When It Wavers

Several afternoons later, Maeril reached the end of an anchoring line and found that she could no longer straighten her fingers.

She set down the quill. The joints opened one at a time.

The finished spell filled the pages before her. Origin, direction, distance, arrival. Silver-black lines joined fields of smaller notes. She had copied each sequence once, scraped it away, and written it again until the symbols no longer felt borrowed.

Outside, boots crossed the packed earth below the lodge.

The drape lifted. Rishi stepped through with his shaved scalp damp, mud on his trouser hems, and a new bruise darkening the side of his neck.

Maeril looked at the bruise.

“Did she knock you out again?”

“No.” He let the drape fall. “Not today.”

“A triumph for restraint.”

Rishi poured water and drank half the cup before he answered.

“We went slowly. Sirael showed me where I gave her the throw. I showed her where I interrupted her breath.”

He touched two fingers to the mark on his neck.

“Then we stopped going slowly.”

“Naturally.”

His mouth eased.

“It was less a contest this time. More a conversation.”

“With sticks.”

“Yes.”

Rishi finished the water. His attention moved to the spellbook.

“You finished.”

“I finished enough to learn whether I have made a door or an unusually expensive page.”

“Today?”

She rubbed the hollow between thumb and forefinger. The ache had spread halfway to her wrist. She had been bent over the table since the noon meal, and the small script along the final margin still floated when she blinked.

If she waited until morning, she would spend the night finding errors that were not there. If she tried now, she could find the ones that were.

“One short test. While every line is still clear in my head.”

Rishi watched her hand.

“I will stay close.”

“Close enough to help. Far enough not to share any consequences.”

He set the cup down.

“You make that distance difficult to judge.”

“Now you understand the spell.”

He went back outside while she sanded the last line, closed the ink, and waited for the page to dry. Then she wrapped the spellbook in its cloth and carried it under one arm.

The small clearing below the lodge held the thin light of late afternoon. Roots broke the earth near its edges, but the centre was level. Rishi stood there with the living staff, moving through a slow form.

He planted the wood, turned around it, and changed hands behind his back. Each step pressed the day’s stiffness out of a different joint. When Maeril reached the clearing, he finished the turn and grounded the staff beside him.

“Ready?”

“No.” She lowered the book onto a dry root. “That is why we start small.”

She took two pebbles from her pocket. One went at her toes. The other she set three paces away on a patch of bare ground.

Origin and destination. Clear sight between them. Nothing overhead. No stones hidden under leaves.

When she returned to the first marker, a movement beyond Rishi caught her eye.

Nessari stood at the edge of the clearing. Her hair had loosened from its plait, and colour warmed her cheeks as though she had run there. She kept both feet outside the scuffed earth.

“May I watch?”

Maeril looked at Rishi. He gave the smallest lift of one shoulder.

“You may,” Maeril said. “From where you are. If anything looks wrong, you stay there unless Rishi tells you otherwise.”

Nessari drew herself upright. “I will stay.”

Maeril faced the second pebble.

“I am not crossing on the first attempt. I will build part of the spell, feel whether it holds, and release it.”

“Like checking the first threads,” Nessari said.

“Exactly.”

Maeril shook out her hands and placed her feet on either side of the origin.

She held the clearing in her mind. The pressure of earth under her heels. The lodge behind her left shoulder. The second stone three paces ahead and a handspan to the right.

Her fingers drew the first signs.

The words followed.

Air thickened in front of her. Sound drew inward until the stream seemed farther away. A narrow seam appeared between her and the destination, visible only where the light bent along its edge.

Pressure gathered behind her eyes.

She held the unfinished shape for one breath.

Then she opened both hands and let it go.

The seam closed with a soft knock. Cold air touched her face and was gone.

Maeril breathed out.

Rishi had shifted his weight forward. The staff remained grounded, but his rear heel had lifted.

“Anything regrettable?” she asked.

“The forest became quiet.”

“It is judging me.”

“It may only be listening.”

Nessari leaned as far forward as she could without moving her feet. “The air opened.”

“Almost.” Maeril pressed her thumb above one eyebrow. The ache there was small and even. “Again.”

The second attempt came more cleanly. She stopped at the same point, released the fold, and felt the world settle without a jolt. On the third, the seam held straight from top to bottom. The destination stone showed through it at an angle that distance should not have allowed.

Maeril dropped her hands.

The clearing returned to its ordinary shape.

Her pulse beat fast at the base of her throat. Her fingers did not shake.

“Now the door.”

Rishi’s grip changed on the staff.

“The same distance?”

“The same everything.”

She found the origin beneath her feet and the destination with her eyes. Three paces. Bare earth. Pebble. Moss at its left edge.

Maeril spoke the whole incantation.

