Kellanved's Reach

The hut was empty but for a wizened elder seated in a chair next to a small fire. Candles of all lengths burned everywhere, giving the single-roomed dwelling a golden light. The ancient tilted her head, blinking, ‘Who comes to old Rose’s poor home?’

Janul saw by her frosted opaque eyes that she was blind.

‘My sister is wounded,’ he said, and laid her upon the bed of bundled straw.

‘Ah,’ Rose said. ‘Your sister, you say? There is a price for healing in this hut – and I do not mean coin.’

He waved his curt assent, then realized his mistake and said, ‘Yes, yes.’

The old woman pushed herself from her chair and approached, a hand extended. ‘Well, let us see …’ Janul guided her to Janelle. The ancient hissed when her hands found the girl. She tsked. ‘So young, yet her life’s flame gutters. She hasn’t enough strength left to pay the price.’

‘I have.’

Rose laughed, a harsh mocking cackle. ‘It’s not so easy as that, boy!’

‘For us it is,’ and he guided the woman’s other hand to his face. She felt at both, Janelle’s and his, and her breath hissed from her in wonder. ‘Twins! Bonds forged in the womb.’ She nodded, ‘Aye, it may work.’ She pinched his chin. ‘Know you the price, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I shall take of your life’s candle. Both of your years shall diminish while mine shall lengthen. You are agreed?’

He looked down at his twin, her face such an eerie echo of his own. ‘Aye. Agreed.’

Rose waved a crooked hand to the bed. ‘Lay you down next to your sister, then. I must prepare.’

He gently edged Janelle over and placed an arm under her head and closed his eyes.

Janelle awoke in a cramped bed in a cramped hut full of evil-smelling, choking smoke. Waving a hand before her, coughing from the harsh sooty fumes, she found the door and staggered out.

Then she stopped and stared at her bare unmarred feet.

What had happened?

Her ears were roaring and somewhere distant it sounded as if someone was calling her name. She raised her gaze to peer uncomprehendingly at a rocky coastline and a horizon of iron-grey water. A figure rose from a boulder near the surf and climbed the shore. As he neared she recognized him and could not believe her eyes. Grinning so familiarly, he took her shoulders.

‘Good to see you.’

She raised her hands to his face, brushed her fingertips there. ‘It really is you – I thought I’d dreamed you.’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

Her gaze sharpened. ‘What happened?’

‘I brought you to a healer.’

She studied his face, so like her own – wider and blunter than she’d have wished. ‘We have no coin, brother.’

He lifted his chin to the hut behind them. ‘She’s a wax-witch.’

Janelle sagged a little. ‘So, I paid with my life’s years.’

He shrugged. ‘We both did, sister.’

She clenched his hands now, tightly. ‘Both? Oh, Janul …’

‘You don’t think I’d let a few years come between us, do you?’

She now touched her own face, expecting to feel wrinkles and dry ancient flesh. ‘What will happen? How will it happen?’

‘The witch, Rose, said we will just age more quickly.’ He directed her to a nearby rock and invited her to sit. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll be living too long, in any case.’

She chuckled at that. ‘Nor I.’

They sat side by side in silence for a time, until the crunch of footsteps behind made them turn. A woman approached, in skirts, a knitted shawl about her shoulders. Janelle thought her just past middle age.

‘Rose?’ Janul asked, wonder in his voice. ‘You are … that is, you can see.’

She nodded. ‘Aye. I bloom brighter for a time. But that too shall pass, as all years do. You two are young; you do not understand as yet.’

‘Nor do we want to,’ Janul said.

The witch smiled knowingly. ‘In time you will. Then you will clutch at your years as all do.’

‘Not I,’ Janelle said.

The witch, Rose, drew a blackened pipe from her bosom. ‘Ever foolish are the young – perhaps that’s what makes them young.’

‘Any more fireside wisdom?’ Janul asked.

The woman was scraping the pipe bowl. ‘Do not think me simple, little ones.’ She gestured to them with the pipe. ‘You two are children of Shadow. Your master is set upon overturning every applecart he can reach. I do not approve of his methods, but I understand his motives – how else is he to make room for himself, hey?’

The twins eyed one another uncertainly.

Rose waved a dismissal. ‘Faugh. Do not worry. Your secrets are safe with me. I am just a simple wax-witch. Push and pull go the fates.’ She walked off, repeating in a singsong voice, ‘Push and pull.’

The twins waited until she was out of earshot, then Janul asked, ‘What did you learn?’

Janelle nodded, and whispered, ‘The tribes bicker as always, but they are close to moving against Itko Kan. All it may take is a push.’

At that last word Janul frowned and glanced at the witch, who walked the shore now, hands at her back, puffing on the pipe. ‘Very good,’ he murmured, distracted.

‘And the west?’ Janelle asked.

‘I am with a troop of soldiers.’

Janelle waved him from that. ‘Head to Dal Hon – I’m known now. You’ll have to take over.’