(The following takes place immediate after Moyna's Children - Part 4 - Xan's Humble Chronicler)
Later that day, Catalinna, Sableinna, Gwyndolith, Aliandeth and Gregwald settled down on a ridge overlooking the old Bree Cemetery, having been told by Finchley where her Grams had been interred. Suspicious of all this, they wished to see for themselves Finchley’s visit, after having found the mysterious map on the body of the Priest of the Unsealed from Angmar. Their current perch kept them hidden while providing a good view of the cemetery, close enough to overhear if anything should be said below.
They would not have to wait long before they saw Xandilif, Eduwiges and Finchley approaching on horseback along the road. Finch was carrying a large basket of wildflowers and what seemed to be a cloth bag.
Riding behind her, Lif asked "OK, the flowers...fine, I understood we had to stop and get those, but since when do you need to bring roast beef sandwiches to the dead? Is that some weird Breeland thing?'
Bringing her horse to a stop and dismounting, Finchley smiled, 'I promised Grams that every time I visited here, I would bring her flowers, just no red ones...I told you that. The sandwiches aren’t for Grams, they are for me, Lif.'
As both Xandilif and Eduwiges followed suit and dismounted, three other horses, with saddles and bridles, wandered past, apparently untethered and abandoned.
Xandilif tilted her head watching the horses. “Greyhound....looks like we might have company.'
Eduwiges nodded, growing more cautious...but mainly hungry. 'Finch, I want one of those sandwiches please.'
Finchley gigglesnorted and handed a paper-wrapped sandwich over with her free hand. With her other she held the massive basket of primroses - she may have gone overboard with the picking but only the best for her Grams! - to her chest and sighed heavily. She looked towards where her Grams, the woman known as Moyna was buried and squinted... then frowned.
As they came through the gate of the old cemetery, they saw three motionless shapes around a partially dug up grave.
Xandilif went silent, watching for motion, then whispered to her companions. "Either they picked a weird place for a very serious group nap...or those are dead bodies.”
Eduwiges whispered back. “Well….this IS a cemetery, but odd to just leave them laying around.
Finchley furrowed her brows and gripped the flowers a bit tighter, remembering the poor old man who came back to life and tried to kill Miss Catalinna. After a bit she nodded to herself and took the first step forward. "Won't know till we look."
Eduwiges kept her distance from the still bodies, also remembering the coffins from earlier. Having learned her lesson, her trusty bow and quiver were strapped to her back. Since the hair on the back of her neck was standing up, slowly she cracked her knuckles and eased her sword out of its scabbard. 'Are those bodies dead, I mean…DEAD dead?”
Xandilif slipped SilverWand off her back and nudged one of them with the point, then flipped the body onto its back. "Yep...dead as dreams....ya wanna hack these up like ya did the poor little hobbit in Trestlebridge, Greyhound?”
Eduwiges scowled at Xandilif and took a closer look at the flipped body. He seemed to be a local man who had died peacefully, suddenly, with no sign of any wound. A shovel was still locked in his grip.
Finchley looked visibly disturbed and upset but reined it in to the best of her ability. "Could you move them away from her grave please?"
Above, Aliandith kept a close eye on the group down by the graveyard as she sat by the ridge, otherwise looking as relaxed as one could be, occasionally conveying what was said down below to the rest on the ridge with her in case they couldn’t hear.
Xandilif nodded and dragged the bodies through the scrub grass, looking down at the exposed coffin. Simple wood, with a few now dried and rotted flowers on top…just as Finch had described it. She glanced at Finch. “Looks like this bunch all had heart attacks simultaneously about the point they were going to open the box...coincidence?”
Finchley was staring down at the coffin, overwhelmed with emotion. She remembered the day she, with begrudged help, had laid it reluctantly in this earth in the first place. She hadn’t been ready to say goodbye then, still a stranger to death. She was a stranger to death no longer and her gaze narrowed and she almost looked... angry. "Well...coincidence or no I guess you got your wish from last time."
