The Mysteries were deep and ancient halls where the Ace burned, hidden in a reliquary. Their mission now was to gain entrance.
To be reborn you have to die, Our Lady Maeve heard Herself saying, in another life. The world already ended.
There was a chapel on the main floor, just below the desert surface. The coolness, the smell of warm dust, the incense. No quiet like an empty church.
A stained-glass portrayal of a five-pointed star lit the chapel, casting peaceful light in all the colors of the rainbow. In the center was a bright white flame.
A search revealed nothing. Maeve sat, distraught, and the others joined her in the pews.
Benjamin was impatient to return to the grate, the center of the bonfire, and after a few minutes they agreed.
The Witches had not stopped dancing when they returned to the great bonfire.
Trusting in Her holy nature — and beyond frustrated with the whole thing — Maeve walked directly into the tall, still-silver flames. She moved too fast now, full of the Flame, for anyone to stop Her.
She found Herself delightfully unharmed. The white flames sparkled a bit all around her but did not bite.
The others followed. She was grateful for that — but not as grateful as the fact She wasn’t scorched and screaming. How embarrassing that would have been!
“Okay, so we found … Something. Now, where is the door?”
Benjamin yelped behind Her, transforming nervously from a Wildboy to a Bearcub and back again.
“I found it — hot. It’s on real fire.”
She wondered if the Sun Dragon shape would help, but the boy was one step ahead.
The white dragon reached hesitantly for the grate with his claws and then easily swung it open, revealing a black wrought-iron staircase, spiraling straight down into a maelstrom of flame.
A wide landing, halfway between the flames above and those below, gave them all a moment to breathe.
Straight down, and above them, a tunnel of clear air surrounded the staircase, interceding against the surrounding flames.
“A lot of very annoying magic went into protecting this thing,” Holder noted. “I’d say the tougher it gets, the better off we are.”
Far below them still, there was a hedge maze made of black stone. It looked unforgiving.
“The only way out is through,” Our Lady said, and Holder nodded.
There was that buzzing, ugly voice in Maeve’s head, a misplaced memory with a lot of pain behind it. It said harsh but indelible things like “the only way out is through” and “to be reborn, you have to die.” She hated the awful memory voice, but it was proving to be kind of wise.
So why do I feel such hatred for it? It’s unlovely, to hate. Although surely some evil is worth hating?
“Want nothing, fear nothing, hate nothing.”
Why would they make it so hard?
“The Mothers. I can feel their hold on me,” said Queene Death. “It doesn’t hurt but it’s a funny strange feeling. Pulling me on.”
Our Lady Maeve considered this and decided she understood what the Queene meant. Pulling Me on.
“I think this magic, the agreement, is a good thing,” the Queene told the group. “I think — I think it won’t let us fail.”
There was something hollow in it, their normally ghostly voice gone even deader. Our Lady wondered what was troubling them.
Benjamin bristled, but kept silent. He may be regretting the deal, She thought.
“There’s not really a way to test for that,” Holder laughed. “If we succeed, the Witches get the credit. If we fail, the world ends and nobody cares. So either way we might as well do our best.”
The Diamond Dogs spent a while discussing it, in that bizarre way they had — silent, half in a nearly imperceptible gesture code.
“We have no objection. (Whatever supports the mission.) We don’t have the luxury of choosing otherwise (either as our duty or our doom).”
Limitations are galling, She thought again grimly.
The wrought iron staircase was encircled in a cyclone of flames. The heat was not exactly bearable, but She could make out the black stone floor from here, at its bottom. The outer banister beneath Her holy hand was cool, thanks be, but the air burned Her holy throat.
“This is intolerable,” She hissed half-heartedly, but nobody responded. She could hear only the flames, Her family breathing, their yelps when they got too close to the flames.
“We are near,” Benjamin said eventually, over the crackling of flames. He gave it a long sniff. “Burning. It’s so strong. Like a forest on fire. Or the Sea. The Moon, burning.”
“Definitely something we want to get our little hands on,” She murmured, earning a scowl.
Fierce little wildboy, thought Our Lady. Stay fierce.
“I can smell it too,” said Queene Death. “Just like he said. Like burning something already burning. Like fire catching fire. This is powerful magic.”
