My best work came from beggars, prostitutes, and indentured servants. This one was the star of a brothel known as the Sly Wink, pale as snow even to her hair, prematurely aged. It was a family trait, she claimed. The mistress of the brothel said some men found it appealing.
She sprawled, body arrayed to one side of the canvas on the floor. Above her head, a selection of chalks. Black and grey – in the sixteen times I had hypnotized her, she had never gone for color in trance, and now I did not bother to set them out. In my studio, her drawings stood out: half-figures contoured in shadows, an intimate play of dark and light, silhouettes of the subconscious.
Her motions were slow, deliberate. She stretched languorously – temptress even in the crevices of her mind? – and reached for black chalk. Her hand came down in a series of long, looping strokes.
I watched, breath held. Would this be the one? If any of my subjects could make a breakthrough, it would be her. I expected little of the spoiled noble girls who wanted to paint under my direction for a thrill. I sold their scribbles to those equally intrigued by the novelty. It paid for my studies. I no longer had the support or funding of my family. I doubted they remembered I existed.
The various drawings were uncovered, making the studio a riot of shape and fury, yet there was an overarching pattern to the chaos, a flow like smoke over the city of Lledrith. I had stared at every sketch for hours, trying to find its hidden essence, but either my studies into human nature left me blind to the symbolism, or there was no power to be found within.
The theory was sound. The subconscious, unleashed upon a physical medium in an act of creation, tapped into an eldritch power, something our primitive forebears would have called magic. If one could interpret and understand the images in the art, it would be like reading a book of spells. Through this knowledge, one could influence the subtleties of the universe.
I had once been heir to a vineyard empire. Now, the promise of this power – fleeting, ephemeral – was the only thing that sustained me. Some day, the money coming in would not match that going out. I chose not to think about it.
Angles sketched now, cutting across in a shape disappointingly like a human face. I didn’t care for images with easy interpretation. They were dead ends. Had my muse failed me?
One might ask why I did not hypnotize myself. The answer was simple. I was frightened of my own depths. Maybe the answer was to leave Lledrith and seek people who were closer to nature, but what did I know of sandsifters and herdsmen?
Her hand jerked, smudging the face until she obscured the upper brow. It was only then I realized it was my face. I sighed, moving forward with the intent of releasing her from trance.
She uttered a high keen. Her hands came up to ward me off. The sound continued, and I worried that my landlady, however tolerant, would barge in on us. Once I backed off, she quieted and resumed her work, content as a child.
Two more intersecting curves, carved in darkness – unusual for her, whose trance preference seemed to be sketching with light space. She paused, and this time allowed me to approach.
“Your work is done,” I said. “You will awaken in three…two…one.”
She blinked once, twice – faded grey eyes, barely more than mist – and smiled timorously. “Did I do all right, Master Arlunydd?”
“There’s always next time, Seren,” I said, doing my best to sound encouraging.
She studied the drawing with an open-mouthed smile, a flash of darkness on her pale visage. “I didn’t do you justice.”
“Thank you. You may leave,” I said brusquely. Once I closed the door behind her, I regarded the sketch. If anything, she had flattered me, reducing a ridiculous signpost of a nose to a patrician hook, and minimizing the deep hoods of my eyes. The imperfections of the flesh. I supposed I could be handsome, if I troubled to school my hair, and most women preferred a man of my greater height. I had more important matters with which to concern myself.
My face in shadow, two black arches bleeding out from it. I traced the curves as they bent, symmetrically, back towards the center and a point. The shape was almost…
Someone knocked, breaking my concentration. Had I neglected to write down an appointment? The appointment book was a new concept for me. Before, I had simply left it to memory, and if someone arrived to find me occupied, it was their problem.
“Master Arlunydd?” a voice asked. “Your landlady said you were in.”
Was it possible to fall in love from nothing more than a voice? It was elegant, deep, curling about the syllables and investing them with hidden depths, yet also burred, etching into my consciousness. I stared at the door, numb.
