Brokering A Deal (21-28/6) - Zola
Jul 7, 2023 12:06:22 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Andy D, and 2 more like this
Post by Zola Rhomdaen on Jul 7, 2023 12:06:22 GMT
Zola is not even halfway up the hill on which Haspar Knoll sits when she hears voices coming from inside the cottage. She glances at Cor’Vandor trodding along behind her, and then breaks into a jog for the door. She throws it open to see Pearl and Lillian bickering and Beulah trying to keep the peace between them. A typical scene from her daily life.
“Mums, where were you?”
Lillian stops mid-bicker and turns towards her. Her aged face breaks into a warm smile. “Zola, deary! Come in, have some tea! You look malnourished!” she says, beckoning her daughter in with a hand. “We got summoned by the Queen, strangely enough, just randomly summoned.”
“Oh, really now? What happened?” Zola asks as she wipes the soles of her sabatons on the welcome mat before stepping inside.
“Not much, to be honest! She didn’t really remember summoning us.”
“What?”
“Yes, we all went to the palace, and by the time we got back, you were gone. We assumed you’d gone on an adventure, dear…”
“That’s…odd. How did the Queen summon you?”
“Oh, we dreamt about it, deary. We assumed it was her giving the three of us a message.”
Pearl is still scowling from the wasted trip to the Mountain Palace. She hobbles around the living room and the kitchen, lifting cushions and drink coasters and checking their undersides, seemingly looking for a bug someone may have planted in their house. Zola’s face scrunches up, her brow creasing and her lips pursing as she summons all the wits she can muster to think on this. She has learnt the lesson imparted on her by the harsh trials of the Memory Broker — try not to make mistakes.
“…Could it be possible that someone impersonated the Queen in your dreams to lure you away from the house?”
“Well, that does make sense…” Lillian says, somewhat absent-mindedly as she shuffles into the kitchen to prepare tea.
“Maybe we should search the house, to see if something is missing?”
“Or someone was trying to get us away from you… Well, hold on now, deary, you look a bit different!”
The drow’s gaze shoots up at the crystal eldercross growing out of the crown of her head. It’s slightly larger and neater now, and each quartz has a diamond-like sheen to it, thrumming gently with power. “Oh yeah! I’ve got a story to tell you. When you were away, the Sovereign of the Court of Sorcery visited me in a dream, telling me that they needed my help and that the Memory Broker was ready to see me for my lessons.”
“They needed your help?” Pearl exclaims from behind an armchair.
Lillian’s head pokes out from the kitchen doorway, frowning. “Pearl, there’s no need to be rude!”
“It’s okay, Lillian,” says Beulah, who has settled down on the sofa to hear Zola’s tale. “Pearl is just concerned about being called away, but I don’t think it’s related… Go on, Daughter Zola.”
Zola unbuckles the belt carrying her sheathed swords and drops it next to her as she sits down. “So, remember what I told you about smoke elementals trying to steal magic and spells from the Court of Sorcery? Well, it was happening again, but this time they were raiding the Memory Broker's reserves. We met her — she’s very tall and powerful for someone not an archfey! — and went into her magic reserve labyrinth and fought these smoke elementals again. And then, at the end of that, I saw him… Glastor, the Smoke Primordial, the ‘first smoke’.”
Lillian walks back into the living room, tea tray in hands, and pauses for a moment, giving Zola a lingering look before smiling and coming in anyway to set the table. Dense, cloud-like vapours billow out of the teacups, flowing over the painted rims and giving off a strongly fragrant smell.
Zola smiles at Lillian’s little joke. “Anyway, we kicked out the smoke elementals — Dwirhian, Lolli, Amble, Dr. Archie, and I — and as thanks for that, the Memory Broker agreed to give me her memories of learning how to make fey bargains…but only after I complete her trials. It was tough. Really tough. I had to walk through a maze, unable to see my companions, and endure horrifying illusions and insults from these simulacra of…you.”
“Oh deary, that sounds dreadful! Well, we’d never say horrible things to you! You should know that! Pearl may be a bit sour sometimes, but even she wouldn’t!”
Pearl gives Lillian a stern look and huffs as she puts the teacup she was looking under back on the table, before going to inspect the windowsill.
