My family instilled in me early on that it was possible to tease the living land in to showing what my grandfather always liked to call its abstract face, that there was no need for us to destroy in order to create. To them, that was not our crime to commit, the destruction inherent in creation would occur on its own in most instances. "Everything has two sides and most have more," he'd say, "but the two everything has in common are its realistic and its abstract." His personal pride and joy was a hall near the surface, lit in the daytime by murky light shining through thick faceted panes of dark amethyst and gold-shot indigo lapis, and filled with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of fluted quartz pillars. Some of them were interconnected, joined by slender veins of stone seeming too fragile to hold themselves up. All of them were hollow to varying degrees, and contained valves at different points inside them. These could be controlled through a series of tuning pegs set in to panels that were carefully affixed to the pillars' sides, and when air was pushed through the entire construct, and some of the pillars were struck with mallets, a gentle otherworldly music colored with eerie harmonics would fill the entire complex. This had been my favorite place since early childhood, and remained so up until the single fateful day that had changed, and destroyed, my life.
I was an only child. My mother was a merchant, an oddity in our family but an oddity we embraced all the same, and Father followed in Grandfather's footsteps, tending the quartz veins and studying sonics. During the years of my earliest memories, his pet project was a series of niches and alcoves throughout the music hall which were designed to create or enhance different acoustical effects. He never did stop tweaking them, changing their sizes and shapes and layering them with different materials, not even up to the day I left.
Throughout my life I had one steadfast friend-Tiannek, partner in crime and almost lover, later on. He was one of few who shared my fascination with the music hall, with the study of sound and the ways which it linked to magic. We were inseparable throughout those carefree years, exploring the cliffside's long-disused rooms and the forest at its base. We grew restless when we didn't have anywhere new to explore, so we were often in trouble for one incident or another. "Of course we can count on you," my mother often said, her eyes laughing, "to get in trouble!"
The first major shadow I remember falling over my childhood (daily disagreements and the run of the mill mean-spirited person didn't count), were the whispers that births had been declining in my family for several generations now, and in others-that the community couldn't and wouldn't last. We weren't poor by any means, but we were raised in a learning environment in a community who took care to keep our focus on exploration rather than greed. But some of the younger generation were growing restless. Tiannek, to my disappointment, became one of those voices, and was the first to speak out publicly, the first to leave publicly, the first to promise to forget.
I couldn't and wouldn't simply abandon the environment that had nurtured me before my time. Here, the memories grow hazy, bits and pieces filled in by conjecture and guesswork. I know I left shortly after I came of age, acutely missing the person that had been an other half to me since before I could have put that in to words. I believed that, despite the dangers on the road, there was no harm in directly finding the person I had known-he would not have let himself fall in to a dangerous situation or worse yet, become so. I know that after some time, I found him in a city on the road to Gahlen. I'd traded small things to buy passage, using what skills my mother had passed on to me. I wonder, and don't want to know, that I must have done more unsavory things at points when I wasn't sure I'd have a roof over my head for long. Discretion was something I learned the hard and painful way-one area where I'm still glad for the memory gaps. I remember seeing him exit a tavern, looking colder than I'd ever seen him-following him, discreetly I hoped-failing in my discretion, being caught-
Sliding stealthily through the shadows clinging to one grimy brick wall, I knew I'd lost him. Perhaps it had been a trick of the mind. Perhaps I was in over my head for nothing. But turning back now wasn't an option, I had to see this through whether it was real or not.
A hand descended on to my shoulder as I peered around a corner in to another crooked street, whirling me around. I gasped, gritted my teeth against a cry, and stared up in to Tiannek's face.
"You have no idea," he said, slowly and deliberately, "what you are doing."
I fought to keep from trembling, to keep a brave face in front of this person I'd once admired. "I was looking for you!" I snapped, a flare of anger heating my chest. "Unless that doesn't mean anything to you anymore! The promises we made, and years we spent reinforcing them!"
His hand tightened on my shoulder. "Words," he breathed, his eyes flashing, "mean nothing."
I glanced around wildly, hoping for an escape, a passerby, a distraction, and finding none.
His mobile features twisted as he stared down at me. I knew I couldn't pull away from him-I'd always been slight for my kind and he had always been strong. "Damnit, Myri," he muttered. "You would make me do this ..."
