Eifre Quest

Part 9

“This is a test,” you say to your mother, your antennae twisting and untwisting nervously.

She arches an antennae. A pause, and then, “Why do you think that?”

“Because…” You consider the intent way she has her raptorials held, the determination she reeks of. Would she be asking you this if she didn’t want to do something already? “You said you’re testing my judgment as a vesperbane. Well, you’re testing it against something, right? Seeing if I live up to standards the stewartry would hold me up to?” And if this was a test, the correct response couldn’t be pointing that out. Had you already lost?

She sighs low. “No, Eifre.” Her antennae uncurl and splay outward, as if she could smell the correct way to phrase her next words. “This is a failing of your training, I suppose. Tests and standards to hew to, histories and logics to memorize. Being a vesperbane is nothing like that.”

“What is it like, then?”

Tlista’s head leans back, her gaze rising toward ceiling, perhaps seeing beyond. “I’ll say this: when, if, you’re faced with a situation with a correct answer, you aren’t going to need training to see that. And I’ll say this‍ ‍—‍ call it a hint if you like —: we are not in one of those situations.”

This calms your twisting antennae a little bit, but uncertainty does not leave your face, and you don’t venture a response.

“Dear, we are each born with but a little piece of reason,” your mother says warmly. “You’re old enough to use yours. I want to hear what it has to say.”

With that, your legs slack a little bit, and you ease up. Your antennae tap each other as you begin thinking. A binary choice, a dilemma. Take the potion to the witch, or look into her basement.

“I am as interested in the fruits of your reasoning as the growth itself. Think aloud for me.”

“Okay. I think we have two choices: save Maune, or see what in her basement.”

“Save the witch?”

That trips your sprinting thoughts. “Wha?”

“I know you haven’t forgotten everything Maune’s said.” Mother curls up one of her maxillary palps into a knowing smile like you’ve missed something.

And it only takes you a few moments to recall. “My daughter said you think there is a way to save you.” “Two ways… But I have a preference.”.

“What did she mean by that? Two ways?”

You can see her palps twitching against her pars stridens. She pauses, a considered silence. Cede another hint, or keep the test results pure?

She lets out a breath, and finally says, “The witch of the ambrosia woods. Consider why she might have that name.” A pause, then, “The weevils are fond of her. I doubt they’d let her die this easily. Maune would rather not resort to their methods, which could be for a variety of reasons.”

Tlista stops there, and you’re sure it’s deliberate.

“So, rather than saving her, we’d really be saving her from some unknown but maybe not good saving by the ambrosia weevils?”

Tlista notably does not nod, but watches.

You weigh the options. “Maune is in pain, and will be until we go and bring the potion to her. She asked us to do this, and is expecting us to be doing it and nothing else. And yet, she’s a defect. It’s deeply wrong to assist defects. It’s counter to the Dream, and vesperbanes are supposed to uphold the dream!” You stop to draw in a breath. Your mother nods.

“So, what would a vesperbane do? We’ve managed to infiltrate the lair of a defect! We can report this, there’s even vesperbanes in the area we can report to,” you say, and Tlista cringes. “A vesperbane would gather all the information they could, which would entail looking into the basement. But, dealing with a defect, why wouldn’t they place traps? Oh no, I don’t know anything about disarming traps, not even spotting them.” Your pitch rises on that last sentence. You bite a palp, and after a moment Tlista places a foretarsus on your head, scratching you between your ocelli.

“You can continue, it’s okay.”

“Well, you told those vesperbanes that you were looking after the ambrosia witch. And, um, you and Maune seem to know each other? And she seems… kinda nice? It makes me wonder if we shouldn’t be treating her necessarily as an enemy defect.” All defects are enemies, genius.

Tlista looks down, thought playing out in flexes of her antennae and in the twitches of her maxillae. “I… knew her, before she went missing. We completed a few missions together as fiends, and created a few novel endowments. She was, is, a genius. You can tell by how young she is. I don’t even remember if she’s made imago yet. If so, just barely? Even now, she reminds me of…” Tlista stops herself, shakes her head, and finally lifts her gaze back up. “We were never close; I was an imago while she was still a nymph. But I respected her intelligence, and she was… helpful, in my poisons research. I gave her direction occasionally, insights or questions that guided her own studies. I… wonder, sometimes if she would have gone defect if we’d never known each other.” She shakes her head again, and this time resumes in cadence. “I keep meandering. I hope that answers your questions, dear.”

You nod. And it feels like you’ve outlined the extent of the issues, those points in favor of each, and those not.

