The Pact, page 2
part #1 of The Dark Roads Series
Back home in Eclipse, weavers like Serenity faced little trouble. Before the logging men and trappers came along, the first colony grew up around a school of the arcane, a school filled with scholars studying the ways of rune-weaving. So in Eclipse the weavers were, from the very beginning, neighbors and friends. The students lived their lives as peacefully as any of the townspeople. No grand displays of magic or power there, no flirting with spells and curses in public. The weavers observed a clear level of etiquette toward those not of the study, and in return, the people of Eclipse never batted an eye. Truth be told, Serenity always suspected they might feel secretly proud, living in the shadow of a weaver's school. Power meant protection, and sometimes it didn't matter if such protection came from men taming the unknown darkness.
Outside Eclipse, though, in the Geiral heartlands and the more populated cities, on well-traveled roads and closer country, rune-weaving and curses found little welcome. No, outside havens like the school back home, rune-weaving was absolutely feared.
Serenity dealt out the pack, arranging the cards in order, before collecting them and shuffling them out of it again. Had anyone crossed her path now, to see her spreading out her runic cards and gathering them back up, they might take it for something innocent. They might think her an entertainer, preparing to tell the fortunes for a bit of coin. But they might see her for what she was: a student of the arcane, a woman capable of true magic.
Men of the church called it harlotry and devilry, and their followers obeyed with eager ears. Soldiers and city slickers found it barbaric, and worried over what might happen if wild magic got loose among their careful, ordered lives. Even those with no particular religious preferences or municipal attachment shied away from men who could twist the signs. They warded weavers away as spooks and villains, lost souls of the poisoned Rachalör, the blighted country crouching on Geiral from the farthest northern wastes. Men feared what might come out of that inhuman place, and what they feared, they wanted gone. Because at its very heart, rune-weaving meant opening your mind to the spirits of the otherworld, and making a deal with them.
Deals with the devil never went over well.
So you had to be careful where you threw the cards or who might notice you when you twisted a curse. Enough demons already ran loose in the world. A weaver didn't need people itching to burn another.
Especially one like you, D'aej reminded, who carries a demon within her own skin.
Serenity completed the third repetition of her card-shuffling ritual, returned the deck to its pouch, and slipped it into her knapsack. She took out her journal next, and scribbled down a few thoughts for later review.
Serenity grew up among the rune-weavers and their quiet quest for greater knowledge. She'd lived in the Wolf's Den since she'd been three days old, adopted by the town and its people when the impoverished clan of her fathers was forced to leave her behind. The Den already provided a home for other girls, and Magda gave them room and board, and a pittance for their labor. She took care of them too, and never set them to whoring. Serving Magda's tables, Serenity met scores of travelers and heard their stories: tales from the train towns of the far west and the coast where the family of Jacqueline Spade, rail baroness, held court over the dawn of industrial breakthrough and trade; to the golden eastern heartlands, farms, and fields lying in the shadow of the mysterious midnight country called Nostra, where the most secretive and exotic practitioners of deep magic dwelled and where the sun never showed its face; all the way to the bright southern lands of the tribal people, their vibrant forests and riverbanks peppered with their stone keeps and colorful pavilions, alive with the chanting choruses of their extraordinary songs. More importantly, she saw dozens of men playing rune cards, weavers who visited the school and spent their time studying ancient tomes and texts over their dinners. Most of them loved to show her a trick or two, turn a red ribbon into a coin for her or produce a flower for her hair out of nothing.
These days, flowers didn't suit her so well. Stowing her journal, ready to set out, she pulled the long, blonde sheaf of her hair into a sloppy ponytail, and hid it under her hat.
One of the keenest of the weavers—Jack, of course—saw something special in her, something of great potential. Once he saw it, he quickly declared simple tricks like coins and flowers nothing but a waste of her time.
When Jack took Serenity on as his student, beginning her education in the world of weaving, he meant for her to learn the rites of a peacekeeper and a protector, the same ones he'd mastered himself. Jack was a lawman, a self-appointed sheriff who'd seen many a brawl in his time. He liked to put an end to them, when he could. Not surprisingly, his skill with the runes evolved to make him something of a paladin. Magda always said Jack was a white hat—always playing the rescuer, always out to save the little children and the damsels in distress. None of those things mattered to Serenity. Jack thought she showed promise, even as a gawky little waif serving tables, and he wanted her to be part of something big.
"With these, you can do just about anything," he'd constantly reminded her, fanning out the twenty-four rune cards and watching her eyes widen with delight at their hand-painted illustrations. "And if you're lucky, Serenity... well, if you're lucky, if you're good, you will do wonders."
They always held their studies at a table near the fire. She sat while he stood behind her, watching over her shoulder. He smelled like warmth and the hearth, the pleasant scent of home cooking and underneath it all, a strange smell of the earth, of the forests and trees. She would always associate these scents with comfort. This—he—was her family and her home. She loved him. Each precious session with him, each careful study of the cards and each patient lecture, brought her closer to him, growing to love him as dearly as she might have loved any brother of her own blood.
