Wordscapist, The Myth

There are so many ways to weave

And so many threads to choose

The pattern emerges with time

As the weaver is drawn into the loom

The Historian

Zauberin did not leave me much time to come to terms with what was happening. We soon had a team pick us up from the warehouse, which turned out to be in an isolated part of Goa, a state on India’s western coast.

It was the first time I had been to India. I had been on scapes to the east, but they were more often in China and South-East Asia, for some reason. India had often been viewed as a Free Word stronghold and the Guild rarely sent teams out here. It made sense that my stint as a Free Word Historian should start in India.

The team that came to collect us brought a couple of huge SUVs. The people were all norms, but were apparently well-versed with the ways of wordsmiths. I even saw some packaged recording equipment, top-of-the-line stuff. Zauberin had obviously been planning this one for a very long time. I wondered what she had intended to do if Silvus hadn’t tried to knock me off. I wouldn’t have been so agreeable about switching teams then. I gulped as I realised that I was to be a part of the Free Word’s rebellion whether I liked it or not. Remembering Zauberin’s telepathic missive, I reminded myself that she could easily read every thought in my head, even if I was protected against scapes. I decided to keep my thoughts neutral and politically correct. I wish I had had some training in thoughtlessness like wordsmiths do right at the beginning of breathsmith training.

The roads hugged the coastline for the most part. Once in a while, we would enter hills, and soon enough, we would exit them through long, dark tunnels dimly lit by spooky, yellow lights. Every now and then, we would pass small villages and towns, but for the most part there weren’t too many houses around. The cars kept up a furious pace throughout. We were headed to the heart of Goa for a Free wordsmiths rendezvous that had been scheduled, quite coincidentally, for that very evening. I tried striking up a conversation with the norms in the car, but they ended up being quite surly. Perhaps language was a problem. Apart from English, my knowledge of languages extended only to Europe and the Far East. I didn’t know Hindi, India’s national language. And even that would not have been of much use. India, I had read somewhere, had 28 different states (at last count) and most of them had their own languages and numerous further dialects. Perhaps the men spoke Goanese or whatever was spoken in these parts. The article had claimed that India had around 425 languages and somewhere between 1600 and 1700 dialects. I wondered how the tourists managed. A couple of hours of hard driving later, we entered Panjim, Goa’s capital. The roads got more crowded, and deteriorated as well. The cars had to slow down a bit, as they swerved into narrower lanes from the highway. I looked out keenly, trying to get a sense of the country. It was crowded, noisy and extremely colourful.

We stopped briefly for a tea break, while one of the norms inspected the wheels on one of the SUVs; the one Zauberin was in. She didn’t emerge though. Little thick glasses of steaming tea were handed around. I took one sip of the scalding hot liquid and abandoned my stubby glass. The thick, sweet liquid was nothing like tea and caused my insides, already shaken by the swerving trip through the hills, to protest violently. I quite liked the place, though. It was green and it was cool, though in a strange way, it was also humid and warm. I didn’t need my heavy jacket, which I had been wearing for the wet and cold morning in Galapagos. I shuddered as I thought of my close brush with death. Brushes actually, if you counted Sign’s visit and Silvus’s execution order as separate incidents.

I climbed back into one of the SUVs and we took off for the last leg of the journey, wherever that led us. Nobody thought it important to let me know what the plan was. I thought we had left Panjim, but wasn’t really sure. Was Mapusa different from Panjim or within Panjim? But given where my life was, geographical location was the least of my concerns. I was with the most wanted member of the Free Word, hunted by the CCC and the Guild for multiple crimes against the Way of the Word and large scale Continuum tampering. I was also being taken to a meeting where I was to meet other such controversial wordsmiths, who would collectively fetch enough bounty to bid for the First Wordsmith’s scape-staff, should it ever be put up for sale. I wondered how much bounty would be offered for my balding head. However large that amount might be, I was sure I would find the concept more scary than flattering. But with such big names around, I didn’t have to worry about being hunted. They would probably look for me only after they had hunted down every last Free wordsmith.

