Joya appeared suddenly before the door of the Haven just as she had disappeared, and Jovian called out her name, but she didn’t hear him. Instead she grabbed the crescent-moon door handle, turned it, and stepped into the warm golden depths of the Haven. Angelica and Jovian started to follow, but the blue orb bobbed eagerly again to their right. With an uncertain glance at one another they followed the orb.
Angelica and Jovian found themselves approaching the orb once more, only to see it shoot off into the woods, up yet another winding path. It paused now and then to make sure they followed; that they didn’t lose sight of it, though Angelica was unable to understand how they were to lose sight of a pulsating blue light in the growing darkness of the evergreen grove.
“It would be good if we had some light,” Angelica commented, and suddenly another orb sprang to life, only this time directly over their heads, bobbing like a little sun spitting light out all around them in a soft golden glow.
“It would be good if I had a thousand gold!” Jovian commented gaily, but nothing happened, and Angelica laughed at him.
“I think it can tell what’s necessary,” she said.
As they walked their attention was drawn to other paths that wound off in either direction. To their right they saw a large manor, and like with everything else the manor house, made artfully out of each color of the four elements, began to reshape. The rotten wood became whole again and fused back together, the paint became lush and fresh once more in such a manner that their eyes could not have followed the revivification if they had tried. The shutters and glass mended and sat themselves aright with a strange tinkling noise, almost as if the breaking of the glass was flowing backward even as time ran forward. The large porch become sturdy and level again, and lights began winking on within the massive building that Angelica was sure could have housed a hundred people comfortably.
They watched the house rebuild itself in awe, even as they had watched the Haven, and no matter how many times that evening they saw things wyrd themselves whole once more and become livable, Angelica and Jovian would never get used to it.
By the time they reached the end of the path, the orb was entering a large keep built into the side of the mountain. Outside, a huge fountain stood, though it looked in grave disrepair, moss growing all around it and within its basin. The iron gate of the keep looked just as bad as the fountain, and Angelica was amazed that the keep was even standing because the stone which comprised the foundation looked crumbled and little more than dust in some parts.
Once Angelica and Jovian entered the courtyard of the keep, the Shadows Grove worked its wyrd. The fountain sprang to life, shooting geysers of water into the air, and where the water fell musically it erased all traces of the moss which had previously been there. The clearing of the moss spread quickly from within the basin to the moss which clung to the sides and outside of the bowl. The gate seemed to instantly clean itself, and the stones of the keep became more substantial and sturdy.
Inside one of the many picture windows on the ground floor Angelica and Jovian witnessed a light flicker on. They hesitated. The idea that someone was in there was one that filled them with curiosity and fear at the same time. They didn’t think they would come to harm in the Shadow’s Grove, but they also weren’t sure.
They hesitated for a time at the partially opened doors, wanting to step in, but at the same time afraid for some unknown reason of what might be inside. Around the door they could see the pulsating light from the orb that was just out of sight. They could also see other lights, firelight, that had nothing to do with the orb. Glancing back at the darkening forest behind them and the nocturnal sounds that were starting to stir they took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
The blue orb hovered in the center of the long entrance hall. The hall was made out of some rich gray stone, and decorated with blue hangings. The golden rug beneath their feet, which looked to be Balageshian, was thick and full of luster.
The opposite end of the hall ended in a large interior court, but they could not see the details of what was within that court. Lining the hall to either side were numerous doors, and Angelica and Jovian wondered where they led.
“To various sitting rooms and libraries,” they heard a woman say within their head as well as outside of them in a strange, echoing way. “Here, let’s make this easier.” Their attention was drawn to the blue orb, for that was the only other thing in the hall with them that they could see.
With the words a dizziness came to them. Angelica felt weak for a moment, and took hold of Jovian’s arm as the floor heaved beneath her feet and her head swam sickeningly. After the vertigo had passed Angelica cleared her throat and stood erect once more.
Even as the sensation left them, the light of the orb dimmed and became velveteen. It wasn’t glowing anymore, but was now pulsing with different movement. It extended down to the ground, and shifted and shuttered. They were not sure how it happened, for they had been watching the whole time, but at once the shift was suddenly complete, and before them stood a woman of medium height and small frame.
The color of the orb, one of the richest blues either of them had ever seen, had become this woman’s gown, cut low over the breast with tight arms and bodice, but flowing skirts, all made out of crushed velvet. Her light coffee-colored hair was held back from her face by a silver coronet, and a thick braid extended down her back, interwoven with silken scarves of the same blue, and silver.
She folded long bejeweled fingers at her waist and smiled at them. Her amber lupine eyes, so like that of their sister, took them in lovingly. Angelica and Jovian stared back at her pale form in awe. They knew who this woman was, and they didn’t need her confirmation moments later.
“Hello, children. I’m Sylvie LaFaye, your mother.” There was a moment in which they stared at her, and she allowed them time to come to grips with who she truly was before the growling started. From behind their mother padded a silver wolf larger than any they had ever seen, its eyes the same amber as Sylvie’s. It stopped when she placed a hand on its head. The wolf was easily taller than Sylvie’s waist. “And this is the true Misha,” she informed them.
“However, there is a lot that must be explained, and answers that must be given. I ask that you hold off on that for a moment as we make ourselves comfortable,” Sylvie held out her hand, indicating with grace the door that she stood directly beside. She stepped within, and a moment latter Jovian and Angelica had come back to themselves enough to follow.
They had never thought they would see this woman they somehow knew without ever having met, though what they knew of her was largely fabricated by textbooks and tales. For instance, all accounts held that Sylvie LaFaye was diminutive, and they had believed it too after having seen their Aunt Pharoh. Pharoh was short, but Sylvie was not. They wondered what else was not true about her. It was obvious that she was a shape-shifter, for they had just seen her wear two different forms, that of the deer and the orb.
