Sabrina I — a more than equal price

With Sun so tall in the sky there were no excuses that could draw Sabrina from the Great Library’s depths. Not until Sun dropped below the horizon and the swell subsided. The halls and corridors of the spire were cool and filled with books from floor to ceiling. Sometimes Sabrina would not even read, sitting underneath her desk instead and allowing herself to be consumed by the smells for books were sweeter during the day. The swell drew the inks of carminium and germanium into the steady air where it mingled with the sweat of a thousand other scholars. For such a colossal build, the Great Library was never nearly full; most of the Carmarilla resigned themselves to the central three floors even though the foyer stretched up for hundreds more, and below too for several kilometres. Each was wheels within wheels of books and their endless sheaths, and yet for all of its empty space, there was never an absence of things.

Today the air was sad with the occasional bitter undertone. Its source was unknown to Sabrina. She thought of looking when she arrived that morning but decided against it. No good would come from seeking trouble.

Her assistant Nia found her curled up beneath a desk using her coat as a pillow.

“I deserve a nap,” she protested as the woman pulled her out.

“The Master requests your presence immediately,” Nia said. Her voice was matter-of-fact as if talking to a child. It irritated Sabrina greatly.

“That’s hardly my problem,” she replied. She stood and fixed her uniform. “It’s my day off.”

“Even so,” Nia said, and left it there. Sabrina scowled. If it were her choice Nia would instead be working for one of the Aurochs or Liegstresc. They no doubt had need for a strong and capable assistant far more than she did, but the appointment was not hers to make.

And her brevity was hardly ill-founded. This was The Master, after all.

They retreated to the cloakrooms and donned their coats, gaiters, and cloaks, and ventured out through the foyer and into the red swell. The shadow of the Great Library loomed northward, stretching far beyond sight as if retreating from Sun. They travelled eastward for an hour until the sandstone buildings gave way to the sparse planes of the Burlington Dunes and the territory of the spire was long behind them. The Evangelion stood to the west, tall and black on the horizon like a rotted scar. Sabrina tucked her hood to hide it from sight.

It was difficult to breathe in such heavy clothes; not for the first time she wished to be free of them. Her cloak was thick, woven from sheep’s wool fixed between layers of linen and silk. It grew heavier with her sweat and chafed skin as they walked. But removing any layer at the height of the swell would surely kill her. When she first arrived at the spire she hadn’t believed the warnings, but even inside the heat was too much for a lithosian like her so she never dared to test them. A fellow scholar from the edge of the dunes was much more arrogant. She still remembered how the skin on his face had clung to his bones, and the way the sockets of his eyes had burned dry before they could retrieve him.

Sun was bare and merciless, but it was not untraversable as long as one protected their skin. After another fifteen minutes, they drew up at the base of a small pyramid, twenty feet wide and of similar height, buried in the side of an enormous golden dune. Sabrina had been here only once before; the Collegiate, head office for the Carmarilla, and one of its proudest constructions. Its stones were white marble and lined in lazuli, the shine of which both made it difficult to observe and impossible not to notice. No visible entrance, but that was how it always was.

Nia touched a hand to the base and the stones split open, heaving and grating against one another as they turned. They opened slowly, hauled physically by three Aurochs on each side. Sabrina nodded to them as they passed into the cool and dry air, and threw down her hood.

Nia slipped off her cloak and jacket and handed them to Bethan, The Master’s personal assistant. She looked at Sabrina when she did not do the same.

“Hafren, you must show respect.”

“Don’t forget who you work for,” Sabrina bit. “I’ll not go unarmed, even there.” She drank her fill at a nearby fountain, washed her face, and then beckoned for Bethan to lead them. The walk to the Master’s Quarters took a further ten minutes, stuttered by the crunching of stone doors and inspections from the scholar guards.

