Dedicated to everyone who reviewed; AySz88, rumpleteasza, and bards soul.
Wow.. I feel *SO* confident about this fic. I mean... look at the torrents of reviews... (by the way, that was sarcasm, but thank you to bards soul, who seems to be the only person who remembers that writers need constant attention, otherwise they get sulky and stop writing. He's given this fic the breath of life. Literally. I was about to toss it onto the scrap heap, along with the other ones that never made it; suffer the little children, and in the dead of night.)
#4
"This means nothing to me. A name is a name is a name. Tell me about why it is that you took me in."
"You wouldn't understand" Lyra turned her head to the side, gazing out of the window, unaware of the child's eyes on her face. Those eyes were filled with something resembling confusion, but colder and more hurt.
"Try me." She got off the bed and walked towards the window, Zanhoriel flying after her in dove form.
"You and Zanhoriel can separate over long distances, can you not? Much longer distances than most humans." She didn't wait for a reply before she went on. " It is a power that usually only witches have. I was interested by your ability to do this, and decided that it would be in your best interest for me to keep you safe from anyone who might want to. exploit your powers."
Cecilia knew this was a lie, even though it was only one small thing that gave her a clue. This woman was a good liar, no doubt abut it.
"Fine, but how did you know that I had this power when you found me? You couldn't have known just from seeing me."
"Your dæmon was a mile away from the hut when I found you. She was gathering food."
This seemed like a fair enough answer, so Cecilia moved on to her next question.
"Tell me the truth woman. Why did you take me?" Cecilia eyes flashed with defiance, but even she recoiled at the look Lyra gave her.
"Child! I have lived more than you ever will, been through more than you possibly could! I saved you and I will save you again, but I won't be spoken to like this! You will treat me with respect! Just because I am a liar, you have no excuse to treat me like I have never been kind to you. You will listen now, and stop talking as though you know everything. You know nothing!" the outburst left her flushed, her cheeks red and her breath short. She hadn't been this angry with someone since. since she had found out that she would not be able to live with Will. Oh, she could remember how much she cried, and how loud she wailed.
"Well excuse me, but discovering that the person you have loved all your life has lied to you is sometimes a bit disconcerting."
"You are fourteen. Act your age, not like some child. I lied to spare your life. I lied so that your would have the life I didn't. Haven't you been happy here? Haven't you enjoyed your stay at the college?"
"Yes."
"Then stop dwelling on the fact that I am not your real mother. For all real purposes I have been your mother. Just appreciate that you had one. I grew up not knowing my mother or my father, and when I did find out who they were. well, they weren't very nice people, let's just leave it at that."
Cecilia stopped and looked at the woman with the hair that she used to touch, feeling its silky texture between her fingers. They even looked similar. the same expression in their eyes, the same smile.
"Tell me how you know about the chimney, and tell me why you are so concerned about it."
"Fine. As you know, the chimney is a lot... deeper, than it should be. This is because roughly halfway down it is a window into another world. The floor in the building of this other world doesn't correspond with the floor in our world. It's a lot deeper than ours is. That is why your stones went so far down. Oh yes," an indulgent smile crept to her lips "I confess, I was spying on you. I'm sorry, but it was dangerous for you to be out there so close to my secret alone."
"How do you know about it though? What does this mean?" Cecilia sat down in the window seat and rested her head on her left hand; her right one reached down to stroke and ruffle her dæmon's feathers.
"Your father, William. He was the holder of the subtle knife. This knife had the power to cut through the curtains of the universe, into other universes. We knew each other as children; we met in a universe that wasn't home to either of us. But we were torn apart. We knew that we could not be together, the holes form one universe to another let in evil. It let in sadness and disease and death. So Will had to close all the openings. It was his duty as knife keeper. So we were torn apart. But we could not bear to never see each other, so he left one window open. Then, whenever he was at home, on a short break from his never ending task, he would visit me, and we would sit together on the roof here, under the stars or summer sun, and we would remember our childhood and our love." She shuddered to a stop, casting the girl an experimental look. "Of course, none of this means anything to you."
"Pardon me for being short, but by my calculations, we have very little time left. Could you get to the point." An overdose of information had led to Cecilia's voice and thoughts growing proceedingly cold. She felt like someone had ripped out her heart.
