Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Thirty-six
Vision? Quest? Dream?
"Lord Harry."
"Harry Potter."
Harry Potter opened his eyes and looked around for the source of the sound that had awakened him. He was very tired after his long and demanding wedding day. There weren't any landmarks visible, at least none he recognized. Every line was softened and every color washed out by the foggy medium through which he walked.
Harry wondered when he had begun walking. Wasn't he in bed? Hadn't he just gone? Yes, he and Lady Daphne were sleeping side by side, their first night as husband and wife. He didn't remember getting out of bed. Harry wondered when he had awakened and when he had begun walking. It felt like he was walking around, on a beach, in fog. The footing wasn't soft, like the dry sand, but harder, like the part saturated with water where the waves reached inland, stopped and retreated back to the sea. Yes, the soles of his feet felt wet. They weren't cold, though. Harry knew that sand, had walked on it at the shore, the mix of water and sand firm yet giving way as his heel landed, his weight shifted and his toes pushed off. Harry walked and walked, lost in the rhythm of feet landing and lifting, sand giving way and bouncing back, wet strand stretching on and on and on to infinity. Harry had no idea how long he walked, alone on the strand. He of course knew he couldn't stay in England and walk to infinity. Infinity has no bounds. England bumps up against Wales, and Scotland, and water. Harry wondered if he would ever see anything on his journey.
"Harry."
A shape appeared in the fog, a barely hinted-at suggestion at first. It filled in slowly, solidifying until it was recognizable. The shape closed on Harry, who reflexively thought of his wand and wondered why he couldn't feel it in one of its usual places. Harry and the shape had been walking in the same direction, their courses separated but slowly converging. The tangents brought them nearer and nearer until they walked together. No more tangents, just two people walking together through the fog in their gowns, feet slapping the wet sand.
"Daphne. What are you doing here?"
Daphne wore the green gown that she'd sewn by hand. She looked wonderful in the gown, covered in runes. Harry was glad he had been studying because he could read Daphne like a book.
"Faith, love, good fortune, destiny."
Harry stopped reading. He didn't recall seeing the rune for destiny on Daphne's gown, but there it was. He looked down and saw fidelity embroidered in the upper left and remembered painting the same rune over his heart, thinking of how it was a gift for his wife. He was glad to give it. He was even more glad he had a wife to give it to.
"I like your gown," Harry said.
"Thank-you," said Daphne. "You're quite fetching yourself."
"Is this a dream?" Harry asked. "Or, was that a potion in the bowl? Did we make a potion and bewitch ourselves?"
"Um, I don't know for certain," said Daphne, "But I think we might be in a dream, perhaps a potion-induced dream. We'll have to observe as we go along, won't we? There don't seem to be any reference books so our job will be to explore all of this and do our own research. Learn as we go. It's our vision one way or the other."
"Oh," Harry said. "Let's see."
Harry thought of a rose-colored fog. The fog turned rose.
"See that?" Harry asked.
"The red fog?" asked Daphne.
"It's rose," said Harry. "I wondered what everything would look like in a rose-colored fog and it changed."
"Close enough," said Daphne. "Rose it is. I guess that answers the question about the origin. We are making this together. You have to help me remember these things because it doesn't look like we have any means of writing it down."
"We'll start our own grimoire as soon as we're back. Assuming we get back, of course. You're not concerned, are you? I hope I didn't bring you here against your will. Are you walking on wet sand?" Harry asked. "Like at the shore?"
"I am," said Daphne. "Although, speaking just for myself, I'd prefer grass. Thick green grass clipped right down to the soil."
Their walking surface turned to grass, giving them something more visually interesting to look at as they walked through the fog.
The rose faded, replaced by green. Harry wondered if Daphne saw green fog but before he could speak the fog turned blue. Harry and Daphne walked out of the green and right into the blue, a deep lapis lazuli blue punctuated by puffy cumulus clouds. There hadn't been a transition from walking to flying, as best Harry could recall.
Harry worried about crashing to the ground, but, looking down, he saw the ground coming up slowly, making him think they were just out for a stroll in the sky and were now de-levitating. When they reached the surface, they continued walking, this time on a lane that meandered between fields bounded by stone walls. The fog had given way to air so clear it let everything be defined by the sharpest, sharpest edges. Harry thought the air quality so superior that their walk was analogous to walking through crystal, even though crystal is hard. He wondered where in the Universe one went to find a crystal in a gaseous state.
An internal voice spoke and told him he was thinking rationally and to cut it out.
"Wheat," Harry said. "Green, just forming heads."
"Sheep," said Daphne. "Look! Lambs!"
Someone sat on the wall watching the lambs playing in the pasture. They had a crook and a rough satchel with a wide strap. When he and Daphne got closer, Harry could see the satchel was completely covered with embroidery. He guessed the satchel was originally canvas but had become more embroidery than stock material. They walked up close enough to see the person sitting on the wall was a woman.
"Madam," Daphne called out. "Good morning! How are things?"
"They're as they are, Lady Daphne. Like always. The one thing you can count on, I say."
Harry wondered how Madam knew Daphne but just for a moment, before his attention moved to the little wooden device that sat on the mystery woman's lap. After a moment's consideration Harry decided it was a loom, a portable contraption the woman could take from place to place. It looked like it would fit into the embroidered satchel. He watched the shuttle move right, pause as the loom shifted, then move back left. The motion moved a toothed gear that turned a shaft. The cloth emerged from the loom and was rolled around the shaft, the roll of cloth moved one tooth, a fraction of a fraction of a turn with each cycle, growing the bolt by one thread, then one more, then one more.