We finally turned into a narrow lane that was labelled Baga. One last harrowing turn later, we stopped outside a place that claimed to be the Gypsy Shack. Zauberin unfolded from her car, unruffled by the drive.

“Come along, Historian. Get a hand-held. You might want to record some of these parts for flavour.”

I half bridled at this. The Guild, for all its faults, treated historians with respect. We were specialists who only recorded scapes with import that qualified them for the archives. We weren’t treated as mere cameramen who recorded every time wordsmiths had a gossip. Before I could protest, Zauberin had moved on and one of the norms was handing me a handheld recorder and a pack of batteries. I sighed as I took the equipment. I could throw a fit, but I didn’t think it would do me any good. These were extraordinary circumstances and I would probably be required to do worse than this before the dust settled, if it ever did.

I slipped the batteries in and started the camera. I looked at the viewfinder and turned it around, testing it for light. I pointed it at the norm who had given me the camera and was waiting, watching me rather impatiently. “Smile!” I said, as I started a test recording. I might as well have asked him to roll over and play dead. I sighed again, as I turned around and followed Zauberin. I found myself tripping over a patch of sand before I entered the Gypsy Shack. I saw Zauberin talking to someone - he might have been the owner of the shack, or a caretaker. I was leaning more towards bouncer though. He looked like one of those muscular Latinos who had been left in the sun for too long. Tanned almost dark brown, the man’s muscular arms were covered in tattoos. He also had long, curly hair with lots of grey in it, tied in a vague ponytail. He was wearing a brown poncho that he had tied around the waist with what looked like sailor’s rope and canvas trousers that flapped around. He was dressed in beach slippers, same as almost half the people I had seen so far in Goa.

I turned the camera on them, looking through the viewfinder. I stated date, time, and location, and moved in closer so that I could catch the audio for whatever inane conversation was happening between Zauberin and the stranger. I focussed on the man as he was talking and took a couple of steps forward. The first words I heard and recorded were anything but inane. “He was very powerful, Mistress. Pardon my impertinence, but Dooly, Dew, said that he was even more powerful than you.”

Slick

I took a quick shower and changed into light, comfortable clothes, trading in my heavy shoes for comfortable floaters. I completely avoided looking at the mirror throughout this entire period. The sight had shaken me more than I would like to admit. It hadn’t helped that De Vorto was completely stumped by the change as well. He had had blue-grey eyes when he had a body of his own. I had plain brown eyes, though they were a lighter brown than most Indians. There was no trace of green anywhere. And now, in one of my eyes, my right eye to be precise, there were striations of green radiating from a black pupil that now suddenly looked quite sinister. My other eye remained the original light brown and only served to highlight the contrast with the newly brown-green eye. It mocked me, loudly declaring the alien presence within me.

The eye-colour issue served one purpose; it completely distracted me from the conversation I had had with De Vorto and how it had left me feeling. I slipped my money and my passport into my jacket and zipped up my bag. There wasn’t much of value in it now. I was getting out of the room and out into the open. De Vorto’s advice of catching some fresh air sounded pretty good to me. As I clattered down the stairs out on to the narrow street, I really did start feeling a little better. It was a carnival out there. The lanes were jam-packed with people, even though it was only late afternoon. I walked past the stores looking at the different offerings on display – but it was the people who made it fascinating. I kept looking at faces and the expressions. Snatches of conversations came to me as I passed people. With the foreign tourists, the voices were louder, the expressions more exaggerated, the excitement more intense. The Indians, on the other hand, found the foreigners more fascinating than the sights and sounds that Goa offered. Me, I was fascinated by everyone and everything. Even more than I thought I would be. Somewhere down the line, I realised that the fascination was partly due to De Vorto too. I tried to imagine what all this must feel like to a man from the Scottish highlands of the 16th century. I couldn’t. But I could feel his excitement, his wonder. I walked, moving from one lane to another, from one market to another. I did not buy anything. I just looked and absorbed. I was the window through which De Vorto experienced the world. It took some getting used to though, having two sets of comments and reactions to everything. Though he was silent for the most part, there was a surge of emotion every now and then, or a whispered word or two that showed how he felt.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the place, walking, thumbing down rides or taking buses from one part of North Goa to another. I did not linger in any one place for too long, and it soon became my mission to cover maximum ground. It might have been some subtle suggestion on De Vorto’s part that made me do it, or it might have been my own restlessness and desire to run away from it all. I walked and climbed and trudged over all kinds of terrain that day, trying to exorcise the restlessness with sheer exhaustion. Market-beach-church-café-beach-hill-pub-meadow-beach. The afternoon flew past and I got progressively more tired, and at the same time, relaxed.