"You're right, of course. We only have about twenty minutes before you need to leave. You're stay at the college has only been a brief time that had to pass before you're real purpose came to light... like a waiting room. But everything you've learned and experienced here will help you in your mission. Your birth, life and death were predicted by an order of women thousands of years ago. They were what the Greeks came to call The Fates. They used their own forms of magic and sorcery to predict the outcomes of certain events in history. A few hundred years ago researchers into the ancient scripts uncovered a prophecy... the birth of a witch child without any witch blood, born to the knife-holder, who was to battle the last great evil. Cecilia; as the prophecy dictates, you have to leave the college, and set off with your Zanhoriel," Lyra indicated Cecilia's bristling Persian- cat dæmon. "And you need to set out through the window, and try to find whatever it is you need to find. I can give you some supplies, some advice, but that is all. I don't know what you will be up against, and I cant help you battle it." she stood up and moved awkwardly towards Cecilia, her dæmon at her feet. She reached Cecilia at the window and put her arms around her in a tight embrace.
Cecilia drew a deep breath and put her arms around Lyra, tugging at the end of her hair in the way she used to as a younger child. "So. I'd better be going then." She withdrew her arms and stood up, abruptly ending the hug. "Do I get to take some stuff with me? I need clothes and sleeping stuff, don't I? Unless the fates set up a hotel account for me. can I bring a suitcase on this mission le impossibel?"
"I've got something for you, it's all ready." Lyra left the room briefly and came back in with a huge backpack, jammed with pockets and ties, the kind any noble explorer might take on any trip to far off lands. It seemed half-empty, and as Lyra dragged it in she began explaining its contents. I've packed a map that your father gave me years and years ago, of the whole country, with special maps of the main city. I used to love looking at it."she stared intently at the heavy hard backed book, tucked away at the back of the bag. "It might not be entirely accurate now, it's more than a decade out of date, but the main cities don't change much, it will still be extremely useful."
Next she pointed to a thick winter coat, made from sheepskin with the soft fleece inside. "I bought this a few months ago, for you. I was starting to sense something would happen, but put it out of my mind. This will be extremely useful, especially if you have to sleep on the streets for a night or two." Seeing the young girls face blanche, Lyra rolled her eyes and shoved her softly in the shoulder. "Don't be so stupid. You probably wont have to, but don't ever consider yourself above sleeping rough. Where you're going, no one knows who you are, and your name means nothing. Of course, you will have this," she added, pulling out a large cloth sack which clunked loudly. "This is gold, Cecilia. I assume you know of it? This is enough gold to make sure you can stay in top hotels for a year, and not have to worry. When you get on to the train, there is a letter of instruction to tell you what to do with it, I don't have the time to explain now." Again, she answered the question in the girl's face. "Yes, you're going to have to take a train from the other-world oxford to a place called London. There are instructions in the letter as well."
Somewhere outside the building, the great church bells began to toll. Lyra's dæmon looked up fearfully, seeming to gaze through the ceiling. "Damn it! I thought we had more time!" she grabbed Cecilia by the shoulders and shook her. "Girl, I can't explain anymore right now... we've run out of time. My letter will tell you all you need to know, but right now, we have only a few minutes left." Quickly, she got up and ran to the wardrobe. She pulled out a long black dress; the one Cecilia wore to funerals, and a black travelling coat. Without pausing, Lyra ripped Cecilia's dress off her, the violent movement causing the buttons to pop off and long abrasion marks formed on the young girl's shoulders. While her arms stung, her cries were muffled by the black dress, pulled roughly over her head and jerked down, it's zip yanked into place. Lyra threw the coat around the girl's shoulder and grabbed the backpack, pulling Cecilia out the door by her forearm.
"Where are we going?" she cried, tripping over her own feet and running to keep up with Lyra, who was now sprinting up the spiral staircase towards the attic. Lyra didn't answer, just shoved the attic door open and pulled the girl toward the ladder leading to the roof. At the foot of the ladder she picked up a large sack that seemed to be full, as far as Cecilia could see, of clothes, and drove it into the rucksack, which was now stuffed to the brim.