Xandilif looked confused. 'What wish?'
Finchley set the bag down and lifted the flowers out of the basket, a rarely seen scowl on her face. 'You brought the shovel last time, but never used it. Someone did the work for you, Lif. Happy?'
The elf just shrugged, and carefully stacked the three bodies. Turning over the left hand of one of them, she noted the circle crossed with three lines burned into his palm. “We got an Acolyte of the Guild here….so what happened.”
She was about to say something else angry, when for a moment, Finchley's mind was suddenly elsewhere. She was surrounded by the scent of strong black tea and cinnamon, licorice root boiled as a poltice, the lingering sensation of static electricity left after a storm....and she knew, she KNEW...her Grams was there.
A figure near the far wall of the cemetery slowly stood, their back bent, wrapped in a gray/green shawl. Their steel gray hair was pulled into a rigid bun at the nape of their neck and they held a gnarled cane in one hand. Slowly the figure moved towards them, and when it spoke, it’s voice was sharp and cool and touched by the slightest burr of a northern accent. “What happened to them, Firstborn? I happened. I can’t stomach mischief of their sort, never could.
Finchley froze, every muscle in her body drawing tight. The flowers fell from her hands and sloooowly she turned to look at the figure, eyes wide.
Grams pushed the shawl back off her head and moved closer. "It took you long enough...been waiting on you near 3 hours, child..lord knows what distracted ya this time, it’s never been hard ta do.'
Eduwiges took a deep breath and set her sword for easy action. “Little sister...Finch, go careful...'
Finchley stared at her Grams, still frozen in place. After awhile she lost the battle with her emotions and began to cry, sobbing like a little girl. She pulled her hat from her head and let it fall to the ground as she buried her face in her hands. "Why are you here? Grams... How could you be here? I put you right there..."
The old woman looked stern but her pale eyes were smiling. "Now, now, what kind of fancy heroine are you, to be weeping like a little girl...stop it now, child. You put me right there indeed, and I am still there....but here too. Lord but it’s a peculiar feeling.'
Finchley scrubbed at her eyes until her tears no longer blinded her and looked toward her Grams with a mixture of sadness and even some happiness. How could she not be to see someone she loves again? "I ain't no heroine at all Grams. I wanted to be just Finchley. That's what you wanted me to be too... But it's all gone wrong. I ain't just Finchley. Never was just Finchley."
Catalinna's brows raised as she Watched from above and she whispered while looking down at the old woman. "THAT’S the witch?"
Gwyndolith nodded a little with Cat's assumption "So it would seem..."
The old woman smiled softly and moved closer to the girl. "Your right child...ya never were JUST Finchley....you never were JUST anything....and there is so much you don’t know...so much...that I can’t tell ya...but some I can....some I can. It’s not been so very long, but my how you’ve grown…great big now are ya.'
Still watching, Catalinna's head tilted to the right and her eyes narrowed as she studied the old woman, curious of this 'witch' and what exactly had seemingly brought her back to life.
Eduwiges stared and whispered to Xandilif. “Bema…is that Moyna?”
Xandilif hissed back to her. "No, its a Balrog in drag....COURSE it’s Moyna, ya ninny...
Finchley didn’t turn away or anything but instead seemed to lean into the touch. "I ain't gonna ask you to tell me anymore than you can, Grams. You know I already forgave you..."
Grams shook her head softly. "How can ya forgive me when ya don’t know what ya are forgivin’ me for. I did a horrible thing, child. I made a terrible mistake but I can't say I am sorry for it...though I admit it has caused ya no end of trouble now.'
Finchley moved as if to lay her hand on Grams' shoulder but thought better of it, as if doing so could make her disappear. "It's alright. I told you, I forgave you, whatever it was. You did it because you loved me... But, if you can tell me anything about anything now, I want to hear it. I need to hear it. I'm tired of runnin' around in the dark."