Our Lady’s thoughts returned to Sailorboy — how this artifact might stink up his boat, and what he might say about that. Probably nothing; probably he’d just mope about it.
His life does seem awfully hard, She thought. Have to be kinder. He loves You.
Surely Her worshippers wanted something in return for adoring Her — why would he be different? She wanted to know how it all worked, but couldn’t bring Herself to ask Holder.
Something in the way she mentioned Ællaë indicated it might be a messy topic. Imagine your best friend was God — a Goddess — how strange that would be. How difficult to comprehend.
Or perhaps to believe at all. Holder might just think Maeve was crazy, manipulating these people with Her powers. Maybe she was even right — but then, She thought, I find I’m inclined to believe in Myself, with or without Holder Stone’s say-so.
Let her believe what she wished, it made no difference to Maeve’s divinity. That was the current state of things.
The long hot march ended, eventually, at a black marble floor stretching out in all directions, into darkness. The area just a few yards above their heads was a wall of flame. Without the crossbreeze, from wherever it was coming from, it would have been death.
“I don’t fancy going back up those stairs any time soon, but it seems we have arrived.”
Maeve’s voice echoed off the stone, dampened by the fire licking above their heads.
Without much ado Benjamin pointed in a direction, and so She led the way. He comes in handy, this little man — sniffing down the Ace, opening the way. Shouldn’t underestimate him.
The boy brought them to a sort of hedge maze made of black stone, its walls twice as tall as Thomas would have been. They shone in the firelight. They seemed hungry somehow.
“One must keep a hand on the same wall at all times. Choose a direction, and follow it.”
Everyone had their own theory as to how to solve the maze, but none had Our Lady’s confidence.
“I’m sure there is a reason this works and to be honest, I do not know how I know it. But it’s true.”
In the absence of another agenda they obliged, stretching out their right hands to the cool marble that surrounded them. As one, they curved around every bend and corner, doubling back on their efforts, always moving in the same direction relative to the wall.
They trusted in Our Lady, in the absence of other information. Maybe that was how Her cult got started in the first place.
Eventually a door of flame appeared. A rectangle of white fire that, in contrast to the orange flames above, told them it was safe to the touch. Maeve hoped.
Queene Death stepped ahead of Her, as was their duty.
“I’ll open it now, if no one objects?”
The Diamond Dogs and Benjamin stepped to on side of the opening, in case flames came roaring out, and Maeve and Holder joined them, along the other side.
Queene Death walked all the way around the doorway — they could see the Queene through the white sparking outline as they closely investigated.
Assured, they stood to the side, reaching for the edge of the door, and swung it open away from themselves. Within was a blackened oaken pedestal, carved into a sort of hearth on top. Sitting upon that was a beaten tin cup, burning brightly with those red flames.
“The Ace of Flames?” Benjamin seemed disappointed, but Holder nodded.
“That’s the one, all right. We called it into being centuries ago. I guess at some point it may have started a cult around itself.”
Holder looked back at Maeve, hoping.
“Bring anything back?”
But there was nothing, just that smell of burning. Like a campfire that filled the sky.
Holder reached through the open door for the cup. One of the Diamond Dogs involuntarily hissed in fear, but the flames didn’t burn.
“It’s hot to the touch, but not unpleasant. Hot bath, not hot iron…”
The Dogs relaxed — just as Holder abruptly fell to the black marble floor, fainting with it clutched to her heart. She went utterly still.
The Dreamers rushed to Holder’s side, and she soon sat up grinning, eyes a bit wild.
“They weren’t joking,” she laughed, giddy. “This is potent stuff. I got a big, juicy memory I’d forgotten — and this.”
Where she slapped the ground, ripples lapped out across the black marble, like they were standing on a vast lake.
“Earth Magic upgrade.”
Holder passed the burning cup to Queene Death, who betrayed no effect, if it had one at all. Maeve wondered if they’d gained any strange new powers, like Holder. They had.
The Queene formed a ball of flame between their hands, tossing it between them in the air before sending it up, up into the ceiling of fire. It was swallowed up like a sunspot.
“I can make fire, now,” the Queene said, almost cheerful again. “I’ll start practice with this immediately.”