She pushed the hatch open so violently that it bounced off the shingles straight back down again. Lyra swore and pushed it again, more gently. She propelled the rucksack out onto the roof and pulled Cecilia along, only letting her go when they had reached the outside. She flew towards the chimney with the rucksack and dropped it down into the dark. Cecilia didn't hear it hit the bottom over the rush of blood in her ears. She trampled towards the chimney and Lyra, trying not to trip over her long skirts. Lyra was tying something to the stout root of the chimney, and Cecilia saw her drop the rope ladder down, down, slowly unravelling until the mouth swallowed up the last of the rope and pulled it tout against the brick.
"Climb down the rope. If Zanhoriel changes into a large bird, he can guide the ladder to a balcony. From there you can climb down. When you get to the bottom, walk out the door and look for someone. When you find them, tell them that you need you arrived in the town last night, and need to catch a train to London, but cannot find the station. They will help you. When you get to the station, check the front small pocket of your bag; there are instructions there for the first part of what you need to do. The rest of the instructions are in the larger pocket, read them on the train. Now go child, we don't have more than another minute." Lyra kissed the girl on the forehead and embraced her briefly, before helping her start climbing. "Good luck, I hope that nothing dangerous lies ahead of you."
Cecilia didn't dwell on these words; instead she climbed down the first three or four rungs of the ladder. Her body was now contained within the brick chimney. After another three rungs, her head was below the surface, and she had to concentrate harder on her footing. She looked up briefly at the silhouette of her guardian, heard on last whispered word of good luck, a hoarse cry of almost grief at parting, and then there was no more light. The rope seemed now to be coming from thin air. Scared, Cecilia clung to the ladder for a few moments, eyes squeezed tight while Zanhoriel fluttered around her head in robin form. Finally she opened her eyes and looked down. Immediately she clung tighter to the rope and wished she hadn't looked, as a wave of nausea washed over her like warm bile.
The drop was much, much deeper than she had first thought. She was in a huge room, ancient and dull, probably a cathedral, judging from the arches and paintings on the walls. Her bag seemed miles away, lying like a rag- doll on the uneven stone floor. She didn't even want to think of what would happen if she fell from this height.
"Zan?" she whispered, straining her ears to hear her dæmon's movements. A nibble at her ear, and Zanhoriel landed on her shoulder, a small hopping goldfinch.
"I'm here, I wont fly around if it makes you nervous."
"I'm scared Zan."
"Me too."
"I know. Can you look though?" a murmur of assent, and Cecilia felt the bird dæmon shift position, look around.
"The rope goes down about twenty feet. About ten feet down from us theres a balcony. It's away from the rope, but if we swing we might be able to do it. Then we just jump onto the balcony. Mother-" Zanhoriel checked herself and started again. "Lyra said we'd be able to walk down from there. Maybe there's stairs. Just climb down for now. But you'd better open your eyes."
Cecilia did so, making sure that this time she didn't look down. Gripping the ladder rungs until her knuckles turned white and then red, she slowly made her way down until her dæmon told her to stop. It took her four terrifying minutes to swing the rope ladder far enough over do that if she jumped she would land on the balcony. It took another minute for her to sum up her courage from the pit of her stomach and make the jump. She seemed to sail through the air forever, but eventually she landed with a force that expelled the breath from her body and left her gasping and paralysed. Zanhoriel lay next to her human, fox-tail brushing tears from her eyes, fur nuzzling against her neck.
"Will you be ok?" Zanhoriel asked, sensing after a few minutes that Cecilia was getting her breath back. Cecilia jerked her head down, then up.
After a minute the girl grabbed the balcony and pulled herself up, and once they had found the stairs down, she made her way there slowly, pausing every few steps. She got to the bottom and Zanhoriel barked happily, a fox cub dancing around her feet.
Walking over to where the rucksack was, she thought a bit more about what she was doing. Just a few hours ago she was all set to jump down the chimney, into the adventure waiting for her. Who was she to start complaining because no she HAD to have an adventure? She stood a bit taller and cracked a smile. She just had to think of this like she thought of everything else. It would be an adventure.
She picked up the rucksack, wincing only slightly at it's weight, and hoisted it onto her shoulder. With Zanhoriel trotting at her feet, she made her way towards the only door in the room, and towards a new adventure.