“I know,” Zola assures them. “It was to test my ability to see through false memories.”
She pauses to sip the tea. It is, quite literally, like drinking scented smoke, texture and all. A perfume-like aftertaste lingers on the roof of her mouth. It’s a very surprising sensation, but not dislikable.
“Wow, Mother Lillian, this is incredible!”
“Glad you like it, dear!” Lillian beams as she hands a cup to Beulah. The green hag adds a droplet of blood into it from the tip of her bony finger, turning the “tea” into a small, thunderous-looking red cloud. Beulah smiles as she takes a sip.
“Try not to spill it Daughter, it’s a pain to clean up,” Pearl adds, pulling up one of the steps on the staircase, briefly revealing The Something living under it.
“Okay, where was I? Oh yeah — I saw these terrible false memories of myself killing my friend Marto, of Sarin dying in the attack on the chapel, of you all and Je’Sathriel telling me that I’m awful, a walking catastrophe, I always make mistakes, and all that… Oh, I guess then that it was the Memory Broker who drew you away from the house?” Zola says, turning to Pearl. “To make me think that it could really have been you all there, saying all those nasty things.”
“That does sound like a reasonable assumption,” Beulah says.
“Still! Could’ve told us rather than wasting our time. Not like we haven’t all had to learn ourselves already…” Pearl grumbles, now checking the ceiling joist above the stairs, clearly still not happy until she’s completed her sweep of the building.
“Oh, this is very exciting though, deary! And you look lovely! Have you tried anything yet?” Lillian asks excitedly.
“Yes! I can store any memories I’ve collected here”—Zola points to her newly-glammed up crystal crown—“and give away mine by breaking a piece off. I did that with the Sovereign just now to show him what I saw and heard of Glastor. The Memory Broker said I may be her finest student yet.”
“Oh! Our girl has all grown up! Mind you don’t give too much of yourself away now, dear, you can lose sight of who you were if you’re not careful!” Lillian says, dotingly sliding a scone over towards her.
“She ain’t daft, Lillian! She won’t do that.”
“I know that! Din’t you hear, she is the best student she’s ever had!”
“She said ‘finest’, not best! She still has work to do!”
Whilst Lillian and Pearl yet again descend into bickering about how great Zola is and is doing, Beulah rests a hand on her shoulder. “We are all very proud of you, Daughter Zola. I hope this new gift is everything you hoped it would be.”
“Yeah, it’s great, really is. I’m happy that I can finally do what most fey are able to. But… Well, this is sort of unrelated, but I have a question for you all.”
Zola looks hesitantly at Beulah and the fighting Lillian and Pearl in turn. The arguing hasn’t stopped, but they seem to have picked up on this turn in the conversation. She hears snippets of comments like: “Hush, Lillian, can’t you see you’re talking over her?” “She’s a fine woman, she can speak whenever she wants!”
Beulah, at least, notices her hesitation. “What is it, Daughter?”
“In the trials, you— the fake copies of you said that…my parents gave me away to you because they didn’t want me. That’s…not true, right?”
“Of course not, Daughter Zola, you know that’s not the case. What an awful thing to have said to you.”
Beulah’s voice is strong yet comforting as always when she delicately answers Zola’s concerns. They’ve had similar conversations multiple times in her childhood years.
But something is different now.
Something feels off. A nagging feeling in the back of her head, a persistent itch she can’t quite reach. Something trying to break free from unseen restraints that calls out from the far edge of perception, desperately trying to shine a light onto a shape in the fog. Something so very subtle…
The way Beulah answered is wrong. She is so strong and comforting — everything Zola has come to expect of her red hag mother. But this time, her answer sounded rehearsed as if from a half-remembered script.
The bickering between Lillian and Pearl is wrong. They continue to snap at each other, but it feels like their attention has shifted elsewhere. They argue and listen as they have done countless times before, only now it feels almost half-hearted, like they’re just going through the motions of the moment. Zola catches both hags’ eyes flashing in her direction for the briefest of seconds, and she realises that they’re really staring at her, studying her, waiting for her response to Beulah’s statement.
These insights flood into Zola’s sight suddenly and it is disorienting. But it’s not hard to figure out what has changed, at least in herself. Zola now deals in memories, and this feels like it’s related, somehow. Something here doesn’t add up.