“Master Arlunydd? If this is a bad time, I can come back.”
I threw myself forward, yanking the door open. “Simply in artistic absorption, miss…?”
“Difyren.” She was tall, almost improperly so, with waist-length sable hair worn unbound. Those tresses were so abundant I thought a man could drown in them, if they escaped her amber eyes. That and her deeper skin-tone indicated non-Lledrithi ancestry. Her clothes suggested nobility. “Difyren Rheival. Is this a good time? I wanted to ask something of you.”
Inwardly, I sighed. This smoky beauty, her cheeks so sharply defined they created shadows like the images on my pages, wanted nothing more than other noblewomen: to play with my life’s work as if it were a toy and laugh about it later.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away, her gaze coursing about with restless curiosity. She lingered on one of Seren’s earlier works, then turned her attention to a bold explosion of blue. A sweet, fey smile crossed her lips, and I felt the urge to rush over and see what I had missed.
“My cousin has sketched for you twice,” she said. “She says it’s a remarkable experience. I’m more interested in what the process looks like. I’m a dream recorder – only a student, but I’m hopeful to be accepted as a junior soon. It seems to me that what you are doing is capturing a dream as it happens, and I would like to see that.”
I had dismissed the work of dream recorders as too stale for my purposes: by the time someone awakened, tried to recall fragments, and then described them to another person, the shapes of the subconscious were erased by the artificial story. True, they served a function in Lledrith, but they were more healers and advisors than scientists. Everyone likes to hear their nightmare of being smashed by a carriage really means good fortune will soon strike.
“You mean watch a session?”
“Yes, if that would be all right?” Difyren cocked her head. “I can conceal myself, if it would be less disruptive.”
I had never experimented with having someone else in the room. Would her presence taint the results whether or not the subject was consciously aware of her, or would she inspire them, uplift them as she had done me?
“That would be better.” My tongue spoke without me, banal, empty. “I would be pleased if you would view a session. I cannot promise anything…”
She laughed. “I know how fickle the mind is. What I want to see is the process.”
I would have gladly promised her more than that. I discovered my smile was rusty. Disuse, really. “Of course. I think it would be best if you were concealed. So as not to distract anyone.”
Difyren nodded. “What about these? What meaning have you been able to glean?”
I gestured for her to come closer and explained the symbology of shape, stroke length, and color. Normally, I relied upon this didactic exercise to drive people away. Now I found myself moderating my language for her.
As she neared to examine a drawing, I caught the scent of her: not the sugar of perfume, but a soft, warm tang like autumn fire. “After seeing these, I’m even more curious to watch the work,” she said, “but I need to go. I have dinner with my betrothed.”
Betrothed! My world dimmed. “Leave me your address,” I said, “and I’ll be in touch.”
When she left, she took color and definition with her.
I expended considerable effort choosing the subject Difyren would view. Her peers rarely produced anything of substance, but neither could I expose her to the rougher element of society, and I did not care for her knowing that I was so familiar with prostitutes. I finally chose a boy from the fringes who ran messages and sold fruit to aid his mother. He was eager to earn money by sleeping.
I had thought seeing Difyren after time away would diminish the effect of her presence. I would see she was not as inspiring as she had first appeared, when I had been frustrated and in need of a spark of beauty. Unfortunately, as soon as I opened the door, painful swelling pressed up against my heart and made me certain there was no cure for her.
“Is something wrong, Master Arlunydd? I can come back,” she offered.
I dredged up a smile, and, being meant for her, it was genuine. “No, everything is fine. I’ve used screens to create an alcove from which you may observe.”
Difyren’s hand hovered as if she would squeeze my shoulder, but she pulled back from the intimacy. “Thank you. I hope to learn something here I might apply in my essays.”
I knew how hard it was for a woman in the sciences. “You may find something remarkable,” I said, “but either way, I think the dream recorders would be lucky to have you.”
