Red Twilight the Weaver chapter 23

Chapter 23:

Home

Baba-Yung cackles as the sun rises "Another day comes, all who did not fear and love Kari, and accept her as your one true god, be afraid another plague is here. Today all meat sours and all fruit will rot in your hands. the Lord has spoken."

***

Warwing lands outside Jessica's house as by Corn's instructions. Everything seems still at first, and that is frightening. She walks about discarding the crimson Jessica gave her and finds her maid gown. She calls out for Jessica and her children but no one is home. "Rodney? They're not here." She looks back to the others.

Rodney, shrugs "could they have gone to the keep itself?"

"It's worth a look." Corn bites onto one of her paws as she thinks.

The lot of them climb on Warwing and go first to Corn's farm then carry on to the keep. Ownlog complains "smells like Darkling."

Warwing shakes her head as she lands outside the wall "no, that is the smell of decay. This place must be filthy in ways I can't imagine."

"with your place and Jessica's so orderly I can see why you stay away from the township." Rodney jokes around

Corn climbs down and approaches the gates "this is wrong. Graywall is the image of Kobolt society. Everything is clean and well maintained."

Rodney looks to her "what is your waste management strategy?"

"same as everyone? dig out a hole near your home and bury 'it' at the end of the day" Corn explains, Rodney and Warwing nod.

Ownlog looks to them "you are wasting perfectly good building material that way. Burn it, and it turns to stone you know."

Rodney looks concerned "I didn't know that."

The gates refuse to open at their approach. Corn tries yelling for the guards to let her in, to no avail. Warwing puts one foot on the gate and shoves it open. Many of the dwellings near the entrance are apparently abandoned. No small amount of fear and repulse scattered across their faces the lot of them walk in silence. Somehow the presences of a bird the size of a house hardly attracting eyes.

Corn looks to Warwing as they walk "Warwing, what does the phrase 'Scramble your eggs' mean?"

Warwing's head tips up offended at first then understanding the question she lowers her head down to speak with Corn. "in your tongue it must sound silly, but in mine, it is most offensive. I don't understand your tongue well. But I think it is like saying 'sleep in your father's bed.' or 'lick your tail.' what it means is 'eat your young.' but that is derogatory to women. seeing when we lay our virgin egg, it is a rite of passage into adulthood that we do eat our eggs…"

Rodney stops her "Thank You! That sounds dreadful! And such harsh word."

"One Side Milk Maid!" orders a tall, proud woman dressed in the colors of the crown. Penelope is her name, Corn has seen her before, she is the captain of the guards' number two.

Corn looks to the powerful woman "is there a problem?"

Penelope stops to face Corn "Where have you been Milk Maid? There is no cream to drink, no fruit to eat, all the leather in the town has turned to rot. Curses to the like we have never seen plague every household, and I know who is to blame."

"who? How?" Corn asks

"An avian soothsayer called Baba-Yung"

"I crier?"

"Truth-speaker." Penelope expresses "everything she speaks aloud comes true. So for the good of my young and in the name of the crown, I must shut her beak."

Penelope pushes her way past the group and makes her way swiftly to the Tree of Tales, Corn seems interested by the story and follows her, waving the team to file in.

"Jessica the Weaver hand over Baba-Yung!" Jessica waits at the tree giving soft prayer to herself as Penelope marches forth resting a hand on the hilt of her sword. "Weaver! Where fourth is Baba-Yung?" Penelope draws the blade from her hip.

Jessica looks to her "I have no power over the one called Baba-Yung."

Baba squawks from the trees "she tells the truth!" Baba flaps her wings and jumps down to ground level with all them, Baba stands only around knee high to Penelope but still sticks out her chest as if to look down on the knight.

"You have defiled the sanctity of my home with your filth, witch. Prepare to be judged!" Penelope grips her blade against the back of her arm threateningly.

Baba-Yung flaps her wings laughing "Fool! I am the hand of Kari! No blade crafted on earth can bring harm to me! To even try to smite me will triple your suffering!" Baba-Yung holds out her wings awaiting the strike as she takes the Black Swan stance. Penelope's curved blade slashes across Baba's nose and Baba falls rolling from the strike, but it is Penelope that bleeds. As if cut by a phantom sword Penelope kneels, blood streams down her face and her hearing is lost instantly, she reaches up feeling the side of her head only to find her left ear missing. Baba stands up flapping her wings in hideous laughter "Do It! Strike Me Again! Your blade hurts me, Yes, but you will die before me!" Corn runs over to Penelope cradling her like I child. "In Kari's name, I own all I see."