Grams smiled. "No...ya see...THAT was the mistake. I was meant ta keep you silent and secure until the day you would get too big, and then you were ta die and the burden was ta be passed on....but I loved ya....and I broke my bond.'
Finchley closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. "I don't know what you did to me the night before you died that made me sleep but I remember some things. I know you regretted a lot of things before the end... So tell me, what bond did you break? Why was I meant to die?"
Grams sighed. "I suppose it can’t be delayed no longer. There is a lot to say and not much time...so I will tell ya what I can and the Eldar up there will tell it ta the other girls as well.' She pointed up towards the group on the ridge.
When Ali relayed those words from the old woman, Catalinna pressed her lips shut, her eyes widened, and her gaze focused on the old woman.
Eduwiges looked up. “The other girls? Catalinna and Sable are up there?” Lif just nodded and shushed her.
Grams continued "You were the Cenotaph brought ta me because you were different, everyone knew you were different, they had waited generations for you. Everyone knew they had ta get you out of Angmar. Your Mam staged a whole uprising ta get you out of the Iron land and away from the Unsealed....away from the Infernus and they brought ya to me cause I was the last witch they knew of....and they were Witch fearin folk from the old days in the fertile hills....'
Finchley held up a hand. “Slower Grams, please…what is a Cenotaph? That is what Mister Leon called me, but what does it mean?
The old woman smiled indulgently, as if teaching the child how to read again. 'A Cenotaph is a kind a person who is used ta store the soul of another...sealed to them by a cursemark.'
Finchley let her hand drift to her left hip again as her brows furrowed. "... So you're sayin' there's someone ELSE in me?"
Grams nodded. "A part of someone else...the final part....the part that makes all the difference and can only be stored within something still alive.' Grams paused, knowing things were about to get harder. "You are the 27th Cenotaph to bear that particular cursemark...'
Finchley shook her head. '... But why ME? What was so different about me that I got picked? Is it 'cause I was a slave?'
Grams smiled and petted her hair again. "Ya know how ya store the really rare wine in the hardest bottles? You are the hardest bottle anyone ever knew of...they had been waitin for ya...shadow didn’t seem ta have much effect on ya, even when you were first born. Oh the way yer Mam wailed when they took you from her breast…And that is why your Mam knew she had to get you back..and out of their reach until such a time as the cursemark could be passed on, and kept dorment in another.
Finchley frowned maybe even poutd a little bit. "Hardest bottle? But how? You know me. I ain't a warrior like Eduwiges and Lif. I talk too much and eat even more than that. I do my best and sometimes that ain't even enough..."
Grams sighed. “I got no answers for ya, not about that...but because of who ya are, they were gonna use you...and make you into someone else...someone horrible, and all the world would weep for it.'
Finchley looked down, 'Who is in me, Grams?... No, Moyna. Who is in me that needed to be kept in a 'hard bottle' and why was your name found in a defiled grave in Angmar?' Finchley took a deep breath and rubbed her shaking hands together. She realized her voice sounded as desperate as she felt.
Above them, Sable struggled to understand any of what was going on or what was being said. All she knew was that fear had started to invade her mind the likes of which she had never known, not even at the gates of Carn Dum. She could feel her necklace burning frozen cold into her chest and a panic was starting to build.
Grams paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "Not all a this will make sense now, child, but in time, it will. Long, long ago, a powerful high priestess of the Unsealed rose...Aganalu, matron of the Tribute Infernus. She reigned in terror, and brought the great kingdom of Arnor to ruin through her beauty and deceit and trickery and then a miracle occurred and....she died...but they kept the key to her soul preserved until they found the right vessel for her to inhabit again. They inscribed her soul in a cursemark, and this was etched into the flesh of a baby girl, a Cenotaph. This Cenotaph bore the mark and preserved that vile soul until she first bled, then the Cenotaph was killed and the Cursemark was passed on to another babe. This occurred again and again as they waited for the right vessel, the one that could bear the darkness of that soul blooming inside them like some malignant flower. YOU were the right vessel..strong and resistant enough to allow that soul to flow into your grown form like water...and you would become her, the matron of Infernus.'