As the day came to an end, I found myself lying on a beach - I don’t remember which one - as I saw the sun sink into the sea. The child in me expected a hiss of steam as the blazing ball touched the water. I could hear De Vorto’s faint chuckle at that thought. But it was pleasant and not mean, and I let it pass. The sunset was rather beautiful, and the beach not as crowded as most of the other beaches I had visited. There was a moment of peace as I sank back to my elbows, just appreciating the view without any thought.

“Boy,” he spoke after a long time.

“Do you have to call me that?” I asked, only half-annoyed. All said and done, the man was half a millennium older than me and he of all people could call pretty much anyone a boy. Unless she was a girl, I guess.

“Remember Akto’s invitation? I think you should go. I sense there might be things happening there.”

“Isn’t that reason not to go?”

“It’s time to find some answers, Slick. And neither of us is aware of what’s happening in the world of wordsmiths. Don’t worry about your safety. You’re a powerful wordsmith yourself, and you have me inside you now. And my power too. Between us, I’m sure we can best any wordsmith the Guild or the Free Word can throw at us.”

“Why does this sound like we’re going into a battle?”

“Because we just might be. However, we’ll try and keep it as peaceful as we can. Come now, let’s go.”

I pushed myself up reluctantly. I had quite forgotten about Akto’s invitation. It felt like a lifetime ago. But then, I guess I was better off turning up than not. He still half suspected me of being mixed up with his brother’s murder.

I brushed the sand off and started walking. I stopped to ask someone the way and learned that Ingo’s was north of here. I even hitched a lift to a place half-way there on a dilapidated scooter, the old gentleman in front riding at a speed that made me half-wish I had walked. I was dropped off at a bridge over a quaint little creek. It had gotten rather dark and the bridge was pretty isolated too, with hardly a soul around. I walked along the creek in the direction of the market, as directed by the old man. I soon came to a fork, and took a turn based on an approximate estimation. But with me, approximation and direction are not a good combination. I soon lost track of where I was going. I took wrong turn upon wrong turn, and soon I reached a place where you just have to take a U-turn. I tried retracing my path. But to one genuinely lost, retracing a path is nothing more than an academic concept, almost impossible to execute. I could sense De Vorto’s growing irritation, but I guess he was pretty helpless too.

I reached side-streets and back-lanes and whatever godforsaken paths lie beyond such forgotten places. Darkness ruled here, and there was not a single light to be seen. Even the crickets had gone silent. I was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable with the way I found darker, scarier lanes with every turn I took. I realised that I had not passed a single house or a cottage for a long time. Apart from some desolate fields on either side of the lanes, and trees on the fringes of these fields, there was nothing else around. I finally saw a silver gleam through a copse of trees. I stumbled through the undergrowth, hoping that it was what I thought it was. It was! I had finally found the shore. I quickly oriented myself and figured out where I needed to go. I knew the direction I had to pursue now (which itself was a great feeling), and decided to walk along the beach until I found an exit road away from the beach. With that rare exultation one feels in such situations, I started singing at the top of my voice as I traipsed along the sand, lost in the beauty of the beach at night, the sand glowing an otherworldly silver.

“Ouch,” said De Vorto.