Standing here, peering up at your mother, it’s hard not to recall those vanishingly few times she had the time and energy to teach you something. It was basically cooking, whittling away at the stalks of plants, crushing chitin leftover from meals into fine powders, or boiling foul and acrid liquids. Sometimes your mother would name the things you’ve made; vinegar, spices, obscure soaps.

And it’s metaphors, informed by that practice, that your mother returns to again and again. Whittling away, grinding down, and boiling away. Reducing, simplifying and distilling ideas down to their core.

When it came down to it, there were two options you have. Bring the potion and do what Maune has asked you to do out of compassion, respecting what she’s asked you not to do and disregarding what that nagging vesperbane voice inside you insists. Or: Look in her basement, out of suspicion and duty.

It’s hard to keep ignoring a thought that you keep thinking around, unwilling to face. That Tlista’s dilemma, and the insistent pull the second option has on you, isn’t just curiosity.

“What if…” You’re hesitant to say it. “What if Maune has something bad down there? Something… sinister?” Could she? She seemed so nice.

“Of course. I’m considering the same thing.” There was a breeziness to her tone. You could read why. This was the premise of the conversation, didn’t you realize?

You twine your antennae together. You couldn’t deny, either, that there was a part of you that wasn’t much concerned that there might be something sinister, or that Maune would suffer for your choice. As much as you were, or wanted to be, a vesperbane, you were also wanted to be a scholar. Driven by deepest curiosity, it itched that there might be anything in that basement, and no matter what it was sure to be interesting. There was pleasure in knowing, and there was pleasure in sharing. Why hide something, why bar someone from learning?

“She said we wouldn’t understand everything we’d see.” You tried not to take that as an offense to your faculties of understanding.

“She’s also a defect,” Tlista says in a tone of reminder.

A few moments filled with thought. “I’m at a loss,” you complain to your mother. “If there’s nothing bad in the basement, we should just take the potion to Maune. But if there is something dreadful down there, we shouldn’t be helping the defect.” You throw up your raptorials. “But the only way to find out which is to go down there! It’s such a tangle.”

“Could I make an observation?”

You’d welcome any hint. “Yes, please!”

“If you really thought there was a chance there was nothing, or something obviously innocent below, you wouldn’t be so conflicted about the choice. It would be a simple matter to glance in and determine such. You’re afraid. It’s not a choice between acting immediately or learning more, you see it instead as a choice between acting as you’d like, in ignorance, or learning something you expect to make you not like the first choice. This isn’t a binary, and yet you see it as one.”

“When you put it that way…” Your maxillae draw in tight. “It doesn’t seem like much of a choice at all, does it? It’s obvious how a hero would act.

“If I may make another observation?” You just stare flatly at her. She laughs once in her thorax, and then, “You’re still seeing it as a binary.”

“How?”

“There are two of us, Eifre. We don’t have to act unilaterally.”

“So you mean for one of us to go into the basement while the other delivers the potion?”

“I mean for me to go downstairs‍ ‍—‍ you said yourself there might be traps‍ ‍—‍ while you deliver the potion. How does that sound, Eifre?”

“It sounds…” you start. “Like exactly what I said it was! This was a test, and that’s the right answer!”

“Not at all. If you trust Maune, I will accompany you. And if you really want to descend with me…” Tlista takes a deep breath, and then looks you up and down, and then looks you in the eye, “If that’s what you really want, I will allow it. The choice remains yours, and we are presented no correct answers.”

Just as you’re about to say something, there comes from behind a hard bonk right against your head. You turn just slightly, and the offender comes into your periphery. The crow familiar, Reva. You aren’t even surprised the thing knew exactly how to stay inside a mantis’s blindspot.

Turning further, you swat a raptorial at the crow. It dodges fluidly, flying up to your face and pecking right above your mandibles.

“Ow, what the why!”

“Blood,” the crow squawks harshly high.

You feel something pressed into your other raptorial ‍-​‍-​ it’s the thick red potion, your mother is giving it to you.

“Your choice,” she repeats.

The bird pecks you again, in the same spot, and you feel it piercing sharply into your chitin.

Your choice, and you don’t have the time for your usual deliberation.

Is there more to consider, though? You were conflicted, and your mother pointed out a way for you to have your mealworm and eat it too.

“You have to tell me if there is something neat down there.” Or… something not so neat.

Your mother folds her antennae, a sad curl in her maxillae. “I will promise nothing of the sort.”

“Why not!” You flare your forelegs open, and flash the eyespot patterns of your inner raptorials.

She only shakes her head, and does not move a palp to respond. Tlista lifts a leg before, as if forgetting something, dropping it again and placing a dactyl on the potion glass.