She colored, a perfect apple hue. “You’re very kind.”
“I never flatter.” I gestured to the alcove. “He will be here in moments.”
Once she was out of sight, the rest of the world came back into focus. I hastened about, making sure the pages were straight and unmarred and the chalk within easy reach of the resting pallet.
My subject knocked. I let him in. His nose twitched like a ferret as he looked around.
“Gosh, I never seen this much paper,” he said.
“Please be seated. Drink the mug.” He plopped down and gulped the draught. I arranged myself in the chair opposite. I began the hypnotism chant by rote, occupied by thoughts of how the observer’s presence might influence matters.
Truth be told, I hoped she did. I hoped the boy would draw about her, give me some insight into her soul. Before, I might have considered the secrets of a single woman an insignificant part of the universal scheme, but now… there was Difyren.
The boy was highly suggestible. He was not under for long before he reached for the chalks, his fingers skipping straight to the brightest blue. Rustling from behind the screen as Difyren leaned forward with quickened breath. I concentrated on the staccato streaks that appeared on the page.
He switched colors restlessly, randomly – too frequently.
“Hold,” I said. The boy stopped, chalk dropping from his fingers.
Difyren pulled back the cloth and peeked out. “Is something wrong?”
I tried not to puff up too much with the pride of illuminating her. “His motions are anomalous. I need to make sure he is fully under.”
The first step of this involved the crude expedient of snapping fingers in front of his face. No response. I reached out and lifted his free arm. When I released it, it dropped with a bump.
“Eyes check, muscles loose,” I said. “He’s good. It is simply unusual a subject is this hyper under trance. I apologize.”
“For what?” Difyren sounded amused.
I flushed. “His behavior won’t give you a good baseline.”
“That’s all right. Maybe I can come back.” She said it gently, hopefully, and the world opened up before me.
“We can talk about that,” I said, gruffing the words to hide my reaction. I turned to the subject. “Resume your work.”
The boy did, leaving skips and flourishes of color on the parchment. A messy explosion of imagery – possible a hint of truth could be found on the page, but it was buried in mental detritus.
When he finished, he sat obediently, fingers dancing in his lap. I brought him out of trance.
He swiveled eagerly to look at his work. “Oh, wow! But what does it mean?”
“That’s for me to determine,” I said, getting his attention with a flash of coin. “You’re free to go.”
Once paid, he scampered out. Difyren emerged from her hiding place like some ancient goddess of the sea.
“Looks random, doesn’t it?” I said. “But see this line and how it ebbs towards the blue… the shapes suggested in the shadows? Like ancient hieroglyphs, four of them. The sun, the blood – it could be an excerpt from the dawn of time.” Or a scribe’s description of an ordinary sunrise.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“If I can answer that, put it in context, remove lines that have no purpose, then I can understand sunrise itself…and in seeing it differently, I change it.”
She tipped her head quizzically. “You really believe that?”
That trace of doubt pierced me. The question echoed in my veins. I made myself meet her eyes. It was like swimming in gold.
“I do,” I said. I reached for her hand, and was surprised when she let me take it. “Let me show you.”
Her eyes widened, drawing me deeper. “I would like to see more of what you do.”
“Perhaps we could discuss this over dinner?” I suggested.
Her hand left mine. She turned so I could not see her expression. I could not tell whether she suspected my interest and was disgusted, was thinking of her fiancé, or if it was simply chance that moved her.
“Could I see another session?” she asked. “I need to know more.”
It wasn’t rejection – was it? I balanced on the edge of that thought, uncertain…yet I had no tongue to deny her. “I will let you know when I have a suitable candidate.”
She faced me again, something odd in her eyes. “Suitable?”
I let the question hover. I knew if I answered, I would damage myself in her eyes.
She shrugged and continued, “Can you ever know what source has the most promise? Perhaps that is the secret.”
“Perhaps,” I agreed, my mouth dry. “I will have you back soon.”