I ignored him and continued singing. I went through a medley of songs, each song adding to De Vorto’s discomfort as they caromed around my head. Somehow, that made the singing all the more enjoyable. Soon, I saw a sight that added to my joy; a group of people sitting to one side of the beach. Civilisation! I could not be far from a road that would take me to my destination. I increased my pace and soon reached the group. They were locals, and they were drinking beer. This was clearly the main pastime for most people in Goa. I recognised some of the people from outside Akto’s shack. I did not quite like the look of them, but decided to ask for help nevertheless. Any port in a storm and all that.

Most of the guys were looking at me and there were some words being exchanged that were sure to be about me. They were talking in the local language, Konkani, and there was nothing I could understand. I was still dressed in a shirt and jeans, a complete anomaly in the land of shorts, ‘I love Goa’ tee-shirts and beach sandals. I called out to one of them, “How do I get from here to the Anjuna beach road? I need to get to Ingo’s.”

The men ignored me and I repeated my question, slowing the words so that they would understand me. They continued to ignore me, and this irritated me. I shouted at them, repeating my question, emphasising key words like ‘Anjuna’, ‘Ingo’s’ and ‘Night Market’. One of them finally got up and approached me, calling out something to those behind him. There were some chuckles and a couple of others also stood up.

He came up quite close to me and looked me over, head to toe. He was clearly drunk. He was also a brute, built like a prime candidate for the annual ox-wrestling try-outs. He was swaying the bottle of beer he was drinking from side to side, holding it by the neck. His intentions, it was clear, weren’t good. I decided that I had had enough of this situation. I waved a goodbye and turned around to follow my beach path.

“Look out, boy!” De Vorto’s voice rang in my head.

Before I could figure out what to look out for, I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was swung around violently. I staggered a couple of steps and almost fell. I felt the blood rush to my head as my temper rose. I hated obnoxious drunkards and I hated bullies. This man was both. The ox came closer and in my face, his foul breath stinking up all the air I was breathing in, giving me a little mocking shove. That just about did it. I closed my right hand in a tight fist and gave it to him right on the kisser. I felt his nose crunch and his lips flatten under my knuckles. He went down like the losing ox in the wrestling match. For a brief moment, I exulted. De Vorto threw in a ‘well done’ that added to the feel-good factor. It was then that I realised what I had done. Oh shit!

The ox’s friends let out a flurry of oaths. The ones on their feet rushed at me. I backed a few steps, tripped and fell, my arse slamming into the thankfully soft sand. I pushed myself to my feet, waiting for them to come to me, determined to give as good as I got. There was a loud cry then, as someone shouted out something. The guys stopped. I watched, my heart pounding, as the ox staggered to his feet. The situation was rather clear. He wanted revenge, and he wanted me for himself. He looked like he could tear me to pieces with one hand while he swigged beer with the other. I gulped as I realised that I had probably been better off being beaten to death by the others. I had got lucky with my previous punch because he just did not expect it. Now, he was ready. And he looked like he was going to put me through a lot of pain.

As he approached me his wrist flicked and there was the mother of all knives in his hand. Jesus! I could not die in such a clichéd situation!

“What are you scared of, boy? You can take them. You can take all of them down. You have the gift. Let it loose. Let it do what you want it to.”

“What?! After all that talk you gave me about being irresponsible with my gift, you ask me to let it loose? What do you want me to do? And I have never dealt with anything of this magnitude!”

I saw the ox leering through the blood dripping from his broken nose and split lips as he flicked the knife through some vicious arcs. I could sense the growing desperation and the surge of adrenaline. I needed to do something!

“Damn right you do! You misused your gifts against helpless norms. These ruffians are asking for trouble. It’s your life or theirs. It is a duel to the death! Do not hesitate! Weave, or I shall!”

Oh damn! The last thing I wanted was De Vorto using me as a host to start weaving wordscapes. I had to do something here. The ox was much closer now. Too close for comfort. I had to talk to him! I don’t think he wanted to talk. He was too intent on carving me up. I decided to give talking a shot. It had worked back in the shack. Words! I needed words!

