Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 48 I Don’t Know When

Barry emerged into the quiet, nearly empty common room in slippers and comfy, well worn clothes. The mystery girl was seated by the fireplace, staring at Mariah’s tree in abject wonder.

“It’s burning… but alive…” She whispered, when she sensed him standing behind her.

“It’s a very special little tree.” He said softly. “My friends didn’t tell me your name… I guess you can’t hear their voices…” He murmured gently.

“I’m Barry Ward, this is my family home.”

“Lindsey… I don’t have a last name…” She whispered up at the towering boy looming above her.

“Well, miss Lindsey… I’m not certain, but I think I owe you an apology…” He shifted uncomfortably and blushed a deep, coppery red. “I think I might have intruded on your bath…” He mumbled..

“If that wasn’t a dream, I’m sorry and I owe you a debt… If you don’t know what I’m talking about… please ignore me.”

“I’m certain I don’t know what you are talking about…” She answered primly. The twinkling sparkle in her eye fairly shouted to the confused and deeply fascinated boy, that she knew, and knew very well indeed.

“I had a perfectly lovely and tranquil bath with baroness Tawny and the local goodwives… I encountered nothing of any special significance.”

She paused and licked her perfect coral pink lips. “You should sit down, you have been unwell. I’ll prepare some tea and a snack.”

She rose, standing only a few inches shorter than Barry; though she was slim and lithe, in contrast to his muscular solidity.

Her slender, delicate and pale hand landed softly on his shoulder; bringing vague sense memories from his dream rushing back… Memories of a pale, slender, eight fingered hand brushing his chest.

Barry developed an urgent need to sit, since his trousers were old and nearly worn out, they were comfy… and suddenly too snug for comfort.

Lindsey pretended that she didn’t notice the ‘condition’ her gentle, careless touch had sparked; but she did a bad job of it, just to watch him blush that way again.

#

“Oh dear, that looks painful… I recently learnt that lesson as well, though my introduction was second hand… rather than divinely first hand…” Marduk giggled a little at Dana’s very obvious distress.

He smiled a little wider, as each repetition of the word ‘hand’ reminded her of that limb’s existence and condition; making her troubles slightly more immediate and present.

“On the other hand, you did lay hands on a mortal child… and that seems to have left a lasting impression.”

Dana vanished in a swirl of golden motes, fled back to her domain no doubt, to sulk. Without their mistress present, the subordinate deities became more aggressively strident.

“Cease your jests and reveal the nature of this curse, Marduk, god of mankind’s Arts, Minds, Crafts and Knowledge…” Baba Yaga hissed venomously. “By rights, I should have dominion over this working of curse craft, Marduk! Work your Will and release this filthy hex!”

The little blonde god smiled up at the tall, wrinkled crone, meeting her lambent green and poisonous gaze with a smile. And a simple shake of his head in mute denial.

“Curses, Poisons, Bitter Medicines and Healing Balms are my domain… Yet your pet mortals grant me no access to their hearth!” The witch of the deep woods shrieked in impotent fury at the tranquil deity.

“Certainly, I can suss out the manner and kind of this affliction, but I have no ability to ease or remove it.” Marduk replied cheerfully to the sullen and agitated beings.

He focused his divine will for the barest instant and passed Caduceus a golden scroll tube, containing a single brief note on common paper.

Ya Burnt! Curse effect. Etheric hex. Variable/Permanent. Current status; Third degree.

Sufferer will experience the very real and mortal sensation of having laid hands on a hot stove. Variable intensity/duration.

First degree; inflicts minor pain and discomfort, temporary.

Duration: one mortal day/night cycle.

Second degree; return customers experience intense burning and some blistering, temporary.

Duration: seven mortal day/night cycles.

Third degree; Slow learners and the truly stupid will experience the fruits of their folly.

Duration; none/permanent.

“There, I’ve done my duty to your mistress, tell sister Dana that she should definitely not find out what comes after the third level.” He said firmly as the divine physician's face went red, then pale, then red with fury once more.

“I wonder what might happen, were she to touch that boy’s soul again.” He mused, as he strolled back up the path to the inn, where only he and a very select few could enter.

“My arts and medicines are not helpless in the face of your perfidy, Marduk!” Caduceus shouted from the back of the crowd at the garden gate of the Strange, High House In The Mist. “I will be made whole for this disrespect of my position!”