Wow.. I feel *SO* confident about this fic. I mean... look at the torrents of reviews... (by the way, that was sarcasm, but thank you to bards soul, who seems to be the only person who remembers that writers need constant attention, otherwise they get sulky and stop writing. He's given this fic the breath of life. Literally. I was about to toss it onto the scrap heap, along with the other ones that never made it; suffer the little children, and in the dead of night.)
#4
"This means nothing to me. A name is a name is a name. Tell me about why it is that you took me in."
"You wouldn't understand" Lyra turned her head to the side, gazing out of the window, unaware of the child's eyes on her face. Those eyes were filled with something resembling confusion, but colder and more hurt.
"Try me." She got off the bed and walked towards the window, Zanhoriel flying after her in dove form.
"You and Zanhoriel can separate over long distances, can you not? Much longer distances than most humans." She didn't wait for a reply before she went on. " It is a power that usually only witches have. I was interested by your ability to do this, and decided that it would be in your best interest for me to keep you safe from anyone who might want to. exploit your powers."
Cecilia knew this was a lie, even though it was only one small thing that gave her a clue. This woman was a good liar, no doubt abut it.
"Fine, but how did you know that I had this power when you found me? You couldn't have known just from seeing me."
"Your dæmon was a mile away from the hut when I found you. She was gathering food."
This seemed like a fair enough answer, so Cecilia moved on to her next question.
"Tell me the truth woman. Why did you take me?" Cecilia eyes flashed with defiance, but even she recoiled at the look Lyra gave her.
"Child! I have lived more than you ever will, been through more than you possibly could! I saved you and I will save you again, but I won't be spoken to like this! You will treat me with respect! Just because I am a liar, you have no excuse to treat me like I have never been kind to you. You will listen now, and stop talking as though you know everything. You know nothing!" the outburst left her flushed, her cheeks red and her breath short. She hadn't been this angry with someone since. since she had found out that she would not be able to live with Will. Oh, she could remember how much she cried, and how loud she wailed.
"Well excuse me, but discovering that the person you have loved all your life has lied to you is sometimes a bit disconcerting."
"You are fourteen. Act your age, not like some child. I lied to spare your life. I lied so that your would have the life I didn't. Haven't you been happy here? Haven't you enjoyed your stay at the college?"
"Yes."
"Then stop dwelling on the fact that I am not your real mother. For all real purposes I have been your mother. Just appreciate that you had one. I grew up not knowing my mother or my father, and when I did find out who they were. well, they weren't very nice people, let's just leave it at that."
Cecilia stopped and looked at the woman with the hair that she used to touch, feeling its silky texture between her fingers. They even looked similar. the same expression in their eyes, the same smile.
"Tell me how you know about the chimney, and tell me why you are so concerned about it."
"Fine. As you know, the chimney is a lot... deeper, than it should be. This is because roughly halfway down it is a window into another world. The floor in the building of this other world doesn't correspond with the floor in our world. It's a lot deeper than ours is. That is why your stones went so far down. Oh yes," an indulgent smile crept to her lips "I confess, I was spying on you. I'm sorry, but it was dangerous for you to be out there so close to my secret alone."
"How do you know about it though? What does this mean?" Cecilia sat down in the window seat and rested her head on her left hand; her right one reached down to stroke and ruffle her dæmon's feathers.
"Your father, William. He was the holder of the subtle knife. This knife had the power to cut through the curtains of the universe, into other universes. We knew each other as children; we met in a universe that wasn't home to either of us. But we were torn apart. We knew that we could not be together, the holes form one universe to another let in evil. It let in sadness and disease and death. So Will had to close all the openings. It was his duty as knife keeper. So we were torn apart. But we could not bear to never see each other, so he left one window open. Then, whenever he was at home, on a short break from his never ending task, he would visit me, and we would sit together on the roof here, under the stars or summer sun, and we would remember our childhood and our love." She shuddered to a stop, casting the girl an experimental look. "Of course, none of this means anything to you."
"Pardon me for being short, but by my calculations, we have very little time left. Could you get to the point." An overdose of information had led to Cecilia's voice and thoughts growing proceedingly cold. She felt like someone had ripped out her heart.
