Chapter Twenty-Three Simran
Chapter Twenty-Three
Simran
If it ends in death, it cannot be love. A tale that tells you otherwise is a sick thing, an evil thing, sent to lead na?ve girls astray.
Take The Knight and the Witch, for example.
We’re encouraged to swoon over the tragedy of the love story, the honor of the knight.
But when you cut all the magic and armor away, what’s left?
A man murdering a woman. That’s all. It’s not a love story. The love is a lie.
Source: Pamphlet titled “Death of the Tale”
Archivist’s Ruling: For retention as evidence of treason. Review in 6 months. Provenance unknown. Investigation and interrogation strongly recommended.
She walked toward Galath. Her footsteps echoed, singing against every hollowed wall.
He was staring out of the window carved into stone, not looking at her with such intensity that she knew he could hear her every breath. He probably knew she’d been crying.
“I remember,” she said hoarsely. “I remember everything. But it’s too late.”
His smile was bitter.
“You always remember too late.”
“You could have told me.”
“I gave up long ago,” he said. “You never believed me. You’ve always trusted no one but yourself.”
He finally turned to her. She’d only seen an enemy the first time she’d looked at him.
Now she saw the boy she’d raised, lifetimes ago.
The boy she’d betrayed, and the man who’d mentored her, and the angel who’d protected her, and the limni-marked stranger who’d offered her a clean death of her own will, again and again and again.
The knight had been chosen for her, but for at least a handful of lifetimes Galath had been the family she’d chosen.
“Vina is gone,” she said softly. “The archivists have her.”
He shrugged. “It makes no difference. They would have compelled you eventually. Use your time wisely, witch. Break a little more of your tale. Maybe in your next life you’ll be free.”
“There won’t be many more chances,” said Simran. “The Isle is dying. Is that your doing? Because you’ve been killing—freeing—incarnates?”
“The Isle has been dying for a long time,” said Galath. “It is not my doing. Nor is it yours. The archivists, their Queen, have whittled stories so small that they have begun to wither to nothing, parched for the power that gives them life.”
“You don’t truly believe I’ll ever free the Eternal Prince,” said Simran.
“I believed once,” he said. “But that was hundreds of lifetimes ago. Time has eroded my faith to dust. So it goes.” He did not move, but she saw tension coil his muscles, as he prepared himself for what came next.
“I will offer you the choice I offer you every lifetime,” said Galath. “Let me take your life. Let me free you from your tale. You hold no real love for the Isle, nor anything upon it. Soon you’ll be gone again, and this version of you will be placed in Elayne’s hands. There will be no you.”
Simran hesitated.
“I want an end. But not the way you’re offering it.”
“As you always say,” he replied.
“Maybe I do,” she said. “But I want to live. I want…” Her voice trailed off.
She scrambled to find it again, her heart a hummingbird in her chest. “I want to live a full life. Just once.” She took a deep breath.
“I’m going to the Eternal Prince. I’m going to do what Elayne couldn’t. I’m going to set him free.”
“You always believe you will,” he said.
Time to go to the Eternal Prince. Time to finally awaken him.
She could understand Galath having no hope, but Elayne had looked at Simran with light in her eyes. Simran could wield limni ink. She’d wielded it through her needles for years as a scribe. But when she’d faced the archivists in the Copper Mountains, she’d wielded it with her hands.
Incarnates could not touch limni ink. But over lifetimes, the witch—Simran—had made herself into exactly the kind of creature who could place her hands on the Eternal Prince’s chains of ink and set him free.
“You can’t go where I’m going, Hari,” she said.
“You’re always leaving me behind.” He didn’t sound angry. Only tired.
“You can’t stay here with Galath,” said Simran. “I… I can…”
He touched a hand to her arm, silencing her.
“I’ll get home safe,” he said. “I’m not a child. And I’m not in danger anymore. I’ll be okay.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t leave you here. It’s not a safe place. The forest—all of it. After spending all this time trying to save you, do you really think I’m going to abandon you here to die?”
“Simran. You worry and worry,” he said. “If you’re really going to be such a mother hen… well. Give me the strength to survive on my own, instead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Magic has always been your business, not mine,” said Hari. “And I was fine with that. But if you’re going, I want one last gift from you.”
She understood, in a flash of awareness.
“It’ll hurt,” she said. “Getting limni ink put in your skin. And it’ll demand a price.”
