Torn Fates

Kal's Story: Torn Fates

It was unnatural how it carried on the wind. Kaerlior shivered, bumps rising across her skin as the hairs on her neck brushed against her bowstring. There was no stench, and yet it assaulted the senses like a fish market or a miner's latrine. An eerie chill – that's the best she could describe the sensation to those who had never seen the Spell Tear. It could curl one's tongue without taste and shudder one's bones without cold.

Its towering swirls of purple, green, and blue – always elusive to judge in distance – distorted the horizon, casting ghostly reflections over the wild meadows and bristling hills that once thrived with life. The sheer, overwhelming scale of it stretched endlessly from east to west, and no matter how often Kaerlior's eyes fell upon it, she felt meek and insignificant, like the ants toiling beneath her misplaced boot. And just like those scurrying broods, there was nothing man, mage, or king could do about the Spell Tear – except avoid its shifting, ambiguous borders.

These fringes were marked with the moss-covered stones of abandoned ruins peeking through towering pines and ancient oaks, fading memories of a time when those northern hills were a well-worn path. At their base, a misty lake curved around the slopes, slipping away into the sundered north.

And toiling beneath its looming presence was Felham, the last bastion of normality before the Tear. It was a meagre village, a patchwork of fields varying from marsh to spring green, dotted with sagged thatch and squealing mills. A forgotten settlement, as much threatened by neglect as the Tear. They didn't have so much as a shrine to pray away ill-fates. The Fey Parish probably thought such proximity to the Tear would blight any holiness, either that or they didn't expect to see their investment return from this place. A wise choice really, there wasn't a great chance for Kaerlior to make a profit here either, but that wasn't really what she came for. She wished it was.

A massive chunk of earth loomed above the swirling hillocks, as if lifted by invisible hands from the depths of the Tear. Its shadow crawled over the valley, dripping dark spots as boulders crumbled from its body and trees toppled from its sides. The main chunk would follow soon enough, rumbling the earth and puffing a cloud of dust into the horizon. It was quite a sight to behold the first dozen or so times. Kaerlior swept a copper-blonde curl from her eyes and pressed on.

She made Felham in short time, side stepping the craters in the road and a wagon with a lame mule. A woman in the back was crying.

A man ploughing weeds looked up as she passed his toppled fence. Kaerlior offered a faint smile and nod; he went back to work. As she neared the main hovels she recognised some faces from her last visit, few names to match them, though. They knew her too, but they responded with neither delight nor bitterness. Some hurried along, not from her, but as if she reminded them that there was more work to be done, while others looked from her up to the Tear with a sigh. Likely then that there was work for her here, she wasn't glad of that. She used to wonder how people so close to the Spell Tear could be so careless, but then, even some sailors couldn't swim.

Kaerlior offered another smile to an idle woman leaning against the wall of her portico, but the woman didn't notice. She glared absently at her desperately overgrown garden, which was full of all manner of flower, vine, fern and weed. It was a contrast to some of the other fields that barely managed a green stalk to an acre.

The woman picked up a mouldy sack and moved inside.

A bit further along was one of Felham's larger buildings, a two-story inn with black, peeling planks and a boarded window. Felham's sole inn. It was worse than she remembered. Inside it was quiet, a few mud-soiled men sharing a drink and some defeated merchants.

Her appearance seemed to lighten their mood. A whistle echoed as she passed.

"Hey, now, look what the north blew in!" a bald, bearded merchant said. "You looking for somewhere to stay?"