Finchley just stared in horror as Grams paused…then continued. “But this was not to be your fate. You were brought out, stolen from them, by your mother and her tribe, by their sacrifice...and your father brought you to me....And in accepting you, I broke my oath to Angmar.
Grams suddenly looked deeply sorrowful, one tear escaping her eye to run down her seamed cheek. “I expect the grave you speak of, child of my heart, was that of my daughter, the child of my body.....not only did they take vengeance but they knew what could happen once they had lost the Cenotaph and a Witch still lived.'
Above, Catalinna snapped her head back to the old woman and the mention of that grave being her daughter's. "What?"
Finchley nodded once. Then twice. Then looked skyward for a moment, tears still running down her cheeks and hands clenched into fists at her sides. "... I know that ain;t my fate, not then and not now. I ain't gonna become someone else. I refuse. I belong to me and whoever I choose. No one else." She looked back to Moyna and then raised her brows. "What was her name? Your daughter?"
Above, Catalinna waited for the name, breath held
Grams wiped away her own tears, whispering..."Rohina, I named her after the moon she was born under, in the tongue of our folk....red haired and quick tempered...she died because of my oath breaking, and perhaps her daughters will die for it as well...for just as only you can give new LIFE to the Infernus, so too can only you bring her true DEATH after all these ages..but to do that, you require a Witch..'
Catalinna blinked as she watched from above and her jaw dropped. She whispered back to herself….”Rohina…..”
Her sister Sable stood straight up on the cliff edge and stared at the old woman below in shock, not thinking to remain hidden.
Grams sighed. "To end the threat, I was to kill you when first you bled, and use my art to pass the Cursemark to another babe, some Breeland rabble so it might disappear for another age..but…but I loved you, and could no and chose to take this risk, this opportunity, to let you live and one day slay the monster inside you. But if I failed, that monster may instead be released and you die at any rate. However, I did not expect this old carcass to give out on me, leaving you alone and stuck..and as far as Angwar was concerned, lost. It seems they found ya, child.'
Finchley froze upon hearing that name. "Rohina... Mister Gregwald said that name--... I loved you too. I still do. It's okay... It's a gift to be able to see you at all. I hope I did right by you. I did everything you wanted in the end. Well... I did keep one thing of you, even though you said to sell everything." She reached into her overtunic and pulled out a simple wooden hairpin.
Leaning over on the cliff edge above the pair, still horrified by all she had overheard Sable suddenly slipped, her foot going out from under her. She bounced on each ledge on the way down, but never enough to really hurt herself. Each landing exudes a grunt or cry until she hit the bottom, flat on her back. She laid there on her back getting her breath back.
Grams laughed softly, watching the girl’s descent. "That one takes after her father I would imagine...' She took the comb from Finchley, and gently placed it in the girl's hair...."To destroy the Cursemark, requires the spells of a witch....and there are none left I fear, as I am dead, and Rohina is dead...but the blood runs true in Rohina's girls...I can feel it...yet they are no witches, not yet..... For the Witchfire to awaken anew, and for the Cursemark to be purged, you require the Chalice. '
Finchley stared, 'Chalice? So I don't have to die for it go away? What chalice?'
Moyna smiled, “You must find it in the secret treasury of Arvedui.... And in the Chalice, you will learn the truth of the Infernus, and the Witchfire but I can tell you no more now, for our time is at an end.'
Finchley slowly nods and wipes more tears from her eyes. "Chalice. Arvedui. Got it.... Okay... Why does it hurt more this time saying goodbye than it did the last?"
Moyna leaned forward and kissed Finch's forehead. "Don't be silly, grown up girl like you. Besides, I imagine I will see you at least once more...more or less...'
