Authors: Gael Baudino
When she rose again, Varden was staring at her. “It is not often that a mortal calls Her by that name.”
“It's the name I heard.”
“You have seen her?”
“I saw enough: in the church this afternoon . . . in David's statue.”
He leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Hail, Friend,” he said, and, taking her hand, he led her forward to the stone slab. “Here we will work, if it please you, Mistress Witch. I understand that it is the way of your people to cast a magical Circle before such operations. Such is not the case with my folk, but I will bow to your customs should you deem it necessary.”
She could not but marvel. She was a mortal witch, essentially an intruder into this place, and yet Varden was willing to yield to her wishes.
She had been taught always to work in Circle, but, looking from one side of the meadow to the other, stretching out her awareness and examining the lay of the land, the growing grass, the life in the soil, she could not but feel that a Circle would be superfluous. This place was already consecrated and hallowed far beyond anything she could hope to achieve.
Bending, she touched the earth, and when she straightened, she was dizzy with starlight. “There is no need. She is here.”
They sat down before the granite block, holding hands, their knees almost touching. “Are you prepared?” said the Elf.
“I am,” she answered. “But I can't get there by myself, Varden. You'll have to help me.”
He nodded. “Fear not. You will learn, I am sure. For now, close your eyes.”
She did so, settled herself, turned her awareness inward. She felt something change . . .
. . . and then she was looking at the stars.
“We are here,” she heard the Elf say, and as she watched the stars, she saw strands shimmer into view, glittering blue-white against the black sky. Turning, she saw that they joined with a complex web. It looked familiar. “Is that the Door?”
“That is Charity.”
Tentatively, she reached out to it, and she sensed for herself the truth of what he said. The web was Charity. Charity was the web. The strands were aspects of her life, her real and potential: interactions, changes, qualities, talents.
“You see now as do the Elves,” said Varden. “When I healed Francis the smith, I saw him in this fashion. I reached among the strands and altered their pattern: I took away the future of blighted hands and death and gave him health.”
Roxanne was awed. “Your power is great.”
“Great, and yet not so great. I attempted to help Charity, and I erred. Charity has suffered as a result. Now, perhaps, you see why Elves are barred from touching human life.”
Together, they followed a group of strands that led off into the starry void, strands that joined eventually with another lattice that took shape ahead of them. This time Roxanne recognized it clearly: the Door.
“Here our task becomes difficult,” said Varden. “Are you still willing to work without knowledge of Charity's past?”
Could she do otherwise? “I am.”
“Then, if you are, stay on this side of the Door. If you venture beyond that, you will know more than you wish.”
Dimly, through the interstices of the lattice, Roxanne could see another. Strands from it entered the barrier, merged with it briefly, then reappeared on the near side, reaching out to join Charity's life. “All right.”
With Varden's help, she laid her hands on the webbing, felt the energies it contained, the potentials, the possibilities. She felt also the life that was Charity and felt its consubstantiality with the other life that lay on the far side of the Door. Slowly, she grew accustomed to the lattice. Slowly, she searched through it and found the deeper levels of memory and pain that manifested as nightmares. But though she found the pain easily enough, Roxanne found also innocence and beauty, and well-nigh limitless love, and once again she found herself bewildered by the connection between Charity and the long-vanished Leather-woman. Little enough love the old hag had given . . . or received.
Let it lie
, she told herself.
Charity doesn't need any more grief.
Hours passed as she examined the Door and learned its ways. She marveled at its complexity, at the skill with which it had been constructed. The continuity of the girl's life had been unaffected, but memory and thought were carefully blocked, and delicate balanced were maintained between recollection and identity. It was as though Charity had undergone a second incarnation in the same lifetime, completely bypassing death and rebirth.
And then, in what must have been the early hours of the morning, she came upon the strand she was looking for. In appearance, it was much like the others, but when she touched it, she could feel the memories rising up unblunted. She saw again the old hands working leather, the interior of the squalid hut, felt loneliness and despair deep enough to blast a world to sorrow.
She jerked her awareness away with a cry. Varden was beside her instantly, and she felt his energies merge with hers as though he held her in his arms. “This is the one,” she choked. “This is it.”
“You are certain?”
She fought for balance, reached out to the stars, gathered strength from them. She felt her link with Varden grow stronger. “I am. This is memory and dream both.”
“This is not good,” he said. “Notice how this particular strand depends upon the major braid of Charity's life. It connects fully with her continuing existence. We will have to work with great care. I . . .”
She read his tone. “You're not sure it can be done.”
“True. But it must be done nonetheless. I will not have Charity suffer any more.”
They spent the next hour repositioning portions of the web, finding alternate balances for the energies so as to take the strain off the nightmare strand. The lattice would not hold for long in this configuration, but it did not have to: by morning, if all went well, the Door would be once more in place, and stable.
And as she worked, Roxanne felt the starlight flowing through her, felt her sympathies altering, felt slow changes building in her heart. She had already gained the vision of the Elves, and now she was acquiring something more: something of their being, maybe, or of their awareness. She was not frightened at the prospect. Rather, it seemed a thing of joy, beckoning her. She would defend Charity to the death, and she would indeed fight for her also unto life.
At last, the nightmare strand was clear, and Roxanne and Varden drew back, evaluating. “It will have to be rebalanced,” said Roxanne.
“Damped, actually,” said the Elf. “We must find a way to neutralize it. What does your intuition say to you, Mistress Witch?”
She let her mind range about. “We could push it farther down,” she said. “Bury it. But then there is always the chance that it would rise again, particularly when Charity begins training with me. Something is liable to be stirred up.”
“That would be undesirable.”
“We'll have to break it.”
Varden started. “Do you realize what that might do?”
