Children of Chaos

300 Years Ago – Aethera

 

            I’d never met a human before and was delighted to find they really were as fleshy as the books made them out to be. It fascinated me, how things so fragile and short-lived could still accomplish so much. I was thrilled I’d been chosen to be the ambassador to the human kingdoms. “Your ambassador, Aethera of the Stonekin,” the government head had introduced me as when I met the humans. It felt like an honour.

            I just still wasn’t sure why I was chosen.

            It was a question I’d pondered since I’d been told the news a few days before I left, and one I continued pondering as my human emissaries and I traveled further from the mountains of home. I had only cracked free from the lifestones not even two full decades ago. My body was still almost entirely unform stone still, simply because I hadn’t been around long enough or traveled enough to meld with more diverse kinds of rock. I wonder what I will look like after my time in the human kingdoms?

            The mountains had vanished beyond the horizon when I looked out the carriage window next. I ran my fingers over the three small circles of stone that arched along my chest, each one a different texture. A parting gift from my Pop, Papa and Guard—short for guardian. A little piece of them to take with me. It was a shame I hadn’t yet learned enough about the Workings to leave them a piece of me. I was excited to go, but I already missed my parents terribly.

            When I first met the humans, they were bundled up head to toe in fabric and furs, bodies susceptible to the cold in a way our stone bodies didn’t even notice. I’d worn an intricate, floor-length dress, white as the mountain snow. It was the finest I owned. I wanted to make a good impression. I was sure on them, my dress would have been frighteningly cold and far too light for the mountain tops. It didn’t even have sleeves. But now as we journeyed onward, they had shed their furs. But even without the cold air to make it steam up, their breathing made them look constantly busy, constantly moving.

            Movement outside the carriage caught one of my emissary’s attention and had him and the others reaching for weapons. Nervousness tickled my chest like the shifting of fine sand.

            The humans had long been squabbling with the Mages and the Perygryns. Now, most recently, they’d started fighting among themselves, too. A scared part of me that I tried not to listen to wished the humans had sorted out their wars before inviting an ambassador into their home. But I supposed there was no telling when that would be and humans didn’t live for centuries like Stonekin did.

            That was a particular sticking point in my ponderings about why I was chosen. Stonekin weren’t born often. I was one of our youngest. And yet I was told the humans had asked for someone like me specifically. Perhaps they thought a younger mind would be more malleable.

            The humans talked to each other in words I couldn’t hear, but seeing as we didn’t stop and no one leaped out of the carriage to defend against some threat, I assumed all was well. Though I made a note to ask them about it when we stopped for the night.

            We’d had a funny interaction the first day in the carriage, when the humans tried to talk to me and I had to stop them and ask, “Oh, were you not told?”

            They stared at me blankly. Evidently not.

            “I’m what you might call deaf. In a manner of speaking,” I explained. “I can ‘hear’ well enough when I can touch stones and feel the reverberations. But somewhere like this,” I gestured to the wooden carriage, “not so much.”

            So, stopping for the night was only chance to properly talk to them while we traveled, seeing as not one of them spoke sign language. In any case, I hadn’t quite figured out what to do while the humans slept, so I took to talking to the ones they kept standing watch through the night.

            If that failed—most of the humans seemed to want to keep me at a distance—there was at least plenty to look at. All manner of plants and animals I had never seen before filled the night. I supposed where we were was warmer, plant life growing wide and rampant in a way it didn’t in the mountains, though I couldn’t feel the warmth any more than the cold.

            The journey was long, several weeks, even with horse and carriage. But we did eventually arrive at the human settlement

            There were murmurs and stares as we made our way into a city. I tried to peer out the windows to watch the other humans as we passed by, but one of the dignitaries pulled me back and closed the window. I did catch glimpses of tiny humans toddling about. Bouncing in my seat, I turned to one of the humans in my carriage. “Were those children? I’ve read about those. We don’t really have them, you see, we’re fully grown when we come out of the lifestones. Is it true you make more humans yourselves?”

            One of my escorts nodded, not looking at me.

            I rested my chin in my hands. “Fascinating. And they say humans don’t have magic.”

            No one laughed. Perhaps they didn’t realize it was a joke.