His room was cold and dark, and filled despite its narrow slits with a sickening grey light. A large man stood behind a black pine desk, so broad-shouldered and thickly-armed, and of such daunting height that he made even the Aurochs look like children. She recalled seeing his father once, during initiation. He had been just as big.

Nia and Bethan bowed when he turned to greet them. Sabrina did not.

His voice did not echo. “Hafren. You have travelled a long way.”

“Only the hour it took to arrive,” Sabrina replied. “We shouldn’t make pleasantries.”

“No,” The Master agreed. “You’ll leave in the morning.”

“Leave? Why?”

“I’ve heard rumours of a large passing in the southern bounds of the Evangelion, through the white woods.” He paused and muttered something indiscernible, before drinking from a bronze-plated chalice that had been on the desk in front of him. Another two placed at its sides: one silver, and another one stone. The Master continued. “I don’t particularly care for what you think.” Another pause. Sabrina bit her lip hard until she tasted blood. His mouth downturned. “You’d refuse me?”

She hated how his eyes penetrated her effortlessly, and how his aeggmore lapped at her mind. He could hear her think, after all. She needn’t even speak, but she knew he enjoyed the pretence.

Then, all of a sudden he laughed violently. Nia and Bethan exchanged worried looks. When the laughter ceased, The Master fixed his stony gaze on Sabrina.“You hate me.”

“Can you blame me?” Sabrina said. “Poking around in my head like that.” She shuffled forward and sat at the desk. The velvet hood of her cloak drooped over her eyes. Even still, he would know that was not the reason. She felt sick.

The Master offered her a handkerchief, which she took begrudgingly.

He said, “You’re the only leoman in the spire that cares for the legends. None of the others will see what they are looking for.”

“Anyone can read,” Sabrina replied timidly. “I wouldn’t mind teaching a Liegstresc, or Liegslicht…”

“I am not asking.” He said. The strangest thing about his voice was how it was never raised. Always quiet. Always soft. All the more reason that it held the authority that it did. Sophia shivered and nodded. The Master continued. “You’ll take Nia and two Aurochs of your choosing. Drink this.”

He slid the stone chalice of the three towards her. She peered into it but did not drink. “A concoction from the seraphim,” he explained. “Drink it well.”

“What is it for?” she asked.

“What else? Good health.”

The seraphim were incredible healers borne from the aegg of life. It was said that each creation of theirs required a more than equal price. These prices quickly departed from the realm of reason given the qualities of their concoctions. Even for The Master, it would not have come cheaply.

She hesitated a moment more before tipping it into her throat. It was bitter and burned like strong alcohol. After a few seconds, her skin warmed and flushed red.

“What in the hells is it?” Sabrina asked, pawing at her throat.

“I’m told it will help with the swell. Now, for the matter at hand. The rumours mention a small army of around two thousand passing through the white forests at the southern bounds of the Evangelion. As you well know, this is not only impossible but exceptionally unfortunate if true.”

“You said it yourself,” Sabrina gasped. “The white woods are impassable.”

The Master frowned. “And yet you will go, and you will find for me whether or not the records need re-writing.”

Sabrina wished to object further, but the gravity of the situation was obvious enough. If it were true that any man, let alone an army, had crossed the Evangelion so brazenly, it would set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the world. It also made sense that it was she who had been asked. Though the land was important, she was one of only two scholars in the Carmarilla that believed in what lay beyond: the primordial aeggmore of thunder, the root of all Sunrath’s blessings. The other was her teacher, former Hefonvyr and vice-dean of the Carmarilla. But she was no longer here.

Bethan stepped forward and spoke softly. “Master, perhaps the young lady would be more willing if you were to inform her of her reward.”

Sabrina’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The room fell out of focus. Reds and blues passed through her in waves before her eyes, between her eyes, and behind them until they opened again and she was in a different place. A vast tunnel, dark but for a pillar of light far off in the distance, and the dancing of indiscernible shades at the periphery of her vision. Far ahead the pillar remained no matter what angle she twisted her head, nor where she turned her eyes.