“Yes, yes, very frightening! I’ll be quaking in my sandals… when it’s time for my next prostate exam…” A wide, childlike grin spread over his face, as the divine doctor sputtered in outrage.

“Oh, wait, we don’t get those…” He waved his tiny, perfectly manicured hands at the cluster of deities and immortals gathered there.

“You Lie!” BabaYaga shrieked, when the scroll made its way to her gnarled, clawed hands. “You can break this mortal’s human curse with ease! Do your duty god of mortal workings and spells!”

“But these are not human works…” Marduk insisted gently, smiling with benevolence and mercy on the pack of scoundrels at his garden gate.

“I wished Gary Ward returned to the world as a mortal human, with the mortal spark of life and all the frailties and limitations that true humanity entails… As was his fondest wish. He desired nothing from us; not power, influence nor even our attention… To be a mortal man walking the world for a single lifetime and then to die.” His smile developed a razor’s edge as he spoke, an edge that bit coldly on divine skin.

“You rejected that proposal, insisting on an otherling’s form… His progeny share that trait, naturally.”

The golden god’s face was glacial, as the immortals complained and grumbled their discontent.

“Ill considered acts can have repercussions, my divine colleagues… best you come to grips with the new reality at hand…”

“Surely you can command your creatures to release this curse…” Ermet, lady of herbs and natural medicine whispered soothingly. “Your pet always answers to your call…”

“My ‘pet’ was taken from me, our bond severed in the moment when he needed me most.” He snapped.

“I have no leash for the ‘mad dog’ you have been goading into a slavering fury!” Marduk roared from the porch.

“One of his pups has bitten you, after you beat it savagely… Now you cry foul and demand forbearance?”

The door slammed closed in their faces, even though they couldn’t even pass into the garden proper…

“Oh! That was delightful, that’s the sweet, spicy Duckie I fell in love with!” Eponna’s whinnying laugh of mirth from the baths mocked the frustrated divines, as they departed the terrible, haunted inn on the hill.

#

Dana, divine mistress of the healing arts writhed in this new ‘agony’ she’d discovered, as she struggled to find a position where her damaged limb didn’t flare and spark mightily.

“What news… Will Marduk command his pet to relent?” She gasped at her retainers when they rejoined her.

“No, my lady. He claims to have no power over it, nor its…” His face twisted with disgust, Caduceus had to force the word out.

“...its progeny. He will not comply and claims he cannot.”

“Lies, none but that cursed spider are so close to it… We dare not approach her, the venomous little… tramp!” Dana gasped. “Find a way… find a…”

Dana halted there, even her pain forgotten, as the object of her fury strolled into her temple in the mortal world, drawing her gaze and rage to that scene.

She shuddered with disdain and disgust as she shrugged into a faint, moistly organic semblance of mortal senses, stealing a bit of the information from her cleric’s distressingly mortal body.

The assault on her senses and dignity was almost more than she could bear, as Marduk’s filthy thing delivered one awful insult after another, directed at her… through her cleric’s vessel, as though it could perceive her from beyond the veil. It was almost a relief, when it departed her sacred nave and her regard was released; to return to the house of pain.

Resuming her avatar after that respite, awful as it was… did provide a hint of insight to the goddess; the pain took her down a new road, revealing vistas of misery, discomfort and shame she had not suspected could exist and exposed a flaw in the spell.

The excruciating horror of the thing was almost enough to completely distract her from that little detail…

Her regard had been drawn to her cleric when that monster appeared before him… That was no surprise. The difficulty and sense of being permitted to depart that mortal cleric’s senses, allowed to depart by some outside force, jarred her troubled essence even further into her unnatural anger.

#

Lindsey tried to put on a convincing act in the kitchen, though her real skills and gifts lay elsewhere, very much elsewhere. This place of shining steel and confusing knobs, valves and tools was too much for her.

Those shifts she’d worked in the orphanage kitchen had prepared her for domestic situations, like making a snack for the boy she liked; or so she’d always thought…

Her dizzy mind tripped over itself when she hit: ‘the boy she liked’, plunging her into a giddy, confused state.

A few minutes of shell shocked, panic stricken immobility later, she felt Barry’s huge body brush by her, as he took up the kitchen tasks with capable and confident hands…

Soon hot tea, neatly stacked, tempting sandwiches and a heartbreakingly beautiful salad bowl were sitting on the sofa before the fiery tree, where his strong, gentle hands had guided her from that strange, paralyzing kitchen.