BOOM.
Before she can say anything, think, or even blink in response to this deluge of information, there is a bright flash and a deafening explosion outside. The entire house shakes, and small clouds of dust fall from the ceiling.
Everyone is frozen in place. All eyes are on Zola and wide in shock as the reverberating silence following the explosion is filled with a loud cracking, rustling, and a thundering crash, again from outside the house. A grey and red blur flashes past her as Pearl is out the door with Beulah at her heels. Meanwhile, Lillian zips in front of Zola, putting her hands on Zola’s face, looking extremely stressed, almost angry for once — so different from how she usually is that it almost shocks Zola more than the explosion.
“Zola, dear, are you okay? Are you hurt!?” she hears Lillian cry out above the ringing in her ears.
“I— I’m okay! Wh-What was that?” Zola’s single-eyed gaze darts to the door, a hand already reaching for her swords.
There is the briefest pat on the cheek as Lillian acknowledges her answer before she, too, runs out the door. Zola jumps up, re-fastening the belt around her waist, and follows.
Outside the house, the source of the noise is immediately obvious.
Chunks of splintered wood, stone, and dirt litters the herb garden, centering on what is now a rather large smoking hole in the ground at the edge of the clearing, exactly in the spot where one of the eight grand, ancient trees stood. The tree is now a mangled mess of charred wood, the bottom third almost totally missing as the rest appears to have snapped and fell backwards into the surrounding woodland, taking down several smaller trees with it.
She hears Lillian mutter a sad, “Oh no…” while picking up the tail end of an exchange between Beulah and Pearl.
“…-long! I said we needed to be careful!”
“You’d have had us do things differently, Pearl?”
“No… Of course not.”
“In any case, it won’t be long now. The damage is already done.”
The pair turns to walk back to the house, both looking tense. Lillian calls out to them, “Maybe it’s—”
“You know it’s not, Lillian! Get Zola back inside. We need to work out—”
“No!” Beulah cuts off Pearl. “We don’t. What matters now is that everyone is okay. We can deal with what comes later. Pearl, go to the Queen and tell her what's happened. We can’t trust a message won’t be intercepted.”
“She isn’t going to help, not with this.”
"We are not asking that. She only needs to know for now, in case this spills out. There are others to think about here, too.”
Pearl gives her a sour look, one Zola recognises as simply her not being happy to concede she was wrong. “Fine!”
From inside her robes, the bheur hag pulls out a small, leather parcel, tips it into her palm, and a black, shrivelled finger falls out. She breaks the finger’s bones, snapping it like a dried twig, and a gust of wind suddenly erupts around her, whipping up dust from the ground that obscures her hunched figure. Her pale eyes lock with Zola’s one amber eye before she vanishes from sight.
Beulah ushers both Zola and Lillian inside the cottage. She calmly, but somewhat forcibly, sits Zola back into her chair.
“Lillian, you should start preparing the next few months’ supplies in case anything does happen. People depend on you.”
“Aye.” Lillian hesitates, seeming conflicted, before she leans over to kiss Zola on the head and heads out the back door. Beulah sits down opposite Zola.
“Okay, Daughter Zola. What has happened?”
Zola gapes at her, bewildered. “Huh— Wha—? M-Mother Beulah, why are you asking me what’s happened? What was that?”
“That was one of the seals around our home breaking. There are only a very few rare things capable of that, Zola, and one of them is tied directly to you. Something has changed… You know something you didn’t before. So, what has happened? What is different in your mind to the last time you asked us about your birth parents?”
Zola’s breath catches in her throat. She feels her stomach drop into cold depths.
“I…I sensed that…you were altering my perception, Mum. My…memories,” she replies, nervousness and sorrow quavering her voice.
Beulah stares intently at her for a moment, studying her expression. A resigned sigh then breaks out from her lips, showing some of her own sadness. She grabs the teacup to drink and stops when she notices the layer of dust sitting on the cloudtop within. She puts it down on its saucer.
“Okay… Daughter Zola, you are right. We were not altering your perception, but it has been altered. And it seems now you are beginning to see through it. Are you hurt?”
“Yes.” Her voice has shrunk into a weak whisper. “Why? Why is this happening?”