            As soon as I stepped out into the ground once more, echoes of countless voices reached me through the stones under my feet. It was breathtaking. The castle was truly a marvel as well. Just as large as our biggest mountain dwellings, but free-standing. I shook my head in wonder and asked no one in particular as I was brought inside, “How is it you accomplish so much with such short lives?”

            No one answered right away. Was that a rude question to ask? Or just hard to answer?

            I opened my mouth to apologize or clarify, but the human at the head of our group spoke before I could. “Listen, we’re just your… escorts. Why don’t you save the questions for your hosts?”

            “Oh. Of course. Sorry.” I clasped my hands in front of myself and stayed silent the rest of the way into the castle.

            Inside was overwhelming with colours. The walls were painted and flags and tapestries hung everywhere. Our stone halls were no less intricate in their carvings, but they were decidedly less colourful.

            I was taken into a small room with plush chairs and a carved wooden table. My escorts assured me my hosts would be with me shortly, and then I was left alone. Sunlight came in through high windows and plants grew from pots in the corners. Plants, inside! How marvelous. The only plants that grew as high up in the mountains as we lived were mosses and lichen. The floors though, were polished stone and even though I hadn’t been gone that long, the familiarity was a comfort.

            I crossed my legs initially, but thinking that wasn’t very proper, I let my legs drop. As I touched down on the stone floors again, I just barely heard someone outside the doors ask, “…work on her?”

            A second voice replied, “For all the effort it took to get it, it better.”

            Soon after, a pair of humans entered the small room. I frowned faintly. They looked like soldiers, not diplomats. Hesitantly, I asked, “Are… you my hosts?”

            “Huh? Oh, no.” One gave me an easy smile and I relaxed some. “You arrived sooner than expected. Your noble hosts are just preoccupied at the moment. You’ll meet them later today. They wanted to give you their full attention.”

            “Oh, I see.” I noticed a small, gold-plated bowl in the second human’s hand.

            She noticed my noticing and jumped a bit. “Speaking of your… hosts, they sent this. As a welcome gift.” Her words were stilted. I supposed soldiers were probably used to curt orders more than diplomacy.

            Her companion seemed much more comfortable with the situation and continued, “We understand you don’t eat like we do.”

            “Oh, yes!” I nodded, perhaps too eagerly. “We don’t have…. They’re called organs, right?”

            He laughed. “Yeah, organs. But like I was saying, we had this brought in, especially for you.” He nodded to his companion and she moved to set the bowl down before me. Inside was some kind of stone ground into a fine powder, white with flecks of aquamarine.

            I picked some up and rubbed it between my fingers. “What kind of stone is this? Something local?”

            “Yeah, something local. You eat stone instead of food, right? Are you hungry from your journey?”

            Because of the carriage ride, I was sure I hadn’t had much stone worn away in the journey, but it seemed rude to refuse. Especially since—from their conversation in the hall—it sounded like they’d gone to some effort to get it for me. “We don’t eat in the way I’m told you do. We just…” Straightening with purpose, I turned to the pair and waved them closer. “I can show you if you’d like.”

            Curiously, the pair came closer. I pressed my fingers lightly into the powdered stone and called on my limited Workings. The outer layer of stone on my body shifted to accommodate the new material on my fingertips, very similar to the stones gifted to me by my parents. When I removed my fingers from the bowl, they were white with flecks of aquamarine. “See? We don’t really eat it, we just…”

            The world grew brighter around me. Too bright, until I could barely see. I tried to blink it away, but it didn’t help.

            “I… I’m sorry, just a moment, something strange…” The rest of the words got lost in the brightness as it consumed my vision entirely, accompanied by a terrible, high-pitched ringing that vibrated through my body.

            When the brightness and ringing subsided some – not enough to see but enough to hear through the rough stones under me – I felt stone grating on stone and a pair of human voices straining.

            “Why does she have to be so damn heavy?”

            “I guess they weren’t kidding when they told us these things are made of rock.”

            “How are we going to get her down?”

            There was a pause in both the voices and the grating—no, dragging. “She’s probably pretty sturdy, don’t you think?”

            The next sensation I felt was the sound leaving me—

            Was I falling?