“I’ve been through pain to get the life and the body that belonged to me,” Hari said, quiet and sincere. “I’m not afraid of a little more. And I know all about the price. You think I haven’t heard you tell your customers a thousand times?”
She unrolled her needles, for what was possibly the last time. She laid them out perfectly.
“I want witchcraft,” Hari said, before her needle could meet skin.
She paused.
“I thought you’d want to be a cunning man,” said Simran. “Like Lydia.”
He smiled and shook his head.
“I want to carry you with me,” he said. “I know what witchcraft is, Simran. It’s you.”
How long had Vina been gone? How long until the tale called her back?
Time was slipping through Simran’s fingers like sand.
She’d walked this path so many times before, treading the boards of the Isle’s stage lifetime after lifetime: from the Copper Mountains across the breadth of the Isle. There was no deer to carry her now. Just her own two feet.
She arrived at rolling green hills and felt Elayne’s whisper in her skull.
“Light a fire, Simran,” Elayne whispered. “Here on this field. Light a fire.”
“It’s not even dark,” Simran told her.
“Isadora’s magic is here,” Elayne replied. “Can’t you feel it? It’s been waiting, all this time. For Isadora’s sake—do it.”
Simran kneeled and pressed her hand to the earth. She could feel an old echo of magic there—something a witch had written into the soil long ago. It was nothing but a little illusory magic; a faint and unmalicious trick.
Simran lit a fire. The flames drew on the magic, turning from orange to silver. Simran kneeled by them, entranced for so long that the sky began to dim with evening.
“Look up,” Elayne whispered, something soft in her voice.
She looked.
A great wyrm flew down, swift as an arrow. It landed with a crash against the ground before her, and transformed fluidly into the shape of an older woman, a lamp clutched in her left hand. The air smelled of petrichor and iron around her.
“You’re a fellow incarnate,” Simran said. “But you know me. Don’t you?”
The woman nodded gravely.
“I performed my tale when I was a girl,” she said.
“They called me the Laidly Wyrm. But I am a small tale; perhaps you will not know me.” Her skin was delicate with age, her eyes pale as her sight had faded.
Her lantern glowed, deep and silver. “I promised you a lifetime ago I would carry you to the abbey, if you needed me. Now that you’re here, I will settle my debt.
” Her lamp creaked in her grip. “But I should not say ‘you.’ You are not Isadora any longer.”
“What did I do to help you?” Simran asked.
“It does not matter, little witch,” said the woman. “Even if you do not remember, I do. Isadora was a good friend, once.” Sorrow lay in her eyes.
It faded as she transformed, her limbs stretching, flecks of scales clawing their way from her face down her body. In moments, liquid with magic, she was a wyrm—a whip-thin dragon-creature, its claws in the earth, a silver lamp clenched in its maw.
The wyrm lowered her head, welcoming Simran close.
Simran touched a hand to the wyrm’s head. “Thank you,” she said.
She clambered onto the wyrm’s back. Even if the woman was old and frail, the wyrm was hale—its scales a shimmering luster, its spine powerful. She grasped its back and hoped she would not fall.
There was a powerful beating of wings. The wyrm rose into the air.
The wyrm carried her across black water, green fields, gray beaches of rock and sand. In the distance, across the roiling water, Simran could see a black ruin, spires broken and reaching for the sky. It stood on an islet—a small formation of sand and rock, caught in the clasp of the sea.
Finally, the wyrm landed on the coast. When Simran looked at her, she flapped her wings, turning away.
She could not speak, but Simran understood.
The wyrm could travel no farther. There was some dread power emanating from the distant ruin, on an islet enclosed by the silver sea.
The power felt like the strength of a thousand incarnate tales, the charisma of the Eternal Queen, the pulsing cold of the archivists.
“Your debt is paid,” said Simran. “I’m sorry you lost Isadora. She was lucky to have a good friend.”
The wyrm rose into the air, flying off with powerful beats of her wings. If the woman within the wyrm felt anything about what Simran had said, there was no way for her to know.
It was night, but morning was coming. Simran kneeled on the rocks at the edge of the Isle as the tide began to recede.
It drew back, creeping with silvery fingers, until there was nothing in front of her but sand shimmering with a patina of water, mirror-glass beckoning her forward. She stepped onto it.
At first the sand swallowed her feet. She stopped and removed her boots.
It was so far away. The walk was endless. She wouldn’t make it before the tide returned and she was swallowed whole. That was her fear. But exhausted, she kept walking forward.
She had to see Elayne’s work done.