The Diamond Dogs clasped hands and took hold of the cup, bracing for the worst. They declined to share their findings, a moment later, but it was a little gratifying to see them shaken, for once. So much going on behind those fox faces.
Our Lady thought about how important faces were. The Queene’s strong body, not their skull face, could tell you everything you needed to know. That wasn’t true of the others, although She could get a sense of little Benjamin’s mood from how he stood, how gingerly he stepped.
Benjamin wept a bit as he held the cup, but wouldn’t (or couldn’t) explain why. He handed it to Maeve politely enough.
“Interesting. You all gain gifts when you touch the Ace. It seems I take on an entire Land’s essence. My prodigious talent with Fire, you’ll find, was practically nothing compared to My power now.”
And with that, She fell straight down onto Her holy face, splayed out on the marble as the memory took hold.
Maeve’s childhood was nice enough, in Her little village. Her parents were convinced She was a boy, and no amount of debate could change their minds. They dressed Her as a boy and called Her a boy and introduced Her as a boy, which was infuriating and made Her feel like she was being crushed to death.
But Our Lady kept Her holy mouth shut. This persistent madness of theirs was the sort of thing She could overlook, even before Her ascension to Goddesshood. She was more forgiving then.
But Her childhood was not as long as some. Not quite so lengthy as one might wish.
One day a woodsman told Her, in passing, something She didn’t understand — something about a woman who wasn’t his wife. Said it clear as day, said words She’d never heard.
Our Lady didn’t realize She’d read his mind until well after things had gotten completely out of hand.
Our Lady simply asked Her mother what it meant, repeating the particular words he’d used, and Her mother went white as the milchcow and asked where the words had come from.
The Woodsman took little time at all to accuse Our Lady of being something evil Herself.
This was not the first time She’d gotten on everybody’s nerves by blabbing things She shouldn’t know, so everyone just went along with it:
She was the bad thing rotting in the heart of the village.
It answered more questions than it provoked, really.
From “Visions of Our Lady Maeve”
She tried to hide, but there was nowhere to hide. Everyone in the village knew what She was now. Hunting Her would be nothing more than a game.
Our Lady set off down a path & within minutes She’d happened on a dice game between boys her own age, who grinned as one. Like wolves.
The cruelty of them — knowing nothing that might happen to Her would ever really matter.
She didn’t like the way they looked at Her and so She walked away. Our Lady was young, but even the young have seen much.
She was right to walk away. She should have run instead.
She immediately got lost in the wood, far into sundown. She could hear them coming. It sounded like the whole village by now. Heavy feet and low, dark laughter. And in Her desperation and her rage, She called on the forces of her half-remembered childhood.
All those spells She’d have cast, if She only could. Those lonely days out in the fields, too strange for the girls & too much a girl for the boys to be comfortable. The way She once dreamed the magic up.
Everyone knew there was something strange about Her, they’d all say. Couldn’t tell how, but something in them just always knew. Most of them hunting Her not out of fear nor glee but a third thing, the joy of participation. And yet still they come. Even if with specious reasons.
So She called upon the Wood, and O! It grew tall behind Her. But they chopped and felled the trees, and She ran.
She called on the Wind, and O! It lost Her scent. But still they come. And She ran.
She called on the faraway Sea and O! It sent Her a fierce storm, and they lost Her. For a while.
She called on the Stone, and the earth rose to defeat them. Still they come.
In desperation, She called on the Night, to hold her close. She was delirious, afraid — and getting angrier. She called on the Glass, the future, like a silver scream. They covered their ears, and they kept coming.
They left Her no choice. She hates that. She has always hated that.
So She called upon the Flame, and burned them where they stood. Every single one. And standing in their smoke — as the Sea’s waters put out the fire, as the Wind carries their ashes in all directions, as the Night finally comes — she gave thanks for the Dream.
Our Lady Maeve resolved she would make her way in the world with the Dream, and learn as much as She could about each Dream, and use them to improve the world. She would be kind, and sometimes brutal. When She needed to be.
And Bless Our Lady! For that’s exactly what She did.
“Stone. Stone. Stone.”
Our Lady Maeve would need a partner, first thing — and they should come from Stone, she’d decided. The balancing force to Her Wind, maybe.
Holder wasn’t what She pictured when She did the spell, but one hundred years later when she finally turned up, Our Lady loved Holder at once.
