The Hammer Unfalls

Scry without scrying?

If she hadn’t just been in the woman’s mind, seen her mother’s grit and mental stability first hand, Lhani would have thought the statement ludicrous. Lhani squirmed in her chair, looking across the cabin’s sitting room at her parents.

Dim light filtered through the curtains. The chair felt familiar. The baskets and jars and bags on the shelves looked the same as usual. Except for the shelves she’d wrecked, which littered the floor as a grim reminder. Her father’s spear hung on the wall. A fond memory of a place she’d never been. A vague land somewhere across the sea.

The cabin, she knew. Her parents? They seemed different. They seemed quite serious. Especially mama. Her mother had far more essentiæl power than Lhani had ever fathomed. The memory of essentiæ coursed through Lhani like a living thing that infused her skin.

Mama had walked roads Lhani had never even dreamed about. She looked at the woman sitting across from her. The simple dress. The slightly graying hair with it’s shock of solid white. Warm eyes, but hard. Weary, somehow. Yet unquenchable. Twin flames burning under water.

Lhani stuffed her suspicion right back down and tried to listen.

“You already know about drain.” Her mother touched the long strand of white hair that ran from her own temple all the way to the tips. The telltale sign of an experienced scryer, who channeled the overuse of essentiæ from the pigment in her hair. Lhani had always found it glamorous, and longed for the day that she would gain a tasteful white streak in her own hair.

Now, the thought terrified her.

“Æolists are susceptible to drain. When we’re deep in another’s thoughts, sharing their perceptions, we can lose sight of our own. Time passes differently in another’s thoughts. Their heartbeat is no longer ours, so we cannot gauge the passage of time. Thus, we cannot gauge our own drain.”

A memory of rocking waves and ice flashed in Lhani’s mind. How long had that journey been? How long had Lhani been in that boat? Moments? Days?

“What can we do about it?” Lhani asked. Her nerves twinged, and her voice trembled.

“You do what you can to determine what you want to know without scrying. Read other’s cues. Facial tics. Posture. Eye movements. The vibrations of their essentiæ.”

“Isn’t that just guesswork?”

“At first. But we’re going to play a game.”

Lhani trembled and gripped the chair.

“Not now,” her mama said, “but when you’re ready.”

“What kind of game?”

“You will read us. Me and your father. Our expressions. Tell us what you think we are thinking or feeling. Then we’ll let you touch our minds and see if you were right.”

Lhani shook her head. No. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t go back into another’s mind. Not ever. She couldn’t even tell which memories were her own anymore.

“Yes, Lhani,” her mother said, with a voice like oak. “You will observe, and guess. Then ask us from time to time to touch our minds. If we agree, you’ll see for yourself if you were right or not.”

“In time,” her father said, “you will learn the patterns. Which emotions are guises for deeper emotions. How laughter might disguise anxiety. Or how anger can be an attempt to avoid shame.”

“Yes,” her mother said. “The signs and cues will coalesce in your mind.”

“What is coal ess?” Lhani asked.

“Come together. Like dewdrops form into rain.”

Lhani felt fractured. Wrung out, like a washcloth wrinkled on a drying rack, dripping her essence onto the ground like water. She just wanted to sleep.

Through dull eyes she saw her father flinch. He leaned forward and took her hand. It felt familar, yet foreign. Comforting, but from a distance. Like an echo instead of a sound.

Sound. That was important, somehow.

“What is your favorite sound?” her father asked.

Lhani thought of wind in the branches, or logs cracking in a fire as her family gathered to share stories. The sound of her daughter’s coos as she swaddled her.

Daughter? Lhani had none. She’d never felt the pain of childbirth, nor the euphoria of holding a child.

And yet, she had.

Lhani gasped and moaned.

Her father shook her. “Your favorite sound, Lhani. Yours.”

Lhani struggled to think. What sounds could she remember?

“The fire crackling as we gather around it.”

Her parents looked at each other with relief. She watched them with slightly more clarity than the moment before. She felt a little more herself, and less of a ‘we.’

“And your favorite sensation?”

