I would like to thank Raddaya for going over the Indian and Hindu portions of the story to sanity check them.
Chapter 4Skye slips into a booth in the Sheep Heid Inn and slumps against the back of the seat. Shaking her head slightly, she puts the bottle of wine, bought only because they didn't have mead, and the glass on the table, then slots the staff she's reading between the table and the bench. A slight exertion, and a borrowed memory, sees her glass filled and she lifts it to her nose to nurse it.
Her fingers idly trace the tiny lines on the staff as she thinks about the last couple of weeks. The first few days, she cursed Morgana almost constantly as everything she saw bombarded her with someone else's memories. Then she started to understand the way that the staves were sorted, and that the tiny room was indeed a library. Galling as it was, that's when she realised that Morgana had given her exactly what she promised.
When she finally ventured upstairs, she found Ecne's private collection of planed sticks, each one a small diary in and of itself. Inside a chest were hundreds of neatly tied bundles, stacked end up with a stick that has the number of the bundle clearly visible on the top. On a low slate workbench, she found Ecne's tools, and the sticks he'd been keeping, each one with three small lines running from top to bottom.
"Hey Blue, are you ok?"
Skye looks up as her friend Liz slides into the booth opposite her, "I'm fine."
Liz scoffs, "Yeah, right. That's why you've almost finished a bottle of wine on your own, and didn't even bother to say hi to anyone."
"I've just had a lot to think about."
"What? Like who to approach next to get your PhD proposal approved? Or whether you want to be stuck as a Lab tech for the next 30 years?"
"No, it's just… You ever have one of those moments where something happens and everything you thought you knew is turned upside down?"
"Not really, you know me, I'm still working on my Interpreter qualifications. Though, it's looking like Ancient Celtic may be a useful language to try to learn." Skye can't help it, she starts to laugh, "What. It's not funny, haven't you been keeping up with the news?"
"It's not that! Dr Danann was teaching science at the University, and I suppose you could say she gave me a crash course in Ancient Celtic."
"No! Really?"
Skye nods, "I'm reading the equivalent of a book at the moment."
"No… show me."
Skye jiggles the staff, "It's right here."
"Say something."
"No, I'm not a performing monkey."
"Please, just for me?"
"No."
"Don't be a bitch, you know I love languages."
"Yeah, well I don't."
"你从来不用我的语言帮助我。我恨你。"[ You never help me with my languages. I hate you.]
"I love you too, and saying that sort of thing isn't going to make me more likely to help either."
Liz stares at Skye in shock, "Skye… How did… What do you… think I just said?"
"The bit about never helping with languages, or that you love languages?"
"Skye, stay right there, I'll be right back," Liz glances at the bottle, "and I'll bring you a new bottle of wine."
A few minutes later, Liz returns with two other people, an older woman with greying hair, and a middle-aged man with a friendly smile. Plonking a couple of bottles of wine on the table, as well as two bottles of beer and two wine glasses, she slips into the booth by the wall so that the other two can slip in on the same bench.
After taking a sip of her beer, Liz says, "スカイ、これらは Sean Lamb 教授とThea Watt.です彼らが私たちに参加してもよろしいですか?" [Skye, these are Professors Sean Lamb and Thea Watt. Do you mind if they join us?]
Skye looks up from the staff, "Not at all, it's a pleasure to meet you both."
Thea smiles at Skye as she unscrews a bottle of wine and pours three glasses, "私はあなたが私に尋ねることを気にしないことを願っていますが、あなたはどの言語を話しますか?" [I hope you don't mind me asking, but what languages do you speak?]
"Not at all, just English, and I guess Ancient Celtic. That's enough thanks." Skye holds her hand up as her glass fills up.
Sean accepts the glass, "यह आकर्षक है, आपने प्राचीन सेल्टिक कैसे सीखा?" [That's fascinating, how did you learn Ancient Celtic?]
"As I said to Liz, it was pretty much a crash course."
"Est-ce Ogham? Pourriez-vous nous lire un peu ce que vous lisez?" [Is that Ogham? Could you read us a bit of what you're reading?]
"Oh, um sure? Nuair a thagann na hionróirí eile ar an domhan marfach, titeann na dlíthe nádúrtha isteach i mbeithiúnacht mar sin gur féidir suas a bheith síos agus síos taobhbhealaí." [When the otherside intrudes on the mortal world, the natural laws fall into abayence such that up can be down and down sideways.]
Thea, speaking in English for the first time, asks, "What does that mean, in English."
Skye startles, and stops to think, "Erm, it's talking about what happens when the otherside appears on earth, and how it affects physics. It's more philosophical than science though."
"Ya veo, ¿y qué te parece?"
Skye looks confused, "Huh?"
"I said, 'I see, and what do you think?'"
"Oh, right. Um. From everything we know about physics, that just can't be true. But, that doesn't mean that there isn't stuff out there that we've missed. I mean, 200 years ago, they still believed in aether, however experiments have proven that it doesn't exist. Which directly led to special and general relativity."
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Daphne twitches as it feels like someone's just poked her, looking around she can't see anyone, so with a shrug, she turns back to the ruined building and sets more of the large blocks to scampering off. Over the last few days, she's been able to clear nearly half of the building, and progress is going faster now that the top of the pile has been reached. In the space they've cleared, some of the refugees have started to put up wooden frames over the foundations as well as digging post holes in the hard packed earth.
