DISCLAIMER: See Chapter I if you are still confused….moron…what?
NOTE : I'll try to include more characters (i.e. Briar) in this story a little later. I felt that it was necessary to develop the basis of the storyline a bit more before trying to go off and write the world's greatest love-epic…
TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED: Thank you thank you thank you thank y'all so much for reviewing. No matter how corny it sounds, the review really does make the authors day. And since I do not have much written for the next installment, you can be guaranteed that
MORE REVIEWS = MORE STORYTO EVERYONE WHO DID NOT REVIEW: You suck.
Without further adieu, I hope y'all enjoy!
EAST of the ALTER
by Anyanka
Ch. II"There's not a lot of me left anymore-just leave it alone
But if you're by and you have the time
Tell the Northern Lights to keep shining-
Lately it seems like they're drowning"
Myra Ellen Amos
Once all seated around the table, four of the world's most powerful mages, Sandrilene fa Toren, Daja Kisubo, Briar Moss, and Trisana Chandler found that they had nothing to say to each other. Or to be more specific, Tris had nothing to say to anyone, and the others were uncomfortably squirming around in a strained silence, not knowing if they should try to talk to Tris or act normally.
Tris sullenly looked down at her food, well aware of the silent debate that hung in the air. She hated situations like this. Hated any situation, actually, that involved her. Great, she thought to herself, finally picking up her spoon and stirring her tomato soup with it. Just great. I do one thing, ONE THING that is unusual, and now they're treating me just like those girls back at my old school, like a demon.. Mila, I am so stupid! Why couldn't I have just contained myself?
Her eyes grew uncomfortably warm and a deep frown etched its way onto Tris's face as she mechanically began eating away at her soup, trying to mask her disgust for herself through the one constant fixture in her life, food.
The other three continued to glance up and make eye contact with each other. Reaching out with her magical wires, Daja formed mind connections with Briar and Sandry, purposefully leaving out Tris.
~Umm, you guys, should we talk to Tris? It's not like she's changed or anything.~
Sandry responded to Daja's query. ~I know you're right, Daj, but it's just so….so creepy. She reminds me of these faerie tales my old nurse maid used to tell me, about Jungfraus, these young girls who were possessed by- Briar's mind voice, the feeling of cool green vines and warm earth, cut Sandry off. ~I've heard that tale too, Sandry, but come on, it Tris!~
"This is so stupid!" he exclaimed, not realizing that he had said it aloud until he saw Tris's head jerk up. Her now literally flashing eyes turned on him with a slight mixture of question and anger playing across her face.
"What's stupid?" she asked in a low, monotonous tone.
Briar gulped as he stared back into the bottomless lightening that reproached him. It wasn't until this moment, when Tris's steel eyes had been replaced with one of Mother Nature's tools of fury, that Briar realized how much he would miss looking into Tris's eyes if they never returned to normal. When he'd first met Tris, he thought that her cold looking eyes seemed void of any emotion, but in the face of this, he realized that those stormy eyes held a warmth that lightening could never duplicate.
"It's stupid that we all aren't talking right now. So what if you've got lightening for eyes? It'll probably clear up, and if not, you'll be able to read in the dark without a candle."
The light hearted jest elicited a giggle from all of the girls and a small smile broke its way through the barrier of Tris's frown. "Briar's absolutely right," Sandry piped in, "it's not like it is anything but a superficial change, and it can't be permanent."
Daja nodded in agreement, and then added with a toothy smile, "Besides, the look suits your personality, Merchant-Girl."
"Har har, Daja, very funny."
They all resumed their meal, carrying on as if everything was normal. The usual sounds of dinner, banging silverware, laughing, and light arguing, soothed Tris to no end, and she let her smile grow until it almost felt like a real one. You were be foolish earlier, she told herself. Briar, Daja and Sandry are not like those girls. They are your friends. They are your family. Another small thought nagged her at that new thought. If they are my family, then I guess it is wrong to wish that… She shook her head, making her cropped copper curls fly about. She was being ridiculous. Again.
