had she really just died?

She touched her cheek and felt warmth. Her blood had been ice, and her heart stopped, her neck broken, her arm ripped away, and yet she lay in prickling grass as milk throbbed in her breasts.

Shaking, she rolled to her stomach then forced herself to her knees, her forehead brushing the frosty grass. The smell of cold earth and foliage filled her nostrils and she raised her head. Red and orange leaves wafted to the ground, as peaceful as any autumn morning. A fist-sized hole in a tree evidenced Gizelle's injury: chest-high, black blood and bits of flesh speckled the area in and around it.

Five paces to the right lay crumpled wool, what remained of Gizelle's dress. Arms trembling, Dylin crawled to the spot. The body lay with the eyes closed and a serene smile gracing her lips. The fabric of her skirt covered Gizelle's wrinkled but whole chest.

"Gizelle," she whispered, "I wish I could have gotten to know you." And yet she did know her. She had yet to practice her new skills, but Dylin knew the old woman, perhaps better than she'd known Amara, whom she'd all but lived with for a few years.

Foliage on the ground brightened from a ray of sunlight, and the corner of a folded paper caught her eye. It lay partially obscured by the skirt of Gizelle's dress. Dylin grasped the paper.

My dear Canúden, please open this only after you visit me. Visit me soon, it said. Gizelle must have been on her way to that boy's home when Minara caught her. Where did he live? Likely he would go to Gizelle's home sooner rather than later.

Curious, Dylin unfolded the paper. Written in a sharp, angular hand, it was a will; Gizelle had sensed she would soon die, and she left her land to the boy and his mother. Under the hearthstone, she'd also left some textbooks for Dylin, as well as a few other useful items.

The boy deserved this paper, yet Dylin was in no position to go visiting, weak as she was. She could not face that magnificent boy.

And what if she paid him a visit? Would they chat over tea and biscuits about their vision? How would she explain Gizelle's death? That boy would expect some amount of greatness from Dylin, expect her to act and be as graceful and witty as a siran was supposed to be. Wouldn't he be disappointed. Best to put the whole experience behind her and focus on raising her baby, since according to the Escort, that was why she lived again.

She leaned against the rough bark of the darkwood and struggled to her feet, though bumps on her arms and legs reminded her how cold she still was. She tucked the paper under her arm and stumbled as quickly as she could along the path.

Gizelle's hedge soon peeped around the darkwoods, and Dylin crept through the gate. Piles of smoking, black char marked where the house once stood, the rubble of a chimney at one end. The stones glowed orange. To the right stood the out buildings, still apparently intact, though her exhaustion kept her to her purpose. Where to place the paper.

The boy would likely return soon, and as boys do, he would explore. She stepped to the barn, then considered. The note on the outside of the paper seemed out of place, as Gizelle had not managed to give it to the boy. Dylin found a blackened stick and wrote as neatly as she could under the existing note: Gizelle left this with me, as she could not make it to your house. I don't know where you live, so I'm leaving it here. I was with her when she died, and she's happy now. She loved you and respected you. —Dylin