The potential for violence hummed like static against my bones. In one last ditch effort to get out of the situation I twisted to one side, letting my muscles turn to water and hoping my momentum would pull him off balance. We went down in a heap, and the knife meant for my heart grazed my shoulder, so I later learned, but it didn't feel like a graze then.
A voice cursed above my head. "Conflict is the only thing that brings enough progress, Myrillin," he said, his voice sounding exhausted. "And daylight's blinded you as much as it did me."
I started to haul myself away from him on one arm. If I could just get around the corner ...
Something hard and jagged descended on to the side of my head. How could I be taken advantage of by Tiannek? I wondered desperately. How could any of this have happened?
And again. Darkness swam before my eyes. My fingertips grasped the corner of the building.
And again. My vision grayed out entirely, and something wrenched at my wounded shoulder, pulling me upright. Something struck me across the side of my face. My muscles had turned to liquid and were no longer listening to me.
I don't know what he did after that, except to know he did more than that. Lenaia healed more than a few questionable damages, but some of the more embarrassing ones were beyond her ability to mend completely. I'll never know what he did to prove himself to his precious Nightlord, but I don't think I want to.
I must have been there for hours, maybe even days. Someone eventually found me and brought me to a safe house, to someone who could heal me ...
***Present Day***
The first thing I can remember is waking up flat on my back on a straw mattress in a heavily patched and repaired lean-to. There was an old nymph woman sitting beside me, my right hand pressed between both of hers, weaves of magic emanating from her and surrounding me. Needless to say I panicked, and would have tried to bolt had there not been leather cords binding me to the mattress. I cried out and jerked away from her, breaking her concentration, but before I could do myself any harm, she sent me a wave of comforting feelings and one repeated word: safe ... safe. She sheepishly explained that she'd had to tie me down because I wouldn't hold still long enough for her to heal me, that someone had found me delirious with fever, an infected knife wound high in my shoulder, wedged in to the narow crawlspace between two poorly-constructed buildings which leaned on each other for support. She conjectured that I'd either crawled there with the last of my energy or someone my size had pushed me, which was the more chilling alternative in my mind. I also had a terrible head wound, she said, which she had healed to the best of her abilities.
She asked where I came from, how I'd gotten that way, who had hurt me so badly. I opened my mouth automatically to reply and realized, with dawning panic, that I had no idea. I couldn't even remember my own name.
Had it not been for her quick thinking, I probably would have exacerbated that damage, descending in to shock and depression. She later explained that she'd maintained a heavy empathic link with me to monitor the progress (or lack thereof) that I was making, and had shut me down at the first sign of high stress.
In the coming weeks, I became infinitely grateful for her help. Originally I had a minor speech impediment and walked lopsided, because the muscles on the left side of my body wouldn't unwind. Months of slow, tedious exercise and her magical work eventually rebuilt the strength in that side and improved my coordination and balance. I worked with her on relearning how to speak clearly using music, on spatial and emotional awareness, and on re-honing my mind to what I hoped was its previous sharpness (the idea of losing reasoning ability was and still is a distressing one). While she could heal many physical problems, she was not adept enough to heal severe mental damage magically. There were others she worked with, some of whom recovered and some of whom did not. I learned that she was a mid-level mage following the goddess Waylumi, and worked mostly with orphans and abandoned children in the town we lived in, though she took in the occasional stray like me. She had no idea of my age, guessing that I was barely out of my thirties by my teeth and physical condition. Her name was Lenaia, and she called me Nahia. "I never did have a daughter, but if I had, that would have been her name," she told me. I accepted that, humbled by the enormity of my situation and my incredible good luck in being brought to her first.
I became unusually wary and reticent for my kind, but I couldn't stay with Lenaia forever. On a fundamental level, I didn't know who I was. And for someone with an insatiable drive for new experiences, that was a terrible state of mind to be in, and it resulted in a years-long struggle with finding a meaning, believing mistakenly that I had none. I did come to remember some things, in flashes and broken images-fantastical multicolored calcite flows, light shimmering through veins of green and purple quartz, a discreet entrance hidden behind a terraced waterfall flowing over limestone tinted the loveliest winter-blue. Eventually I caught snatches of later memories-the face of one who could have been my own kin save for his eyes, like flat discs of onyx, and his icy expression, and the sense of shock and betrayal that always accompanied that picture.