Jessica walks over to Baba wrapping her arms around the bird picking her up "stop this Baba." Jessica orders. Jessica grabs Baba by the beak shutting it when she starts to complain about being held "shut your beak." Jessica places Baba down and makes her way to Penelope finding the cut ear on the ground. Jessica puts the broken ear atop Penelope's head, and it burns it back into place.

The pain gone Penelope wraps her arms around Jessica and cries smote by overwhelming love and fear of god. In a fit of rage Baba flies off in search of pleasures of the flesh to wash the anger out of her mouth, be it food or sex, both would do.

* * *

Baba flies around fuming with a need for vengeance, being struck by the knight not nearly as painful to her as the simple degradation that someone would dare think about fighting her. Only flying around the outskirts of town does it start to dawn on Baba-Yung, the strange silence on the wind. At most any hour of most any day, Baba can hear the calls of fellow avians for miles around looking for friends or chattering about good roost or stockpiles of nuts and seeds. But today there is no singing.

Without songs guiding her, it takes Baba some time to find a fellow bird to sit with. It is an older man, a black miter bird, not a crow, like her, but closes enough, if she is lucky they can still lay eggs together and the thought of that makes Baba happy for the moment.

Baba flies in close rubbing her tail across the miter birds nose, she then lands alongside him and fans her tail feathers showing off her womanhood. The miter looks at Baba with only a sideways glance. Baba shacks her tail trying to get him to look at her "Come on! Pay attention to me!" the miter flaps his wings and jumps up to another tree branch. Baba chases him, she binds over parting her tail feathers and walks backward rubbing her tail up his chest. "what is the matter with you! I'm showing you my tail, use it."

the miter lowers his head closing his eyes "please lower your tail, I'm not going to lay any more eggs, and I don't think you should either."

"What is the point of these inter-locking parts you and I have if we aren't using them?"

"Taste the air girl. It is stale. Smell the wind, it is sour. I saw a spider yesterday walking just on the other side of the grove. It was so big it was eating trees whole, it was singing as it walked. I have not song since. In its shadow swaying to its song where tenfold ten thousand spiders, where they walked, all life ended, and I beheld as the spider mother reached into the earth proclaiming 'that which was will be' then the dead rose to her aid. Child, this is it, the last hours of the last days of this mortal life. The world is ending, if you lie eggs today, they will hatch into a world where all are born dead."

"then fly away," Baba explains

"and where will I fly to?"

"across the sea, where the spiders cannot follow."

"do you see those grapes down yonder?" the miter asks, Baba nods "bring one." He request

Baba nods thinking that this will cheer the older bird up and maybe convince him to sleep with her. The miter bites the base of the grape with his beak and it bleeds sand. Baba's eyes go wide as she watches the sand spill from the fruit. She mumbles to herself "here too? But…" Baba freezes trying to understand what she is seeing.

"I have been to the six nearest camps. This evil befouls all the tribes of this island. Graywall seems to be the only haven. Once the spiders reach there, then we all die." the old blackbird explains.

"No!" Baba orders "that's not what is supposed to happen. The cat, the mice, the bats, and the squirrels... and lizards die, not us."

"why not us?"

Baba raises her wings in the Black Swan prayer for possibly the last time "Because Baba-Yung commands it not to be."

** *

Warwing skips up to Jessica pressing her beak into Jessica's belly knocking her over "Mother" she calls out. Jessica laughs placing her hands on Warwing's beak.

Rodney looks baffled. "What? How can a kobolt birth a Rok?"

Warwing explains "I hatched to small. Jessica fed me cream, and that made me grow fast and strong."

The lot of them hardly have time to great each-other before Odidimus shows up with his escorts. "Jessica, we need your magic." Odidimus expresses. "Baba has unleashed another plague."

"Tell everyone to leave at once. I can't heal all of them forever." Jessica retorts.

"it's worse than all of that is would seem. Running will not help; I spoke to my brother's daughter living with the Unpine at Watersend. The plagues have reached them as well." Odidimus goes on.

Corn cuts in "Jessica, what does this all mean?" Jessica gasps. She sits frozen for a long moment forgetting even to breath as what Odidimus has claimed sinks in for her. Corn grads

Jessica by the arm and call to her again "Jessica!" Jessica fails to blink as her eyes water. "Jessica!" Corn shacks Jessica, Jessica nearly faints from the loss of breath.