 

~~~

 

            When I woke, the blinding light had been replaced with total darkness. I was alone.

            “Hello?” I called out shakily. My voice reverberated off the whole room around me, just like the rooms at home. It was tall, but otherwise small. What happened?

            I tried to stand and found two things. The first was my legs were cracked horribly and pieces of them broke off them when I tried to move. The second was thick chains wrapped up each of my arms, all the way past my elbows. I gave them as much of a tug as I could without breaking my legs further and found them anchored to the ground.

            I began to shake, like a very tiny, inconsequential earthquake.

            Had they—No, no, no that surely couldn’t be right. I was supposed to be an ambassador, a guest, an honoured guest. This, this wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all, there must have been some mistake—

            Through the stone, somewhere far above, echoed the voice of one the humans who had brought me the bowl of powder. The one with the easy smile. “Whatever it was the mage coughed up worked wonders on that Stonekin girl.”

            A voice I didn’t recognize the frequency of responded, “Good. She’ll make an easy hostage. Doesn’t even need to be fed.” There was a pause, then, “What?”

            “The mage is ranting about the other end of the deal. The powder for her freedom.”

            “Hmph. Well, go and give her a swift freedom. She’s more trouble than she’s worth, we can get another if we need it.”

            “Understood, sir.”

            I shrank in on myself. This was no mistake.

            I expected panic, or fear. But instead, all I felt was a shuddering at the laugh in the last two words. That, and this small, shrinking feeling that made me want to disappear into the stones under me. What did I do wrong?

 

 

Fifteen Years Ago – Faline

 

            I had watched the temple walls fall for days, but this time, this time was different. I was sure this time was for real. No one had screamed before.

            Neck craned up to see, I watched the temple wall go boom inward, chunks of stones landing where they had every other time, exactly where they had fallen every other time. I sat right in the middle of it, untouched. I watched my thread go shooting away backwards through my tummy a few seconds before arms wrapped around my stomach and picked me up. They carried me away along my thread, right along my thread like always.

            “Everyone to the inner chambers!” the woman carrying me shouted, one of my temple aunties. She breathed hard as she ran with me in her arms, our threads entwining under her feet.

            The hallway roof came tumbling down in front of us. My temple auntie ran right through it as the weave of the fallen roof wove itself back right again. As we reached the end of the hall, cracks and more booms echoed down the hall with a wave of dust. This time, my temple auntie cried out and clutched me protectively against her chest. The dust got in my mouth. It tasted like old dirt.

            My temple auntie shouldered open a door to a room I knew I wasn’t supposed to go in and I tried to squirm out of her arms. She shushed me and stroked my hair. “It’s alright, little one. You’ll be safe in here.”

            My other temple aunties were gathered in the off-limits room along with my temple cousins, too. Everybody was shaking and scared, some of them dirty with hurts all over their bodies. We were all breaking the rules tonight. I watched flames of thread rage through the room before dousing out. Maybe tonight the rules didn’t matter.

            Other temple aunties rushed to the one carrying me with rushed words.

            “There are other Mages fighting against us—” 

            “Against us? On the side of the magicless?”

            “Yes, yes they… The castle’s been overrun.”

            “And what of our fighters?”

            “They’re doing their best, but we’re not used to fighting our own.”

            I was set down in the cluster.

            “Is this everyone?”

            “Everyone who’s still… Everyone we could find.”

            My temple auntie nodded.

            “What’s going on?” one of my temple cousins asked.

            “I don’t know,” my temple auntie said as she rolled up her sleeves and dug her hands into one of the large urns of sand in the room. She pulled out of it molten rock and blasted it against the door, sealing us in. Other aunties grabbed shards of ice, flames, bursts of shadows and light and surrounded us small ones. Magic filled the air. I loved the smell of magic. Like vanilla and a cozy blanket. “But we’ll be alright now.”

            I watched as the threads ran up her body. When they ran back down, her skin was grey and blackened bones stuck out of her body in funny places. I began to cry and tried to run away from the sight. I toddled along my thread, but my tiny legs didn’t take me far before I got scooped up again.

            My temple auntie turned me to face her. Her face was all wrong, her eyes were gone and a rat poked its head out her mouth as she asked, “Faline, what’s wrong?”