Difyren smiled then, a sunrise expression, and I hoped that was the secret on my parchment. “Thank you so much. I’ll see you soon, Master Arlunydd.”
She left, and my world was the poorer for it. I stared at the boy’s parchment for a long time, mocking it up on another page so I could draw lines between lines, hunting half-formed images. There was nothing of Difyren in it, no matter how I searched, and despair pulled at me. I knew to whom I had to turn.
Seren’s smile fluttered as she entered. “I am glad you called me back, Master Arlunydd,” she said. “You seemed so upset last time.” She tipped her head to study me. I was reminded of her frailness. She was a creature who should have broken at a touch.
“Not a reflection on you,” I assured her. “Your work has typically been illuminating.”
She clasped her hands together. “I’m happy to hear it.”
I wondered at her behavior. I didn’t pay her mistress much more than regular clients, and I doubted she saw the extra money. Perhaps it was just her training to please, though I had never given the impression I needed those fripperies. We conversed briefly at times; she asked about my day, and I returned the favor. We were mere acquaintances.
Today was not a day for anything other than work. “Sit down,” I said, “we have a lot of work to do.”
Seren hesitated, hands gathered in her skirts. “Master Arlunydd…?”
I tried to rein in my impatience. “What?”
Those queer pale eyes came to mine, intense. Normally, I would have been curious about the message in their depths – she had often shown flashes of wisdom, even pointed to some image in the drawings – but now, they seemed light and shallow.
She stood on the verge of words, then retreated. “Never mind. Not important.”
Important or not, hers were concerns that could wait, whereas Difyren slipped away from me. I had learned her wedding was intended for summer, two months away.
“Then sit,” I repeated.
I put her under and watched with a trace of satisfaction as she began immediately – no hesitation in the sure strokes that built their masterpiece upon the parchment. I watched restlessly, unable to keep my mind from conjecture as to where that stroke would lead, or the shape formed by that line.
I was so focused on the detail, I didn’t see the big picture until it formed. It came in the blank space on the parchment, a picture in reverse. I sucked in a sharp breath and almost batted Seren away from the chalks. For the second time, her subconscious had dredged up artwork, not soul. This time, the image was of Difyren.
My first instinct to anger faded into puzzlement. How could Seren know of her? Even if they had crossed paths in the corridor, why would Seren have paid her any mind? Just another of my noble customers…to the prostitute, they must have been as indistinguishable as clouds.
I stared, watching Seren’s slack countenance. “Why are you drawing this?”
“This is what I see. This is the future.”
I jerked, standing up with such haste my knee slammed into an easel. I had never had a subject speak in trance before, but I remembered as I caught my breath I had never asked one a question, either. My ruminations had always been intended for myself, a listener who understood the intricacies of the topic. No peasant could, not even this white spirit.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I see faces…” Seren’s tongue slipped from between her lips to wet them. “As they will be. As they must be.”
Her hand continued, sketching a ring through Difyren’s hair. I needed no interpretation to recognize it: a wedding band.
“Enough!” I shouted. “Stop.”
Seren jerked, head falling backwards. Still in trance, but frozen by my command.
“Show me something else,” I said.
A slight smile surfaced on her lips, unaware of itself. Lazily, she extended the chalk and drew a looping, flowing line that wound off the page onto my floorboards. I started to protest, then stopped myself. She went back, cross-hatching, and I recognized a brick path. Then I saw its course: the start of the path pointed directly towards her earlier drawing of me, and it moved surely, inexorably away. Taking me, in representation, away from Difyren.
How long did I sit there, watching her finish the tidy cross-hatch? The simple design went against everything I understood…and its portent went against everything I hoped.
As soon as she finished the last line, I awakened her. I had seen enough.
Animation oozed into her pale features, along with innocent curiosity. She turned swiftly to see what she had done, fingers crossing the design.
“Oh, she’s lovely…you know her?”
“Yes.” I rose, crumbling chalk between my fingers. “Get up.”