The words came to me as they did before; out of nowhere. I did not need to think. I took a deep breath and shouted, “Stop! Back off!”

Lame, at best. He just grinned wider, his bad teeth made all the more horrible because of the blood. But he did stumble a bit, a frown flitting across his face. Did I do that?

“Go on,” the voice whispered to me. “Talk!”

I took a deep breath and spoke. Strange words came to me, words I did not know, words I did not understand.

“Stop, or I will unleash Sliverette!” I shouted out.

(an invisible tendril curled into existence. it was a powerful name…)

The man stopped for a second, slightly puzzled at my words. I was pretty puzzled myself. What in wide heavens was Sliverette supposed to be?! I am trying to scare a big brute armed with a foot-long knife with made up words!

“De Vorto…?” I called out in my head, my unspoken voice quavering. He whispered to me, “Go on boy, go on. You’re doing just fine.”

With all the desperation of a man pleading for his life before a lynch mob, I plunged on, “Do not come any further. Back off! Sliverette will cut you all to pieces!”

The oaf with the blade smirked and asked in a heavily sarcastic tone, “What is silver?”

“Sliverette, you fool!” I hissed, “Not silver! She is an imp, a wicked li’l imp.” I could see that he did not understand much of what I was saying. But then, I had a growing realisation that I was not talking to him. I was talking to something else out there. I could almost see a shape forming in the air.

“De Vorto, what the hell am I doing? What are you doing?” I asked the question aloud, furiously, spitting the words. The ox frowned, not sure what was happening anymore. De Vorto spoke after a moment of silence, “You are weaving my boy. You are weaving your first real scape.”

Dew

It took me some time to figure out the plan of action. I was searching for two powerful ciphers who were somehow woven into one. I didn’t understand how. But I knew I had to do it. Papa Loon had told me to. I wanted to! In some way they were connected to Andy da’s death. And if that wasn’t enough motivation, nothing was.

I went back to Papa Loon’s memory. Not surprisingly, it was easier to analyse his memories objectively than mine. I ran through it again and again, looking for some clue. For the first time, I let it play to the end, and beyond when he walked out of the shack. Just as Papa Loon was turning around, I saw something that caused my heart to jump to my throat. The mossy tinge…it was there in the memory, even after he had left. Only it was weaker now. More importantly, it was thicker towards the entrance to the shack which is where he had been headed when he had walked out. It led to him!

I quickly dismissed the memory and brought up my scape sign. I knew what I was looking for. I looked through it at the room around me, looking for a light patch where I would be able to see other colours. A white stole was suspended from the hook on the door. As I looked hard at it, I could see a mossy tendril move past, so faint I almost missed it. I quickly started weaving a trace into it. I put in a few power words, augmenting my sight to notice the tinge. Slowly, I saw more and more of it. It was all around my room. And it was streaming in from a crevice in the skylight built into the sloping roof. I had it! I just had to follow the trace all the way to Slick. I stopped to pick up my battle wand and charms. I found the wand and slipped it into my bag. My fingers ran over the words inscribed in tiny letters at the bottom, ‘To Dew, stun away baby’. Andy da. I remembered how I had groaned when I had seen the inscription, at the same time completely thrilled to have my own wand. Before then I had been using an old patched up wand that Andy da had passed on to me when he had made his new one. The one he had died with. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I didn’t have time for this.

I started looking for charms when I suddenly stopped. There were two ciphers here. Each more powerful than even the most powerful wordsmith in the Free Word or the Guild. Who was I kidding by preparing myself for battle! I wouldn’t even dent either of their auras with anything I had on me. My only chance was to somehow lure them to the market, where the Free wordsmiths would be waiting. Together I was sure the Free Word would prove a match for this duo.