"You're right, of course. We only have about twenty minutes before you need to leave. You're stay at the college has only been a brief time that had to pass before you're real purpose came to light... like a waiting room. But everything you've learned and experienced here will help you in your mission. Your birth, life and death were predicted by an order of women thousands of years ago. They were what the Greeks came to call The Fates. They used their own forms of magic and sorcery to predict the outcomes of certain events in history. A few hundred years ago researchers into the ancient scripts uncovered a prophecy... the birth of a witch child without any witch blood, born to the knife-holder, who was to battle the last great evil. Cecilia; as the prophecy dictates, you have to leave the college, and set off with your Zanhoriel," Lyra indicated Cecilia's bristling Persian- cat dæmon. "And you need to set out through the window, and try to find whatever it is you need to find. I can give you some supplies, some advice, but that is all. I don't know what you will be up against, and I cant help you battle it." she stood up and moved awkwardly towards Cecilia, her dæmon at her feet. She reached Cecilia at the window and put her arms around her in a tight embrace.
Cecilia drew a deep breath and put her arms around Lyra, tugging at the end of her hair in the way she used to as a younger child. "So. I'd better be going then." She withdrew her arms and stood up, abruptly ending the hug. "Do I get to take some stuff with me? I need clothes and sleeping stuff, don't I? Unless the fates set up a hotel account for me. can I bring a suitcase on this mission le impossibel?"
"I've got something for you, it's all ready." Lyra left the room briefly and came back in with a huge backpack, jammed with pockets and ties, the kind any noble explorer might take on any trip to far off lands. It seemed half-empty, and as Lyra dragged it in she began explaining its contents. I've packed a map that your father gave me years and years ago, of the whole country, with special maps of the main city. I used to love looking at it."she stared intently at the heavy hard backed book, tucked away at the back of the bag. "It might not be entirely accurate now, it's more than a decade out of date, but the main cities don't change much, it will still be extremely useful."
Next she pointed to a thick winter coat, made from sheepskin with the soft fleece inside. "I bought this a few months ago, for you. I was starting to sense something would happen, but put it out of my mind. This will be extremely useful, especially if you have to sleep on the streets for a night or two." Seeing the young girls face blanche, Lyra rolled her eyes and shoved her softly in the shoulder. "Don't be so stupid. You probably wont have to, but don't ever consider yourself above sleeping rough. Where you're going, no one knows who you are, and your name means nothing. Of course, you will have this," she added, pulling out a large cloth sack which clunked loudly. "This is gold, Cecilia. I assume you know of it? This is enough gold to make sure you can stay in top hotels for a year, and not have to worry. When you get on to the train, there is a letter of instruction to tell you what to do with it, I don't have the time to explain now." Again, she answered the question in the girl's face. "Yes, you're going to have to take a train from the other-world oxford to a place called London. There are instructions in the letter as well."
Somewhere outside the building, the great church bells began to toll. Lyra's dæmon looked up fearfully, seeming to gaze through the ceiling. "Damn it! I thought we had more time!" she grabbed Cecilia by the shoulders and shook her. "Girl, I can't explain anymore right now... we've run out of time. My letter will tell you all you need to know, but right now, we have only a few minutes left." Quickly, she got up and ran to the wardrobe. She pulled out a long black dress; the one Cecilia wore to funerals, and a black travelling coat. Without pausing, Lyra ripped Cecilia's dress off her, the violent movement causing the buttons to pop off and long abrasion marks formed on the young girl's shoulders. While her arms stung, her cries were muffled by the black dress, pulled roughly over her head and jerked down, it's zip yanked into place. Lyra threw the coat around the girl's shoulder and grabbed the backpack, pulling Cecilia out the door by her forearm.
"Where are we going?" she cried, tripping over her own feet and running to keep up with Lyra, who was now sprinting up the spiral staircase towards the attic. Lyra didn't answer, just shoved the attic door open and pulled the girl toward the ladder leading to the roof. At the foot of the ladder she picked up a large sack that seemed to be full, as far as Cecilia could see, of clothes, and drove it into the rucksack, which was now stuffed to the brim.