Briar broke a piece of bread and began chewing on it, when a nagging though hit him. "Hey Tris?"
"Yes," she said, turning from Daja to Briar.
"I know this sounds stupid, but I always heard this story as a kid about girls who had eyes like that and could shoot fire out of them."
"And your point it?"
"Do you think you could?"
"Maybe if I was properly motivated, or had a target, Thiefboy."
Daja and Sandry had sat silent and listened to their exchange. "Seriously, though," Daja added, leaning forward in her chair, "it would be kind of weird if you had lightening in your eyes and you couldn't use it somehow."
"I agree," Sandry added, "if you aren't able to, I guess, shoot lightening, I would figure that you could do something."
Tris harumphed and jammed a piece of sliced apple into her mouth. "Well I'm happy to hear that you all have become such lightening experts in the light of this."
"Why don't you just try," Daja coaxed, pushing her empty plate forward on the table.
"Why don't I try? Because I know nothing will come of it!"
"Come on, if you don't try we're going to nag you to death!" Briar quipped.
Tris sighed. They were not going to let up. This is so preposterous. They have no basis to expect me to be able to do this except for a faerie tale! "Fine," she finally said, after a few moments of deliberation. "But let's do it outside. If this works, which it most definitely will not, I do not want to get yelled at for burning something up."
"Fine by me," Briar said as he gracefully leapt out of his chair and hurried out of the door. The girls all met him about five hundred yards from the cottage, where he was anxiously dancing around, acting as if he had been waiting for years instead of a few seconds.
"Why are you so excited about this, Thiefboy?" Tris asked, smoothing out her long skirts that had become rumpled. "It's not like it's going to be for your benefit."
Briar smiled as he noticed her smoothing out her skirts. When her hands didn't have a book in them, they were forever on a quest to keep her clothes as smooth as possible. I guess it's either endearing or an annoying character trait, he thought to himself before answering her.
"I know, I know…I just think that it would be, well, cool. Like proving a faerie tale true."
"Cool?" Daja asked, unfamiliar with the kaq word.
"Yes, cool. It means….I don't know, wonderful."
"I see," Daja replied, inwardly shaking her head at the crazy kaq slang that Briar spouted daily.
"Let's hurry and get this done with. Our teachers have to come downstairs eventually," Tris said, moving from one foot to another. It felt queer to be outside. The air felt different on her skin, and it carried with it an unknown scent that somehow seemed to be rooted in the back of Tris's mind. And although she could usually see magic, everything seemed so much brighter than usual, and she could swear that everything, from the grass to the trees, made some sort of humming sound.
"Alright," Briar agreed. "Hmm, let's see. Remember that summer when the pirates attacked and we had you practice hitting targets with lightening?"
"How could I forget," Tris sneered.
"Well, why don't you try that again, but this time try shooting it out from your eyes."
Daja took the tip of her foot and made a medium sized X in the dirt, then took several steps back so that she was standing behind Tris. "It's not that I don't trust you," she muttered under her breath as she carefully made sure that she wasn't in Tris's peripheral vision either.
"Thank you for your vote of confidence."
"Go on," Sandry said in a smooth voice. "Just concentrate on sending the lightening out."
Tris calmed her breathing and began to focus. Like in her usual meditation, she began seeking for her inner haven, the place where she let her physical mind rest while her metaphysical mind took over. When she could feel herself approaching it, she stopped. Something was different about it. There was someone, or something else in there.
Fury began finding its way into Tris's mind at the thought of something else being in her haven. She decided to go ahead and enter, and force whoever was in there out. She felt herself enter, and began looking around with her mind's eye. She couldn't see anyone, but she could feel traces of their energy all around, lingering on the windblown autumn trees, lying on the smooth rocks that made out the cliff that overlooked the misty sea. She extended her power to try and trace the energy more accurately, but found that the energy seemed to be connected to everything, and was slowly fading.
