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The Elementist weaves earthy reality with luminous enchantment in a delightfully layered and gripping tale. Innocence, power, possibility and love are explored in the backdrop of the heroine’s intimate connection to the natural world as she discovers her identity, her power, and what it will cost her to undo the world-breaking legacy of her kin.
The Elementist
© Quinn Columba Boyko. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: ‘Ferny’
How many days?
Water droplets splashed in sequence onto coloured pebbles beneath a tiny, moss-cushioned waterfall, then disappeared into the undergrowth. Caressed by its song, Caedris knelt. Her open palm delighted in the cold landing of each drop, the play of it over her hand as she tipped it. Then resting her forehead on mossy stone, she breathed its scent, eyes closed.
How many days now?
How long had she wandered?
Light and shadow patterns shifted with the leaves above her, their variance brushing her face with bright and dark kisses. Chimes called amid birdsong, deeper in the greening forest.
“Ferny! You’ve come all confused again,” came a familiar voice. “Comes back to the cottage.”
The pale-haired intruder, large, yet light on his feet, carefully rested a massive hand on the weathered purple cloak covering her shoulder. Memory sparked.
Of course.
It was days, maybe weeks she’d been in the open, they said. Found her in the ferns at the edge of the meadow, marked with fairy spirals.
“Come along now, Ferny. That’s the way…”
He doesn’t know my name.
The looming farm lad coaxed her to her feet with the calming lilt she’d heard him use with new lambs and cranky goats. He led her back through the trees.
What was his name?
She should know…
“Mam said you was feeding the chicks as she tended the Faestone, but when she turn ’round you was gone and the gate open!” Big blue eyes tilting down at the corners offered a sympathetic glance. “Keeps calling you, do they?”
Fairylights with their chiming songs circled near, then drifted away as they reached the edge of the trees. A steady hand supported her elbow now as they traversed bracken-covered stones lining the field. They murmured softly beneath her feet.
“Now listens to me, Ferny. Just because they calls you don’t mean you has to go! We hears ‘em too, living close like we do.” The thatched cottage was in sight now through a screen of birch limbs.
But it wasn’t the calling that made her break for the forest at the oddest of times. No, it was…she had to remember! She was looking. Looking for something….
They passed the chicken yard with its ancient sigil-covered stone, all sinuous swirls and circles, gate closed now. From the cottage beyond, voices floated through the open top half of the kitchen door. Caedris paused when they reached it and shook her head, making her rescuer halt too.
Jocco.
That was his name.
She smiled faintly at him, and he beamed back.
A brown-cloaked Lorekeeper sat in earnest conversation with Mam Hardy over the kitchen table when Jocco and Caedris arrived.
“…been a fortnight now, Master Ferrid, and still mute. Still disappearing into the trees, and marked more curious than I’ve seen…” She stopped, jumping to her feet at the sight of them. “Begging your pardon, Ferny, the Lorekeeper’s finally come. He’ll help. They’s seen many of the Lost back where they belongs.” Mam gave a firm nod with her ample chin. She smoothed a voluminous white apron and fetched two more mugs for tea.
What if I don’t want to go?
There was something she needed to find…
The hand still at her elbow guided her to a wooden bench.
“Sit you down, Ferny,” said Jocco. Like most of the cottage, the bench was built to a scale rather big for her, and her feet dangled. “Take a nice cuppa with Ferrid and Mam. I has beasties to see to.” Jocco raised his cap, nodding with a smile to the Lorekeeper and hurried out, leaving an extra mug on the rough table.
“’Tis gifted,” Mam said, pouring Caedris’ tea, and settled herself on the bench beside her. “Now, then.”
The Lorekeeper leaned forward, intent. “Why do you call her Ferny, Mam? You had some indication of her name?”
“Oh, no, Master Ferrid. Nothing but clothes on her back, same as t’others. Jocco and Runey found her in the ferns below the south spring is all. Had to call her something, didn’t we?”