They ate and spoke at some length, before that crackling, sweet scented, everburning tree, until time lost all meaning and she couldn’t clearly remember why or how they’d found themselves sitting so close.

Her hand rested lightly on his knee and his huge, leathery, but tender grip held her, their fingers interlaced comfortably.

#

When Gary and Shai got back, darkness was settling in and the kids were just tying Seahorse up on the pier.

They waited for the kids, before hitting the front foyer as noisily and obviously as possible, in a group.

Even with all that ruckus… Barry and the Healer girl were blushing and sitting closer together than was entirely proper, when they all came crashing in after changing into their slippers.

#

Intruding on Dana’s misery and woe without warning, a tiny spark appeared in her distant awareness of the mortal fragment that called out to her so insistently, while refusing her touch just as perniciously.

Now it sang out, softly and clearly, feeling open and willing… drawing her attention to one of the least of hers…

A new forged bond and barely enough of a trickle of faith to sustain her presence behind the mortal waif’s eyes.

There he was, the one she wanted, the one who wanted her so deeply, calling out and rejecting her at once… Though, from behind this girl’s eyes there was no rejection evident.

His soul was unfolding like a blossom in the sun, reaching desperately for this nameless child’s inconsequential light, dim and feeble as it was…

That was when IT bumbled onto the scene, with its entire motley brood… Shock and horror shattered the tenuous connection holding Dana to her puny vessel, sending the divine spiraling back into her avatar with a punishing slap…

Not unlike the one that had landed her in this mess.

“Ermet…” She gasped desperately to her nearest retainer. “Fetch me that horsefaced… Please bring Eponna to me.”

#

Poor Lindsey was shivering and leaning closer in the cool of the coming night, cuddling to his side for warmth, even beside Mariah’s fire.

There was zero chance he was going to grab a blanket from under the coffee table and ruin that!

She leaned close and whispered something he failed to catch, as his family came crashing onto the scene, making a thunderous racket and taking their sweet time in the foyer, changing shoes.

He thanked them silently for that mercy, as he had the chance to edge a few scant inches away from the sweet, funny, delightfully engaging girl beside him… He moved only enough that their thighs no longer brushed on the sofa cushions.

His arm around her slim, warm shoulders he left in place…

#

She’d worked up the courage at last, over the dreamy, long evening of conversation and casual, tender intimacy… She leaned closer, nestling in against his broad, muscled chest, listening to his heartbeat, still thudding along with hers.

She turned her head, tipping her face up to gaze at his, more importantly, bringing their lips into alignment; separated by only a few inches of air, feeble resistance and pitiful hesitation.

She brushed those doubts aside, while looking into those deep, slightly sad, brown eyes.

Her prey leaned closer, drawn in by her perfect cupid’s bow lips and the soft, whispered words that passed those succulent, coral pink petals.

“You can kiss me if you want, Barry…”

That was when the world ended in noise and confusion, followed by a moment of shattering pain and then darkness.

#

Larry had just opened his mouth to make some kind of ‘girlfriend’ or “oo-la-la’ type comment at his brother, when the girl on the sofa turned shockingly pale and shrieked a brief wail of agony.

Her scream cut off just a heartbeat later, as she flopped over bonelessly and began vomiting a viscous silver ooze onto the rug and twitching weakly.

#

Gary’s chubby little clay birdie landed on Tawny’s shoulder, having slipped into the palace by flying down an unlit chimney. It whistled its sweet song of distress and prodded the count and countess to beg their guests’ pardons and vanish from the salon, where a rousing game of cards was just beginning.

“It’s some kind of emergency involving my young apprentice, nurse Lindsey…” Tawny gasped, as her brawny husband swept her onto Audrey’s back even as the massive floral familiar was emerging from the elaborate snapdragon vine tattoo covering his left arm and shoulder.

“We should hurry, then.” He said, before the world became a rushing blur of darkened, tree lined roads. At the end of a terrifying few minutes, Audrey passed Tawny’s nearly petrified stiff body down to her husband’s waiting arms, her tendrils coiling gently around her precious master’s mate.

The snapdragon romped off to roam the nearby woods, while her master and mistress attended human matters… She had a patch of moist, very fertile soil on her mind.