Already the sun, still hardly halfway to its noonday peak, baked the white desert with a dry, shimmering heat. She shaded her eyes against the glare and searched the landscape. Not much movement in any direction, save the far-off shadow of a circling hawk, and the wavering light of the heat mirage ahead of her.
Tidying the rest of her camp, she took care to obscure the signs of her presence. The last thing she put away was the journal Jack himself kept, the journal she now carried and consulted like a constant friend. She'd fallen asleep with it, studying the lessons put down in his handwriting right up until she could keep her eyes open no more.
Jack had warned her the art of weaving brought along dangers. Everybody—even the people of Eclipse—knew it, and she had to know it, too. Rune-weavers threw in with darklings for their knowledge, and darklings were the treacherous children of the otherworld, the world of spirits. So the first thing Jack taught her, despite her impish hurry to learn the art of card play and the signs, was what lurked on the other side of reality.
"A darkling is only a lesser demon," he explained. "They rank higher than the mutants and corruptions wandering the Rachalör—the ones we call darkling spawn, or lost souls—and they're smarter than the diablos, which are pack beasts and servant demons in the realms. But darklings are beneath the greater demons, the heavy devils that can devour you without a thought.
"It doesn't make them any less dangerous, though. Darklings may not be as powerful as greater demons, but they're slippery, tricky creatures, and if you aren't careful, they can seize your mind or body as their own, and make you their plaything."
He'd dealt out the card of hagalaz, the mother rune, symbol of hail, change, growth, elemental and karmic forces. While she watched him, he carefully rotated the card until it read upside-down. In runic language, reversing a sign—setting it in the position known as merkstave—called upon its negative effects, the converse and darker side of the arcane coin. Clever weavers could use it to their advantage, but any weaver could find themselves overwhelmed by a sign in mean reverse. Hagalaz was an inherently powerful sign, one of almost cosmic relevance. In merkstave, it became the figure of nature's wrath, uncontrolled energies in weather and geography, and man's own mind.
"I've seen more than one rune-weaver lose himself to the madness of darklings," Jack warned her. "The balance in a weaver's mind might be uprooted and thrown into chaos, even for a moment, when a darkling steals a bit of him away. It takes a strong will, and an even stronger mind, to match wits with any demon, and darklings may not be as strong as their greater cousins, but they are the cleverest and most cunning of all otherworlders. That is exactly why rune-weavers contract with them. But throw runes with any darkling, Serenity, and you are tempting fate. Throw against one too powerful to contain, and you are offering yourself up as sacrifice."
"How do you know?" she'd asked, picking up the hagalaz card and studying it. "Which ones are too powerful, I mean."
He shook his head. "You can never really know. It's always the luck of the draw. But you can know when you are dealing with spells too big for you to handle, and it's most often then that you call on a demon too strong to conquer."
He put his hand over hers, the one holding the card, and with the other he tilted her chin up to look her in the eyes. "You have to be careful, Serenity. You have to be in control."
He had taken her out, into the wilderness and away from the people of the town, and shown her the real power of a darkling's curse. No simple trick, no magical sleight of hand or switch of the wrist.
Calling the spirits to him, he whipped his hands through a series of signs, weaving a trail of runes with his fingers. He held out his palm in the sign of kenaz—the torch rune, first and foremost the rune of primal fire and power—and with a flash, a quick blaze ignited the scree of the forest floor before them, whipping to life with puckish glee. Then, just as quickly, he ran through a second chain of signs, reversing the rune, and the blaze folded in on itself, suffocating and dying, leaving only a brief scatter of embers in its place.
"You see?' Jack asked as she watched, awestruck. "You will have the power to do the same. To do more, to do as much and as great as it pleases you. There are twenty-four runes and an infinite number of ways to connect them. The spells you cast can heal the wounded, can make fire or ice and lightning and rain, can fill a man with virility and strength, or reduce him to a withered husk. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
She'd only nodded, inspecting the scorch marks his hex had left on the trees and stones.
"I think you could do great things, Serenity."
His hand on her shoulder. The first of many of this gesture, his proudly protective sign of affection. The memory of it brought a smile to her even now, gazing over her work at the camp, ready to ride on again at last.
Rune-weavers eventually took on a runic name, given to them by their teachers and their community, a name meant to herald their identity and potential as a true student of the arcane. They wore it in a tattoo to show others what they had accomplished. Jack wore the sign tiewaz, the rune for justice and victory. The sign of a hero. His own master once inked it on Jack's left shoulder, intertwined with arcane embellishments, a symbol of his power and purpose. Serenity quickly became eager for her own rune, inked on her to be her own secret name, her own deep and inner self. But Jack said it would have to wait until she'd learned more.
It seemed he was always saying that.
***
She was right—the next settlement lay right in the path of their long walk, a cluster of neat wooden buildings standing out against the bleached, barren landscape. They reached it in less than a day, and there'd be no more sleeping on the ground before they found themselves a decent bed to rest in. Easy enough, as Serenity expected. The road did provide.
She came into town shortly before sunset, riding with the red glow of the horizon at her back. Her duster trailed behind her, her cowboy hat tipped low over her eyes as she carefully assessed the streets around them. People took notice—they always did—but they looked away before she could meet their glances.