I quickly opened the door and stepped out. And gasped. The mossy tinge was everywhere. These two were so powerful that in some way they had managed to taint surroundings for miles around. I let my consciousness become diffused so I could tie down patterns in the mossy striations around the place. It was like looking at a light through near-closed eyes. I could see starbursts of colour here and there, but for the most part, it was just a light hue that tainted everything in that irritating mossy shade, pretty and alive yet somehow decrepit and parasitic. I soon saw a bearing to the north, a pattern that thickened just a bit in that direction. I’d never have noticed it if it hadn’t been for my scape sign and my spell building in an enhanced sensibility to this colour. I kick-started my bike and set off. This would take time, but I was going to hunt him down.

The rest of the evening passed in a tiring blur. It wasn’t as easy as I had thought. The pattern wasn’t always reliable. Sometimes it thickened just because there were trees or water, and at times, the wind moved it around. Towards the evening, I found myself heading west and the glare of the setting sun kept interfering with my light-chasing scape. It was irritating, but it worked, more or less. I found myself bearing north, as I zigzagged towards Chapora and lesser known beaches. The crowds thinned out and there were hardly any people around. Soon it was past sunset and I had only the bike’s light to guide me. What were these two up to in this wilderness? I headed to the only petrol station in the vicinity to tank up. I refuelled and took a few minutes to examine the pattern. With the fading light, the pattern had become clearer. And yes, I could see it pointing north again, towards the beach. I was close. I felt a thrill of fear and excitement. Come on, Dooly! You can do this! I started the bike and set off.

I headed straight for the beach this time. The closer I got, the clearer the pattern was. Or perhaps an entire afternoon of searching had just helped me understand and see the pattern more clearly.

I soon hit an offshoot path that led to the beach, and I rode down as far as I could. I saw a motley group of bikes and bicycles. Uh-oh, trouble. This was Vincent and gang. They were the worst locals a tourist could walk into in North Goa. Each of them had criminal records that ran into multiple pages. However, with wordsmiths as powerful as these, I wasn’t sure who I should be worrying for. I quickly parked the bike and took off down the beach at a run.

The moment I hit the beach I knew that my fears were completely justified. The gang was spread out with Vincent at the head. Facing them was Slick, with his back to me. There was no second person in sight, but I somehow sensed that there wouldn’t be someone else lurking around. I could see a blaze of mossy tendrils around him through my scape sign.

I slowed down, but kept walking forward, wondering what the hell to do. The wind brought his words to me, and in the rhythm and the words, I recognised a very powerful scape. It wasn’t one that I recognised, but then, one didn’t need to know a scape to understand what it could wreak. Ahead of him, I could see his scape sign twisting and flaring. It was the colour of moss on fire, it was his colour. I came to a stop a few feet behind him, afraid of alerting him. I continued listening as he wove his scape to an end. Slowly, the meaning of the scape filtered through. Sweet mother! He was going to slaughter the entire bunch!

Slick

De Vorto’s words ran a shiver through my body. It was fear and it was thrill. It was the realisation that I was setting out to fulfil my destiny as a wordsmith. It was the terror of yielding to a power I did not begin to understand. It was the misery of all the damage I had already wreaked with my careless words. It was all this and more, all mixed together.

I drew a deep breath and started talking. The voice was mine, but I knew the words weren’t. I was drawing on what De Vorto was giving me.

“She is death itself

Of the Aos-sí

From the mounds

A faerie with flails for limbs

And blades for teeth

Sharp from end to end

Deadly in intent

She slashes, she slices

She stabs, she cuts

Her banshee shriek freezes

As she plunges

Her sharp, stinging tail!”

(the tendril began thickening, curling in on itself, devouring its tail, taking on a form that was still invisible, yet menacing)

The ox stared at me, as if a bug he had been planning to crush had suddenly started tap-dancing in front of him. But I was just beginning to warm up. I did not understand it, but then I didn’t have to. Words came all by themselves. De Vorto sounded almost triumphant now. He goaded me like a delighted football coach, even as I wove.

“She’s on my call,

and I will let her loose on you.

All I need to do is whistle,

And once I let her free

with the word ‘Attack’,

there is no turning back.

I cannot call her back

till the task is done!”