Her mind bucked the question as a barrage of imagery skittered through it. Ice. Fire. But one thing above all. It had always been there for her. Comforting her, or alerting her. Riling her up to face a challenge, like Tomyko’s sprained ankle. Or the time she’d gotten lost. Soothing her once the challenge had passed.

“Wind. Wind in my hair.”

Lhani stirred in her seat and sat upright. The lethargy faded.

Her mother smiled at her. Eyes damp, but clear. Her brow unfurrowing. Mama squeezed Papa Tom’s hand. The tenor of the room changed. Anxiety dissipated.

Papa Tom patted her knee. “What would you like to have for supper? Name anything and we’ll try to make it.”

“Maybe…” Lhani looked up, guilty with hope. “Maybe a gourd pie?”

Her mother laughed. “I think we can arrange that.”

“Just pie?” Papa Tom asked, smiling.

“Maybe roast fish?”

Lhani needn’t have worried. When she paused at the doorway and looked outside the cabin in the evening, candles covered the table at the center of the village. An array of food tempted her eyes and nose. Platters of roast vegetables. Flat breads. Seared rabbit meat, and roast fish. Dried apples. At her father’s public proclamation of her brother’s victories with their own essentiæ, the entire town had apparently dropped everything to prepare a feast.

She realized how hungry she’d become.

Her brothers sat at the table, showered with sweets and congratulations. The villagers of Hiehaven swarmed the two boys, patting them on the back, and laughing at Tomyko’s jokes. Even Arrad seemed jovial.

When Lhani emerged from the cabin, Gertie hustled over with obvious concern. She touched Lhani’s forehead with the back of her own hand, checking for fever. Her eyes asked Lhani’s mother an unspoken question.

Mama didn’t answer. Instead, she took her daughter’s hand and whispered into her ear. “Will you open yourselves to your father and I? Let us support you for a moment? Light as a feather, I promise.”

Fear clamped around Lhani’s heart once more, but she allowed trust to win out. She nodded.

Papa Tom cleared his throat to get the crowd’s attention.

“There is something else,” her mama said, voice rising. “Lhani has also emerged. She has discovered the gift of scrying.”

The villagers fell quiet and turned to look at her. Mostly with curiosity. A few with encouragement.

But several of them backed away, making warding gestures as fear welled in their eyes. People Lhani had known her entire life suddenly stared at her as though she’d turned into a ravenous wolf seeking meat.

Their fear caught at her heart.

Before she could react, Lhani felt warmth enclose her. A flutter of imagery breezed through her mind, flitting like shadows over a meadow. Love. Understanding.

Then she saw strangers backing away in fear at the streak of white in Mama-Lhani’s hair. The telltale sign of a scryer. Worn as both signpost and warning. The scene shifted and Lhani felt strangers reaching towards her, hoping for comfort. She felt like a helpless doe in the water, consumed by leeches, about to drown in their need.

Then her father’s love and respect washed over her. Memories of his own wounded mind healed by Mama-Lhani. Shared laughter and joy.

Lhani gasped and her own perceptions returned to her.

“Can she control it?” a villager called from the back of the gathering crowd.

“No,” Papa Tom said, confirming their fears. “No. She cannot control it. But she’s in good hands. Her mother and I are going to train her. It won’t take long for her to learn restraint.”

“How long?” another asked.

“A few weeks,” her mother said. “Lhani is in a delicate place. More afraid of you than you are of her. We’ll take her into the forest for a bit. Away from here until her mind settles.”

Lhani trembled and her mother stepped in front of her, heading off the crowd. “Now we’re going to sit over here by ourselves. Lhani asked for roasted fish and gourd pie.”

A trickle of laughter flitted through the crowd. Nervous, perhaps, but laughter just the same.

“We can arrange that, Gertie said, and bustled off. “Don’t just stand there, fetch the girl a fish,” she said to a villager in a bluster of irritation.

Lhani followed her mother to the end of the village square. She watched her father clap her brothers on the back and hug them both.

She felt Arrad’s eyes bore into her.

She turned away. She’d had enough intensity for one day.