“Because…Pearl, Lillian and I have failed to honour a deal we made some time ago. One involving you… I am sorry for being vague, Daughter, but I’m not quite sure how much I can say without causing the situation to accelerate.”
“Accelerate? Wait, this is an ongoing situation then?”
“Yes, I’m afraid we don’t have much time, which is why I’ve told Lillian and Pearl to begin arrangements.” Beulah pauses to think. “I know this must be a lot but before anything else, Daughter, you should know that we love you. Everything you are is precious and your own. But. The past we told you is not the truth.”
With that, there is another flash and BOOM as a second tree at the edge of the clearing bursts into splinters. Lillian can be heard uncharacteristically swearing outside.
Beulah’s beautiful face creases with stress and she rubs her temple. “The eight great trees of our home serve as our protection, Daughter, and the more you discover, the more our deal is undone and the less protection we have.”
Zola turns her head to the window facing the garden, and then back at Beulah. “Wh… What? But how?”
Her mother, the head of the coven, is quiet. She appears to be thinking carefully before answering. “Because some of the power used in making them comes directly from the deal we made, and a stipulation of that deal was you were not to discover the truth.”
BOOM. A third explosion has erupted outside. Zola flinches.
She’s at a loss of what to say. Is this worth blowing up their protections for?
“Mother Beulah… Would you prefer that I…not know?”
“I believe it may be too late for that, Daughter Zola. It has already begun.”
“If I stop asking questions now, that would stop, wouldn’t it?” She points at the garden through the window.
“No. It would only slow things down at this point. You were never supposed to know to begin with.” Beulah looks very sad as she carries on. “But I suppose there won’t be time for any preparations after all… Do you trust us, Zola? We have lied to you, I know. But do you trust your mothers?”
The mix of sadness and confusion on Zola’s face morphs into apprehension.
“I… Mum…” She falters for a second, and swallows a lump in her throat as she holds back her tears. “You’d only lie to me in order to protect me. Or for the greater good. I believe that. So yes, I trust you.”
Beulah smiles. “Then know that we trust you too. I will tell you what I can while we can… Just know that we love you.”
She takes a deep breath, and begins.
“We three entered into a deal with Zarzuul to raise you as his personal guard…or pet…in exchange for his support and power. But we deceived him and have kept him locked into a deal ever since. His deal is with your blood family, to provide them with power and knowledge in exchange for you…”
Four explosions sound as Beulah speaks her revelations, each rocking the cottage violently. But she does not stop until the end, where she suddenly hesitates, a look of rapid calculation flashing across her face. The house is now rattling and disjointed, clapboards falling off, windows smashed in.
Lillian appears in the doorway, slumped against the frame, out of breath, tears streaking down her face as she glances between Zola and Beulah. “It’s too soon, Bee.”
Mother Beulah simply nods and takes a frightened Zola’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Be safe, Daughter… We spoke with a man named Tebrin Zoland.”
The eighth tree erupts outside, and with it, the seal is fully broken. In an instant, beneath the cacophony of noise and debris showering the house, Zola feels a change in the air. A sensation of life pulling and colours fading from everything. Her head rushes and spins like a whirlwind, the extreme dizziness almost causing her to black out. Every muscle in her body locks up, freezing her to the chair she is sitting on.
The structure of the house rattles and shakes with a vengeance. The floorboards buckle and collapse, stairs snap one-by-one and The Something slips out through a widening hole in the wall as the very floor under her feet tilts and shifts. The tower outside crumbles and wood crashes down all around her in a storm of splinters and noise.
Beulah and Lillian share a look of sadness and resignation with each other. The ground beneath them blackens and spreads up their bodies like a flameless fire, coating them in soot in seconds. The two hags disintegrate into mounds of ash that sink and disappear into the earth as the last supporting beams for the house snap, miraculously falling outward in all directions. The table and cups shatter, the fireplace buckles, the walls and roof are replaced with a panoramic view of the night sky and moon above.
As the dust settles, Zola finds herself still sitting in the chair of her family living room, the home she grew up in a shambles around her, the garden a ruin of rock and dirt. The great trees are gone and the surrounding forest is a wreck of debris and toppled trees.