Exposure to the freely mixed race population taught me other things. Trying to push too hard for memories left me with splitting headaches and on one occasion knocked me out completely. That moment was a sobering one, teaching me to curb my curiosity lest it become damaging.
I was highly empathic and had a hard time coping with the distress of Lenaia's other patients, especially when they didn't make it. I stayed with her for three years and picked up learning instruments-tin whistle because I could come by one and harp because Lenaia had one-to burn off the stress of my environment. I did help her in whatever capacity I could, but the bleak and often hopeless atmosphere she worked so tirelessly to lift was not something I could live with indefinitely. I didn't have her faith in light, given my background and the environment we lived in, so I couldn't turn to her faith. I was too cynical for that, just jaded enough to believe there wasn't something looking out for me but not jaded enough to be a pessimist. And eventually I had to become a citizen proper. I was afraid of being carted off to a jail somewhere or worse yet, mistakenly (so I hoped) deported.
Time, natural curiosity and her gentle guidance eventually stabilized my mental state. I hadn't lost my identity, nor all of my skills, only the reasons for them. I still bear the internal scars of that event. The empathy is still there and it can be hard to cope with unexpected negativity, but I've learned in my time in Lenaia's care to shield it, so that attacks no longer debilitate me, and so that I can defend myself without freezing up the first time I hit someone.
When I chose to leave Lenaia, she gave me just enough coin to buy passage to Gahlen, where I could make my identity, such as it was on paper, official. . I never did have the heart to ask her how much of her savings she had given away, knowing how much her inability to repair the rest of my head trauma upset her. She told me despairingly that if I had been found and healed sooner, the information may not have been lost. She could only stabilize the damaged areas and repair most of them, not recover what was gone. I dragged my feet for several months, afraid to leave, knowing that this would all need to come out for the records, but she eventually convinced me I would find a healer with the skill to mend me. She also told me that people who had suffered memory loss like mine could often jog their memories through exposure to things from their past, that seeking out my own culture would probably be best for me. Displaced and uprooted, without much knowledge of my own culture and none of my early life, I could only stand on my own two feet, acknowledge what I didn't have, and keep going. I fill in the empty spaces the best I can, with new experiences, music and knowledge, and with an innate curiosity and hopefulness that won't let me lie down and give up.
***Conclusions and Questions***
Are they supposed to be like that? I wonder, sitting on the floor listening to the waves lap at the shore outside. He believed he had to prove he could destroy all prior attachments for his faith. Will I look on every Dahkoar from now on and wonder if violating and killing the person you loved is necessary?
Remember your puzzles and patterns, I tell myself sternly. You may break inside, but no one needs to see it. You're stronger than that. You're not a damsel in distress, and you're not a pampered princess either. You were raised to be self-reliant. So prove that!
My eyes raise of their own accord to peer out the window, examining the peaceful nighttime landscape beyond, grounding myself in reality. Guilt, shame, embarrassment, betrayal, confusion, these things tie knots in my chest. And for a moment, in a world built for larger people and larger schemes, I feel tiny, a dust mote in a beam of afternoon light, tumbling through a single instant of time.
The events that triggered this revelation tug at my mind, reminding me of what I came here for. Reminding me of the factthat I came here to help a dear friend remember something wonderful.
Something else shakes loose inside-a floodgate of emotions I'd once thought forever lost, remembered faces and voices and moments. Tears track their way through the angular hollows to either side of my nose and run off the point of my chin, but for the moment I don't move, afraid to break the spell. I had been looking for completion this whole time but I couldn't be, not until I died. I'd thought I'd been told to avoid absolutes also, but the truth is that I'd been told to be mindful of them both. "The world needs the sun to set," my mother's voice speaks through a corridor of memory, "just as much as it needs the sun to rise. No one can escape it. No one can change it. Denial doesn't matter. Mortals can't move constants. So remember that, no matter what anyone says to you."
If I had come by these memories sooner, I realize, I wouldn't have had the good realizations to balance them out. It would have broken me to know before now.
I let my eyes drift closed and send up a simple prayer to the only deity I know.
Thank you. For everything.
"Lean back, Nahia," the warm old voice from my realizations in the druid guildroom says. Its tone speaks of decades, of good humor, of experience, of warmth, of tolerance, of mischief and wonder and amusement, of puzzles, questions, and answers. This seems to be the face the world takes in those moments when it speaks to me, knowing it is one that I trust even if, ironically, its owner does not.
And so, trusting, I do.