At last Jessica whispers so softly that only Corn who is nose to nose with her can hear, her voice reduced to a childish whine "I lost. I failed. I can't protect you. I can't protect anyone." Jessica slumps over Corn in the grip of despair "I made a mistake. I misunderstood what Kari said about fleeing. She didn't mean Graywall. She meant the island. Everyone..."

Odidimus speaks up "Jessica. Tell me what to do." Odidimus is in shamble, fully ready to turn himself over to Jessica's whim. He knows that he has been bet, there is no more room for pride, only a need to save that which he can.

"we are at Kari's will" Jessica meekly tries to explain.

Corn grinds her fangs and pushes Jessica back holding her firm at arm's length. Jessica covers her face with her hands weekly. "STOP IT!" Corn shouts at Jessica. "I have just survived fighting a dozen giants and falling into the hex of our past lives! And I am a child! Jessica, I need you. You are the mother of our tribe. We need you."

Jessica whines shaking her head in defeat "I... I don't…"

Corn takes one hand smacks Jessica's nose down "You Must! Now gather your straight before I hit you again."

The sharp pain in Jessica's nose helps her gather her thoughts; her eyes burn cold and determined. Jessica wipes her face on her arm. "Bring me a plate cast out of white gold, a fist full of cheese, a biscuit and a string of grapes assort the nibbles atop the plate. Tell everyone in the town to gather at the tree of tails at once. Tell them all to sniff the cheese and to lick the grapes, then to pinch the biscuit. They will find once this is done that no one will feel hunger.

Odidimus, Warwing, you will go to Watersend, fly my child as if Hades stood in your shadow, fly as you have never flown before. Odidimus finds your brother and his child, have them send their brethren two the six largest camps within a day's walk, tell every family that wishes for salvation that they will find safety in Graywall even if it is for but a day. Then we make our way to Long River, we seek Shadi and her cats, we will gather in their boats and be across the sea."

Odidimus nods his head once then looks at Jessica "and what if one will not do as I say?"

"They will. They must." Jessica looks to Corn "Go to Preston, be with your children."

Jessica finds her feet and turns away from the group her clothing fluttering in the sudden wind like a holy mother figure.

"Where are you going, Jessica?" Corn asks.

"To summon Kari."

***

Jessica marches into the church and thrust her hands down to her side shouting "Kari!" her voice squeaks as she is short on breath from the run here. "Cravixs! Mammon! Answer me!"

The rat in a dress that is Kari's shadow appears sitting atop a statue of a bird her lags tide around it. Kari playfully kisses the effigy "it is not fit for a queen to raise one's voice like that." The phantom garbed in bird feathers looks down to her from high on its perch, its eyes glow of blue red draining the light from the world around it "I am no god of fortune or peace, and I have little love or need for your prayers. So why do you call onto me?"

"Baba-Yung's plagues have spread into the countryside and brought pain to many," Jessica explains.

"So?" Kari asks

"You have given me the power to change the world but not the knowledge or time to do so.

Spare these beasts your wraith." Jessica begs

Kari's eyes narrow and the marble images of her splinter, the paintings lining the walls melt and the benches fly into the air then smash themselves on the stone walls. "Are you telling me what to do?"

Jessica hides her head in her arms as she ducks from the rage "I am asking you for help."

Kari's form gives way to something far too horrible for Jessica to understand: something genuinely unearthly, no head, no face, no shape that is easily described, something cancerous, with countless teeth but no mouth, countless eyes growing from bubbling purple flesh and arms with no bone to hold them in place. The mysterious beast outreaches its tentacle arms weaving in and out of the room that is strangling it. "Nonsense! I have been kind to you already. Give you more than I have given any in hundreds of lifetimes. I am god! You serve me! I do not serve you! If you cannot save your family, then save yourself. If you cannot save yourself, I will call into being another Avatar, one stronger and smarter then you. Now stop cowering and serve your end."

Jessica falls onto her back and crawls away from the outreaching shapeless mass, her mouth falls open and eyes wide with mortal fear. Jessica tries to scream but the horror takes her breath away. In a flash of starlight, the monster is gone, leaving behind only destruction where it had stood.

***

The plan is in motion; the magic breed feeds all that hunger and Odidimus has gone with Warwing to gather the tribes. At long last Corn goes to see her young, to make her family whole.