Now this is weird, she thought to herself, noting that the traces were diminishing rapidly. She quickly sent out a whirl of wind and grabbed hold of a clump of energy. I'll follow it and see where it leads me to. She waited for the energy to travel someplace, back to its master as most energy does, but instead is slowly dispersed itself into the earth and the air.
I've never seen energy just dissipate like that, not without coaxing or a charm. She felt another presence in the back of her mind.
~Sometime this century, if you please.~
~Excuse me for meditating, Briar~ she spoke back, getting herself back on task. She promised herself to investigate this later. Right now she had to show her friends that she didn't have any new "powers".
Finally focused, she began working on sending the lightening out. She tried for nearly a minute, but to no avail. ~See you guys, it doesn't work~
~Just try a little harder~ Sandry urged, ~You've only been trying for a minute, after all~
Tris began concentrating again. Alright, just think Tris. Earlier when you created the storm system, it came from you. It was you. This lightening is a part of you, so you should be able to project it like the storm. Now the question is…how in the Queene Faerie's name did I manage to create that storm?
Tris's physical self bit her lip as her magical self spun around in a spiral, a shape of power, trying to recall how she had created that storm.
I had been wishing that I was up in the storm, and I envisioned myself there, let myself go, I…I…marred the boundaries between physical and magical, but not exactly like I had wanted to. I wanted to travel up to the storm, the magic of the storm, but the storm traveled through me to get down to where I was. And the storm's magic stayed in me. I am the storm.
With that realization, Tris sent two shots of lightening out from her eyes, hitting the target perfectly. Her friends all whooped and hollered at her accomplishment, but Tris barely heard them. She felt overrun with power. She wasn't Trisana Chandler, clumsy, stout sixteen year old girl anymore, and she knew it. She was the Storm, the clouds, the water, the air…she felt united with everything.
"The Living Circle," she whispered under her breath. She noticed that she even felt the magic that connected her to the words she spoke, and saw her breath come out in bursts of light yellow magic.
"Good job, Coppercurls," Briar exclaimed as he patted Tris on her shoulder, lightly touching the bare skin of her neck.
Tris hissed in a breath of air. The moment when his skin had touched hers, she had felt connected to Briar, even more so than they were now. Flashes of his past had played across her bright eyes, but they had departed the moment his feathery touch had. With those images she had also felt her power surge even more, as if it were building to a steady climax that was not conceivable by man.
She began growing nervous.
Everything was glowing with too strong a magic, causing her eyes to hurt. The low humming she had heard before was growing, reaching frenzied pitches that even a choir of banshees could not do justice to. Tris gulped as each of her senses was overwhelmed, while her friends seemed oblivious to these dramatic changes and continued talking, but in slow motion.
"You guys," Tris said, looking at her friends, her hands trembling fiercely. They all looked to her and immediately noticed that something was wrong.
"Tris?" Daja asked, rushing up to her, reaching out her arms to support her friend who seemed like she might fall at the slightest breeze.
"Don't…don't touch me," she wheezed out, the air becoming too tainted with magic for her to breathe. Tris sank down to the ground, lying supine, her red face staring up at the sky. Unasked, Briar ran into the house, calling the names of his teachers as he went.
"What is it?" Sandry cried, as she and Daja surrounded the downed girl.
"The magic," she sputtered out, closing her eyes and letting them drift to the back of her head. She could feel that energy in her haven again. "Consuming," she coughed, turning her face away.
Sandry reached down to cup Tris's face, but Daja stopped her.
"She told me not to touch her, and she probably knew what she was talking about."
"I don't care. Look at her, Daja, it looks like she's dying!"
Briar swung the door open and ran up the stairs, slightly tripping over his own feet as he went. "ROSETHORN, NIKO, LAAAARK!" he cried out, as his heart began matching the frantic pace of his feet. Something bad was happening to Tris. Tris, his friend, his sister, the person who had saved his life so many times, and in so many ways.