Cor’Vandor, who had evaded the destruction by taking to the air, lands on a pile of broken furniture with eyes widened in utter shock. There is a barrage of telepathic questions from him in Zola’s head, demanding to know if she’s okay, what happened, where are the hags. All of them go unanswered.
Her mothers are gone and Haspar Knoll is a ruin.
Zola screams.
Co-written with Anthony
“Mums, where were you?”
Lillian stops mid-bicker and turns towards her. Her aged face breaks into a warm smile. “Zola, deary! Come in, have some tea! You look malnourished!” she says, beckoning her daughter in with a hand. “We got summoned by the Queen, strangely enough, just randomly summoned.”
“Oh, really now? What happened?” Zola asks as she wipes the soles of her sabatons on the welcome mat before stepping inside.
“Not much, to be honest! She didn’t really remember summoning us.”
“What?”
“Yes, we all went to the palace, and by the time we got back, you were gone. We assumed you’d gone on an adventure, dear…”
“That’s…odd. How did the Queen summon you?”
“Oh, we dreamt about it, deary. We assumed it was her giving the three of us a message.”
Pearl is still scowling from the wasted trip to the Mountain Palace. She hobbles around the living room and the kitchen, lifting cushions and drink coasters and checking their undersides, seemingly looking for a bug someone may have planted in their house. Zola’s face scrunches up, her brow creasing and her lips pursing as she summons all the wits she can muster to think on this. She has learnt the lesson imparted on her by the harsh trials of the Memory Broker — try not to make mistakes.
“…Could it be possible that someone impersonated the Queen in your dreams to lure you away from the house?”
“Well, that does make sense…” Lillian says, somewhat absent-mindedly as she shuffles into the kitchen to prepare tea.
“Maybe we should search the house, to see if something is missing?”
“Or someone was trying to get us away from you… Well, hold on now, deary, you look a bit different!”
The drow’s gaze shoots up at the crystal eldercross growing out of the crown of her head. It’s slightly larger and neater now, and each quartz has a diamond-like sheen to it, thrumming gently with power. “Oh yeah! I’ve got a story to tell you. When you were away, the Sovereign of the Court of Sorcery visited me in a dream, telling me that they needed my help and that the Memory Broker was ready to see me for my lessons.”
“They needed your help?” Pearl exclaims from behind an armchair.
Lillian’s head pokes out from the kitchen doorway, frowning. “Pearl, there’s no need to be rude!”
“It’s okay, Lillian,” says Beulah, who has settled down on the sofa to hear Zola’s tale. “Pearl is just concerned about being called away, but I don’t think it’s related… Go on, Daughter Zola.”
Zola unbuckles the belt carrying her sheathed swords and drops it next to her as she sits down. “So, remember what I told you about smoke elementals trying to steal magic and spells from the Court of Sorcery? Well, it was happening again, but this time they were raiding the Memory Broker's reserves. We met her — she’s very tall and powerful for someone not an archfey! — and went into her magic reserve labyrinth and fought these smoke elementals again. And then, at the end of that, I saw him… Glastor, the Smoke Primordial, the ‘first smoke’.”
Lillian walks back into the living room, tea tray in hands, and pauses for a moment, giving Zola a lingering look before smiling and coming in anyway to set the table. Dense, cloud-like vapours billow out of the teacups, flowing over the painted rims and giving off a strongly fragrant smell.
Zola smiles at Lillian’s little joke. “Anyway, we kicked out the smoke elementals — Dwirhian, Lolli, Amble, Dr. Archie, and I — and as thanks for that, the Memory Broker agreed to give me her memories of learning how to make fey bargains…but only after I complete her trials. It was tough. Really tough. I had to walk through a maze, unable to see my companions, and endure horrifying illusions and insults from these simulacra of…you.”
“Oh deary, that sounds dreadful! Well, we’d never say horrible things to you! You should know that! Pearl may be a bit sour sometimes, but even she wouldn’t!”
Pearl gives Lillian a stern look and huffs as she puts the teacup she was looking under back on the table, before going to inspect the windowsill.
“I know,” Zola assures them. “It was to test my ability to see through false memories.”
She pauses to sip the tea. It is, quite literally, like drinking scented smoke, texture and all. A perfume-like aftertaste lingers on the roof of her mouth. It’s a very surprising sensation, but not dislikable.