            I screamed and squired with all my might.

            She set me down and let me run behind another temple auntie’s legs, pressing my face into her skirts. For a moment it was quiet except for me crying and angry sounds from somewhere outside. Then, murmurs.

            “Do you think she saw something?”

            “It didn’t seem good whatever it—” Someone gasped. “I-I sorry, I don’t mean to say—”

            “Who knows when she saw. It doesn’t matter right now.” My temple auntie didn’t sound scared. When I peeked at her again, she was back to normal. My thread led me back to my cluster of temple cousins so I went and sat back with them.

            And there we sat. And we listened to the angry sounds getting louder. My temple cousins winced and whimpered at the shaking walls, but I was quiet. The weave didn’t show the room unraveling. And the weave was never wrong.

            I was still watching the ceiling when a warm glow appeared in the very center of the ceiling, high above. From there, the world unwove. Threads split apart and ran down the walls all the way to the floor, turning the whole room into a tapestry. Red and orange and yellow strings fell from the sky and I lifted a hand to run my fingers along the threads as they fell. I followed them to the floor where threads brighter than the rest scattered out from under my temple aunties and cousins. Like the thread I followed, almost white but shimmering with a hundred colours under the surface, no, a thousand colours. Maybe more, if there was a bigger number. I saw other people’s threads too, sometimes, but never this many. It was like the weave was coming undone in the chaos.

            I traced the not-quite-white threads with my eyes. There was something funny about a bunch of them. Most of them ended.

            My own thread went shooting off through a wall and as it did, the wall unwove into a little old crack. I scrambled after it.

            “Faline, where are you—”

            “The roof!”

            Flames burst down from above and the tapestry burned up. Red, orange and yellow threads became balls of fire crashing down into the center of the room. It was hot enough I felt it burn the backs of my legs as I ran. The screaming got louder. Too loud.

            My temple aunties turned their magic on the people coming in from the burning roof as the walls of the temple room began to crack. Magic mixed with fire to smell like burnt cookies. Some of my temple aunties tried to close the cracks. Other scooped up my cousins and ran.

            A piece of roof fell on one of those aunties and she fell down, right where her thread ended, right where it ended. She dropped two of my cousins who split off to run along their own threads to their ends. One to a spike of ice. The other to a magicless with a big sword.

            Magicless and Mages came in through the cracks in the walls. I kept along my thread, which ran through a smaller hole in the wall, just big enough for my little body to squeeze through.

            But I stopped. My thread carried on, on the other side. But what about my temple aunties and cousins? I looked back over my shoulder. More people were at the end of their threads. Aunties and cousins and Mages and magicless.

            The temple auntie who carried me in saw me standing there, watching. I looked to her feet. Right at the end. I looked back up to her face. Threads wove tears down her cheeks as she looked at me and shouted, “Run!”

            A burst of flames from another mage’s hand enveloped her from behind.

            Screaming and squirming again, I fit myself through the gap, rough edges scraping my arms and cheeks. Crying, I ran after my thread as it wove me around broken temple rooms and out into the darkness outside. As I ran, my vision swam. Threads wove buildings out of existence only to weave them back together, only for them to fall for real a moment later. The ground under my feet wove and unwove itself between blackened and dead, and trampled grass and flowers.

            Unfamiliar voices shouted behind me. I looked back over my shoulder and didn’t see my thread dip until I was already falling.

            Water caught me in a cold hug. I wriggled to get to the surface, but it didn’t do anything. With nothing else to do, I looked to my thread. It flowed through the moving water and caught on a dead tree buried in the riverbed. I reached out my tiny hand for it as I passed. A big chunk broke off and pulled me up to air as it floated to the surface of the water.

            Coughing, I clung to the wood as the current carried me downstream. The flames of home faded into darkness as the river took me deeper and deeper into the wild jungles beyond. The water got slower and shallower until my feet kicked against pebbles. I stumbled forward and landed on my hands and knees in the shallow water. I lost my chunk of wood and in the dark I couldn’t find it again.

            For a moment, there was just the sound of rushing water, insects chirping, and me.

            I wanted to go home.