He threw the attic door open to find his teachers rising from their respective seats upon hearing the commotion that he had been making.
"What is it lad?" Rosethorn asked. Her face had worry tainting its usually hard exterior, and even more so now that a red-faced Briar had made his way in the room.
"Tris, she's-something's wrong. She can't breathe. It's like magic is killing her."
The three teachers collectively sucked in gasps of air at the same time.
"That's what we felt," Lark said quietly, her wide eyes traveling from Niko's to Rosethorn's. "Gods help us, I thought that was Mila."
"There's not time for speculation now," Niko replied crisply, and began chasing after Briar, who had already taken down the stairs. Rosethorn and Lark followed at the same pace, although they managed to say a few quick words to each other.
"I though it was Mila also," Rosethorn said quietly as they hurried down the stairs.
"I never thought…Tris, god-head. If only we had recognized the signs…"
"Gods give perseverance and strength. I wouldn't wish what she's going to have to go through on anybody"
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Now, please answer me the best you can. When did she first begin showing signs of a god-head?"
Tris focused on her breath as she slowly awoke. She was hearing voices talking about her…one sounded like Niko, and the other might have been Honored Moonstream, but she couldn't be too sure.
"The first major signs appeared a little over two days ago, when she invoked the Magick of Storm, much to the bafflement of herself and all of us."
Tris mind began resuming it's normal state, although something felt terribly off. Two days? She thought to herself. But it was only a few minutes ago when we were in the yard and…oh my. The events of what had happened came rushing back to her, the feel of magic overpowering her, trying to crush her very body…
"I see. I'm sure that you're well aware that Invoking the Magicks, of any kind, requires being well past the intermediate stages of god-head and is strictly forbidden by the Mage Council unless the mage has passed the prerequisite trials."
"Yes, I know that, but-"
"And due to their dangerous nature, are strictly outlawed to be performed in Summersea, even under the closest supervision. Now, granted, we know that she is a very…unique mage, but surely with you as her teacher, you could have recognized that she was going through god-head transformation."
"I agree," confirmed the voice Tris now knew to be Niko, "under normal circumstances, I would have been able to tell that she was becoming a god-head, however I've come to believe that her transformation began even before she came to Winding Circle."
What in the Dark Land are they talking about? I've never heard of such a thing as god-head in my life, Tris thought furiously, trying to open her eyes but finding that her body lacked the strength to do even that.
"How so?"
"From what I've studied about god-heads in the past few months, the first sign of the transformation is severing all mortal ties. The mage does this without understanding why, until finally all relationships and familial ties have been severed so completely that neither person, the mage nor the other person, feels any connection left with the other, whatsoever."
"I'm not sure if I see where you are going with this."
"Trisana Chandler was ten when I…discovered her. Her parents did not want anything to do with her and had virtually disowned her; indeed, according to my old friend Kenswall Olivegrove who worked with House Chandler they would have done so the next month or so. Her other family members, one by one, rejected her. Before we took her on, she had traveled from school to school, subconsciously making sure that no one could grow close enough to her to get hurt or hinder her potential."
"I follow your assumptions, but the question that protrudes on my mind is this; if her transformation presses her to sever ties, how is it that you've managed to keep her at Winding Circle these six years, and that she's managed to cultivate close relationships with almost everyone here?"
There was a brief pause in the conversation, and even Tris could tell that Niko was struggling to say something. She had already heard enough. Magick, the one thing that made her special, was actually the root of all her problems. It had been magick, the magick which made her free to dance in the clouds, that had caused her so much pain. It had been the reason why her family had turned on her, one by one. It had been the motivation behind those nights when she had crept to the kitchen, her face wet with oceans of tears, searching for comfort and love in the form of something edible instead of an actual person. For the first time in a very long time, Tris hated magick.
"I managed to get Tris to stay by…by performing the Binding Ritual on her."