Finchley blinked and smiled hopefully.. "Really?"
The old woman nodded and turned to walk away slowly. Suddenly she paused. "Oh, and I had meant to tell you before, without all the mumbo jumbo...I love you...I loved you from the first time you pulled my hair as a baby and I named ya Finchley....the name of MY mother's folk, all those long years ago. I am sorry I have laid all this upon you...but I am not sorry too'
Finchley just stared…mouth open…and reached up to touch the comb the old woman had left in her hair, tears running silently down her face. “Finchley…for your mother….”
Moyna shrugged the way Finchley had seen her do a billion times as a girl and walked off into the fields near the graveyard.'
Finchley watched her disappear and sank to her knees by the open grave. She heaved a sigh that was both tired and sad but also somewhat relieved. Xandilif moved up behind her, and rested a hand on her head in silence. "Lif... Edu... Could you help me rebury her again?"
As the two women set to work, Sable caught her breath on the ground and panicked. The words, her mother, witches, all those memories of her mother and what her father and Gwyn's mother had done came flashing back to her. It all made sense. Guilt and shame and overwhelming fear filled her, all the way down to the darkest recesses of her soul. She eyed one of the abandoned horses walking free ran to it, jumped on and galloped off to the North...as those on the ridge watch her flee helplessly.
Gwyndolith watched Sable ride off and it shattered her. She immediately hopped up and ran futilely down after the mounted Sable.
Catalinna simply muttered under her breath as she watched Sable ride off, helpless to stop her, and she shook her head. "Some grandmother, hm?... If she even -was- our grandmother. Never seen her before and she didn't even wish to speak to us personally..." Cat pushed herself back from the edge of the ridge, still on her stomach and then stood, feeling a strange burning on her wrist.
Catalinna immediately tried to remove the source, the bracelet she had found at her mother’s grave, without losing a step in walking away. However the bracelet was gone...in its place, the eight pointed star which had adorned the simple leather bracelet was burned into her wrist, pale gold. She looked down at her wrist and grumbled in frustration as she swung up onto her horse, "Of course!"
Gregwald had wept a bit at the touching scene they had watched. He rubbed his forehead and turned to check on Cat only to hear her speak her thoughts aloud. He crouched away and took a deep breath before following her and gathering his horse.
Before she could depart, Aliandith but a hand on the reins of Cat's horse. "What of your sister? Should you not go search for her?"
Catalinna pushed away the hand, but did stop and looked back at Ali, "If she's goin' that way, I should be goin' in the other direction. It's best we're not both together so that we can't both be caught in one place at one time.." With that, she rode away with Greg, shaking her head. She wanted nothing to do with any of this nonsense..
Back in the Cemetery, as they finished shoveling, Eduwiges saw the horses departing, save for Ali who waited for them at the gate of the Cemetery and asked, 'Lif, do you want me to ride after them and stop them?'
Xandilif patted the earth down. "Sounded like once we get this chalice we will get more instructions then...but we are gonna need one of those sisters.” Xandilif shrugged. "Lets worry about the Chalice first...I reckon the old woman will handle the rest in due time.”
Finchley nodded. “Let them run. I can't feel right begrudgin them that. Besides... I need some time. Cause, likely when we get some rest, I'm gonna start cryin' again and I don't know how long it'll be till I stop. So, for now, it's fine. I do feel we will meet again when the time is right."
Xandilif tossed the shovel down. 'She said this chalice was in the treasury of Arvedui. That means we gotta go home and have a talk with the Monk, she will know what we should do.'
Eduwiges smiled at the thought of seeing Rian again. The last reunion with her and Calidis had been too short.
Finchley nodded. “Yes…I need to go home.” She took one of the primroses as a keepsake and turned to get her horse…but first grabbed her bag of Roast beef sandwiches. It would be a long road back to Tol Lochul.