This time the seam widened. Its two edges curved apart without exposing darkness or light between them. The ground beyond simply drew near. The second stone waited one step away, though her eyes still knew where it lay.

The pressure reached her jaw and settled in her teeth.

She stepped.

There was no passage between one place and the other.

Her raised foot left the origin and came down beside the second pebble. Her stomach dropped a heartbeat later. Both knees bent, but the ground held.

The fold closed behind her.

Maeril put a hand to her ribs and counted everything she expected to find.

Two arms. Two legs. All clothing present. No bark.

“That,” she said, “was unpleasant in a very promising way.”

Nessari’s mouth hung open.

“You did not cross the middle.”

“There was no middle.”

“Where did it go?”

Maeril looked back at the first pebble. “Nowhere. Briefly.”

Rishi came closer without entering the space between the markers.

“Are you hurt?”

“My bones disagree about the order of events. Otherwise, no.”

She walked back around the two stones. Three paces took longer than the spell had.

At the origin, she flexed her hands. The pressure behind her eyes had become a steady throb. Not pain enough to frighten her. Pain enough to measure.

“One more.”

Rishi looked at the lowering light, then at her.

“You said one short test.”

“That was the short test. This will be the useful one.”

Behind the lodge lay a narrow strip of open ground. Maeril had walked it that morning: packed earth sloping toward a root with a knot like a closed eye. The wall blocked it from sight, but the distance was no more than ten paces.

She picked up the destination pebble.

Rishi did not move aside.

“Your eyes are tired.”

“Which is why I want to know whether memory works before I trust it when something is chasing us.”

He held her gaze.

She walked to the side of the lodge and checked the destination once more.

Bare ground. The knotted root two paces to its right. A slight fall toward the stream. Nothing that could share the space with her.

She set the marker down and returned.

“If the fold wavers, I stop.”

Rishi stepped back at last. “If it wavers, you stop.”

Nessari retreated another pace without being told.

Maeril planted her feet.

The destination existed behind wood now. She rebuilt it from memory: slope, root, pebble, distance, angle. Her mind supplied each detail, but none stayed as firm as the stone she had been able to see.

She began the spell.

The first line of bent air formed. The second shivered away from it.

Maeril corrected her right hand.

The seam widened, then narrowed. Through it she glimpsed brown earth from too high an angle. The image slid sideways and caught for half a heartbeat on the lodge wall.

A thin whine entered her teeth.

“Maeril,” Rishi said.

“I see it.”

She held the fold. The destination was there.

One line wrong. No more, she told herself. If I release it now, I have to rebuild the whole thing tomorrow without knowing whether the correction worked.

Her right wrist turned.

The image cleared.

For one breath, the pebble waited on open ground exactly where it should.

Maeril stepped.

Direction tore loose.

The earth fell sideways. Her raised foot reached three different places and none of them. Pressure seized her through the hips and shoulders. She had no body, then too much of one, every part arriving from a different distance.

The fold snapped shut.

Stored force struck back through her.

The clearing hit her knees. Her shoulder followed. She did not feel her head touch the ground.

Rishi dropped the staff.

He reached Maeril as the last distortion vanished from the air. She lay on one side with her cheek against the leaves. Her limbs had gone slack.

“Maeril.”

No answer.

He knelt behind her and put two fingers below her jaw. Her pulse ran fast and uneven against them. He lowered his ear near her mouth.

Breath touched his cheek.

Nessari made a small sound at the edge of the clearing.

Rishi said, “She breathes. Stay where you are.”

He checked the back of Maeril’s head without lifting it. No blood warmed his fingers. The ground beneath her skull was soft with wet leaves, with no root or stone under it.

Her jaw trembled. The tremor travelled down her neck and into one shoulder.

Rishi cupped one hand beneath the base of her skull. His other palm settled over her breastbone.

He let his next breath fill slowly. The bruise at his neck pulled. He released the pain with the air and found the rhythm again.

Maeril’s breath caught beneath his hand.

His supporting fingers found two hollows where neck met skull. He shifted the heel of his other hand below her collarbone. Warmth gathered beneath both hands. He held the pressure and gave her uneven breath something steady to answer.

In.

Out.

Again.

The tremor in her shoulder eased first. Her jaw followed. The frantic beat in her throat slowed.

Nessari had both fists pressed to her mouth. Tears stood in her eyes, but her feet had not crossed into the clearing.

“You are doing well,” Rishi told her.

She swallowed and nodded.

Maeril’s brow tightened.

Rishi bent closer. “Come back.”

Her eyelids moved. She drew a deeper breath and made a low, offended sound.

“Stay still.”

Maeril opened her eyes.

At first she saw only green light and the dark shape above her. Rishi came into focus by pieces: the dark beard along his jaw, mud at one knee, the line between his brows.

The back of her skull pounded. Her arms felt full of sand.

“How bad?”