Tawny leaned on Liam’s sturdy, solid warmth as she staggered as quickly as he could for the inn’s side door, the one reserved for family. He opened the sliding panel and stopped, when she was unable to pass the threshold.

“Love? What’s wrong?” He asked gently, when she balked at the open portal. “Are the house charms acting up again?”

“No, husband…” She answered grimly, her usually golden face now ashen. “My goddess denies me entry… none of her’s may enter this house…” She whispered in awed and frightened tones. “Though I notice she will allow us access to his baths and garden… Lady Healer is being transparently self serving.” The golden priestess muttered sourly, casting a disappointed glance skyward.

An instant later, her manicured fingers flew to her lips, as if she could stuff the heretical words back whence they’d come. “Oh dear, I’ll have a frightful penance for that…” She sighed.

“Liam, please go fetch my young apprentice out, the goddess seems to be very… agitated and is making little sense…” Her fingertips received another kiss, when Tawny realized what she’d just said, again.

#

Liam emerged a short time later, looking grim. “Your apprentice, young acolyte Lindsey, is currently unconscious and soaking in the baths, under the care of Amy and a lay healer of the family’s acquaintance.” He smiled weakly at that and carried on.

“Her Contract with Healer has been forcibly severed, apparently by the goddess herself.”

Tawny’s mouth flapped open in a breathless gasp of shock and disbelief, hanging there for a disturbingly long time. Liam was about to reach out and close her jaw, lest a bug fly in, but they were in Gary’s garden; the bugs here were all awfully polite.

“I was about to say, impossible… but considering where we are standing…” She whispered, finally.

“Let’s go home, husband, there’s nothing more we can do here tonight, if that’s the case.”

At his mental signal, Liam’s familiar came trotting out of the woods on eight verdant hooves, shaking her root ball free of some clinging loam as she approached.

“She’ll bring you home, I’ll run back later.” The count mumbled.

“You’re the ‘lay healer of family acquaintance’ aren’t you, husband?” She demanded through a weak smile. When he declined to reply she nodded and her smile warmed slightly.

“I withdraw the question, Liam.” She sat up astride Audre and smiled more warmly, now that she’d discharged her official cult duties.

“Play nice with your little friends and don’t come home drunk.”

Liam watched her ride away, swaying atop his familiar and staring up at the stars, as always she did when riding at night.

“Love to watch her go…” He sighed, before ducking back inside.

#

Lindsey woke in that exquisite, elegant garden bath, floating freely in the waters, almost entirely alone. Amy floated beside the young nurse, holding her hand gently, her eyes closed in relaxed repose.

“Having you wake up with Barry tending you would have been perfect, but you needed the bath more than a call-back to your meet-cute.” The self proclaimed ‘Admiral’ murmured sleepily, seeming to address the moons and stars up above.

“It’s too soon in the story for a self-referential gag, anyway. Checkov’s gun can go off too early, sometimes.”

She continued speaking nonsense to the moons and floating beside the young nurse.

“I’m sorry.” She said, before Lindsey could ask any questions about her earlier exposition. “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into my family’s troubles…”

She kept hold of Lindsey’s hand, as she bobbed upright, smiling and pulling the girl, so they could speak face to face.

“Dana, The lady of Healing is currently at war with my family…” Amy said slowly and carefully. “A war we are winning… at great cost. You, or rather, your Contract is a casualty of that war.” She sighed and took in a deep breath.

“When my father came home, here in our house, fresh from making his displeasure known at the temple of Dana, uptown… The shock was a slap in the face to the goddess, who was looking in through your senses, at the time.” She shifted awkwardly in the deep, hot water and smiled weakly.

“She broke your Contract right there… on the spot. Our expert suspects you will not be able to Contract with Healer… For now, perhaps for a long time. It’s not a clean break.”

Lindsey stared at her new friend in shock and disbelief, while keenly feeling the loss of the warm, benevolent source of life and energy that had been nestled beside her heart for the last two days.

“Gone?” She asked so softly it was lost in the rush of the waterfall.

Somehow, Amy heard anyway. “Gone, but there are other deities and beings out there… I know that’s cold comfort…” She fell silent when a lanky armful of weeping girl collapsed against her, nearly sinking them below the surface…

She wasn’t ready for that yet, so Amy kept her afloat, while patting and petting the poor child as she bawled.