“Wow, Mother Lillian, this is incredible!”
“Glad you like it, dear!” Lillian beams as she hands a cup to Beulah. The green hag adds a droplet of blood into it from the tip of her bony finger, turning the “tea” into a small, thunderous-looking red cloud. Beulah smiles as she takes a sip.
“Try not to spill it Daughter, it’s a pain to clean up,” Pearl adds, pulling up one of the steps on the staircase, briefly revealing The Something living under it.
“Okay, where was I? Oh yeah — I saw these terrible false memories of myself killing my friend Marto, of Sarin dying in the attack on the chapel, of you all and Je’Sathriel telling me that I’m awful, a walking catastrophe, I always make mistakes, and all that… Oh, I guess then that it was the Memory Broker who drew you away from the house?” Zola says, turning to Pearl. “To make me think that it could really have been you all there, saying all those nasty things.”
“That does sound like a reasonable assumption,” Beulah says.
“Still! Could’ve told us rather than wasting our time. Not like we haven’t all had to learn ourselves already…” Pearl grumbles, now checking the ceiling joist above the stairs, clearly still not happy until she’s completed her sweep of the building.
“Oh, this is very exciting though, deary! And you look lovely! Have you tried anything yet?” Lillian asks excitedly.
“Yes! I can store any memories I’ve collected here”—Zola points to her newly-glammed up crystal crown—“and give away mine by breaking a piece off. I did that with the Sovereign just now to show him what I saw and heard of Glastor. The Memory Broker said I may be her finest student yet.”
“Oh! Our girl has all grown up! Mind you don’t give too much of yourself away now, dear, you can lose sight of who you were if you’re not careful!” Lillian says, dotingly sliding a scone over towards her.
“She ain’t daft, Lillian! She won’t do that.”
“I know that! Din’t you hear, she is the best student she’s ever had!”
“She said ‘finest’, not best! She still has work to do!”
Whilst Lillian and Pearl yet again descend into bickering about how great Zola is and is doing, Beulah rests a hand on her shoulder. “We are all very proud of you, Daughter Zola. I hope this new gift is everything you hoped it would be.”
“Yeah, it’s great, really is. I’m happy that I can finally do what most fey are able to. But… Well, this is sort of unrelated, but I have a question for you all.”
Zola looks hesitantly at Beulah and the fighting Lillian and Pearl in turn. The arguing hasn’t stopped, but they seem to have picked up on this turn in the conversation. She hears snippets of comments like: “Hush, Lillian, can’t you see you’re talking over her?” “She’s a fine woman, she can speak whenever she wants!”
Beulah, at least, notices her hesitation. “What is it, Daughter?”
“In the trials, you— the fake copies of you said that…my parents gave me away to you because they didn’t want me. That’s…not true, right?”
“Of course not, Daughter Zola, you know that’s not the case. What an awful thing to have said to you.”
Beulah’s voice is strong yet comforting as always when she delicately answers Zola’s concerns. They’ve had similar conversations multiple times in her childhood years.
But something is different now.
Something feels off. A nagging feeling in the back of her head, a persistent itch she can’t quite reach. Something trying to break free from unseen restraints that calls out from the far edge of perception, desperately trying to shine a light onto a shape in the fog. Something so very subtle…
The way Beulah answered is wrong. She is so strong and comforting — everything Zola has come to expect of her red hag mother. But this time, her answer sounded rehearsed as if from a half-remembered script.
The bickering between Lillian and Pearl is wrong. They continue to snap at each other, but it feels like their attention has shifted elsewhere. They argue and listen as they have done countless times before, only now it feels almost half-hearted, like they’re just going through the motions of the moment. Zola catches both hags’ eyes flashing in her direction for the briefest of seconds, and she realises that they’re really staring at her, studying her, waiting for her response to Beulah’s statement.
These insights flood into Zola’s sight suddenly and it is disorienting. But it’s not hard to figure out what has changed, at least in herself. Zola now deals in memories, and this feels like it’s related, somehow. Something here doesn’t add up.
BOOM.
Before she can say anything, think, or even blink in response to this deluge of information, there is a bright flash and a deafening explosion outside. The entire house shakes, and small clouds of dust fall from the ceiling.