“I am Holder, of the Stone. I’ve been looking for You for about a hundred years. You changed my world and I need to know why. Why am I so strong, so fast? Why can I heal people, and mold their flesh — and stone — like clay? Why are my dreams like this? What did You do to me?”
Maeve offered her a seat, but she wouldn’t have it.
“Holder, welcome. I am Our Lady Maeve — and I am so happy to meet you.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Holder, even more wary.
Am I being strange?, thought Maeve. So be it.
“You have been awakened to the Dream of the Stone. You embody an ancient force. Technology, solidity, the Earth beneath our feet. Excellence. You can talk to mountains — and one day, perhaps, move them.”
“That all sounds fine,” Holder quickly answered. “So far it’s all good news.”
Our Lady was making it up as She went on Her holy way, but She wasn’t sure Holder needed to know that.
“Immortality might turn out to be a bad thing at some point, but I think I accounted for that.”
“You sound like you invented this,” said Holder, looking around her for the first time. The bubbling alembics and great tomes and xylophones — Our Lady seemed awfully like a Witch.
Maeve blushed. She had invented it, in fact, and all on Her own. She’d called upon the forces underneath everything, and they’d responded — loudly. This was divinity.
“I’ve always liked the Witches I’ve met,” Holder said. Our Lady clapped with delight.
Our Lady was ecstatic upon Her return to consciousness. The tough stuff up front didn’t interest Her too much, but She was overjoyed by the second memory.
“Holder, I remembered you. I missed you terribly and didn’t even know it!”
“Well, we’re here now — and we’re getting You back.”
“And I remembered the night I made the Dream,” Maeve said quietly. “It was hard to watch, but not impossible. And I did love meeting you again. If this is what it’s going to be like, lead on!”
Words to regret, perhaps.
Standing on the docks at Sunstone Port, they could see the Actæon, away across the water, returning at last. The sunrise over America was one hundred shades of red, and beautiful.
Dawn, after a night in the dormitories at the School of Flame and a hearty, fortifying breakfast under the gaze of the Mothers.
The Mosts Virtuous and Perceptive arrived, to say a kind of farewell.
“Our Lady Maeve, Holder Stone, don’t forget us. You have a marathon ahead of you. But you’ve a good ship, and a good crew to sail with.”
It was true. Most Perceptive lowered her voice.
“We really haven’t given You anything but our best aid. We truly believe this is how You will succeed. Perhaps one day You’ll even forgive us, yes?”
“I do not believe your meddling was necessary,” Maeve replied, not unkindly, “But I accept its effect. We will not fail.”
“I hope and know it was the right decision, Our Lady,” said Mother Laitha.
Maeve grinned Her crooked, lovely grin.
“You’ve got some kind of nerve trying to poach my bodyguard, Most Perceptive.”
Mother Laitha laughed. Maeve could tell she didn’t often let people see her laugh — She was a bit touched.
Most Virtuous let her guard down even further, murmuring so that only Maeve could hear.
“The Bard Thomas was one of my favorites, You know. Please take care of him. He’s weak, but he’s worthwhile. Perhaps You will be strong enough to forgive him one day. I am not.”
And with that she was gone. Back among the red veils, with her headdress shining in the morning Sun.
Mere moments later, Benjamin exploded.
Where a boy had stood was now a shifting, screeching creature, feathered and furred. It was awful, painful.
Holder stepped forward to calm him, but she was pushed back by the wind of great wings.
“I must go! I have to! It burns!” the boy screamed.
“Where are you going, Benjamin? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know!” he screeched, momentarily a single bird in his frustration. “It just hurts! I must go!”
And with one great leap off a dock, he was a dolphin. Benjamin sped away, past the Actæon, and Sailorboy moved quickly to set sail after him.
The boat was moving when Our Lady reached the dock, but without thinking twice She leapt high into the air and floated down onto the deck. She touched down easily and laughed, delighted by this latest trick.
And they were off, waving goodbyes to the Dry Witches of Santana as the schooner sped away to find their brother.
Goodbye, Maeve thought — And thanks for nothing, you gross old witches. Goodbye, thank you for the extra burden.
She smiled graciously, nonetheless. Our Lady Maeve never gave less than 100%.