“Yes. But I think it's the only way. Otherwise, in a year or so, you and I will be out here again.”
She outlined her idea. Energy flowed evenly not only throughout the lattices on either side of the Door, but through the Door itself. Currents could be joined together and set int a counterflow that would be absorbed by the structure. Uncontrolled, this would lead immediately to disaster, but if the Door was properly linked with the surrounding stars, any resonance or instability would be drained off.
“It would last until a star burned out,” Roxanne said. “And by then, Charity would be well into another lifetime, and she'd have death and rebirth between her and the other side.”
“There is the problem of time.”
“I gave my word that we'd take care of it tonight. On my Oath.”
“Then let us start.”
There was merit in the idea, and the structure of the web lent itself naturally to Roxanne's plan. Gradually, Elf and witch freed the energy of the nightmare strand, allowed it to be absorbed by new strands that they stretched out and joined to the stars. When they finished, only a slender strand remained, and Roxanne took hold of it, braced herself against the pain and loneliness, and edged it slowly toward the nexus of intersecting probabilities that she had created. The light strained in her hands as though it were a taut cable, but, little by little, it yielded. Slowly, it approached the connection where the last of the energy would be dissipated.
“Roxanne,” Varden said suddenly. “Hold.”
She stopped. “Varden?”
“There is some instability in the lattice. I am holding one life apart from the other, but the pressure is increasing, and the imbalance we have caused is adding to it.”
“I can't move this strand without that imbalance.”
“True, but if we are not careful—”
Incredibly, horribly, there was an audible
snap
, as though space itself had fractured. The strand that Roxanne was holding broke, dissolved into fragments. The Door began to disintegrate.
“
NO!
” she screamed, but the sound of her thought was hollow, and she saw the lattices of the two lives draw toward one another. “Varden!”
“I am not holding them successfully, Roxanne,” he said. His voice was tight, but calm. “You had better get away from the Door. If this collapses, you may be crushed.”
She was already reaching out to him. “And what about you, Varden? Do you think I'll leave you in there?”
“Roxanne, please take yourself to safety.”
She ignored him, joined with him, added her energy and her abilities to his. She felt the cool power flowing through her, felt, now even more, her heart changing and widening as they slowed the convergent rush of the lattices. The flow of starlight was incredible, but Roxanne held on, her heart laboring with its breadth.
Hold
. . .
It was not Varden's voice she heard, but she held regardless, and, about them, the last traces of the Door faded, leaving her and Varden afloat between Charity's two lives. Nearby, the massive strands of continuity tugged at the lattices seeking to merge the two.
And if that happened, then full memory would come to Charity.
Roxanne's giddiness increased, and, pulled by the starlight with ever-increasing urgency, she felt herself slipping away from her own identity. She scrambled for a foothold, looked for something against which she could brace herself, found nothing. She slipped farther, and then she understood: it was a question of her or Charity. Defending to the death.
“Varden,” she said, her voice a sigh. “Farewell . . . I'll hold it . . . myself. Whatever . . .”
And then she let go, and then the light took her, whirled her away as though she were a cork in a flood. Her heart widened until it tore, and the universe rushed in through the rent, filling her, straining the walls of her soul with its immensity.
She held the two lifetimes apart without effort now: there was nothing left of her identity to hinder the flow. Silently, she floated without thought, her mind blank save for a vision of calm gray eyes.
They came closer.
Child
.
The voice, soft though it was, reverberated through her. She stirred.
Roxanne
.
Her name. Yes, hers. She was Roxanne. She had that much. The starlight still flowed, but she had that much. The gray eyes held hers, and she suddenly felt the touch of energies that made the rush of starlight seem but a trickle.
Hold
.
She held. Strength flowed into her, then, and knowledge. Her heart mended. Her soul eased. She suddenly realized to whom the gray eyes belonged.
Call me, Child
, said the voice.
You know My Name now. Call My Name, and you call Yours. Call Me. You know Who You are, and You know what You can do.
”
Lady . . . I'm not an Elf.
Call.
Something, she knew, would change irrevocably if she did so. She would close a door. She would follow her path, and behind her, gates would be locked . . . forever. There would be no going back. No more would she be the simple wise-woman and weaver of Saint Brigid. She might be called Roxanne still, live in her house still, eat and dance, sweep the floors, and stroll under the trees of Malvern Forest, but all that would be no more than appearance, for inside, she would be something else.
But she knew that, whatever she would be, she would be able to end Charity's suffering. She was a witch and a priestess, and she was also a teacher . . . and perhaps she might be a lover. And as she called the Name that was both her own and that of the Goddess, she fused with her cry not only her magic, but her love and her loyalty too, and the stars shook with her power.
Silently, she floated between the two lattices, looked from one to the other, knew them both. Charity and the Leather-woman. One and the same. She was not overly surprised. Surprise was no longer something that was possible for her. “Thank you, Varden,” she said softly. “You did your best.”
“I failed.” The Elf's voice carried a hundredweight of sorrow.”
“No, beloved. You succeeded. But if you do not understand sleep, you understand death and rebirth even less. You did everything you could, Immortal, but now it's time for a mortal hand.”
She seized the connecting strands, and, with full knowledge, with infinite power, she snapped the taut cables, felt the old life fade and the new life blossom, threw herself into Charity and let the energies of renewal and rebirth and starlight alike flow through her until the young woman's existence was whole and sound and stable.
There would be no more nightmares. The Leather-woman was gone. Now there was only Charity.
She came to herself in the grassy meadow. Her face was wet with tears, as was Varden's. Gently, and with reverence, he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “Again I have erred,” he said. “I underestimated you. Earlier this night I all but said that my mortal cousins were weak. I find that I have been wrong.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Forgive me, Roxanne.”
“I can't blame you, Varden,” she said softly.