(the deed was done… the tendril now knew what shape it was destined to take… what was expected of it… Sliverette cut and sliced her way into existence… a vision of hell with a lot of sharp ends started forming, twisting the air around it…)

There was an air of impending disaster, and the ox’s friends, those who were not drunk enough to overlook what was happening, started backing away. I backed away a couple of steps too. I saw something happening just above the ox’s head. I could not quite figure out what, but it was scary as hell. The space warp that usually formed was taking on a shape this time, an invisible shape that I somehow could just about see. The shape was stretching and skewing to look like something very scary, something I had just described. This was getting insane!

“Well done, boy,” De Vorto said. I could almost feel the smile. “Now, finish what you started. Say the word.”

I gulped as I realised what I had done. I had created an entity. I had talked to the very fabric of reality, and woven something into existence. And from the words, I figured I had created something very, very dangerous. I wondered if there was any way I could stop this madness.

At that moment, the ox took things out my hands. He raised his hand in a smooth and swift arc, bringing the knife really close to my thighs. I leapt back desperately.

“The femoral artery,” De Vorto shouted in my head, “He almost killed you. And you want to stop! You want to kill yourself! Bampot! Do not hesitate! Or it will be too late!” The shape in the air twisted and struggled and almost shrieked to me, adding another voice in my head, “Set me free!”

There are only so many voices I can handle. I exhaled the word, “Attack!” Hell bristling with blades broke loose. The knife in the ox’s hand clattered to the ground, followed by two fingers and a thumb. Blood splattered freely as the ox shrieked in a voice that did not sound anything like his. Some of his other friends lunged forward, trying to help their mate against what they believed was one unarmed man. They ran into Sliverette’s rear guard. As promised, it was sharp and stung like hell! It stabbed viciously and did plenty of damage. Pandemonium escalated to mayhem and then to sheer insanity. Grown men were screaming like children as they blundered about, trying to escape death. They tried to ward her off with knives and rocks and wooden sticks. Nothing worked. She cut, sawed and drilled through everything. She flitted about at a speed that defied the eyes, flicking aside weapons and other missiles. She was too fast for any of them, for all of them put together. The gang was screaming in chorus now…different pitches and scales. I saw men running around, jumping and leaping. Initially, there were attempts to attack her. But the moment any of them caught sight of her, they would turn and run. She would not stop. She would dart after whoever retreated, dealing a vicious cut that disabled him on the spot, and then she would be back into the melee of confused and scared men who ran headlong in their terror.

I realised that I had been silently whimpering at the gory sight. There was also a sense of quiet satisfaction inside my head, an echo from De Vorto. I ignored the feeling. I had to stop this! All of them would end up getting killed! I screamed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” The vicious little nightmare stopped for an instant and snuck a glance at me, grinning in a manner that gloated, crowed and derided simultaneously. For the first time, I actually caught sight of the nasty piece of work. She was silvery and shaped like a statuette of a woman, sketchy yet beautiful, only with her limbs gone all awry. I caught sight of a variety of sharp blades before she went right back to the prey.

“… I cannot call her back till the task is done.” I remembered my words. I could not stop her! She was going to kill all those guys!

“Serves them right,” De Vorto said, his voice cold and deadly.

“No!” I protested. “We will not kill anyone! We have to stop this!” I could feel De Vorto holding out for an instant, but then he relented. The words came to me. Before I could say them, however, I heard another voice, spoken over my shoulder, the voice of a girl, quiet, coherent and strangely powerful.

“I call out

To the spirits

Of the winds

And the waters,

Stop this faerie.

Stop her now!

Gusts and waves,

Quench her spirit,

Quell her!”

I turned around to see where the words were coming from. There she was, Dew! She looked prettier than ever in the moonlight. The sound of water and wind made me turn around, back to where the action was. My sight was arrested by a twister of water and wind rising out of the sea. It shrieked with power as it bore down towards the chaos on the beach. The men turned and fled, unable to deal with this additional threat. Sliverette turned around and looked at the twister. I swear to God, I actually saw her grin!