Hafren, a river to the north, by the borderlands of the mystic woods.

In the winter, Sun would not rise for a day and a half, and the sky would be empty save for stars and wandering clouds.

The river stalled and travelled upstream, forgotten by the distant sea until the Wolpentiger cried and returned the water to its rest.

Hafren remembered how it felt around her feet those cool winter months, and how the sediment stalled between her toes, softer than grass though firmer than sand; warmer than the northern snows, but cooler than the southern dunes. And where the river rose the waters were shallow, and one could plug each stream with a single body just by sinking in its bed and dreaming of nothing.

She missed those days, where there was little to want but bread and honey, and little to fear but the coming rains and fables of the mystic wolves: evil demons that ate lithosians for breakfast, dinner, and tea. She missed slaying them in swordfights with her brother Dylan until her arms were stone and Mother called them in for tea. She missed how the grandest sights were once redwood trees and apple pies; how her sisters, Gwyn and Morwen, picked flowers for the kitchen and chased rabbits across the yard. She missed her father, half asleep no matter the hour, but never too tired to muster her a smile.

When she was seventeen she departed from the woods and travelled south to join the Carmarilla, as did all Sunrath. Three others from her home travelled with her, though they did not know each other. She no longer remembered their names.

When had it happened?

The pillar of light before her collapsed into a tree. A small tree, with bare branches and a gentle yellow glow. Its bark was thick but jagged as if shattered by a thousand tiny cracks. Inside she heard the feeble beating of an infant heart.

Of course, in the womb.

Turning and turning. Wheels within wheels of books surrounded her now. Her home. Forever turning to some unknown focus. The planet itself; the wheels of time; the cogs in one’s brain; the blood in one’s veins. Memories.

Do memories turn?

For no reason other than the reason thoughts occurred in the first place, Sabrina believed that they did, though she had never thought of it before.

The winter blues washed through her from her toes, rising slowly until she lay beneath a roaring tide born within the sediment, cold against her cheek and the tip of her nose, except it wasn’t of the river but of stone, a rough and weathered stone, and its dirt was in her mouth, and the tree was but The Master’s looming trunk as it bent across her, breaking for an unassailable expression, and a woman’s mouth drawn taut with worry. The room above them. White stone.

Sabrina’s eyes were open; her legs and arms returned to her slowly.

“Am I dead?” she asked. Her voice was slurred as if she were drunk, though she could not rule that out; her mind was just as fogged, if not more so. A peculiar chill spread throughout her but she didn’t feel uncomfortable, as if her spirit were suspended just beyond her body.

It was Nia who answered her. “Thankfully not,” she said. She lifted Sabrina into a sitting position with ease. “The Master believes it was a side effect of your drink.”

“I saw the woods,” Sabrina said. She was unable to keep the fear from her voice. Nia touched a hand to Sabrina’s hair.

“They’re not gone,” The Master assured her. “If you’re worried about losing your memories.” Satisfied that she had not died, he straightened and retreated to his corner of the room. It felt smaller looking at it now; certainly too small to contain his enormous frame. Sabrina wasn’t sure why she hadn’t noticed it before, but there was an obvious stoop to the man’s neck so it didn’t brush against the ceiling.

She eyed the third and final chalice warily. It was plainer than the other two; polished tin or iron with a silver inlay of the lemon tree.

The Master laughed. “This one is just water. Thirsty?” Sabrina shook her head. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “So what did you see?”

Sabrina hesitated. “The mystic woods. I saw my family.”

“Was this an unpleasant memory for you?”

Her eyes fell. “Of course not,” she murmured. “Is your family an unpleasant memory?”

She heard Nia cringe behind her. The Master just laughed.

“Indeed. That was a poor question. Allow me to rephrase—how are they?”

“I wrote to my sister just last week. She says that the winter passed early this year and they’ve been busy helping the neighbours with their crops. When I last saw her she wasn’t old enough to tug a cabbage from the earth, so she must be growing well.”