#

“Let me see these cursed pendants again… something has the divines really riled up…” Gary grumbled, holding his hand out to the four triplets. They all gave a blank look and scratched their heads. Amy, Wilf and Rio had their own, dangling around their necks, but the younger boys couldn’t find a sign of theirs.

Not even a scratch on sensitive neck skin, where a chain might have broken under stress…

“You lost them? All of you?” He asked a moment later.

“No, papa, they’re gone.” Larry mused thoughtfully. “I was wearing it when we went to bed, before Barry went walkies…” A pillow bashed into his face, flung from across the room with startling accuracy.

“Thanks Harry.” Barry muttered happily, while Lary got himself back together.

“Yeah, anyway, I was wearing it then, now it’s gone.” Larry grumbled.

“When I showed up on planet spider, I was bare ass naked… nuthin’ on at all. I know I was wearing it when I went to sleep.” Barry frowned and scratched his neck where he’d been bitten by Thirp.

Gary leaned closer when he spotted that and took a closer look at what had been neatly closed, old looking scars.

Those wounds had healed supernaturally swiftly and the scars had vanished as well… Though they left a strange, knotted tangle of runes in their place, tattooed on his throat in faint silver markings.

Gary leaned in really close and peered at the tiny, almost invisible tangle of coiling, cursive, intertwined script, forming an endless double loop where the scars had been, not long before.

After a half hour of study, scribbling and copying down the alien text, He turned back to the kids and grinned happily.

“Well, your new tattoo can be read in a lot of ways… From top to bottom and left to right it reads one way; in different alignments and with different parameters, it comes up differently. It always stays in the same general… vein… if you will.”

Gary giggled madly at his little joke and started passing out notes, produced from his Interface gift; one of his few remaining parlor tricks from the old days.

“Generally, they’re all spidery and spooky.” He said with a grin.

Spiderkissed, wanderer between worlds, holder of hidden secrets and burrower in darkness. Tread with care.

“Pretty spooky, right? Check this out, this is up and down in columns!” Gary announced with glee.

Touch not the spiderkissed, for his retribution is terrible, burrowers in darkness should be left undisturbed, lest fangs taste flesh.

“Or this one, if you read it upside down.” He said cheerfully.

Dark secrets lie in the depths, not everyspider should delve for them… Spiderkissed is blessed to find what is sought, even beyond the veil.

“I think this is your cursed trinket, right here. If you kids check, you might all have similar markings.” He stroked his chin and thought about that for a while.

“Your jewels were enspelled to irritate and stimulate your individual Animus, each one unique and tuned to the wearer only…” He shot a wink at Wilf and smiled. “Nice work, that.”

He sighed and continued. “Amy, Wilf and Rio still have theirs, so whatever happened is unique to you guys and is probably related to your close bond. In a lot of ways, you’re more alike than twin brothers.”

They snorted and chuffed at that like four cranky donkeys, as always, but before long, they each found a similar marking on their persons. Perry’s and Larry’s were on their throats, like Barry’s; though Harry’s was on the nape of his neck, just below his hairline.

Each one was subtly different but similarly weird, reading in odd, mildly threatening triplets and couplets, no matter which way one read them… Though, only their father could actually read the alien runes and glyphs scribed into their skin, drawn in lines of silver thinner than a human hair… or perhaps spider webs.

Becky and sir Kermal sat nearby, observing and listening in silence. When Gary shot Becky a questioning look, she smiled sadly. “Lord Marduk commands that I stay at arm’s length from this conflict in my official duties… with a big ol nod and wink.” She mumbled in embarrassment.

“I guess Dana screwed up so badly, anything we do to help you, helps her directly.”

“How does that work?” He asked sourly.

“This is a huge clusterfuck, across multiple domains and in direct contravention of the Will of a being that is not to be trifled with.” Becky explained very carefully.

“If any member of the pantheon works to clean up this mess, it will be bad for the helper, who will appear to be attempting a cover up… or worse. Any god who assists you, may appear complicit, in the perceptions of a being with little understanding of what is in play.” She sighed sadly.

“Likewise anything the other gods did to aid you would be good for Dana, she could claim our workings as her diligent effort to clean up her mess…”

“I’m less interested in immortal political games and more interested in getting her off my kids’ backs.” He grumbled.

“Lord Marduk insists that lady Dana is currently ‘experiencing a profound shift in her perspective’... or something.” Becky insisted gently. “He’s being very oblique and secretive about the whole mess.”

#