            My lip quiver, quiver, quivered until I cried. I cried and shouted and screamed like I was in bed waking up from a bad dream, waiting for one of my temple aunties to come running in and tell me it would all be okay. I felt like the abandoned kitten we found last year, crying for a mama that wasn’t coming. I wanted to go home.

            Something in the water moved. I heard it swishing, closer, closer, then pebbles clinking as they shifted. A pair of glowing yellow eyes peered at me out of the night. It was too dark for me to see what was attached to the eyes.

            I whimpered and wrapped my arms around myself.

            The thing, whatever it was, made a croak and a gurgling noise.

            I tried to croak and gurgle back.

            Water shifted again and then a hand brushed away the tears on my cheek. The hand was wet and slimy, and too boney to be human. But it was gentle. The thing gurgled again.

            I screamed back and keeled over crying once more. I wanted to go home. Looking down now, I saw my thread entwine with the thread of whatever was in front of me. So, I didn’t fight it when arms, slimy and too boney, picked me up and carried me away.

 

​

Two Months Ago – Cerin

 

            The Wind was strong and steady under my wings and I took it to mean She was with us as we went off to battle. And what more could a young warrior ask for.

            Part of me hadn’t believed the older Perygryns when they said you got used to war. That it wouldn’t always make you so nervous when you were called to battle. And yet, as I flew in formation with the rest of my flock, headed to what would be my fifth battle since I turned fifteen, my nerves were only background noise; a distant breeze.

            As we crossed from sea to land, our wing leader, Seleste, whistled back directions from the front of our V formation. Red feathers edged her otherwise white wings and marked her as our commander. Her second, Ilsoan, flew to her right, keeping a constant lookout. Her wings were red as well, but only the tips.

            “We’re headed back to the same front as our third battle,” Seleste called back over the Wind. She shook her head, fists tightening. “A fleet of flocks managed to take out a whole human camp, but most didn’t make it back out.”

            “May their spirits fly with the Wind,” I murmured. Not loud enough for anyone but the Wind to hear, but She was all that mattered. I’d gotten up early this morning to go to the temple to pray for my flock. I hoped the Wind had heard me then, too. That She would send us Her gales so we could fly fast and strong, and still Herself so our arrow would strike true. That if all else failed, we would die well.

            My bow and katana were a familiar weight across my lower back, arrows rattling faintly as I flapped my wings once before returning to gliding.

            “Is it the same humans as last time?” a fellow soldier, one of five others including me, asked from behind me. “Or the other kingdom?”

            “Reports say they’ve joined forces.” Our wing leader craned her neck to give us a grin. “And even two human kingdoms will be no match for us.”

            Most of us chuckled, some more nervously than others. The humans outnumbered the Perygryns five-to-one, last I’d heard. But I knew each Perygryn warrior was worth ten humans.

            I turned my gaze to the jungle below, not so unlike the floating islands of home. Noticeably less birds, though, and the ones I did see were not nearly as large or as colourful. Beneath the treetops, something shifted. Something too big to be an animal.

            I started, “Hey—” then whistled a sharp warning there was danger below.

            Not a heartbeat later, the first net came flying up from beyond the branches.

            Seleste whistled the command to scatter and scatter we did, twisting and curving away in all directions to circle in haphazard patterns. A few stray arrows pierced nothing but air. I waited for what the next order would be: to flee or fight.

            And fight it was.

            In unison, we all tucked our wings and dived, grabbing bows off our backs to fire arrows ahead of our descent. I shot blindly into the foliage below where I’d seen the net come from. Another followed soon after. I shifted my wings with practiced precision to adjust my course out of the way while not slowing my plunge.

            Closer now, we fired at movement among the jungle, close enough to hear occasional cries as our arrows found their marks. Soon my fingertips stung from my bowstring. I barely felt it over my pulse. We dove to take sweeping shots before swooping back up to grab more arrows and let someone else take our place. I rolled mid-air out of the path of another net, glaring aimlessly at the trees for who shot it.

            “Any idea how many?” Seleste asked.

            “Only one launcher seems like, based on how slow they’re shooting. Probably not many,” someone called back from above me.

            “Maybe it’s not worth—Cerin, move!”

            I whirled around, but not fast enough. I frantically tried to fly above the net coming right for me, but it still caught my wings, weights wrapping around my legs and sending me falling from the sky.