Envy flashed through her face, bright and sudden. I understood it. As intriguing as Seren might be, she would never be anything more than a freak, whereas Difyren was beauty given form. “What does it mean?”
“Just get out,” I said. “I’m not interested in your prattling. Do you really think sketching someone’s face is important? I brought you here to discover secrets and souls, not learn to be a common artist at my expense.”
Seren shrank in on herself. “Master Arlunydd, I don’t understand…”
“Of course you don’t. Leave.”
She looked as if she would cry, but gathered herself with dignity and left. I stormed over to the parchment and ground down on it with one foot. All I had to do was pull and it would rip in two, its foolishness destroyed.
And it was foolishness. If people could see the future, it was in clouded visions that needed time and wisdom to interpret, not a simple scrawl so easily read. The ancients and their oracles had known this, even though they relied too much on superstition to translate.
I pulled my foot away. Rather than assign meaning to the drawing, I decided to take it as a gift. I now had a likeness of my beloved, and she had been captured perfectly. I hung the sketch in the back and put my mind to my studies.
When I scheduled the second session with Difyren, I had already decided what I must do. Despite the fact that Seren had regressed into images of childish simplicity, there was no one who had demonstrated more promise, and I needed the best to show me the mystery of hearts.
Difyren arrived well in advance, something I had also planned…but I had not managed to find the words I wanted, so I spent our time discussing theory and walking her through older sketches, careful to keep Seren’s last work out of sight.
“Do you ever think, Master Arlunydd, that perhaps you are overanalyzing?” Difyren asked. “Perhaps the cloud is just that – a cloud? In dreams, not everything is veiled. We must see something of the plain to recognize the hidden.”
“I doubt that for one reason,” I said. “If it were that simple, someone would have figured it out already.”
“Perhaps that very thought is preventing it,” Difyren said.
“The subject will be here shortly,” I said. “Is there anything else I can do to ensure your comfort?”
She arched a brow, looking amused, but said only, “I’ll be fine. I appreciate your continued hospitality.”
I cleared my dry throat. “Anything I can do for you. Absolutely anything.” In those words, I willed her to hear the eloquence I couldn’t summon.
She stared, her eyes widening. “Master Arlunydd—”
A knock came. “Master?”
I cursed Seren in my mind in six different languages and waved Difyren to the alcove. “Come in!”
She entered, dressed sedately in the outfit I had purchased for her. It didn’t make her look like Difyren’s equal, but at least she wasn’t obviously a whore. She plucked anxiously at the collar, striking a pose.
“It’s very fine,” she said, a rare blush warming under the ice of her skin. “Thank you for—”
I cut her off, not wanting her to reveal it had been a gift. “Did you take the draught as I requested?”
She bobbed her head. “I did. I would do anything you asked,” she said.
I wished she wouldn’t turn her charm on me, not now. I turned away to hide my reaction. “Sit down. Let’s begin. Concentrate, this time.”
“I always concentrate.” Her voice was faintly hurt.
Her too-pale blue eyes bored into mine as I talked her into the trance. I was relieved when the muscles in her face slackened, blank and tranquil.
She bent over the parchment, establishing circular lines with her usual languid assurance. Before I backed away to my perch, I whispered to her, “Draw of Difyren for me. Show me something I need to know.” Her lashes fluttered.
The shape on the parchment took form as a globe, continents represented as white space. Subtle smudges implied geography, and I was fascinated by the detail coming from the hand of an uneducated woman. Yet as she continued, Seren grew agitated, her hand grasping at chalks and then discarding them.
She rose abruptly and walked across the room to where I kept the other chalks. I jumped and started to rise. The alcove cloth shifted. Difyren gestured me to stillness.
Seren opened the box and picked out two chalks – red. She returned to the parchment, folding down in a flow of limbs. She rubbed the chalks in her hands, coating her fingers.
