Other-Song, Chapter Six: Of Witches and Nuns

The sixth chapter of Other-Song, my serialized novel-in-progress

After a too-long hiatus, here’s the sixth chapter of Other-Song, along with a downloadable EPUB which contains this and the previous five chapters.

Other-Song is a serialized fantasy novel-in-progress. It’s a tale of disenchantment, of abusive technology, of heresy, and of a world hidden in plain sight. It’s now much closer to completion, and there will be weekly updates from now until it’s finished.

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This is the sixth chapter.

In the first chapter, “The Last Party, The Last Song,” Lurian, bastard son of the Hornynal family, serves as a party hosted in honor of his brother, Trendal, attended by the Queen’s nephew, along with many other nobles. The Fel’lal musician he hired for the evening, his friend Tri’aln, plays “the last song” on the instrument, which destroys it. Just before it is destroyed, the lights in the hall suddenly flash brightly and every glass in each guests hand shatters as Lurian looks at them. He is then ushered out by the queen’s nephew through the darkness, who speaks cryptically of a heretic.

In the second chapter, “A Bastard and a Heretic,” Lurian waits outside until all the guests have gone, and then sneaks back into the house to gather things in order to leave. Details of his life unfold: her mother had seduced her husband’s brother and then framed him for rape — a plot to gain control of Horynal manse. While packing for the journey, his mother yells at Lurian from the other side of the door, and then curses him as a “heretic.”

In the third chapter, “The Question of the Wells,” Lurian, traveling without light, becomes lost on the paths near his childhood home and twists his ankle. Stumbling about in pain, he passes out for a short time before continuing on and encountering a strange well. In a series of remembrances, significant parts of his childhood related to questions about the nature of such wells unfold. His older brother, Trendal, claimed the Fel’lal sacrificed children there. The drunken house cook, on the other hand, claimed the Fel’lal made insignificant offerings to them. Later, Erol, a nervous tutor, just before being fired, cryptically confirmed their were offerings at the wells but not of children. Thirsty, and recalling Tri’aln’s dismissive assurance that the wells were just full of water, Lurian drinks from it.

In the fourth chapter, “The Herb-Merchant’s Guests,” Lurian awakens in a strange house with no memory of the previous two weeks. He learns from the other guests — Rylan, Katrin, and Rhi — that he was “prophesying” on the paths after drinking from the well. Tri’aln had found Lurian and brought him to the house of a local herb-merchant, who then drugged him so he could sleep off the effects of the well. The other guests in the house are all friends of each other; Rylan, the son of the herb-merchant, is particularly insistent that Lurian returns with them because of what he believes Lurian can do: “will.” Despite the strange circumstances and their evasion of his questions, Lurian agrees to join them on their return journey to the city of Thalyrest.

In the fifth chapter, “A Matter of Academic Interest,” Tri’aln arrives at the home of a man, Terrance, who is currently visited by two other friends. The three men are quite drunk, and Terrance is very angry with Tri’aln for showing up unannounced. From the ensuing conversations, it’s learned that what happened at the Horynal manse is now quite known, and Tri’aln is wanted by the Enforcers. She convinces the men to help her leave the city in return for wyrd-stones, to which the men seemed addicted. Agreeing, they help her past a guard only to find out that Tri’aln never intended to make good on her part of the bargain.

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Chapter Six: Of Witches and Nuns

“There aren't any male Solacebringers?”

Rhi stared back at Lurian and suppressed a sigh. “They can be conscripted on sight, especially traveling. But they won’t stop women.”

Rhi watched him stare at the wig in her hands. He was obviously still dubious, but she couldn’t really blame him. “I thought…?”

“That we’re taking the old tracks, yes, but they don’t go all the way to the city anymore. They’ve closed too many of the wells. But it’s only two day of walking once we leave them.”

“Okay” he said, but she Rhi could tell from his face he was even more confused. “But I still don’t understand,” he continued. “What do the tracks have to do with the wells? And also, I’m just trying these on now, and we’ll change before we leave Galnwyd?”