As she's moving things, a woman in a UN uniform walks over, "Sorry to bother you, but would you be able to start clearing out the basement before they start building on the rubble. There may be more dead down there, and they can't afford for disease to start running rampant her. Your Mother already does so much for the wounded."
Daphne stares, shocked, for a moment, and by the time she has processed it, and is about to deny that Airmed is her mother, the woman has moved off.
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Airmed shakes her head in amusement at the exchange that's just happened, and looks over at Reginald, "They think that she is my daughter."
Reginald's eyes widen, but the broken arm of the man in front of him is taking up all of his concentration, as he slowly applies what Airmed has been teaching him. Carefully feeling out the wound with his magic, he builds a picture of what it looks like, as well as what it should look like. Once he's done that, he pulls the mist into the arm in order to slowly force the arm to move from one image to the other.
Airmed nods, "You're doing well, just remember this mustn't be a Glamour when you finish, otherwise the bone will never heal. You're using Glamour to change the world rather than overlaying it… Better, though the mist just needs to caress the wound, not permeate it…"
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Padma dubiously looks around the remote valley that Kali has brought them to, at the bottom of the valley is a vast herd of sheep penned in by a low drystone wall. In the distance she can see smoke rising from a farmhouse.
"Sura, why are we here?"
Kali looks amused, and one of her fangs becomes visible in her smile, "To teach you to dance of course. And if the bloodlust takes either of us, there is a simple source of blood ripe for the picking."
"What about the farmer?"
"These sheep are owned by a Viasya Sepoy and the Shepherd sees nothing from their wool. If they die, then the Shepherd may be beaten, but the meat will be sold to the Sudra and those without caste, and they will be fed."
"But we are Viasya."
Kali nods, "You are, but you are not Sepoy, nor do you support the oppressors. Neither have you brought slaves back from the lands of the book."
"I see."
"You do not, you are still bright with innocence. But you will, as you follow the dark into its lair and take on its mantle, you will understand. When you understand you will dance, and those that revel in the darkness will know death. Then you will grieve the innocents that got caught in your dance. You will become part of the darkness, but not of it. But for now, you must learn the first steps of the dance. Once you know the steps with two arms, we will move to four, and continue until you reach 10 or are unable to continue."
Padma swallows hard as she realises that the dance that Kali keeps talking about is the dance of death.
For the first week, her progress is slow but steady, and she doesn't lose control even once. Even with suffering the indignity of sitting through the sacrifices. On the 8th day Kali stops her.
"Child, why do you stifle your magic? If your magic is not free, if your magic can't sing the accompaniment to the dance, you will never learn."
Hesitantly, Padma releases her hold on the mist and allows her magic to exist without being diverted, as she does Kali praises her, "This is good, more, more, you must free all of it. Show me what you had at the shrine."
Once her magic is no longer concealed by the mist, Padma begins to dance once more, and as she moves her magic moves with her. Nodding approvingly, Kali starts to dance with her, and as Kali's magic starts to sing, so follows Padma's magic. As her arms whip around, so does the wind, and when her foot comes down heavily the earth shakes. When her palms hit the floor lightning rents the sky and her lighter steps bring rain. Kali's own magic brings all that, but magnified by her much larger levels of magic.
As they dance a primal dance the Otherside responds to Padma's motions, singing magic, and rising bloodlust. The world around them changing in response to the dance. Distances warp, and the ground bucks and writhes. Suddenly, she tips over the edge and loses herself to the dance, to the bloodlust, and she is amongst the sheep. Feeding deeply on their lifeblood, and death, a whirling dervish of death and destruction, and a herd of 200 sheep is reduced to none over the span of 15 minutes.
Looking down, Kali struggles with her own bloodlust as she forces her magic to return to the slow song she's so used to. Smiling sadly, she's ready when Padma's eyes clear and her bloodlust is satiated. As soon as they do, she makes her way to Padma's side, and holds her as she cries.
"Do you understand now child?"
Padma doesn't need any clarification, as she can feel the song deep inside her, still singing, still moving, "I do."
"There is another way for it to end, and that is for it to run its course. But only Lord Shiva was ever able to do that for me. How did it feel?"
"Amazing, I was… Until I wasn't, and then it was terrible."
Kali nods and points to a rockfall near where they were dancing, "That happened after you lost control. Hide your magic again, and see if it helps."
Padma does, as she sniffs, "It's still there. It's quieter, but it's still there."
Kali nods, "It always was, but you know what it sounds like now. Come, let us get you home and into a bath. Your body is not yet used to this."
Without thinking, Padma nods and grabs Kali's hand, pulling both of them into the mist, and making her way home. As they arrive in the bath house, Kali asks, "How do you know where you are going?"
Padma turns on the enchanted taps as she answers, "Desire, sort of. To start with, you need to really want to go somewhere, but later you sort of learn what that feels like so you can do it without the emotion."
"I see."
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Maeve sits on her throne looking over the icy landscape that is her realm. Behind her a vast apple tree grows with leaves of ice, and crystal fruits. Arrayed in front of her is her court, their skin darkened to an icy blue, and ears pointed from mixing with the fae.
"My people, we have survived in this court. The Christians thought us beaten, banished forever, when they destroyed our gates.
"But our time is not yet over, for the Queen, The Morrigan, is on the move once more. Some of you have felt the ripples as she acts. So now it's our time. She has claimed our ancient lands, and so we will move on Gaul and stake our claim there. Those that follow the false god will know our vengeance, while those who do not will be treated as the fae treated us.