I stared, fascinated. I had never seen this behavior before. I wondered if it had special significance, if the process might inform the meaning of the product…
Seren pressed her hands down upon the parchment and dragged them across. She pulled her hands away. The image she had created was a globe cradled in bloody hands. She sat back, folding her hands on her lap.
“Go on, then,” I said. “Finish your work.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, strangely clear despite their lack of focus. Motionless, she waited.
Fury swirled in me. Only the knowledge of Difyren’s presence kept me from lashing out. I held for a moment, hoping Seren would return to the pattern, but there was resolution in her stillness. However her subconscious had moved her, it was done.
I talked her out of trance in a brittle voice. “Go,” I said. “Your services are no longer required.”
“I finished so quickly?” Seren asked, surprised. “I will be happy to return and make up the time.”
“No. You’re done.” The words burned their way out. “I don’t want to see you again.”
A small cry backed up in her throat. She reached for my hands. “Master Arlunydd, you’ve never treated me like this. You can’t—”
The last thing I needed was Difyren thinking there was something else between us. I recoiled. “Our arrangement is complete,” I said. “You may depart.”
Seren’s arms dropped to her sides, as helpless and loose as if she were still in trance. “I want to help you,” she whispered.
“You can do that best by leaving,” I said, then added for the benefit of my audience, “Thank you for your help.”
For an instant, pride flared in those eyes. “If you thank me, mean it,” she said. She gathered her skirts and departed.
I leaned wearily against an easel. Fabric rustled as Difyren left her alcove.
“Why did you treat her so coldly?” she asked. “She obviously has great affection for you.”
“She works for me as a servant would,” I said. “Such affection is neither expected nor appropriate.”
Difyren’s eyes darkened, grew distant. I was struck by the difference between them, the dark and the light. She stepped forward to examine the drawing.
“Ominous,” she said.
I shook my head. “It means nothing.”
“Yet if you were to guess at its meaning,” Difyren asked, “what would it be?”
I frowned at the parchment. “That the secrets I am seeking are steeped in blood.”
She inhaled sharply. “I think that may be a very shrewd interpretation, Master Arlunydd.”
“A facile one,” I assured her. “I feel I should apologize and offer you a third session. This one, clearly, came to naught.”
“Did it?” Difyren let the words hang before she plunged on. “I will take your offer, gladly, with one condition.”
“Absolutely anything,” I said.
Gentle irony touched her smile. “I want to be the subject.”
I made no attempt to dissuade her, even though I was afraid of what I would find in the depths of her soul. Perhaps she wanted to give herself, I considered, but couldn’t think of a way to do so without betraying her betrothed. I could not assume that without a sign. Restraint, discipline – that was the order of the day.
Almost impossible, when my head throbbed with hopes.
I prepared the draught with care, set out the parchment next to the most comfortable of pillows, readied wine and shaved ice for the inevitable dry mouth afterwards. Everything was precise, but nothing was right. I looked at myself in a mirror and firmly resolved not to look again.
Difyren studied the setup quizzically. “Master Arlunydd, what is all this?” she inquired.
“Just…” I spread my hands. “I don’t want your impressions to be clouded by minor discomforts. I understand how important this report is to your career.”
She gifted me with a luminous smile. “Thank you for all your efforts.”
I bowed. “Little things only.”
“What do I do?”
“Take the draught, make yourself comfortable and listen to the sound of my voice.”
Difyren settled herself on the cushion in the most proper of positions. I suffered a flash, an image of her splayed out as Seren often did, a sensual sprawl of limbs. I shook my head, forcing those thoughts away.
Yet her eyes were mesmerizing, and I thought as I met them she could put me in trance as easily as the reverse. She slipped under quickly, a faint smile the only thing to touch slackened lips. Her fingers traced over the chalks.
Green first, verdant but staccato strokes. Grey then, playing under it like clouds in reverse. There was subtlety there, curve and meaning – things appearing at one glance but disappearing at another, shapes vanishing under the next line.