Rhi really wished Rylan had explained more to the man, rather than leaving it for her. “No — you’ll need to wear them the entire way, so they’ll look and smell road-worn. I know you’re confused, and you can still back out if you want. This is the safest way we’ve found, though.” Then, because Rylan had finally returned, Rhi added, “Rylan can explain everything else and will show you how to dress.”

Rylan made only cursory protests, more out of stubborn habit than actual reluctance, and then started undressing. Rhi turned and left the room, closed the door behind her, and joined Katrin and Janyr at the table by the hearth, meeting their understanding looks with relief.

Smiling, Katrin asked her, “You left them alone again?"

Rhi accepted the cup of tea from Janyr and nodded. “I still don't think this is a good idea.”

Janyr's grey eyes met hers, kindly. “You mean Lurian or Rylan, dear?”

Instead of answering with words, Rhi shrugged and sipped her tea. She couldn't begin to explain now, not without being cruel about someone she did not yet really know. She couldn’t justify her misgivings, either. She didn’t yet even know what they were.

“Poor boy,” was Janyr's next reply. ”His mother is truly a monster.”

Katrin picked up the thread from the herb-merchant, and Rhi contented herself to listen. “Did you see her tonight?”

Stirring her own cup absently, Janyr nodded. “She asked me to brew a finding-potion for her. She even brought some of his hairs. Can you imagine?”

Rhi swallowed the tea in her mouth rather than spit it through her nose in amusement. “And you said?”

“The same, that I’m no hexe. And also that I can’t even find my own wits half the mornings, let alone someone the Examiners can’t seem to locate. Oh, and that’s forteenn tyrans and twenty, please and thank-you. Which, might I add, she did not have.”

Cackles of laughter from beyond the door interrupted them, drawing their eyes towards the room where Rhi had left Rylan and Lurian with the habits. “You think I should?” she started, but Katrin interrupted her”

“Leave ‘em, seriously. I haven’t seen Rylan this happy in years.”

“Or this responsible,” Janyr added.

“Still. I'm not sure I like this,” Rhi concluded, drawing the other women’s eyes upon her.

“Yes, you said that, but you haven't said why. What is worrying you, dear?”

Rhi returned Janyr’s concerned gaze with another shrug. “I don't know. It isn’t that I don't trust him. I, just …"

Katrin came to her aid. “You’re worried about traveling with a wyrdwright’s brother?”

Rhi assented. “That's part of it, maybe. And I’m not sure if I believe that he can really Will. Rylan told me Lurian thinks Tri’aln did all that.”

Janyr thought for a moment before answering. “We protect ourselves from knowing things. Best to let him think that for now.”

Rhi felt those words for her, too. “Janyr — there’s something else … something from before I can even remember. I’d feel better if Mara were here, maybe. Or maybe not — she might feel the same way.”

“She’d be the only one who could’ve told Rylan no,” Katrin sighed. “But do you think…?"

The door crashed open behind them, the surprise rattling their tea-cups and their nerves. Rhi turned, gaping at the thorough mess the men had managed to make of the simple task s’e'd given them.

“Lurian’s is backwards, Ry.”

“S’better that way. Come on, look at it. Besides, if he’s to be a saggy old crone, what better …”

“His idea,” Lurian tried, meekly.

“By the wells,” Janyr said, standing. “I think he might be right.”

Before Rhi could protest her disappointment, Katrin whispered quickly in her ear. “I'll fix it. Stay here,” and then leapt past her towards the door, pushing the men through and closing it behind her.

Rhi and Janyr listened only a little bit to Katrin’s intervention until Janyr spoke the word Rhi could not earlier find to explain her misgivings.

“Nightwitch.”

Rhi almost wept. “How did you know?”

“You blanched every time he said it. Why?”

“I — I remember my mother — or the woman I think must have been my mother, singing about the nightwitch. How could he have known?”

“His other knew, he doesn’t. We can’t ask him because he won’t remember. And we can't find out what he meant by it, because he himself doesn’t know. But why are you afraid of taking him to Thalyrest?”

This was harder to explain, and she feared giving it words lest it came true. Still, Rhi suspected Janyr might maybe understand. “That’s not the only time I’d heard of the nightwitch. I drank at a folding well last year. I know you’re not supposed to remember what you see, but I did.”

