The Unfinished Land

Maeve

THROUGH DRIFTING SMOKE, on the way to the temple, they passed under the walkway’s painted boards, each displaying a scene from the town’s long history. Reynard wished there was more time to study them.

The next to last board was freshly painted with a vivid landscape of lava and burning forest.

“No doubt Travelers will again seek thee out, in their own time,” Widsith said. “As for Maeve—appear of some use, for my sake.”

They paused at the end of the walkway. The last board, beyond the flames and lava, was sanded to a blankness. Widsith reached up and touched it. “The Crafters’ tale rolls on. Watch and learn, young fisherboy.”

To Reynard, however, the blank board seemed to point to something less conclusive.

Across a flagstone path, the nave and transept of the temple were embraced by more than twenty enormous, twisted oaks.

“Canst thou feel it?” Widsith asked softly. “I have been gone too long. I know not what more I can do for her.” He pushed open the central doors. Inside, the transept to either side seemed dark and empty. Down the aisle that defined the nave, floored with packed dirt and stomped-down rushes, the pews were also empty. At the far end, near the altar, a single candle outlined a lone dark figure kneeling on a pillow. Even from here, Reynard could tell the figure was spectrally thin, and Widsith seemed both saddened and frightened by what they were approaching.

Reynard counted sixty pews, and looking up, estimated that the arched roof was a hundred feet above them. Even in England this would have been an impressive structure. But there were no stained-glass windows, no sculptures, very little ornamentation.

The end of each pew supported a stand on which a single book was placed. All the books looked as if they might have been Bibles and were very old. Some stands closer to the altar carried not books but scrolls, brown and fragile and even older.

They came to the end of the pews and the space before the altar.

“I am here,” Widsith said.

The spectral figure got up from her knees. A dry, whispery voice said, “And welcome, to be sure.”

The figure turned and Reynard saw a woman so old the fat of her face and neck had melted away and parchment flesh stretched tight on her cheeks and chisel nose. A thin aura of white hair stuck up from her age-spotted crown. She might have been a corpse in a reliquary, not that he had ever visited such. Her eyes were bright enough, but looked more like tiny stones than human eyes. She held up a skeletal hand heavy with five great gold rings, and crooked her pointing finger to invite them forward. Her knuckles made soft little snaps, as old knuckles do.

Reynard held back, but Widsith did as she bid, and embraced her with extraordinary delicacy.

“Who be this… young creature? ” Maeve asked.

“He is called Fox,” Widsith said.

“Reynard,” the boy corrected.

“Greetings, Fox—Reynard. Sorry to meet thee in such sad times.” She stepped away from the pillow where she had knelt and walked around Reynard with a fluid grace he would have thought impossible. “Hast shown him to Guldreth?” she asked, her voice like leaves blowing along a road.

“She was asleep,” Widsith said. “Her man did not seem interested in waking her.”

“Ah, would that be Kaiholo, the one with tattoos all over?”

“Aye. I will take the boy to the Travelers soon, whether she seeth him or no.” This seemed to contradict what Widsith had said earlier, and the fact that a band of Travelers had already passed them by, but Reynard merely glanced at him, then focused his attention on Maeve.

“Wilt thou?” she asked, with some amusement. She gave Reynard a sad, knowing look. “Fox, didst thou recently see Travelers, or didst they come to see thee?”

“I do not know who they wished to see,” Reynard said. “I did see them.”

“Be not disappointed. They may have been distracted by unexpected visitors from the krater lands—outmoded beasts, likely fugitives from failed histories… But I would not know.”

“Such creatures have come here?” Widsith asked.

“None in Zodiako have seen their like. They keep to the Ravine and the ridges, but some were seen by our scouts. True giants, I am told. Cyclops and men who run on four legs like wolves, with human heads and hands. To those who travel regular outside Zodiako, like Anutha, and Kaiholo, the island seems upturned and all the beasts riled and poked.” Maeve looked at Widsith with an unreadable expression, so bony and wrinkled. “Thou wert away too long,” she said.