The hope rose that my beloved was a marvel, as talented as I had once believed Seren to be. It stuck in my throat, almost painful with its intensity.
I began to realize there was symmetry in her work: for every image, there was an opposite, similar but distinct. Classic dualism: light and dark, summer and winter, man and woman. Vine work crossed from one side of the canvas to the other, linking the halves. It splayed like clasped palms.
I saw the sign I had sought in her sketchwork as green turned into red, blossomed like…like lips. Could it truly be? I didn’t dare think twice. I dropped to my knees and took her hand. She pulled back, the trance impelling her to continue the work, but not completely. I cradled her fingers in mine.
I kissed her.
There was no awareness in those cool lips. Difyren woke, jarred out of her half-slumber. Heat flashed through me, cloying and pure –
Her hands went to my chest and shoved me backwards. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Is this how you treat your subjects when you don’t have an observer?”
I rocked onto my heels, shocked by the accusation. “What you told me to do.”
Her brow furrowed. “Told you? But I…”
I gestured to the drawing, less sure now, fighting off mortification as the uncertainty spread. I had never dreamed to touch her against her will. “Depicted with subtlety and grace,” I said. “Just like you.”
Difyren’s face went flat at the compliment. She rose, stepping into the field of images. “Do you know what first attracted me to my betrothed?” she inquired without looking back.
I bit down my first – and fourth – sarcastic reply. “What?”
“When other men dithered and hung back, trying to think of something eloquent to say, he simply walked up to me and stammered a request for a dance.” She smiled, reminiscing, and I ached that the sweetness in the expression had nothing to do with me. “I told you before that sometimes the most obvious interpretation is the right one. I did not ask you for a kiss.”
I fought for breath. “I did not mean…I earnestly believed…”
“I think you did.” The words might have been concession, but she did not soften.
“Then what does it mean?” I had no idea why I asked her, only that I was numb in my contact with the world. She had become my guide, and now she left me stranded. In her view, I deserved it.
“That—” Her eyes raked over the canvas, then raised to my face. I was surprised the page had not burst into flame. “—is for you to say. I am saying that I’m done here.”
With that, she strode out…and for all it was several steps, uncountable heartbeats, I could not move, could not find the voice to protest, and she was gone as if I had dreamed her. Her absence reverberated. I was blinded by solitude.
When my vision cleared, I stared at the drawing she had left, unfinished. I became acutely aware of the chaos around me, confusion multiplied until I drowned under it. I clenched a discarded chalk in my fist and wrenched it across the page, obliterating whatever might have been found there.
Difyren had told me I had no hope, and yet I could not believe her. Every person had a key, if one looked hard enough. It was that belief which had brought me so far.
I had sent my best source away, and my muse had left me. Who else to turn to? I had no time to hunt for other prospects. The only person I had left was myself. It was not a promising resource.
It was possible to put one’s self in trance, of course, but I had never practiced it. The bottle with the draught jostled as I tried to drink it. I managed to down most of the contents, not bothering to wipe the rest off my chin. Blank parchment, chalks in hand, head pounding…
Part of me feared I would never wake up.
I stumbled through the rehearsed meditation three times before I calmed myself enough to descend. Each time, I paused to consider the wisdom of my choice. What if my subconscious dredged up some darkness in me I did not want to face?
Bravery, for Difyren, even if that meant the enemy was myself.
I took a deep breath, then another, heard nothing but the sound of my heartbeat. Felt nothing but the still air on my skin.
Darkness slapped my senses when I awakened. At first, I could make no sense of it: I had left myself with the command to revive in an hour, and much more time had passed. Then I became aware of the tingling and throbbing in my hands, that my arms ached, every breath burned the inside of a dry mouth…I lifted my fingers and realized they were bloodied where blisters had burst.
I recoiled as I realized that some of the images on the nearest page were drawn in blood.