Janyr interjected, her voice calming but not correcting. “Some people do, dear. That well has shown me my death twice.”

Rhi looked up from the table, startled. “How do you survive that? I mean, knowing the end like that?”

Janyr shook her head slowly. “You just do. Did you see yours?”

That would have been much easier, she thought. “No — I didn't see anyone’s. But I talked to someone I could’t see but I knew it was Uric, and he’d been with the nightwitch, and Rove was dead.”

“And that’s all you remember, then? You saw no faces?”

Rhi nodded.

Janyr’s eyes were kind. “I don’t know how old I am when I die. Others are there, but I can’t see them. You know, you could have been talking to Uric fifty years from now.”

“I know, but it doesn’t really help. I know that Rove will die.” Relief was flooding into Rhi’s soul—she’d been desperate to tell someone about this since Lurian had arrived.

Janyr answered. “You already knew Rove would die. We all die. You just didn’t have any certainty you’d outlive him until you saw that. I’m sorry."

That was it, of course. Time had folded together, had lost its distances and contours and she had been herself, at some other time, aware of her lover’s death. It had disturbed her more, not even that Rove at some future time was dead, but that she had somehow survived such unimaginable loss. She could not know, could not even guess, how she could ever survive the journey from herself with him to herself without him.

Patiently, as if all time existed for them, Janyr let Rhi mourn the unseen before speaking again. “And because Lurian’s other confirmed the existence of the nightwitch, you can no longer doubt the folding?”

Again, Rhi nodded. “I almost hate him for it, Janyr. It isn’t his fault, or maybe won’t be, but I can’t help but feel he’s somehow sealed Rove’s fate by showing up. I know this is stupid.”

“You’re not stupid for feeling that way. It’ll pass. However, it would be incredibly stupid of me to ask you what Uric said about the nightwitch.”

Rhi suddenly laughed. “You really want to know? It’s … a bit bizarre.”

“Of course.”

“He kept saying something about ‘onion’ — not ‘an onion’ but just ‘onion’ — saving him, even though the nightwitch had left him.” Then, seeing Janyr’s face reflecting back complete incomprehension, Rhi added, “I have no idea, either.”

“That's settled, then. The future will be no less insane than the — hello, there.”

Katrin had just walked in, leading a sheepish Rylan and even more timid Lurian by the hand. “They’ll pass, I think,” she proclaimed, moving out of the way so Janyr and Rhi could appraise them. “Rylan thinks Lurian’s not quite pert enough, though.”

“They keep slipping,” Lurian apologised, adjusting a knotted scarve around his chest a little too far to the left.

Janyr stood from her chair, pleased. “A bit of cronewort, some wet face-powder, and yeah, I think that will do just fine.”

Rhi stood next to Katrin, eying the disguises carefully. Only she, of all of them, had actually lived amongst the Solacebringers, but Katrin’s memory was sufficient enough to replicate the effect. Still, though, there was something lacking. “Stand like a chaste woman, Rylan. No — like this. Your hips … oh, sod off, man.”

“And what about Lurian?” Rylan protested. “He’s a noble — he’ll give himself away.”

“He’ll be riding the horse. And we’ll say he’s taken a vow of silence so he doesn’t ruin anything by talking.” Rhi regretted this reply immediately, saw desperation and fear written upon the new-comer’s face. Sympathy shifted into the place only just vacated by dread and foreboding. The man was lost, orphaned now just as she had been. But Rhi had had an an older sister to guide her, and he had no-one. And more so, he was a heretic, just like her. In hiding, as she had been. Disguised, as she had needed to be. Suddenly far away from home, as she had always been.

Her unfounded anger at him melted into pity. “Enough for now,” she said. “Lurian looks like he could use a drink.”

Rhi saw, through the abbess's shift and veil they’d disguised him in, a deep relief pass over his face. "Yes, I think that … that would be nice.”

“Good then,” she replied, watching as Katrin, on cue, sought out a bottles of Arital mead. “To heretics, then. Welcome, and we’re very, very sorry.”