Serenity dropped her horse off at the stables and paid for the quartering. Before checking into the saloon and seeking a room for the night, though, she set out to get a lay of the land. She liked to know the ways in and out of a place right away, and how to get where she might need to go as quickly as she could. She'd learned the value of watchfulness. Part of the nature of a drifting weaver. The nature of a woman with a demon bound in her bones.
It wasn't a big city, like Aras or Tichurgas, dry and dusty mining cities on the western rim of this desert. The main road boasted all the mainstays: saloon, sundries, hardware store and steamworks, apothecary. No inventors' shops or engineering schools, and no train station in sight. The lanterns along the solid, wooden plankways appeared to be wired up electric, which was a nicety, but other than these, the town seemed not much bigger than Eclipse. Though there was one important difference. At the head of the main street, rising above the businesses surrounding it, stood a stone and stained-glass monument of a building. A church, and one well-loved by the look of it. Judging by the size, the people of this little place were almost all surely believers.
"Looks like you'll have to behave yourself here," she muttered to her darkling. He didn't need to be addressed out loud, of course, not when they shared both body and mind. It made it easier, though, to keep one's thoughts separate from one's demon by speaking.
I don't intend to play to the will of the devout unless it suits me, D'aej replied. There was a tinge of yellow annoyance to his words, a tremor across their link.
"So you want to get burned at the stake?"
Can't say it's on my list of priorities, no.
"Then I guess it suits you just fine."
Clusters of folk bustled about on the street, farmers and schoolmarm types, going about their business or lolling around chatting on the walkways. Serenity sensed them eyeing her, mentally sizing her up in her trail-beaten duster, fading denims, and the button-up man's work-shirt she wore. Their own clothing was modest but well-kept, clean and crisp. She chanced a glance up from beneath the wide rim of her hat and smiled at a handful here, a handful there, and watched them sniff with displeasure as she passed. Passersby might be welcome as long as they fit the status quo and didn't kick up any trouble. Heck, they probably gave the townsfolk a good chance for trade and evangelical huckstering. A young woman riding alone, however, wearing a man's clothing and a pistol on her hip...she was surely another story.
Cynicism prevented her from being surprised, but stale annoyance simmered under her collar.
The town square spread out in front of the church, a cobblestoned area with several market windows open and wares peppered out on tables and shelves. Hawkers and merchants already began to close up for the evening, though, and it didn't seem likely they'd reopen tomorrow. If she hadn't lost track of her days, it'd be Sunday, the Saventh, and in a town like this with a church so heavy and looming, the Saventh no doubt stood as a strict day of silent devotion. If she wanted to pick up any supplies, she'd have to do so now. She might as well devote the day of rest to study and meditation, like everyone else, even if she studied a very different kind of bible.
She perused her way around the square, searching for those small but essential items a weaver at lessons would require. A few ounces of dried beef and trail mix. Parchment, surely, and rough pencils to make her notes—those in her knapsack were practically worn away to nubs. Heavier charcoals for sketching graphs and figures. Black ink, for any important revelations the cards might have for her, and candles for marking a space of ritual, if she wound up needing one. Bandages, in case of any bloodletting.
Finally, she stopped by a shop window nearest the church's grand steps to look over a collection of sachets and herbal bouquets. Fresh sage and rosemary, lavender and sandalwood. All strange sights in the middle of this white-sand desert, probably grown in a garden behind the store for kitchen potpourri or sweet-smelling perfume. Frivolities, here. But for Serenity, herbs could be used in other ways. She didn't need them for her studies, but as she'd likely spend the majority of her day in careful contemplation, a fresh batch of incense wouldn't go amiss.
"These," she said, choosing a handful of the small flowers. The merchant scrutinized her as she handed them to him.
She rolled her eyes.
"Can't a girl want to get clean and fresh here? I'm covered in dust and sweat. I'd like to get a bath before the night is over and maybe something to wear that smells a little better than dirt. Is that a sin?"
Serenity...
The man's expression didn't change, but he took her coin for the herbs, and with a sigh, Serenity turned away.
Another man stood on the steps of the church now, not three yards away. He hadn't been there before; just suddenly appeared, as though his holy god sent him in a bolt of light. He wore the robes of a monk, keeping his hands folded into his sleeves, and glared at her down his pinched blade of a nose.
As she met his eyes, he looked her up and down. His gaze rested on her chest a moment, almost prescient, and Serenity felt a brief sting go through the skin beneath her blouse, a twinge of invasion. She brought her hand up to the spot, an almost instinctive gesture.
D'aej prowled, restless in her mind like an agitated feline, balking at the audacity of the man's stare.
And you were worried I'd be the one to draw attention, he murmured in annoyance. Serenity...be smart about this. Just walk away.
"Young lady," the monk began, his voice a low, heavy cadence, the sound of a tired but austere old church bell. Even as he spoke, she could see the calculation in his eyes, assessing her, processing her. What little good humor she'd yet maintained dried up like spit on hot stone.
"Welcome to Tyr Salem. I hope you will find our humble town a safe haven for you during your journey. I must ask though, as long as you are here, you seek something a little more...appropriate...to wear."