“You did not vanish.” His fingers remained at the base of her skull. “I count that in your favour.”

A sound escaped Nessari. Half laugh, half sob.

Maeril shifted her eyes toward her.

“You fell like you said Rishi did,” Nessari said. “But no one hit you.”

“I prefer to arrange my own disasters.”

The words cost more breath than they should have. Maeril closed her eyes until the clearing stopped leaning.

Rishi waited.

When she opened them again, he held up two fingers.

“Two,” she said.

He moved them from side to side. Her eyes followed. The motion pulled nausea through her stomach, but her sight did not split.

“What happened?”

“It closed around you and threw you back.”

Maeril remembered the destination dividing under her foot.

“The angle drifted. I corrected the image, not the anchor.”

“You knew it was wrong.”

His tone stayed level. The words did not.

“Yes.”

“And you are tired.”

“Also yes.”

Nessari lowered her fists. “Will you do it again?”

Maeril turned her head a fraction. Pain tightened behind one eye, and Rishi’s hand stopped her from moving farther.

“Not today.”

Nessari waited.

Maeril breathed past the ache.

“But I will try again. Places I can see. Short steps. I stop when the fold moves, even if I think I know why.”

The young elf wiped one cheek with her sleeve.

“Good.”

Rishi slid an arm behind Maeril’s shoulders.

“Sit slowly.”

The first attempt raised her only to one elbow. The clearing rolled. She waited for it to settle, then let him bring her the rest of the way upright.

Nessari stayed where she had promised until Rishi called her closer.

“Bring the spellbook. Keep it level.”

She ran to the root, gathered the wrapped book in both hands, and held it against her chest.

Rishi rose with Maeril. She leaned into his side while the numb weight in her legs became a prickling ache.

“Can you walk?”

“Ask me again after I have lied once.”

He waited.

Maeril put one foot forward. It landed where she intended.

“Yes.”

The lodge was only up the slope. Rishi’s arm stayed firm around her waist. Nessari followed with the book, placing each foot as carefully as if she carried hot coals.

At the threshold, Maeril took the spellbook from her.

“Thank you.”

Nessari did not release it at once. “Will you be well?”

Rishi said, “She will rest. I will stay with her.”

Nessari looked at Rishi, then let go.

“May I come tomorrow?”

“Yes. You may make certain I keep my promise.”

Nessari nodded. She glanced once at the ground behind the lodge.

“Would you put the marker back beside the other?” Maeril asked.

“And bring the staff,” Rishi said. “Please.”

Nessari ran behind the lodge. A moment later she crossed the clearing, set the pebble three paces from its mate, and returned with the Living Staff balanced in both hands.

Rishi received it at the threshold.

“Thank you.”

Nessari followed the path toward the Root-House.

Inside, Rishi settled Maeril against a folded blanket on her platform. He dimmed the lodge by pulling the entrance drape until only a narrow band of light remained.

Then he unrolled his herb kit.

Small packets and pots filled its stitched pockets. He chose a bitter root, dried mint, and a pinch of narrow grey leaves. The pestle made a low scrape as he ground them together.

Maeril watched through half-closed eyes.

“You have carried that kit since Baldur’s Gate.”

“Longer.”

“And you still have not found a herb that tastes pleasant.”

“Pleasant herbs are eaten before they reach the kit.”

He poured hot water over the mixture and left it to steep. While it cooled, he spread mint salve on a folded cloth.

“May I?”

Maeril turned enough to give him the back of her neck.

He laid the cool cloth where her skull met her spine. His fingertips worked beside it, never on the bone, pressing until the muscles released one narrow band at a time.

The pounding withdrew from behind her eyes.

“You are cheating,” she murmured.

“How?”

“Mercy and actual medicine. Choose one advantage.”

“No.”

He put the cup in her hands.

“Small sips.”

Maeril tasted it and pulled her mouth away.

Rishi sat on the edge of the platform until she drank again.

Warmth spread down her throat. Her stomach settled. The ache in her head dulled enough for the rest of her body to complain: cramped hand, stiff back, shoulder bruised by the fall.

“First you,” she said. “Now me.”

“Next we could try sleep.”

“Ambitious.”

He took the empty cup and set it beside the platform.

Through the dim lodge, the carved stag faced them from its niche.

Maeril said, “Next time, I ask Mielikki before I fold part of her forest.”

“And keep your promise.”

She looked at him.

“That too.”

Rishi’s shoulders lowered.

Maeril lay back. He kept one hand beneath her head until it reached the blanket, then returned to his own platform across the room.

Twilight gathered outside. A voice called near the Root-House. Wood struck wood twice, then stopped. The stream continued beneath it all.

Maeril listened to Rishi breathe until she could no longer separate his rhythm from her own.

Beyond the drape, the two pebbles lay three paces apart in the darkening clearing.