            Branches broke the worst of the fall and left me only battered and winded as I crashed to the dirt. Humans grabbed for me as they realized I wasn’t dead, “We got a live one here,” pinning my arms back alongside my wings tangled in the net. The feeling of my wings bound and trapped shot a primal panic through me. Thick ropes rubbed my skin raw and tore out feathers as I fought to free myself.

            What little breath I had left caught in my throat as my vision steadied. There were dozens of human soldiers below the trees, with half a dozen net launchers. But why were they holding back?

            I understood too late as I heard our wing leader give the command to come after me.

            A trap.

            Gasping, I tried to pull in enough air to tell my flock to stop, to leave, there were too many. All my whistles came out hollow and too quiet to be heard.

            “Shut it up before it warns the others!”

            A large hand covered my mouth, cutting of my pathetic attempts at warning. I watched in horror as my flock flew closer and the humans readied their other launchers. I struggled against the ropes and hand holding me, the weights still around my legs kneecapping my efforts. Right as my flock crossed the barrier of the treetops, I managed to bite down on the hand covering my mouth, hard. I tasted human blood, metallic and devoid of life.

            It freed me enough to shout, “Don’t—”

            Right as the volley of nets flew.

            Three of my flock were taken out instantly, two crashing to the ground and one flying back against a tree with a sickening thunk. Seleste and Ilsoan were left, along with one last wing soldier. The first gave the third the order to flee and she sharply changed directions, wings flapping furiously to pull her higher. Our two commanders expertly dodged out of the paths of nets and landed to try and free those of us trapped on the ground, katanas drawn.

            Seleste got one slice off on the net around my wings before she was swarmed by the humans hiding in the brush. She still took six of them out before they finally managed to subdue her. I couldn’t bear to watch them bind her wings, but when I looked away, I saw Ilsoan was pinned to the ground, too.

            The last member of our flock was still flying away as fast as her wings could carry her and I prayed to the Wind to give her speed and strength to get away. But instead of wind in her wings, a cascade of arrows found their place in them instead. Screaming in pain, she came tumbling from the sky. Blood stained her feathers red, like some kind of mocking marks of rank.

            Ignoring her and the other’s cries of pain or fear, the humans gathered us together, binding hands and wings if they weren’t already tied up with nets. Ilsoan spat curses at the humans until one backhanded her hard enough to split skin. One human stepped forward among the rest to look down their nose at us. Some of us shrank. I bared my teeth and hissed. What a dirty trick they played. I shouldn’t have been surprised. That was one of the first thing we learned in training: humans fought with no honour.

            The human looked us over once, then asked, “Which of you is your commander?”

            “I am,” Ilsoan said before our Seleste could speak. Ilsoan stared up at the human with dead but defiant eyes.

            In a single swift motion, the human drew their sword and slices through our Ilsoan’s neck, her head falling to the jungle floor.

            We cried out and recoiled into each other, no one screaming louder than Seleste. The two of them had been fledglings together.

            “Take the rest in,” the human ordered as they sheathed their bloody sword.

            As we were hauled up and away, I faked my legs giving out, falling to my knees to grab a fistful of Ilsoan’s feathers, stuffing them in my pocket.

            We were dragged into the back of a windowless wagon, lit only by a few scattered cracks in the wood. Seleste sobbed uncontrollably, keeled over on herself. I waited for her to collect herself, but even as the wagon rattled and began to move, she didn’t.

            In the weak light, I looked around at my flock, shaking and wide-eyed and tearstained. Taking a rattling breath, I sent out a silent prayer to the Wind to fill my chest and steady my voice.

            Wiping my face as best I could with my shoulders, I straightened. “It will be alright.” My voice came out stronger than it had any right to and all eyes snapped to me, even Seleste. “What… What a noble thing Ilsoan did. The Wind will honour her spirit for it when we return her home.”

            All eyes stayed on me and so I kept talking.

            “We will be alright. We are strong. The Wind will make us strong.” I nodded more to myself than anyone else. “And we can’t dishonour Ilsoan’s sacrifice. We will keep the Perygryns safe. Whatever the humans want from us, we can’t, no, we won’t give it to them.”

            This earned some unsteady nods from my fellow soldiers.

            Feeling a bit like a puppet on a string, I bounced my head back. I did my best to move closer to the others, gathering us together. “Now, let us pray. For strength, and if we must, to die well.”