Eversolstice IV

Chapter Four: Prison

Shahelama and Gyreshia went to war, fighting a terrible battle in which the world was nearly destroyed. Shahelama was fast and wild, but Gyreshia was wise and devious, and eventually, she struck a fatal blow with her spear, piercing Shahelama’s breast and causing her to bleed lava and fire. 

-The Great Teacher

The lanterns were out all around town. In the dim light of a rainy afternoon, the city looked like a rainbow shining at the end of a storm, but there were no lanterns hung on the walls of the Livannya mansion.

Celestra had waited patiently without saying anything. Sometimes, matters of importance kept her mother and father busy, but they usually hung the lanterns early in the month, before anyone else in the territory.

Mother and Father would have helped Celestra and Lunelda craft new lanterns, and the four of them would make a night of it, cooking barknuts over a warm fire. But the fires were dim, and it was only three days until Feasteve. Maybe Lunelda was the one to remind them every year, and now she was . . .

Celestra decided to gather her courage and approach her parents, so she wandered down into the inner halls of the manor, making her way to the dining room.

Father was there alone with a quill and an inkwell, signing documents and laws. He looked tired, although it was still morning.

“Father.” The hall was empty, so her voice carried across the distance. 

“Yes, Celestra? What is it?” he answered without any kind of feeling in his words. 

She wanted to come closer so it would be easier to speak, but something prevented her, “It is three nights until Feasteve,” she said softly.

“Oh, is it? Wow,” he said, but he was looking at his work.

“Will we . . .” she wanted to ask about the lanterns, but that’s not what she said, “What will we do?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Celestra,” he said, before scratching something down with his pen, “It’s . . . there’s just no time. There’s not any time for any of it.”

—

The morning of the eve came, and she couldn’t help leaping out of bed with a thrill in her heart. She hummed feast hymns to herself as she dressed. She even ate breakfast. Today was the day she had been waiting for.

For the first time in many years I’m receiving a Feasteve present, one that I will obtain, wrap and give to myself. 

Centaur twenty-first had been spent acquiring the iron and drawing up the finer details of her plan. After that close shave with the gorhash, she didn’t want to cut any corners. 

Since his last invitation had gone out, Celestra hadn’t seen or heard from the lord, which suited her fine. She dressed, packed up and left early on the twenty-second. The estimated hatching point was a bit of a journey, and she wanted to make it there with plenty of time to spare.

Celestra traveled out of town and over to the old ruined outpost. She felt eyes on her as she passed through the snowy streets. It was probably unusual for the people to see a young woman traveling alone into the woods on the eve of the festival. But the crowds thinned out and soon she was alone in the ruins.

She had stashed her provisions here, underneath the broken roof of a watch-station; her iron and the other heavier implements. Carrying them herself would have taken too long and been too much of a strain on her body. She called Gaib out from under his bridge and had him act as her pack mule, lifting everything onto his shoulder in a big brown sack. 

He seemed to have some undue difficulty lifting the sack of iron. He was a strong servant, perhaps the spell that kept him animated was weakening. 

I’ll make sure to firm it up after tonight, but I’ll need every drop of mana I have to capture The Allfather.

–

Celestra and Gaib spent the morning traveling ten swoops through snowy wastelands, stopping every few hours for a rest. She was glad she had Nesstra’s Crown to keep her warm, otherwise, the journey would have been agony.

At noon, she stopped and made some hot opalwood tea. The crown kept her alive, but she needed comfort too. 

As she heated her small kettle with a spark of conjured flame, she couldn’t help but feel like she was once again being watched, but there was no way it could be so. There was nothing here but desolate snowy wasteland for dozens of swoops in each direction.

The rhymes say ‘He sees you when you’re wicked. He knows when you rest.’ He’s supposed to perceive the deeds of all people at all times. Such a thing would be impossible, even, I’d venture, for a god, but I can’t help but wonder. 