Harry wondered how the woman could bring enough thread to feed her loom. The bobbin she was using didn't look like it could hold enough for a day's work and the satchel didn't have bobbin-shaped lumps indicating there were more than the one in use.
"Look at the flock," the woman said, answering without being asked. "Follow the thread. It comes from the flock and feeds the bobbin. The bobbin feeds the loom as the flock feeds the bobbin. Do you like it?"
Harry looked at the thread that began in the flock, fed the bobbin and continued on to the shuttle that wove the cloth, passing back and forth over and over again.
"It's perfect," he said.
"Yes, and no," said the woman. "The Loom works and works and does the same thing every time, over and over and over again, and yet, there are imperfections. Most are undetectable to all but the sharpest, best-trained eyes. The purpose doesn't change. The purpose is to pursue perfection, in the knowledge that perfection is unattainable, except in the largest, all-encompassing sense. This…"
Madam gestured with one hand, a sweep of the flock, the pasture, the wheat, the stone wall, the sky, sun, clouds, air, Harry and Daphne.
"…All of it, together, is perfect. The imperfect comes out of the perfect and is added to it, which then becomes a contribution to All, which is made perfect for the inclusion."
"Why is that?" Harry asked.
"One makes it that way," said the woman. "One does this all the time. One conceives and by thought brings This about, then the Loom works and produces cloth with imperfection that becomes part of All and All is perfect. One goes on and conceives, over and over and by a thought This becomes and the Loom commences work. It is all One. Do you see?"
"Yes," said Daphne. "We are outside our world, aren't we? May I pay my respects?"
"Of course," said the woman. She turned back toward her flock as Daphne placed her hands on top of the wall and hopped over. Daphne pulled up her gown and knelt before the woman sitting on the wall, taking her feet between her hands and kissing them.
"Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you," Daphne said over and over again. She began to cry and Harry saw the woman's bare feet, shiny with Daphne's tears.
"Harry," Daphne whispered. Harry understood he was to join with Daphne and thank the woman on the wall.
"Thank-you, Madam," Harry said as he kissed the woman's feet. Daphne's tears tasted salty on his lips. Harry wondered who he was thanking, and for what.
"What can we do for you?" Daphne asked. She still knelt before the woman.
"Live your life," said the woman. "Your life is a gift, given free and clear. The only repayment ever requested of anyone is to live it. That is your contribution to the perfection."
The woman had her hand on Daphne's head, stroking her waves. Daphne nodded.
"Thank-you," Daphne said. "I felt this for as long as I can remember but that was as far as I could go."
"Reason is very handy for understanding certain things, not for others. Wizard, go collect some wood," the woman ordered. Harry got up and walked, following the wall toward some trees. There ought to be some wood there.
"Daphne, please bring me that lamb," said the woman, pointing.
Daphne jerked back.
"Madam?"
"Just walk over there," said the woman. "You can do it. You do things to your patients that you don't want to do but you do them because that is how your patients will get better. That lamb, please, Daphne."
"Madam," Daphne said, agreeing this time. She stood up.
"He won't run, just pick him up in your arms and bring him over. He's quite willing, really."
Daphne picked up the lamb. It was clean and alert and Daphne sensed it trusted her completely. She got the lamb back to the woman as Harry arrived with his armload of firewood, every size from twig to one thick branch, all dry and ready to burn.
The woman took the lamb and held it to her breast with one arm while she drew a knife from her belt with the opposite hand. In one motion she kissed the lamb on top of its head and slit its throat. Blood gushed from the wound and the lamb's bright eyes grew dim in the midst of surprise. Somehow the woman had swiveled and the lamb's blood poured out on the wall without a drop on the woman's skin or clothing. Daphne's instinct was to look away even as the blood and violence took away her will and held her. She looked at the loom as it continued to work on its own. Some red threads appeared in the cloth.
"Get a fire going, Wizard," the woman ordered. "We'll need coals and a spit."
Harry reached for his wand but hadn't brought it from their world, so he pointed at the wood fire he'd laid on the ground and thought 'inflammare.' The small sticks caught first, igniting the ones that were a bit larger, until the flames worked their way up to the branch.
"Two or three more of those, Wizard," said the woman, "Don't forget a spit."
Some hours later the lamb had been butchered, run through with the spit and roasted over the coals. The woman took the spit with the lamb and held it by the end.
"Should be cool enough," she said. "Wizard?"
"Madam, you have the honor," said Harry.
"Well put," smiled the woman. She turned to Daphne. "I think…Wizard, your wife is hungry."
The woman held the spit toward Harry. He looked around for something to carve off a piece of the lamb. There didn't seem to be anything about so he grasped the lamb at the pelvis used his fingers to pull off a substantial piece, which he held to Daphne's lips. Daphne opened her mouth and accepted the meat.
The woman held the spit for Daphne, who pinched off a chunk of lamb and fed it to Harry. Only then did the woman help herself to some of the lamb.
"I'm very pleased you came," said the woman. "Do you see? So few take the time."
"Yes," Daphne nodded. "All feed all. All are One. The flock gives the thread, the bobbin supplies the loom, the loom weaves the cloth. The imperfections are part of the whole which is perfect."
"Exactly," said the woman.
She stripped the remaining meat from the spit and laid it on the lambskin that was atop the wall, still dripping here and there. The heart, lungs, liver, entrails and head were all placed on the skin, which the woman wrapped up into a rough ball and tossed on the fire.
Flames roared toward the sky and Harry felt the flash scorch his face. He wondered if the burnt hair smell came from the hide or his eyebrows, but he didn't have time to ponder before a black lamb jumped out of the fire, kicked live coals in every direction and ran toward the flock.
"Baa-aa-aa!" it called.
"Baa! Baa!" answered a ewe as the black lamb ran up and began to nurse.