CHAPTER 108 – Clipped

This is how the wind shifts:
Like a human, heavy and heavy,
Who does not care.

 

See Saphienne in the full bloom of her eternal youth, the woman as most in the woodlands remember her, nineteen years old. Spring had once more made her brunette, and her elven body had no more growth awaiting her, for she was among the tallest of elves, striding long-legged through the forest, shapely in hip and elegant in poise. Gazes followed where she wandered, drawn by the waves in her extravagantly long and thick hair when she forwent braids to let her locks trail in her wake.

Often her arms were folded that she might rest her temperamental hand, making her forbidding as she peered down. She contrived to smile faintly to seem more approachable, but her reputation for excellence undermined her efforts; she was whispered to be superior by the many who did not know her disposition. That she made no effort to hide either her intellect or her learning, and spoke without assuming ignorance or slowness on the part of her audience, misled most into thinking her condescending.

Yet, these impressions aside, Saphienne was not arrogant. What had been taught to her had held fast: she did not consider herself more important or entitled than merited by her ability and demonstrated by her achievements. Such conceit as she had was conceived in mind alone. Alas, as had been the case throughout her life, what advantages nature had bestowed upon her were received by witnesses to her brilliance with a fear of inferiority that could do naught but insist upon itself, rousing opposition to her flourishing.

To add to this portrait, Saphienne remained irrefutably proud.

No amount of politesse could overcome what her wyrd had fixed in her, and so she largely chose not to worry. In keeping with her response to the rest she was powerless over, barred from her mother as her friendships dwindled, she busied herself in seclusion, pursuing greater mastery.

Observe her now in this spirit, shut away from judgemental onlookers and sadness, descending after Filaurel down the steps that lay under the stairs of the village library. She held a conjured, heatless, starkly illuminating flame in her right palm, the braided tail of her hair carried on her shoulder, wearing her daily robes of dim blue on forest green with her beaten satchel at her side.

“Do you know what you want to read today?”

Saphienne nodded as they entered the root-walled reading area, gated off from the stacks of the restricted collection. “One of the works sent from the Luminary Vale — written by Myathaen, with recent commentaries by Shanaera. ‘Heart of the Woodlands, or the Eye That Sees Itself,’ I believe it was called.”

Filaurel touched a crystal lamp on a nearby table, and the others spread throughout the collection brightened with it. “I remember; it was preceded by stern instruction that Faylar wasn’t to handle it, and I wasn’t to examine its contents, not even to ensure the sending was successful. You’re not allowed to read it out here.”

No longer in the habit of casually rolling her eyes, Saphienne nevertheless chose to do so in her present company as she extinguished her spell and hung up her satchel. “Locking me in again? I don’t see why. Esoterica of advanced Invocation are barely comprehensible to me, never mind anyone else who might happen by.”

“I’ve no clue, but that book’s apparently at the upper end of the classifications we can receive. When I came back to have you affix your seal to your requests? Well, now you know what prompted it.” The librarian lifted a key from the ring she held, unlocking the outermost barrier and ushering Saphienne inside, relocking it behind her. “I’m obliged to repeat that, in the event of a fire, you’re to leave the books–”

“–And if I push the bar to exit, I’ll be detained until the scrutiniser is reviewed and the whole collection inventoried: I know. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Think of yourself,” Filaurel retorted as she opened the next gate. “Faylar couldn’t help me with the inventory, and someone would have to come from the vale for the last of it. You’d be the guest of the wardens for at least a week.”

“I’d be better burning.”

Filaurel snorted. “Careful with those jokes. Faylar made one without thinking, and the patron he was talking to actually cried…”

How Saphienne wished she’d heard the anecdote from him.

The restricted collection was subdivided into four areas, the first containing nothing that was dangerous, but rather unsuited for unsupervised consumption. More than half was taken over by erotica that was too outré for ordinary tastes, and on one of her first visits, Saphienne had been amused to find Thessa casually browsing there.