She searched the wasteland for any signs of life. There was nothing but snow and desolation. 

If he knows I’m coming, this might be even harder. But it was too late to change course. She had committed to capturing The Allfather, that he might teach her the secret to eternal life. 

After tea, she traveled up a hill, through a valley and across a thicket, finally arriving at the Hatch Point. 

The plan was simple. Create a wide magical circle in the area that would bind any creature of fay origin. Next, try to narrow down his location and create a Circle of Stillness, a spell that, if injected with enough mana, could paralyze nearly any creature of flesh, even something as big as an ogre or a giant. 

I don’t think The Allfather is known to be particularly tremendous, but one can never be too careful.

Finally, she had discovered a lost seal used for binding powerful, extradimensional, ancient entities by destabilizing the link between the material world and their home plane, in this case, the plane of Fairy. She had acquired several scale worth of pixie dust specifically to dampen that link. The Seal of Powers could be copied multiple times in order to strengthen the effect, but she doubted she’d need more than one for a simple gift-giving fairy-man.

She cast a dowsing incantation on her staff and used it to find the place where the barrier between the realms seemed the most thin. This too was a particular spell she’d spent two months hunting through old libraries for. After half a crow searching, her staff reacted by growing warm in her hands. She had found the Hatch Point. It was a patch of snow surrounded by a rim of five small canvaswood bushes. She spent the next hour making her first circle out of ground iron mixed with a bit of salt and a few sprinkles of amber dust for amplification. The whole thing was twelve claw in diameter, a wide range, with the Hatch Point in the very center.

Now, all I can do is wait. 

She sat up on a flat stone, lit herself a small fire, and read a book of holiday rhymes she had brought with her.

An hour later, it began to grow dim.

In the next half hour, it started getting dark. 

Finally, when night had fallen in the early afternoon, something began to happen. 

First, Celestra sensed a jolt of mana, then the air rippled, as though something invisible was moving in the dark.

He’s here! He’s coming!

She muttered a few words to herself and focused to try and find the center of the disturbance, and it was exactly where she had predicted, right in the center of the five bushes. 

A golden light glimmered in the air and she gathered the materials for her second circle.

The sound of sleigh bells chimed lustily in the darkness as she ran out to the Hatch Point and began to draw out a circle of powdered gorgon-nettle. 

HO HO HO

That laugh . . . did she hear it with her ears? Or with her brain? It was so deafeningly loud. Her whole spirit trembled. 

Hello to the night!

Hello to Feasteve!

A roar became a voice, deep and filled with ethereal joy. She tried not to be distracted as she cut the shape of the circle in the snow, carving its finer arcane details with her arthema.

Celestra had just enough time to draw out her Stillness Circle and fill it with the nettle dust before He materialized. She immediately began working on the Seal of Powers.

For just an instant, she thought she saw a door, an actual, literal door of green, painted wood, rimmed with various wreaths of leaf and flower.

HO HO HO

Celestra wanted to scream! That voice. It made her heart pound and beat against her ribs. 

She focused as much mana as she could into her iron circle and watched. 

Golden light beamed from nowhere, blinding like sunlight, and took a shape; a vast, beautiful sleigh, its front decorated with a wide pair of antlers like a stag, and no creature pulling it. 

Then, the thing itself; the entity. 

She was halfway done the power seal, but she couldn’t help raising her head and looking up in wonder.

He was tall– at least three heads taller than Celestra, and wide as well, dressed in a fur-lined coat of silver, with a glimmering sword sheathed at his waist. He had silvery blue scales all over his body, a snout, sharp teeth and three pairs of small horn-like spikes on the sides of his head. One of his eyes was gleaming and green like an emerald, and the other was covered with a white eyepatch.

“The Allfather.” Celestra found herself saying out loud. 

The golden light glimmered across him and then dispersed into the night sky, but his whole form was still illuminated by a fairy radiance. 

Celestra stared at him, transfixed, and, much to her horror, he stared back at her.