This was shaping up to be a strange night indeed.
The room, they noticed, was a lot like the hall had been, with the same gray walls and blue décor. A highback sofa sat with its back to them, facing the fire, and when they rounded it a low table and chairs came into view. There were three chairs, one on one side, two facing it on the other, cut in the same fashion as the couch with high backs, wide cherry-colored arms, and thick, dark blue cushions.
On the cherry-wood table sat a silver decanter and three silver goblets. Sylvie was filling the goblets with amber liquid from the decanter as they sat down in the two chairs provided for them. They were handed the liquid, and small cakes appeared out of thin air on the table before them.
Sitting down, Sylvie appraised them as she took a sip of her liquor.
There was one question which had been burning in their minds ever since their meeting with Porillon, and when they finally found their voices they promptly asked it.
“Did we really kill you?” Angelica rushed in, watching their mother for any telltale sign on her face.
Sylvie sighed. “To put it plainly, no, I killed myself. You were stillborn, how were you to have killed me?”
“Why did you kill yourself?” Jovian asked.
“I prayed that you would live, even promising to give my own life to the Goddess for my two youngest to live. Some people say that it was the poor medical treatment I was receiving that killed me, and the large number of children I bore. It could have been this, but I feel that Grace was sound medical care.” Somehow they were not surprised that Grace was the one who delivered them.
As if spurred by the thought of their birth, Jovian reached for his sword.
“Father gave this to me for our twenty-first birthday. It’s supposed to have some kind of power, but I’m not sure what it is or how to make it work.” Jovian held the shin-buto out to his mother. Sylvie leaned forward and took it from him, cradling it in her lap.
“The shin-buto, when I had it, enhanced my fighting ability.” Sylvie looked down at the blade lovingly, and the steel pulsed with the same white radiance that emanated from their mother. “When your father passed it on to you the power changed. He gave it to you out of love, and a desire to keep you safe, and so that is what the blade does. This shin-buto, now that it’s yours, will keep you safe from the harm of dalua.”
“But I died,” Jovian protested.
“An event that was necessary. However, you were brought back,” Sylvie pointed out with a nod of her head.
“By the nependier,” Jovian corrected her.
“Who’s to say it wasn’t the wyrd of the shin-buto that drew the nependier to you?” Jovian did not have an answer to this question. “I tell you now, the shin-buto works, whether on its own, like drawing in Porillon’s lightning maelstrom, or through a catalyst of some other type, like the nependier.
“The shin-buto is a weapon of wyrd, and we aren’t to fully understand how wyrd works, for when we fully understand and grasp the magnitude of wyrd then we will be like gods ourselves.
“There is wyrd in everything,” Sylvie continued. “Every choice we make bears the weight of consequence. Consequence, one might say, is the true form of wyrd, for wyrd is something that has come to pass, or something you are causing to come to pass. I will tell you now about the two times in my life that the strongest wyrd ever known to man gripped me.
“Now, as angels Pharoh and I were not given often to human emotions, but there were times when those emotions flooded through us, and they were the strongest moments of our lives. I believe now, after having lived through it, that the two most powerful forms of wyrd come from intent, or rather emotion. The two times I used wyrd were during two opposite extremes in my life. Once I used this wyrd out of hatred, another out of love.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that the greatest hate I have ever felt was for Arael, but in those times he deceived us with another name.”
“Iblis,” Angelica said knowingly.
“No,” Sylvie shook her head. “I’m not talking about the name given him in the history books, but his real name. The history books refer to him as Iblis, his supposedly original name, and wondered why Pharoh and I didn’t know who he was when we came upon him.”
“But why did they change his name? What was the point behind that?” Jovian asked.
“His original name is too corruptive a force to utter,” Sylvie told them.
“But there must have been many people uttering his name back then,” her son continued.
“Nearly everyone,” Sylvie agreed.
“Yet the world still stands? If he was that corruptive how were you able to kill him, and why wasn’t there more devastation to the Great Realms?” Jovian wanted to know.
“More devastation?” Sylvie gawked at her son. “Is he joking with me?” she asked Angelica, who indicated that he was not. “Jovian,” she said, turning back to him in disbelief. “How much more devastation do you want? There was war, starvation, plague, and the death of hundreds of thousands. The world not only split, but one of the Goddess’s disciples was slain, and Chaos nearly brought to bear on the world of the living.
“The Great Realms used to be a place rich in economy as well as wyrd, but now it is little more than the civilization it had been when Aaridnay had settled here. Wyrd filled the air, it filled the bodies and minds of all, and there was little that wyrd could not do. Now everyone is limited by their thoughts, and limited in the aspect that wyrd is slowly dwindling away. Can either of you tell me how many sorcerers there are in the Great Realms now?”
Neither of them could.
“A fourth of what there was,” Sylvie told them. They were shocked by that number, not being able to imagine what it had been like with so many sorcerers all about. “Not only that but each and every person had control over some kind of wyrd. If you were born in the Realm of Earth you possessed the ability to control the element of earth, and so forth with the other realms. You all marveled at the flying ship you were shown in Fairview, but I tell you if Arael had not come wyrd would be so advanced there would be flying
cities! That
is what uttering his true name did.
“What’s more is that you stand on the very brink of that destruction again, only this time the Great Realms will not split; it will be completely torn asunder. Nations, philosophies, and the very fabric of wyrd will not be as you know it, but will be plunged into Chaos, becoming a perversion of what you know and love.”