“Remember this,” she starts emphatically, “keep the glass as still as you can, never shake it. Touch as little of your flesh to it as possible, keep it from growing warm. Do not bring it near those black pools you passed outside. Do not open it.”

She stares, and you nod quickly, and then she steps past you, walking carefully toward the corner.

But you turn away, and start toward the cabin’s door.

There’s a tug on the potion. The bird has its beak gripped around the neck of the bottle, and is trying to rip it away from you.

“What do you think you’re doing?” You punctuate the question with your other raptorial closing hard around the bird, spines touching flesh through feathers. By that threat of piercing, you pull the bird off enough for it to open that beak. You’ve realized thats where the sound is coming from. There’s no palps to stridulate. It talks by breathing? Like a little roach…

“Slow, too slow. Master bleeds,” it says.

“Did you not just hear my mother say never shake the glass? Idiot bird.” You smack it with a midleg.

“Master bleeds. You are too slow,” it reiterates.

“I’m going!”

“Then go.”

You’re outside, walking the path away from the cabin, brisk as you can manage. The bird follows after you, nipping at your femurs. It had been too preoccupied worrying about about its master and the potion you hold to think about your mother remaining in the cabin. (She obviously had the sense to not do anything until you left.)

You’re sure this path goes back to Maune. It had to! It hadn’t branched much at all. That you could tell walking up it, at least.

So why did the trampled dirt give way to a bush here?

With a suddenness that was almost explosive, two big pink centipedes burst from the tall grass on either side of the path, and squirm toward the bush. Mandibles bite into the branches on both sides, and together they pull the bush laterally. It opens down the middle, and the leaves and the light itself seems to bend and bow as a figure emerges.

All throughout there was a growing buzz, and it now reaches a crescendo as arrives half a swarm of moths, all wielding tiny organic orbs. They might have been kin of the glowing fruit littering the vale, but they were tiny enough the tarsus‍-​sized moths outsized them. They cast a pale pink light from the sides where they arrive. The direction of the light gives the figure a curious appearance, with shadows in strange places.

It is not a mantis. If you had only a second to look, you would have noticed that, and you might have mistakenly said the figure’s body had more in common with the ugly oblong oval‍-​shape of roaches than the elegant slenderness of mantids. With a moment’s thought more, you see this is not a roach. You aren’t even half an imago (yet!) but the roaches are barely larger than you. This figure? It’s big. Mother would have to stand on twos to look down on it.

Fighting poor lighting and surprise, you managed to finally find the face, and that’s enough visual purchase for the rest to slot into place. Face too angular and soft to be a mantis, eyes too bright and black to be a roach. Long, feathery, branching antennae dance above the head, and long dactyls flex on the end of deft tarsi.

It spreads its wings, and there is no doubt; that shifting prismatic mosaic glittering on the elytra? That sweet, cloying smell that has snuck up on you?

You stand before an ambrosia weevil, and you don’t know if you should scream or cheer.

It does not speak‍ ‍—‍ can it speak? Your mother called the weevils stupid, but now you can’t believe it‍ ‍—‍ yet for one immeasurable moment, you stand mesmerized by the beatific instant rendered by the buzzing moths holding glowing orbs in a perfectly random configuration, by the playful centipedes splayed belly‍-​up on the ground, and the ambrosia weevil, and to you, something is communicated.

“I ‍-​‍-​ yalew, rrenui ha mew yalui?”

(Was it the weevil that spoke? Or you?)

The weevil spreads its wings further, and it too begins to buzz, lower than the moths, majestic, and then the weevil takes off, flying above you and away. You do not look to watch it go, and you know not where it went. The ambrosia weevil is gone.

The centipedes have rolled over and sauntered back into the grass. The moths scatter fleeing or playing or seeking food. The bush‍ ‍—‍ it was an ent‍ ‍—‍ scrambles back into the night, and the crow stops pecking at your heels, and it won’t start again.

You take a step forward, and there is a single brave moth that remains in your path. It does not wield a glowing berry, but its six legs cling to a ring. The thing flutters right up into your face, and then it drops the ring. It plunks against your cardo, and it rolls down your face to land in your instinctively upraised, cupped tarsi.

The thing is made of wood. Not carved; there is no seam, there is no internal tree‍-​flesh visible. If oaks grew in the shape of a torus, a young one would look like this.

You slip the ring on. It fits you perfectly. Inside, it has the softness of a baby bush’s stem.

You don’t feel any different with the ring on. The bird taps you with its beak, and reminds you to start walking again.