The artist had quietly explained that the convention was not to acknowledge friends when they were in the lower collection, before winking and recommending a shelf which – so the curious magician soon discovered – catalogued the impassioned art of rope bondage.

Saphienne missed her sense of humour.

The second area contained texts that could be dangerous, but which also had benevolent use. Filaurel had shown her the shelf on herbalism by way of illustration; when she’d found time to ask Gaelyn, he’d remarked that poisons and their remedies were still taught to priests and healers alongside the Great Art. Uncommon as it was, children and fools did occasionally eat one of the few mushrooms toxic to elves.

Behind the third gate lay texts concerned with the Great Art, as well as books restricted because they were controversial to the consensus without reaching the point they undermined it. Filaurel had absolute discretion over who to refuse entry, and not even an elder could countermand her decision — not unless they were also admitted to the Luminary Vale. Unaccompanied browsing was forbidden, the shelves were alarmed to all but the librarian, and despite being unavailable for loan, the books had to be signed for.

Therein, Saphienne had recognised the poetry previously shown her by Athidyn.

Last was the section where stood bookcases upon which tomes were individually chained in place, secured by abjurations of force. Precisely one of these was a reference spellbook of common sigils, no higher than the Second Degree, available to sorcerers and wizards who met with the approval of the Luminary Vale.

The other works were not even catalogued: should she wish to study, Saphienne was required to write the subject of her interest in a small, emblemless, periodically wiped Tome of Correspondence near the reading desks, then wait for an unknown librarian to respond with recommendations. Filaurel exercised no authority over these shelves…

…Apart from physical access. “This is it.” Filaurel freed a small volume bound in yellow and carried it to the reading desks, where she rechained it; she then set down the calligraphy kit and ledger she’d carried under her arm, swiftly making the pertinent entry before presenting it for Saphienne’s sign and seal.

The magician wrote her name in neat script, without flourish, then drew upon a least sigil in blue-shimmering red, conjuring hot green wax onto the page in a hiss, imbued with the magical script that declared her full title to the world.

Procedures duly followed, Filaurel gathered up all writing implements, unclasped the book, and retreated to the door. “Pull the bell cord when you’re done.”

“Thank you,” Saphienne murmured as she sat at the narrow reading desk. “This doesn’t look like it’ll take long.”

Alone, she opened to the first page–

And found a note, written inside the cover.

 

Master Saphienne,

What you perceive herein is never to be spoken of.

High Master Lenitha is unconvinced you are ready to receive this knowledge; we discussed the matter at length, and consulted with several of our peers, before deciding to permit your knowing.

I once sat where you sit, and faced the same choice as you do. What I remember most distinctly is that I was glad to have been fully informed. This courtesy I extend to you in turn, an offering made possible by the weight of my recommendation.

The value of my wisdom is in your hands. Go gently, for both our lives are long.

In sympathy,

High Master Elduin

 

She blinked. “…What in the world…”

Saphienne had never had any dealings with Elduin, and no further correspondence with Lenitha had ensued after the day the ancient elder visited. There had been no indication that this text was restricted – let alone important – when she’d become aware of it, referenced in the footnotes of a treatise on the secret names of spirits.

…Was she being scried upon? Her proprioception for her magic told her no, but experience had taught her that Lenitha, at least, could observe from afar without being detected by a wizard of the Second Degree.

“If you’re watching,” she hazarded, glancing upward, “thank you.”

Then she flushed, feeling as though she had offered a prayer at a woodland shrine — though she’d reason to imagine she was heard.

Master Saphienne – Wizard and Sorcerer, Transmuter and Hallucinator, Attainer of the Second Degree – calmed herself with a breath. When she started to read, she did so with eyes that began wide and curious.

 

* * *

 

Heed Saphienne: you, too, should brace yourself.

…Or perhaps not. Unlike I, you were not born an elf of the woodlands.

 

* * *

 

Filaurel came to find her nine hours later, when the library was closing.

Saphienne played off her overlong session by declaring that she’d been so engrossed in the subject she hadn’t noticed the time passing, laughing self-deprecatingly at her naïve presumption that the book would be quick reading.