She pushed the hatch open so violently that it bounced off the shingles straight back down again. Lyra swore and pushed it again, more gently. She propelled the rucksack out onto the roof and pulled Cecilia along, only letting her go when they had reached the outside. She flew towards the chimney with the rucksack and dropped it down into the dark. Cecilia didn't hear it hit the bottom over the rush of blood in her ears. She trampled towards the chimney and Lyra, trying not to trip over her long skirts. Lyra was tying something to the stout root of the chimney, and Cecilia saw her drop the rope ladder down, down, slowly unravelling until the mouth swallowed up the last of the rope and pulled it tout against the brick.
"Climb down the rope. If Zanhoriel changes into a large bird, he can guide the ladder to a balcony. From there you can climb down. When you get to the bottom, walk out the door and look for someone. When you find them, tell them that you need you arrived in the town last night, and need to catch a train to London, but cannot find the station. They will help you. When you get to the station, check the front small pocket of your bag; there are instructions there for the first part of what you need to do. The rest of the instructions are in the larger pocket, read them on the train. Now go child, we don't have more than another minute." Lyra kissed the girl on the forehead and embraced her briefly, before helping her start climbing. "Good luck, I hope that nothing dangerous lies ahead of you."
Cecilia didn't dwell on these words; instead she climbed down the first three or four rungs of the ladder. Her body was now contained within the brick chimney. After another three rungs, her head was below the surface, and she had to concentrate harder on her footing. She looked up briefly at the silhouette of her guardian, heard on last whispered word of good luck, a hoarse cry of almost grief at parting, and then there was no more light. The rope seemed now to be coming from thin air. Scared, Cecilia clung to the ladder for a few moments, eyes squeezed tight while Zanhoriel fluttered around her head in robin form. Finally she opened her eyes and looked down. Immediately she clung tighter to the rope and wished she hadn't looked, as a wave of nausea washed over her like warm bile.
The drop was much, much deeper than she had first thought. She was in a huge room, ancient and dull, probably a cathedral, judging from the arches and paintings on the walls. Her bag seemed miles away, lying like a rag- doll on the uneven stone floor. She didn't even want to think of what would happen if she fell from this height.
"Zan?" she whispered, straining her ears to hear her dæmon's movements. A nibble at her ear, and Zanhoriel landed on her shoulder, a small hopping goldfinch.
"I'm here, I wont fly around if it makes you nervous."
"I'm scared Zan."
"Me too."
"I know. Can you look though?" a murmur of assent, and Cecilia felt the bird dæmon shift position, look around.
"The rope goes down about twenty feet. About ten feet down from us theres a balcony. It's away from the rope, but if we swing we might be able to do it. Then we just jump onto the balcony. Mother-" Zanhoriel checked herself and started again. "Lyra said we'd be able to walk down from there. Maybe there's stairs. Just climb down for now. But you'd better open your eyes."
Cecilia did so, making sure that this time she didn't look down. Gripping the ladder rungs until her knuckles turned white and then red, she slowly made her way down until her dæmon told her to stop. It took her four terrifying minutes to swing the rope ladder far enough over do that if she jumped she would land on the balcony. It took another minute for her to sum up her courage from the pit of her stomach and make the jump. She seemed to sail through the air forever, but eventually she landed with a force that expelled the breath from her body and left her gasping and paralysed. Zanhoriel lay next to her human, fox-tail brushing tears from her eyes, fur nuzzling against her neck.
"Will you be ok?" Zanhoriel asked, sensing after a few minutes that Cecilia was getting her breath back. Cecilia jerked her head down, then up.
After a minute the girl grabbed the balcony and pulled herself up, and once they had found the stairs down, she made her way there slowly, pausing every few steps. She got to the bottom and Zanhoriel barked happily, a fox cub dancing around her feet.
Walking over to where the rucksack was, she thought a bit more about what she was doing. Just a few hours ago she was all set to jump down the chimney, into the adventure waiting for her. Who was she to start complaining because no she HAD to have an adventure? She stood a bit taller and cracked a smile. She just had to think of this like she thought of everything else. It would be an adventure.
She picked up the rucksack, wincing only slightly at it's weight, and hoisted it onto her shoulder. With Zanhoriel trotting at her feet, she made her way towards the only door in the room, and towards a new adventure.