“You would like to see them again?”

Sabrina’s eyes narrowed at him. She observed his face properly. Dark. Taut, and proper. Leathered, but not ugly. A proper face of Sun. “Is that a threat?” she asked.

“Not at all. A question, nothing less. Maybe more.”

“Yes,” Sabrina answered. She couldn’t hide the desperation slipping into her voice. “Of course I want to go home. It’s too hot here. You know well what my home was like—how quiet it is; how kind the people are.”

“And yet you came.”

Sabrina fought back tears. “I did. And now you want me to leave, and I’ve not learnt a thing. All this way and for what, to just be sent away to die—”

He cut her off. “Hafren, I said you would be rewarded and so you will. Return and you will be Liegsfresc. I will permit you two week’s leave. After that you will be resume your research in your own time—in your own way.”

The silence was thick and loud. In the Carmarilla, the extent of one’s influence directly correlated to their power. Power was important in any mercenary group, but this was never more true than it was here where each member possessed their own gift from the aeggmore of thunder. Untrained that she was, Sabrina was ‘leoman’, an initiate of the order. To become Liegstresc was a promotion fourfold, and to be named in the best of the Carmarilla. To be Liegstresc was to be an engine of change.

She wanted no such honour, yet she could already taste the springs of her hometown, feel the wind in her ears and the leaves between her fingers. The mystic woods were deep and dangerous, but the borderlands where the lithosians lived were more of magic than danger for the wolves never strayed far south.

She could see it again. She could see it already.

She turned towards the doors and gestured for Bethan to allow her through. The woman nodded and bowed as she left. Nia followed closely behind her.

The Master would not need telling. He would know she had accepted, perhaps before even she.

The stones turned faster on the way back through the Collegiate’s halls. At the end of each day, their ruts were cleaned and filled with ash, so as to provide even flooring in the event of an attack. The day’s business carved the ruts open again. Though subtle, Sabrina could smell the carbon in the air. With the stone dust, it was a peculiar sensation. Ash yes, but it stuck to the back of her throat. Like a forest, burning.

Nia collected her sungarments in the foyer, and they stepped back out onto the dunes. Sun was south in the sky and waning. It would be a hours though before the swell let up.

“Do you know The Master, Hafren?” Nia called. Voices didn’t travel far in the swell.

Sabrina pulled up beside her. “He knew me as Sunrath. We travelled south with before I even knew what the Carmarilla was.”

“And he doesn’t show you favour?”

“This is our first meeting since then,” she explained.

“Not many would dare to speak to him how you did, Hafren,” Nia said. “And he gave you an incredible gift, from the seraphim themselves.”

Sabrina stopped and tugged at her hood. Something was off. Nia stopped several paces ahead.

“It’s too much,” she replied. “For someone like me.”

“Yet you hardly seemed happy. I should ask. Did something happen to your family?”

Sabrina shrugged. “No. They’re fine.”

“I am glad to hear it. But we should make haste, you are already weak today,” Nia said, but Sabrina was not listening. She touched her hand to her forehead. It was dry, and she was not warm.

He would have known that the heat did not suit her well, and that such a journey thousands of miles south would be impossible.

An incredible gift indeed.

She slipped off her hood and looked up to the sky. Sun fell across her face like a warm hand. Someone screamed. A girl’s voice. The sky was vast, and blue, and so deep that it seemed to churn in waves.

There was a thud as Nia fell to her knees in the sand. “Incredible,” she gasped.

Sabrina felt a sudden and intense sadness for whoever it was that had created her gift. What greater price was there than death, and what did it mean to pay it?

Her voice was stronger when she spoke. “You’re right. I’m scared, to go back home I mean. With nothing done. But I can think about that later.” She smiled at Nia; she felt it in her eyes.

“Will you be returning to the library?” Nia asked.

“Not today,” Sabrina said. “It’s cool enough to work.”