This was a lie. It remained a lie as she bid a mild farewell to Filaurel and went back through the village, drawing up the hood of her outer robes to shadow her face.

She had read the book in three hours; reviewed the commentaries in two; spent one further teasing out the subtext. For the remaining three, she had brooded, well aware of how long she had been sitting and pacing.

Leaving the collection had daunted her.

Materially, or immaterially, nothing had changed. All was exactly as it had been for thousands of years; the only difference was in how she could interpret what she saw, armed with insight so heretical in its implications that to repeat a single word would have her dragged before the High Masters.

Why had they trusted her? Would they watch her more closely, now?

…Had Elduin supposed to Lenitha that Saphienne would find out eventually, and that she would feel betrayed if she’d been prevented?

No. No, this was an act of kindness. Lenitha had told Elduin the facts of Saphienne’s life as she had orchestrated them, and Elduin had insisted it would be wrong to let her continue in ignorance — for she had outpaced his early progress, and was owed what he had once been granted.

When she arrived at the grove she kept walking, went out into the forest after sunset, her way visible by the moon in its third quarter.

“‘…The Eye That Sees Itself…’”

Myathaen had known what she was writing was explosive, and had buried her point so deftly that it had taken Shanaera fifty years of sublime scholarship to get at the occulted truth. Even she had only dared signpost the way, three decades ago.

And the High Master hadn’t needed Shanaera’s commentaries.

Saphienne thought of Hyacinth. “…Poor, poor thing…”

Weighed down, she lengthened her stride until she came upon a fallen tree, pulling herself up to sit upon it as like in her childhood, when she would dwell on the edge of a clearing, estranged from the play she saw.

This is what Saphienne comprehended:

Spirits arose from the woodlands through the pooling magic of sunlight, sympathy of identity taking form as an unembodied spirit, shaped by the meanings attributed to the forest by elves. In this way, spirits were the personification of the elves’ relationship with their homeland and with the flora to be found therein. Bloomkith or woodkin, wherever a flower or tree was regarded as more than background foliage – whenever they were invested as symbols through which the elves interpreted the world, and themselves – there was the potential for a woodland spirit to wake.

Elves shaped spirits, and possession by spirits gradually reshaped the elves.

But…

Hyacinth had shared how she’d been cultured by grafts given by older spirits, among them Wormwood. Young, she’d been unsteady in her identity at first, vulnerable to any person who knew of her existence and projected onto her; adulthood came when she took and cleaved to a name, a talisman for her chosen identity. So long as hers was kept secret, she was not wholly known, and so resistant to elven imposition.

Except, she hadn’t chosen.

Saphienne covered her face.

Spirits couldn’t choose; not really. They were entirely decided by their natures, playing out the role of their selves in response to how they had been formed. Angry, they would perform anger until an external force altered their trajectory — and while their characters were dizzyingly complex, they were, in the end, not self-willed.

A spirit could never do what Saphienne had done: reject what they knew in their roots to be true, make themselves otherwise than life directed.

Hyacinth could not defy herself. She could not help herself.

She was, now and forever, to be a stunted simulacra, a dream of a person who acted on passion and reason, lacking that still, immense inner reflection from which selfhood might, with great effort, be grasped. She was a character upon a stage; penned by many hands, she was nonetheless authored by every hand but her own.

So did the wood elves make their partners, the real icons of the woodlands, pouring into the spirits their hopes and fears, their yearnings and sorrows — only to be possessed by them, and in walking with them to become ‘perfected,’ the self mirrored by its abstraction.

An eye that saw only itself: that was what lay at the heart of the woodlands.

For this, mortal elves suffered.

And worst of all?

Hyacinth still felt, and thought, and believed. She was under the illusion of having the same selfhood as an elf, only differently expressed…

 

“…Perhaps of equal depth…”

 

Yet she knew. Not consciously; no one had told the bloomkith. Hyacinth had been planted and watered to be the foil of Saphienne, and had followed close at her heel, imbibing of her that she might become her match, urged so by Wormwood to fulfil a dizzying design.