The vale sounds quieter in the wake of what happened, but it isn’t. There is the creeking sound of prowling ents. There are chirrups and calls of whatever games and politics the lesser insects get up to. The black pools make no sound, but you can hear that lack of sound as you pass. Truly, the vale is no different. The solemnness lingers, but it’s fading fast.

You find the witch again among the tree roots and the waving flowerings. Something has left several of the clear fruits brimming with glow‍-​fluid to lining in rows the wide roots of the trees. In this light, you get another glimpse of the gaping holes left in the defect by the nerve‍-​ooze.

You can see flesh inching back together under the direction of pale branching tendrils, like roots.

“Maune?” you call.

The bird is your echo. “Maune! Maune! Bloood!” It looks expectantly at you.

Slowly, you lift the glass of viscous, writhing red liquid which you had gingerly held with three legs.

But you don’t get time to hand it over. Two dark, fleshy limbs that might be tentacles or arms crawl forth from the place where the witch’s abdomen meets thorax. They do not look like trees. Spiky and gnarled with chitin and bone, the limbs reach out and brace again the ground, and then they push.

The witch of the ambrosia woods rises with the sound of a deracinated tree. Her pale compound eyes stare into you, and her maxillae are shaking in fever or anxiety or anger.

“Took ya long enough, kid.”

A third limb emerges from behind her, and forcefully it spears one of its spikes precisely through the glass bottle. It’s ripped from your grasp, contents sloshing wildly.

“Malum,” comes that creaking voice of the bird. It hops beside its master, and then it rises on a leg she lowered for it. Perched on the mantis, the bird opens its wings, and two hard irregular forms drop. When did it get those? Where did it get those?

“Ah, Reva, you’re so thoughtful.” A midleg scratches the bird’s head, and it coos cutely.

At a glimpse, those forms remind you of the ootheca baby mantids crawl out from, or the chrysalises you’ve seen described in scrolls about lesser insects. If someone said it looked to them like an acorn, or a pinecone, you’d wouldn’t call them mad. But despite, you doubt the things are of plant or animal origin.

A glimpse is all you get. Soon the defect pluck it and tosses them in her mouth. They’re swallowed whole, no chewing.

The bird indicates the third of the seeds it brought.

“No. I can hardly handle four, Reva.”

The bird cocks its head. “Termites,” it says. Not in the voice you’re used to hearing out of it. You wouldn’t call it Maune’s voice, but an imitation? Yes.

“Not worth the risk,” is all she says before she returns attention to glass spear on the tentacle. Her tentacle? She jiggles it, and pours the red liquid in her mouth. Well, it pours as much as it drips down like slime. She only drinks half, and takes the rest and pours it on her wounds.

You watch the flesh quiver and warp where the red slime lands.

“Never seen a health pot at work? Newborn little nymph.” She seems to regain her strength by the minutes, and soon she shifts weight off of the tentacles onto shaking legs.

“What are those things?” you ask.

She laughs. “I’m less surprised you haven’t seen a myxokora before. No rangers in that podunk little town of yours, is there? A shame, and a mystery. But I suppose the stewartry is starving for bodies again.” She waves one of the tentacles. “It’s a trick all vesperbanes pick up sooner or later. The wretched raptorials.”

Maune’s gaze wanders, taking in, finally, that you are alone.

“Your mother, where is she?” There’s a twinge to her voice. Fear? For Tlista, or of Tlista? It’s something you watch closely, wondering if it’s revealing feelings about whatever secret she’s hiding.

“I—” You have excellent composure, and you have a head for social situations. Maybe it’s not in your best to answer straightfowardly. “She sent me to give you the potion.”

“So she stayed,” the witch says. A tentacle flies out, swinging and slamming into the bark of the tree she rested under. Little bits of wood fly away. “I told you not to poke arou‍-​” And then she notices you. You’ve shrinked back, and eye the other tentacles with fear.

“It’s not your fault kid,” her says. “You couldn’t have stopped her. You couldn’t have talked her out of it. It’s fine. Everything ‍-​‍-​ everything will turn out fine, I’m sure of it.”

“Even the termite stuff?”

“Even the termites. The stewartry takes these things seriously. You and I don’t factor into it.” She peers at you, and then leans a little closer. You can almost make out the hairs on her maxillae. “It’s not all bad, anyway. I’ve wanted to speak with you, alone, and this is quite the excuse.”

“With… me? Why?”

“You want to be a vesperbane, don’t you? Some kind of story‍-​told hero?” Nod. “How’s that going?”

“It’s… not going well. Hervanian Alcha got inducted when she was just third instar! But it’s been four years since then and examinations every year and every year I get rejected. I’m about to be fifth instar soon and mother got inducted when she was fifth instar and if I get rejected again I’m completely hopeless.”