“There were so many wars and journeys, islands and lands…”

“And wives? I trust curiosity led thee on.”

This stung the Pilgrim. “And duty! No need for thee to forget me and join the others in age. Thou didst know I would return.”

“I did not forget thee. Nor did I think thou wouldst lead the Spanish to our town!”

Widsith fumed. “I volunteered for their ships, to return here, and had no control of the circumstance.”

“Thou couldst have diverted them,” Maeve said softly.

“I would have died. I had to return… to thee. To make my report. And I found the boy.”

“But who asked thee to bring him here? Was it Guldreth? And what did this one so lovely, and so near to the sky, say before thou last departed our isle, that thou wouldst guess this boy was needed, or special… or mayhaps a sign?”

“Before I left—”

“Forty years ago!” Maeve said, her parchment skin pinking with what might have been anger. Delicate veins showed through her pale flesh.

The Pilgrim seemed to collapse a little. A tear fell from his left eye. “Thou hast always seen deep. Yes. Guldreth told me that I should look for a special sort of Gitano out there, young and unlearned, except in secret signs.”

Reynard looked between these two like a chicken wondering who would wring him and pluck him first.

“He would have black hair, she said, but the sea would turn it red, and thereafter it would become black again—in the company of those who knew his quality.”

Maeve lifted a lock of the boy’s reddish hair. Again, Reynard drew back and raised his arm as if in defense.

“Is he innocent?”

“On the edge of manhood.”

“A dangerous time for a boy, prodigy or no. Hath he had love from woman or man?”

“I know not.” Again, a strangeness to his tone.

“That is an important bit of knowledge. Perhaps thou shouldst ask him before meeting with Guldreth.”

Widsith agreed with a sidewise nod. “Most strange, why did the Spanish get through the gyre?”

“Obvious, because they carried thee and the boy,” Maeve said.

“And why hath she allowed thee to grow old? She knoweth I favor thee.”

“ ’Twas my decision. It hath been hard watching this island grow in perversity greater even than its mystery. The Travelers, the chafing waste… all ring with unwanted change.”

“When I deliver the boy, I will command Guldreth to bring thee more time!”

“Command her? Thou findest such high favor in one just beneath the sky?”

Widsith looked aside once more.

“I am become mortal again and see now, in thy long absence, that mine is the right choice. Besides, as thy wife, knowing what I now know, I would never ask for her help,” Maeve said. “My bottle is sealed. I will soon give the Eaters the last of my time, but can no longer receive.”

“I must correct thy thoughts!” Widsith said, in agony now.

“Never. We had a good year, right in the middle of some of this island’s best years, when queens and kings reasoned together and Travelers moved freely and unafraid, and Crafters seemed content. The Eater who tended to me honored my request to take months from mine end, when there seemed little hope thou wouldst spend another such time with me. Hadst thee more timely returned.” She smiled with such sweet longing as she stroked Widsith’s face with thin fingers, that Reynard thought he could see the girl beneath the parchment flesh, the youth beneath the age. “I had hoped thou mightst be gone no more than a decade, or less, and that thou wouldst get Guldreth to instruct Calybo to make thee near mine age, no younger, and we could both love as mature man and woman and enjoy a fine twilight. But when that decade passed, I knew we could never match, and I gave thee up to the island, and prayed Calybo would only make thee younger, as always, but not for me—only to send thee on thy way again to serve. My life seemed not so important.”

“I will go to the Ravine now and beg,” Widsith said. “Guldreth is indebted to me! The Travelers as well! I spent two thirds of a long life out there!”

“And I spent that same time here, I did not marry again. Didst thou?” She stood her ground, but her face softened. “Stay, and tell me some of what thou sawest—before thou tellest Guldreth or the Travelers, and before they tell the Crafters. That will be reward enough! Long have I desired to hear about the finished lands, and thou hast seen them! I am ready to hear, and then to die. Mine end will be swift. The Eaters have always borrowed from these last times, and left behind such glorious memories of others mine own age, or older, who have gone before. Some of the eldest of our islanders fill my dreams. The Eaters have been generous beyond their nature.”