 

“…You are fast bound to her. The faster bound, the safer you shall be. Why not resign yourself to her command? Set down your pride — allow the elf to take the role implied…”

If you come across this story on Amazon, it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

 

And somewhere under Saphienne’s influence, she had grasped the same questions of selfhood as had plagued her, before the then-girl had learned about her wyrd.

 

“…To become your familiar would be to receive stability of identity, my being thereafter maintained by yours. Part of your unconscious mind would find expression through me, and part of my mind would dwell in you…”

 

That was why Hyacinth always took the form of Saphienne, and why she loved her so absolutely. Whatever more had brought them both together, the horror of the bloomkith was intimate, and delicate.

Hyacinth wanted to be a person… and could not be her own.

Therefore, Hyacinth wanted to be part of Saphienne.

 

“…As moth is drawn toward the burning flame…”

 

Saphienne wept for her.

 

* * *

 

Many elven visitors to this chamber doubt the provenance of the tale I am telling you. Those so inclined often accuse me of hagiography, discomfited by how the story differs to what they believe.

Yet this resistance to seeing the person behind the anathema is as nothing compared to their refusal to accept what you have just heard. Almost all storm out, snatching up jewels and gold as they go.

…But they return. And when they put down what they have taken, I tell them again what I now say to you:

I cannot know for certain, but I am confident that most of this account was authored by Saphienne herself. There are additions, beyond those you hear from me, to imply it was completed by another… but the voice reflects the Saphienne I knew.

And I am best placed to recognise her thoughts.

I found no lies — and so I inserted one. All else is as she wished to share, disclosed without compromise, that the world will make of her whatever it is to be.

 

* * *

 

Until that discovery, Saphienne had never fully comprehended what Filaurel and her teachers had meant by the cost of knowledge. She struggled across the following days, kept her distance from Hyacinth as she radically reconceived the woodlands and her place within them, made to reexamine all that she had taken for granted.

Tradition followed blindly had never been enough to account for the cruelty.

She had hypothesised that the worst practices were perpetuated not simply by active oppression, but by the inertia that elders could not help but impose. Ever since she had wandered the primeval forest within Lenitha, Saphienne had tried to ignore what elven agelessness portended: that what scarred an elf would never fade away.

Supposing that an elder had been raised in traumatic circumstances, and that Saphienne was right in thinking trauma not so different from Fascination… how could they do other than perpetuate what had been done to them? How could they even recognise that there was another way? If the suffering inflicted on them had come from the same hand as soothed their wounds – as had rocked their cradle – then what chance did they have not to regard the harm as a necessity of life?

Humans, mortals: their tragedy was the inevitability of death. But the tragedy of elves was the life lived unending, lived not in the shadow of those who had come before, but in their light yet burning. Every travesty of kindness visited upon a child was still very much alive in the woodlands.

From this, she had long suspected that the Luminary Vale was informed by the cults that preceded it.

 

“…Magic was taught in cults — by cultists, to cultists. Most frequently, the object of their devotion was the eldest elf among them, by whom all others were enslaved… whether or not they believed they were slaves. What was practised was not Fascination as we recognise the discipline…”

 

And what pained her most? The Luminary Vale was, she was now sure, sincerely trying to do good. At every level of elven society they had made improvements to the world of ancient times — such as by carving a prohibition against slavery into the first lessons in magic.

But they taught in the likeness that had come before. Almon’s adversarial style; horror used to indelibly teach important lessons; subordination to the whim of authority; swift initiation into mysteries withheld from the many; all to create distance, insist on a remove, and dignify isolation. These were the methods that the eldest of elders had suffered, and while they did everything conceivable to make the future better for their descendants, they were who they’d been made to be.

There had been progress in culture, in art, in abundance… yet the soil from which they were grown was limited in nourishment. Any too great a deviation from the ancient ways would not be tolerated, for the woodlands were, in the end, the protectorate of the Luminary Vale; the child was raised in the likeness of the parent.