“She told you that?”

“No! But it’s obvious, I can figure it out on my own.” Your antennae curl up into little loops.

“You think your mom will find you completely hopeless if you don’t get accepted two years before standard?”

“Well, I don’t know. But I’m the best in the village! How could I not be inducted yet?” Unless you weren’t the best.

“I can help you.”

Your antennae pop out to attention again. You look up at the ambrosia witch.

“How?”

She smiles. It’s a broad, wicked thing. “There’s nothing stopping an intrepid defect such as myself from giving you the gift of the vespers. The how is obvious once you understand even two ounces of vesper theory.”

“You mean, you can make me a vesperbane? Right now?”

“Are you a really vesperbane if you aren’t countenanced by the stewartry? Or are you no better than a defect? Doesn’t matter. Casting black nerve? Cultivating blood and root? The vespertine arts, in their myriad forms? Yes, I can offer that.”

She’s also a defect.

“Wouldn’t that be, uh, extremely illegal??”

The bird is migrating up her arm to perch at the shoulder where foreleg met prothorax. Maune pets it.

She says, “And how would they catch you?”

“Uhh, next time I take the examinations probably? There are always vesperbanes there, and percipients.”

You see a maxillae twitch at the mention of percipients.

“You’re going to be gunning for stewartry inductment no matter what, aren’t you?” Maune shakes her head. “Look, you’re a‍ ‍—‍ you’d be a third generation vesperbane, wouldn’t you? Tlista’s mother was an insignificant wretch who resigned after a few years. But Tlista was the poison queen, and was on prowl to become arch‍-​fiend after Dlenam, the bastard, until‍ ‍—‍ it didn’t turn out that way. But still, they’re going to recognize her name, especially if they’re coming to Shatalek. And the thing everyone knows about second generation and onward vesperbanes is that their bodies and essences are‍ ‍—‍ sometimes‍ ‍—‍ already warped by the vespers. It’s how Clans start. And it’s the perfect cover! Just say it’s a blood secret, and they won’t question it. Nobody understands blood secrets, and looking too hard pisses off the clans.”

“So, you make me a secret vesperbane, and if I ever get caught I say it’s my clan bloodline?” You’re still unsure.

Maybe that shows in your tone, because next she’s giving you another smile. “I think I’ve got the measure of you, kid. Tell me, what do you know about ambrosia weevils? I’m the greatest expert the heartlands ever had. Even if you get inducted, you’ll never get what I’m offering.”

“I’ve, only heard stories. Weird forest beings that nymphnap and steal, and give gifts that curse and change you, and make plants grow feral and disobedient.” You pause, and I unsure about your next words, if they would spoil something sacred. “I saw one, walking over here.”

“You… you saw one? It appeared before you?” Those six words had wicked away so much of her confidence and bravado. She’s incredulous, indignant even. But she recovers enough to say, “Do you now what that means? Do you want to?”

You hesitate.

“Eifre, be my student, if only for a few months. You have potential, I’m sure of it. I can make you strong enough to go anywhere you want in the stewartry you want. I could have done it myself, if I didn’t throw it all away for something higher.” She pauses, and smiles. “The Kindling Dream is a nightmare. But I’ll sing you to sleep, if you like.”

You look away, as though not staring into Maune’s inviting confidence would clear your thinking. Instead your mind lights on the trees lined with fruit like little stars, and all the weird, impossible creatures that dwell in the layered canopy, and below it. It would be a shame to never see this again, wouldn’t it? To never learn all the secrets and wonders they live here?

“Tell me, have you ever heard of a druid?”

“I haven’t.”

“Exactly. I want to change that.”

And the choice lies before you. Accept Maune’s offer, and become a vesperbane in secret? You don’t know how lenient the vindicators will be if caught. defects are the very antithesis of the Dream and the heartlands; and you would become one, if deniably. But you don’t know if you can stand being denied the power and knowledge of the vespers much longer. And with the threat of the termite mound looming, might it be better to have power to save mantids sooner, rather than later?

But a treacherous part of your mind considers the inverse. You could exploit this, bring a defect to justice. Surely if a mundane nymph brought down a defect who’d run amok for years, someone in the capital would take notice? Someone might finally think you’re worth inducting.

If you trust your mother, maybe it’s worth it to tell her, and see what she says. But should you be that open, when she’s clearly alright with keeping secrets from you? And wouldn’t it ruin everything if she decided she didn’t want you pursuing this path, when it very well could lead to something great?

While you stand and think, the witch of the ambrosia woods settles back on her bed of flowers, and watches you, familiar mirroring her gaze.