I lurched upright, struggling until I found lanterns and managed to light them. The wavering light showed decimated stubs of chalk littering the floorboards. I had filled ten sheets of parchment in the center of the floor, but I had stared at the other drawings for long enough I instantly recognized I had not stopped there.
Almost every page was marked, some sections highlighted, others added to. A few had arrows to adjoining pages. It flowed, a seamless web…and in a flash, I recognized the shape laid out before me, the mystery I had been seeking for so many years.
Each symbol was its own story, and I followed it, heedless of time, discomfort or hunger. I had no fears of not remembering it: each realization burned itself on the inside of my brain, exquisite pain. I reveled in it, even when it brought me to tears.
The shape, the world, lay in immutable certainty before me. I knew the whys of its turning and how subtle vibrations changed mountains in this part of the world, oceans in another. The rules of nature were varied and complex, but child’s toys under my hands.
Yet in their midst, I saw human emotions: inscrutable, mercurial, changing everything they touched. The randomness in the system, the necessary chaos, the thing that spurred new rules and hid the old ones.
I could change rivers in their course now, if I chose. I could summon magma from the depths under this dry desert and watch it flow where I already knew it would. But I could not affect human behavior: I could not tease so much as an unearned smile from a weary man…
Or touch Difyren’s heart.
I crumpled to the ground, feeling it then: every ache, every ounce of weariness, throbbing stomach, clutching dryness. I was too exhausted to correct any of those things. Instead, I hunched over myself, trying to figure out where I would go now, what I would do, now that a life’s consuming passion had been fulfilled…and found to be worth nothing.
I could not share my discovery. It was too dangerous for the world to know. It would have to be my private triumph, an empty one – a tool to no purpose. And where could I go from here but down?
I understood Seren’s images now, my face in the darkened heart – what love had done to me – Difyren clasped in light and moving inexorably away, and finally, the earth clasped in bloodied hands…my hands. Truth found in simplicity, as I had always denied there could be.
I had denied many other things. Human connection, even human courtesy. I had treated everyone as either a subject to be studied or scenery lost to the background. It had left me with a gift I could not use and a woman I could not love. It was not a matter of my will; I realized now she had never been a prize I could win. She was devoted to her beloved, who must understand – as I did not – the turning of the heart. Maybe I never would.
The door opened. Soft footsteps crossed the floorboards. I did not look up.
“Master Arlunydd?” Seren inquired.
My head jerked. I stared at her, a white shape haloed by the light. “Why are you here?”
“I was concerned about you.” She reached down to take my hands, then hesitated. “With reason, I see.”
Shame surfaced. I had treated her like a tool, banished her, and yet she came back to check on my condition. I tried to think of a reason she might have done so, some expectation of reward, but could find none. It unsettled me. I did not deserve her attention.
“I found it,” I said. “The knowledge I’ve been looking for. I can see things no one can imagine.”
Seren seemed unmoved. “Please come sit on the couch. Someone needs to look at your hands.”
I wobbled upright. It seemed to take a lifetime. “Seren,” I said, “I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I was out of line.” The words tasted foreign on my tongue. I meant it, and that was stranger than the labyrinth of truth around me. “I owe you so much.”
She shook her head. “I would forgive you anything.” Her eyes came to mine, a blue so brilliant I saw the shape of summer in their depths.
In her eyes I glimpsed that final piece, the whisper which could not be understood in the universal pattern. Emotion was the poetry between the spaces of the world, and it could never be completely translated, only felt. Seren looked at me the way I had regarded Difyren, devotion without reason…something this white star and I had both suffered.
I did not know if I could give her what Difyren could never give me. But I was suddenly conscious of the need to hold it lightly, carefully…to treat it as part of the one mystery even I had not penetrated. My studies, it seemed, were not yet over.
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Lindsey Duncan is a chef / pastry chef (CPC CSW), professional Celtic harp performer, and life-long writer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous speculative fiction publications. She feels that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and can be found on the web at www.LindseyDuncan.com. |