"You did what? Niklaren Goldeye, mark my words, throwing around such a weighty ritual, and on a non-consenting party is worthy of a swift tribunal and a lingering punishment-"
Tris could hear Niko running his hands through his hair, still vein as ever even in dire situations. Dark, biting hatred began mixing with her blood, as she desperately tried to block out the entire conversation.
"It was the only option we had. When I looked upon that girl, the very first time I saw her…you will never know the tremendous power that I saw…and I was afraid. Afraid that we would not be able to teach her, afraid that her powers would grow, with no direction. Afraid of what she might, no, what I know she would have become if I failed her as her teacher."
He paused to take a breath, trying to calm his shaking hands. "I saw what her future would be if I did not somehow manage to keep her at Winding Circle. Yes, what I did was unethical and could have seriously harmed the both of us, but if I hadn't performed that ritual, she would have left Winding Circle. I have saved thousands, millions of lives by keeping her here and teaching her."
"Is all that you say true, Master Goldeye?"
There was a burst of nervous laughter from Niko. "Of course it's true! Do you think us Truthsayers are any good at lying?"
"I trust that you all are not. Very well then. We will ready a ship for her, but that will take at least a week with all of special provisions we need. Until then, I leave Trisana Chandler in your care, under the strict instructions that you must keep storing her power in the crystals least she reach her pinnacle before she is prepared for it."
"Of course, Honored Moonstream."
There was the sound of footsteps, but they stopped suddenly. "One more thing, Niko. You must make sure she severs all her ties. After she departs for the Trials, she cannot retain any contact, magical or physical, with anyone. The trials would kill whoever she was connected with, if they don't kill her first."
She heard Niko sigh and she felt a prickling of her skin, the sign she got whenever she could feel eyes on her. "Oh Tris," he whispered as he sunk down onto the stool next to her bed. She felt her quilt move a little as Niko quietly laid his arms down on the bed, and soon put his head between them.
"I'm so sorry, Trisana. I should have known. Any good teacher…" he let his words trail off in a muffled choke. The anger that Tris felt burned a little less bright and was replaced by pity. He hadn't wanted to do this all to me, he had to.
After a few minutes of stillness and silence, Niko's composure was back. He deftly stood and began fumbling around in his pouch. He pulled out an uncut quartz crystal, about the size of his fist. "At least you are asleep for this, Tris," he mumbled, as he began to softly chant the words that would draw her power from her body and into the crystal.
Tris suppressed a cry as she felt a part of her being wretched from her body. It was as if something powerful was tugging at her spirit, trying to remove it from its fleshy encasements. Along with her spirit, she could feel pictures, images…memories fleeing her body also. She was paralyzed as she watched her past slowly unravel before her. A six-year-old Tris desperately trying to hide under her bed and mask her choked sobs as an elderly aunt searched for her with a switch. Kirel pulling a practical joke on Daja and successfully dumping a bucket of ash on her skin before they both fell down laughing. That day a few months ago when she had agreed to try and teach Briar how to make pancakes, and she had ended up with a gargantuan amount of flour on her face and a warm tingling that traveled from her head to her toes.
The last image that flashed before her was one that she thought she would cherish until the day that she was reborn, that nothing could wrench away from her. There was Lark and Sandry, sitting at the loom and discussing which color would look best in the pattern, Rosethorn attempting to teach the medicinal uses for alpine lily to Briar, who was more fascinated in throwing minuscule pieces of potpourri at a hard working Daja than anything else, and Tris, sitting in the corner like a lazy cat, book in hand, surveying the scene and realizing for the first time that she had a family.
She had little time to focus on the pain, though, because, for the second time that week, she sunk into the abysmal abyss of unconsciousness.
Oooooh….what's gonna happen next? If you'd REVIEW, PURRTY PLEASE, maybe we ALL could find out a lot sooner. Any additional feedback is welcome, either through the ff.net reviews or through email ( magdalena134@hotmail.com ).