The Lorekeeper faced Caedris now, curious but kind brown eyes searching her face. He was young.
“May I see your arm?”
She pushed the weathered cloak back, baring her right arm. Mam touched her shoulder.
“Your markings, Ferny,” she said patiently.
My markings?
Yes. The spirals. Of course.
Caedris bared her left arm and put it on the table, palm down.
Intricate coloured knotwork flowed upwards from her third finger, framed with delicate leafing spirals. The patterns curled to embrace the curve of her arm and twist back, nearly to her elbow—three thick strands of gem-coloured scales set into her skin, twining in a large central knot on her forearm; amethyst, and emerald, and aquamarine, flashing in many shades.
Master Ferrid choked on his tea.
He recovered after some bone-jarring blows from Mam Hardy and fought to regain his breath.
“Can you reads them, then?”
Tears streamed from his eyes and he wiped them, shaking in his cloak.
“Mam! Mam—” He coughed. Rising to back away, the bench scraped loudly and he fumbled. “I don’t know… it shouldn’t even be possible—” His eyes looked a little wild and he took a deep breath. “I don’t think she’s one of ours, taken and returned. I think she’s…” His voice dropped. “She could be one of theirs!”
Wide-eyed, Mam sank to the Lorekeeper’s bench, a half-smile playing at her lips.
Through all of this Caedris remained still, eyes following the flowing marks on her arm. They reminded her of something. Something she needed to find…
***
“You thinks she’s dangerous?”
In the room above the kitchen, Mam’s doubtful voice drifted through gaps in the wooden floor. The song of the trees it came from lingered in it, and Caedris heard that, too.
She sat on a large cot, embraced in the affection of the narrow room around her, and smiled at the sound of sunlight falling merrily through an arched window to gild dust-motes dancing above the deep sill. Stone walls gave their purring hum and slanting beams above her, carved with sigils, harmonised with the floor. It had all woken up over the days she’d spent in this place.
Chiming voices of the calling reached here, too—inviting, enticing her to come, come and play in the woods. She liked to hear them, but they did not tempt her. She needed to find…what she needed to find, but she felt happy here.
“Dangerous? I don’t know, Mam. Since the Sundering, there is just so much we don’t know. But there is power in those markings. Surely you felt it?”
Mam sniffed. “I’m Hillborn and used to some magics. Heard the calling from my cradle, didn’t I? She’s no trouble. Seems content enough here—just want to sees her back to her people, if there’s any missing her.”
A bench scraped across the flagstone floor.
“Just the same, I think it’s best. I can’t read her markings, but they remind me of something I have seen. My scrolls are at the Gather House. I’ll make arrangements for her to stay with the Tended for now. Can you spare Jocco to bring her in the morning?”
There was a pause. “If you says…”
The kitchen door opened and closed. After a moment, old stairs creaked beneath Mam Hardy’s heavy steps, followed by a delicate tapping. Face somewhat flushed, Mam entered when Caedris opened the door. She smiled at the small retreat.
“Cozy here, innit?” Mam gave her a knowing look. “Heard most of that, did you, Ferny? I knows I heard goings on when it were my room.”
Face vague but pleasant, Caedris indicated the bed. Both Mam and the cot groaned when she sat on it. Large hands smoothed a crease in her apron, then folded resolutely in her lap. She patted the spot beside her, and Caedris sat, too.
“Now Ferny, I knows a thing or two about the Lost”—she paused—“though what you are in’t certain.” She huffed, indignant. “If you’re theirs, it’s sure you wants home, not being shut away with the Tended! The hills remember before the Sundering, all the way back to Far Times, and the Hillfolk do too, a little.” She gave Caedris a searching look.
“Do you understands me, Ferny? I’m wondering to sends you on the fells. I don’t know but it might mind you of something, or show you the way—even let you cross back if it be your time. No better chance than now!” Her down-slanting eyes lit with a mischievous sparkle.
“’Tis Spring Half-day, and tonight the Stones dance!”
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