CHAPTER FIVE
Thera has decided to trust in the mysterious figure…but is it more than she originally bargained for?
The last of the light silhouetted the woman. The air held the harsh smell of a closing cold.
Thera’s right hand dropped to her belt and brushed the sharp shard of metal she had holstered there.
Thera’s left hand was wrapped in the soft, bunched curls of the woman’s hair.
The woman had not broken away from Thera’s gaze, but Thera was well trained and knew better than looking at where she would strike. Knew better than sign posting a coming blow. She didn’t need to be looking at the woman’s throat to have a weapon along it in the blink of an eye.
But there was still a little light. Just a little. Thera wasn’t just trained in controlling her own body language; she was trained in reading the body language of others.
Scant heartbeats had passed since the transformation.
In one syrup-slow motion Thera slipped her left hand free and took a step backwards. The woman smiled, the genuine nature of it reaching her eyes.
There were plagues less contagious than that smile.
Thera allowed an unintended flicker of her own smile in return.
The woman who was once a statue had a gaze that was a torrent of water. Pure and clear and endless. She took a deep breath and finally broke Thera’s gaze and Thera felt as if she had been unpinned from a formless weight.
The women guided Thera to the strange collection of almost-instruments. With a twist of a pipe, water began to fill a basin.
A returning loved one’s cry of greeting.
The sound of coins filling an empty purse.
The adoring roar of the crowd in triumph.
None of these things were as sweet as the sound of fresh running water to the thirsty. The water was cold and bright and, best of all, endless.
Thera drank.
The woman who was once a statue, didn’t.
They sat.
“My name is Finlior.” Thera let a heartbeat of silence pass between them before responding in kind. “Thera.”
The silence stretched, though Finlior’s hand moved constantly. Her toes curled. Her eyes slowly soaked in the world.
Thera wondered what it would be like, to come into senses after living in stone.
“Are you human?” Thera asked.
“I…was. Once. I am, still. In all the ways that are important.” “It is important for humans to drink water.” “Not in all the ways that are important, then.” It was dark now and the stars were mostly hidden but Thera could hear the slight smile in the woman’s voice. “I am a soul. A…remainder. A concentrated pattern of one who once lived.” “You are a…pattern?” “It is as good a word as any. All humans are patterns. We are what we do. What we remember. What we aim for. These are the patterns of our soul. An eternal pattern that can outlast a body if one finds the sacred alignment of time and intent.” Questions lined themselves behind Thera’s teeth. Though it was not the most important she asked the one that was closest to hand.
“Why do you have a water basin if you do not need to drink?” “This is a musicians corner.” Finlior’s voice was as soft as the starlight. “In this city, this Sacred City, we have…presence. We do not need to drink. To eat. But we remember it. It is part of the pattern of our existence. We remember thirst. And, when we sing, we remember what it is like to be parched. To sip between songs. The basin here is for the singers. And for guests, when we receive visitors.”
Thera thought for a moment. Unpacked the implications.
“Outside of this city, you have no body?” “Outside of this city I would, alone, have no body.” “Alone?” “The Sacred Skulls. They are receptacles of energy. Powerful women from long ago who chose to exist in a different form.” A heartbeat. “Or who had the choice taken from them, and were honoured nonetheless. For a small time they can help one of us to walk in different worlds and still keep something of our form. Although we really cannot do much beyond bend wind into words, except when we are in this city. Unless we interact with something from this City.” “I see.” Said Thera.
Because it seemed like a polite thing to say.
Her mind was working faster, now she had quenched her thirst. But this felt like the careful opening lines of a much longer conversation and Thera was not fully trusting of this women, innocent eyes or not. She knew from experience that those who learnt how to fake innocence were the most dangerous creatures of all.
“Why do you need my help?” Asked Thera. Thinking of the ash and the silence and statues that seemed in her mind to be more like cruel and twisted cages.
Only a fool took refuge in a house of answers built on a foundation of assumptions.
“For my sisters to be as you have seen them, to be as like marble. It means the city has been betrayed. If you found your way here then you are on the path to having the choice to becoming one of us, Thera Webbound.”
Thera shivered. She told herself it was the cold.
“You have been guided here by the sacred force so you can help us. My synergy with the skull will not last past dawn. But if you agree to help me this night we can seek the material we need to bring life back into this city. We can reform this place into the thing it once was. We can fashion it again, into Sanctuary. Tell me, Thera Webbound. Do you need Sanctuary?”
Thera thought of her world. Of the man with the haloed eye and the tyranny. The tyranny that had lasted one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four years.
“Yes.” Her whispered answer, quiet as a drawn sword.
Finlior stood. Darkness on darkness. Her movements tore at the darkness and Thera felt the pull of the web around her once more.
“Hold to me, and the truths you know.”
With that Thera felt herself falling backwards once more, into the Web of Three.
Thera arrived…
1) In a land of smoke and flame where a Sacred sword is being used for profane purposes.
2) In a land of air and wind where a vicious mind tries to unite everything under a Sacred crown.
3) In a land of wave and sand where a creeping darkness wearing a Sacred bone mask is cutting their way to control.
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