Everyone is frozen in place. All eyes are on Zola and wide in shock as the reverberating silence following the explosion is filled with a loud cracking, rustling, and a thundering crash, again from outside the house. A grey and red blur flashes past her as Pearl is out the door with Beulah at her heels. Meanwhile, Lillian zips in front of Zola, putting her hands on Zola’s face, looking extremely stressed, almost angry for once — so different from how she usually is that it almost shocks Zola more than the explosion.
“Zola, dear, are you okay? Are you hurt!?” she hears Lillian cry out above the ringing in her ears.
“I— I’m okay! Wh-What was that?” Zola’s single-eyed gaze darts to the door, a hand already reaching for her swords.
There is the briefest pat on the cheek as Lillian acknowledges her answer before she, too, runs out the door. Zola jumps up, re-fastening the belt around her waist, and follows.
Outside the house, the source of the noise is immediately obvious.
Chunks of splintered wood, stone, and dirt litters the herb garden, centering on what is now a rather large smoking hole in the ground at the edge of the clearing, exactly in the spot where one of the eight grand, ancient trees stood. The tree is now a mangled mess of charred wood, the bottom third almost totally missing as the rest appears to have snapped and fell backwards into the surrounding woodland, taking down several smaller trees with it.
She hears Lillian mutter a sad, “Oh no…” while picking up the tail end of an exchange between Beulah and Pearl.
“…-long! I said we needed to be careful!”
“You’d have had us do things differently, Pearl?”
“No… Of course not.”
“In any case, it won’t be long now. The damage is already done.”
The pair turns to walk back to the house, both looking tense. Lillian calls out to them, “Maybe it’s—”
“You know it’s not, Lillian! Get Zola back inside. We need to work out—”
“No!” Beulah cuts off Pearl. “We don’t. What matters now is that everyone is okay. We can deal with what comes later. Pearl, go to the Queen and tell her what's happened. We can’t trust a message won’t be intercepted.”
“She isn’t going to help, not with this.”
"We are not asking that. She only needs to know for now, in case this spills out. There are others to think about here, too.”
Pearl gives her a sour look, one Zola recognises as simply her not being happy to concede she was wrong. “Fine!”
From inside her robes, the bheur hag pulls out a small, leather parcel, tips it into her palm, and a black, shrivelled finger falls out. She breaks the finger’s bones, snapping it like a dried twig, and a gust of wind suddenly erupts around her, whipping up dust from the ground that obscures her hunched figure. Her pale eyes lock with Zola’s one amber eye before she vanishes from sight.
Beulah ushers both Zola and Lillian inside the cottage. She calmly, but somewhat forcibly, sits Zola back into her chair.
“Lillian, you should start preparing the next few months’ supplies in case anything does happen. People depend on you.”
“Aye.” Lillian hesitates, seeming conflicted, before she leans over to kiss Zola on the head and heads out the back door. Beulah sits down opposite Zola.
“Okay, Daughter Zola. What has happened?”
Zola gapes at her, bewildered. “Huh— Wha—? M-Mother Beulah, why are you asking me what’s happened? What was that?”
“That was one of the seals around our home breaking. There are only a very few rare things capable of that, Zola, and one of them is tied directly to you. Something has changed… You know something you didn’t before. So, what has happened? What is different in your mind to the last time you asked us about your birth parents?”
Zola’s breath catches in her throat. She feels her stomach drop into cold depths.
“I…I sensed that…you were altering my perception, Mum. My…memories,” she replies, nervousness and sorrow quavering her voice.
Beulah stares intently at her for a moment, studying her expression. A resigned sigh then breaks out from her lips, showing some of her own sadness. She grabs the teacup to drink and stops when she notices the layer of dust sitting on the cloudtop within. She puts it down on its saucer.
“Okay… Daughter Zola, you are right. We were not altering your perception, but it has been altered. And it seems now you are beginning to see through it. Are you hurt?”
“Yes.” Her voice has shrunk into a weak whisper. “Why? Why is this happening?”
“Because…Pearl, Lillian and I have failed to honour a deal we made some time ago. One involving you… I am sorry for being vague, Daughter, but I’m not quite sure how much I can say without causing the situation to accelerate.”
“Accelerate? Wait, this is an ongoing situation then?”