Widsith’s voice cracked, and he wiped his eyes. “I shall not accept this! I still have need, and influence, especially now…” He looked to Reynard. “We will go to the Ravine and persuade the Eaters they must make Maeve young again, if nothing else, as reward to me! That we can share many summers again.”

Reynard was fascinated by the fragility underlying Maeve’s apparent graceful strength. Was this what aging was like when Eaters borrowed from your later years? And how did that affect them?

“Persuade which? Calybo?” Maeve asked. “He is assigned only to thee and cares nought for me. Valdis, then? She seemed a young one in their ranks.”

“I did not see her, only Calybo.”

A young-seeming female Eater? Was that the one who had visited Reynard on the beach?

“Well, she came that first night I returned to mortality,” Maeve said. “She held me so briefly, as if in sorrow, as if I might be a kind of friend or mother to her, and shared with me memories of northern islands and long ships, and of strong men and women she had not seen since she was a child, badly hurt in a storm. A yard and sail fell on her and broke her back. Her parents brought her here through the gyre, and donated her to the Eaters, that she might live. From me, that night, she sipped mere seconds. But she sealed in my time. I will no longer take.”

“I will convince Calybo she needs to return and reverse that course.”

“Impossible,” Maeve said. “Once sealed, I approach a point that ends a line.” Her smile was that of a woman already dead, Reynard thought—teeth prominent behind thin, pale lips. She seemed almost as translucent as an Eater herself. “Anutha hath told me more than thou, husband! That when the Spanish ship arrived, and the Eater Ravine was made aware, Calybo called upon Valdis and gave her a separate mission. She was instructed to take no time from this boy, but to pass along some memories—and not to belabor the Spanish, so that the other Eaters could take their due. What could be Valdis’s purpose, her mission? Did Calybo order it, or Guldreth?”

Widsith shook his head.

“Once, I was informed of these things,” Maeve said, “if only to support the stock of lives from which Eaters drew. Now, as I near mine end, other than Valdis, few of our marvels reveal to me anything important. This maketh me innocent again, giveth a new sort of youth. And so having capped my years, I am eternally reborn.”

Widsith paled at that thought. “Thou hast lived a good and decent life here—I choose not to believe it will end soon.”

“Then why was I left behind? I wished to go with thee, this last time, suspecting by thy words, thy demeanor, thou wouldst be gone for many, many years.”

“I wanted to take thee, but thou wouldst have died long since. Times are hard on the sea and out there, in the far isles.”

“Thou couldst not have left me as a serving maid with the Virgin Queen, or in the court of Philip’s daughter?”

This amused and moved both of them. Widsith softly stroked the back of her hand. “Thou know’st what would have happened.”

“I do! I would have left the side of the Queen or the girl, chased thy departing sloop or galleon, and gone with thee. When we reached those distant shores, I would have seen thee laugh and dally with brown maids, and I would have lost my purest love in anger at thy brutal needs. And then I would have stolen a great ship to return to our isle.”

Widsith nodded. “Thou wouldst have done all that.”

“My life is here,” Maeve said. “I understand this island, but little of the greater world thou hast visited, that one they say Crafters do shape and refine.”

Maeve stepped forward, but this time with little certainty, and Widsith supported her by the arm. They walked slowly back down the aisle to the door, and Reynard followed. On the steps, Widsith lifted her—she seemed light as straw—and carried her through the great oaks to her home, a small cabin on the edge of the village, its fences burned and walls scorched. Maggie and Anutha were waiting, and as he lowered her to her feet, Maggie grasped Maeve’s outstretched hand. Anutha took the Pilgrim aside and whispered to him. Reynard heard little but the name Valdis. Anutha and Maggie then escorted Maeve into her home and closed the door, with a stern parting look from Anutha.