Candlemaiden: The Stranger Shore

Ninth Chapter, First Part: Learning

Kismet cried out a high pure note, and Iris dragged her eyes away from the scene. The murky swamp still loomed until the horizon, and Iris had little desire to stay in such a dismal place. A gnarled root jutted high out of the ground next to her, and she grabbed it to help herself stand.

Immediately lines of blue flame glowed like veins in the root, and across the swamp a series of roots began to do the same. Their light wasn't bright, but the color was vibrant against the swamp's monotonous gray and brown. It was more than curiosity that tugged at Iris to follow the light to the next puddle, and as she kneeled down over the next scene, Kismet let out a slow trill that Iris interpreted as a sigh.

In this puddle she watched herself bind the spirit in Ramos, and from without the heart-biting fear wasn't visible. Instead, watching herself chase down the spirit, Iris glimpsed the glory in the song the Candlekin had sung.

The next puddle didn't show Iris at all, but rather a woman with wild tawny hair, who was protecting three children from a rabid river spirit amongst the shattered remains of wooden effigies. The spirit was corporeal, a salamander the size of a wagon, and its eyes were red and black as it lashed its tail to and fro, splintering the wood that had been carefully wrought into animals for the springtime festival. Removed from the violence and the danger, Iris felt anger at the violation of the festival's sanctity, and vindicated triumph when the woman subdued the creature by lighting the wooden piles around it with green-blue flames.

The last puddle Iris stared into was vast, and the tumbling images that flashed before her told a story of many years. It started with a ship on the stormy sea, filled with the frightened faces of strange pale men. The frothy sea smashed into the ship's side and crashed onto the deck as lightning cracked the black sky. Masts snapped, sails tore in half, and sailors were swept screaming into the sea. The image swirled, and suddenly Iris was watching one sailor sink down into the eerie depths of the ocean, his silver hair floating in tangles behind his head and his white skin looking green in the eerie underwater light.

Light? Iris brought her face closer to the puddle, peering at the scene closely until shapes in the shadowy depths formed into figures, creatures with glowing eyes who swarmed the sailor and dragged him deeper and deeper until they reached an expanse of seaweed and sand. She watched them bind his limbs to strands of seaweed so that he floated slightly, stretched into a cross with his head lolling to the side. Iris saw another figure emerge from the dark water into the clearing, an undeniably male creature with a bony crest like a crown. She watched him swim closer to the drowned sailor, stare at him with whirling eyes, reach out to him with a mottled arm, bare his sharp, crowded teeth and lean forward- but then the image shifted again, and Iris was staring down at Erinlin, its rocky hills and green fields strange to see from above but impossible to mistake.

Iris thought perhaps she was seeing the world from the eyes of a bird, for quickly her view changed, the ground growing closer and closer until she was peering out at a town through the branches of a tree. The houses in the town were of a strange style, squatter and with more thatched roofs than slate. The people were strange as well, with darker hair and skin and cruder clothes. They walked anxiously, shoulders taut and steps hurried. Iris wondered if they expected a storm, but though there were clouds in the sky, they were scattered and pale.

But when disaster struck, it wasn't lightning or howling winds, but a slim figure with evil eyes slipping out from between the trees. With mottled skin and matted hair, he looked drowned, but he moved almost too fast for Iris to see, snatching a child from his mother's side and disappearing back to the trees. The mother didn't even scream, but just collapsed, sobbing, as the rest of the villagers looked away.

Before Iris could process her disgust, the scene changed again. Now the drowned man was sitting cross-legged on a stump, staring impassively at the thick-limbed woman across from him. His coloring was clearer now: pale, near-translucent skin with branching sea-green veins, arms purpled with looping bruises, and eyes at the epicenter of dark bruise-blooming flowers. His hair, though matted with blood and dirt, was white-gold and down past his shoulders. Through her revulsion, Iris recognized features reminiscent of Cecil, the Talvic man she had met on the docks, and wondered if this was what he had called the birth of the Candlemaidens. If so, it was a sordid origin; a filthy sheep carcass rested at the bottom of the stump and the woman's whole body was slumped with exhaustion and despair. Iris couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but something enraged the monster, and he suddenly flew to his feet and threw out his arms. Their merry games, Iris seemed to hear, but as she leaned closer to catch more of their conversation, her hair brushed across the surface of the puddle and the images shook, buzzing like angry bees.