“Yes, I’m afraid we don’t have much time, which is why I’ve told Lillian and Pearl to begin arrangements.” Beulah pauses to think. “I know this must be a lot but before anything else, Daughter, you should know that we love you. Everything you are is precious and your own. But. The past we told you is not the truth.”
With that, there is another flash and BOOM as a second tree at the edge of the clearing bursts into splinters. Lillian can be heard uncharacteristically swearing outside.
Beulah’s beautiful face creases with stress and she rubs her temple. “The eight great trees of our home serve as our protection, Daughter, and the more you discover, the more our deal is undone and the less protection we have.”
Zola turns her head to the window facing the garden, and then back at Beulah. “Wh… What? But how?”
Her mother, the head of the coven, is quiet. She appears to be thinking carefully before answering. “Because some of the power used in making them comes directly from the deal we made, and a stipulation of that deal was you were not to discover the truth.”
BOOM. A third explosion has erupted outside. Zola flinches.
She’s at a loss of what to say. Is this worth blowing up their protections for?
“Mother Beulah… Would you prefer that I…not know?”
“I believe it may be too late for that, Daughter Zola. It has already begun.”
“If I stop asking questions now, that would stop, wouldn’t it?” She points at the garden through the window.
“No. It would only slow things down at this point. You were never supposed to know to begin with.” Beulah looks very sad as she carries on. “But I suppose there won’t be time for any preparations after all… Do you trust us, Zola? We have lied to you, I know. But do you trust your mothers?”
The mix of sadness and confusion on Zola’s face morphs into apprehension.
“I… Mum…” She falters for a second, and swallows a lump in her throat as she holds back her tears. “You’d only lie to me in order to protect me. Or for the greater good. I believe that. So yes, I trust you.”
Beulah smiles. “Then know that we trust you too. I will tell you what I can while we can… Just know that we love you.”
She takes a deep breath, and begins.
“We three entered into a deal with Zarzuul to raise you as his personal guard…or pet…in exchange for his support and power. But we deceived him and have kept him locked into a deal ever since. His deal is with your blood family, to provide them with power and knowledge in exchange for you…”
Four explosions sound as Beulah speaks her revelations, each rocking the cottage violently. But she does not stop until the end, where she suddenly hesitates, a look of rapid calculation flashing across her face. The house is now rattling and disjointed, clapboards falling off, windows smashed in.
Lillian appears in the doorway, slumped against the frame, out of breath, tears streaking down her face as she glances between Zola and Beulah. “It’s too soon, Bee.”
Mother Beulah simply nods and takes a frightened Zola’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Be safe, Daughter… We spoke with a man named Tebrin Zoland.”
The eighth tree erupts outside, and with it, the seal is fully broken. In an instant, beneath the cacophony of noise and debris showering the house, Zola feels a change in the air. A sensation of life pulling and colours fading from everything. Her head rushes and spins like a whirlwind, the extreme dizziness almost causing her to black out. Every muscle in her body locks up, freezing her to the chair she is sitting on.
The structure of the house rattles and shakes with a vengeance. The floorboards buckle and collapse, stairs snap one-by-one and The Something slips out through a widening hole in the wall as the very floor under her feet tilts and shifts. The tower outside crumbles and wood crashes down all around her in a storm of splinters and noise.
Beulah and Lillian share a look of sadness and resignation with each other. The ground beneath them blackens and spreads up their bodies like a flameless fire, coating them in soot in seconds. The two hags disintegrate into mounds of ash that sink and disappear into the earth as the last supporting beams for the house snap, miraculously falling outward in all directions. The table and cups shatter, the fireplace buckles, the walls and roof are replaced with a panoramic view of the night sky and moon above.
As the dust settles, Zola finds herself still sitting in the chair of her family living room, the home she grew up in a shambles around her, the garden a ruin of rock and dirt. The great trees are gone and the surrounding forest is a wreck of debris and toppled trees.
Cor’Vandor, who had evaded the destruction by taking to the air, lands on a pile of broken furniture with eyes widened in utter shock. There is a barrage of telepathic questions from him in Zola’s head, demanding to know if she’s okay, what happened, where are the hags. All of them go unanswered.
Her mothers are gone and Haspar Knoll is a ruin.
Zola screams.
Co-written with Anthony