What followed was a sight that was majestic and beautiful, and extremely scary. Sliverette plunged into the twister and moved through it like she was a thousand faeries in one. The wind and the water raged around her, but in moments it was over. A gust of wind hit me with spray as the twister melted into nothing. Remaining floating in the air was Sliverette, supremely triumphant. “No!” I heard the word whispered in horror.

I turned back to see Dew backing away. I couldn’t see her very well, but I knew she was scared. I saw something silvery whizz past. Sliverette! She was headed for the girl. Dew quickly whipped out a slim piece of wood and pointed it at Sliverette. Some sort of a shield appeared that stopped Sliverette in her tracks. But it wasn’t working very well. Sliverette was moving forward, one relentless inch at a time. I could see sparks jumping out of the piece of wood - I presumed it was a wand - as it strained to stop the faerie. I could see Dew straining as she yelled out word after word, trying one thing after another to stop the deadly thing from getting to her.

For a frozen instant, I was stuck there, watching her. I could feel my heart sinking with every inch the faerie gained. There could only be one outcome here, and I was almost in denial of it. Dew kept screaming out words, trying to stop the thing. She was trying every possible way to destroy the faerie. The desperation in her voice filtered through to my numbed brain. She was fighting for her life, and she was losing. If I didn’t help her, she would fall prey to the malevolent spirit. And suddenly, just like that, I knew what to do. “This has to stop,” I spoke quietly, calmly. “There has been enough violence.”

I could sense De Vorto’s agreement. I felt some relief that he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. I closed my eyes for an instant of peace. The word came to me. Partly my own, partly De Vorto’s. I opened my eyes. “It took just one word to put Sliverette to sleep…SOMA!”

Sliverette spun around, a look of shock on her face. And a miniature twister started twirling around her tail. She made a dismayed moue with her bloody serrated lips and vanished.

I sighed in relief. That was done. Now for the guys. I turned around to check the scene there. I saw the men shouting and swearing at me, even as they staggered away, pulling their comrades who were incapable of walking by themselves. I realised that each one of those men would carry scars from this day for the rest of their lives. There was a lot of blood, marked in dark patches on the silvery sand. There were also dark lumps lying around that I did not want to think about; I would have to be sick right there if I allowed myself to admit what they were. I did not know whether to feel disgusted at all that violence or to feel thankful that the blood was not mine.

“Hey!” I heard her scream. “Hey, you!” I turned around again, slightly dizzy from all the turning. Dew was closer now. I could see much better. I was right; she did look incredibly beautiful. My earlier judgment of cute had definitely been unfair. And yes, she was also incredibly furious.

“You murderer! You bloody murderer!” She could barely speak coherently, her fury choking her up, as she stomped closer to me.

I could only stare helplessly, left mute by her anger and the way her animated face looked so intensely beautiful in the moonlight.

She walked up till she was inches away from me, almost grabbing me, but then deciding not to. She shook her fist under my nose, as she spoke through gritted teeth, “You deliberately wove that thing up. You murderer! You wanted to kill those men. You stood there watching, doing nothing, while that vile thing cut them up. You sick, sick man!”

I shook my head stupidly, wondering what to tell her, how to explain myself to her. I didn’t want her hating me; I didn’t want all that disgust and anger directed at me. And for once, I was at a complete loss for words.

She stood there, glaring at me. She was breathing heavily, the blood rush and adrenaline slowly leaving her. “Ok, I’m done screaming,” she said, her voice dead flat now. “Do you want to try and explain why you did what you did?”

“I didn’t…” I started, and then realised I had no clue where to go with that sentence. I tried again after a pause, “I had no clue…” No, that was even worse. I had to do better. I could hear De Vorto chuckle and that definitely didn’t help. “He tried to kill me.” The moment that came out, I realised that I really couldn’t have done worse. That came out sounding petulant and childish. “He tried to kill you?” Her voice and expression didn’t cut me any slack. “And you wove up an elemental faerie to massacre the whole lot? Doesn’t that strike you as bit of an overkill?”

I had to give it to her; put like that it did sound pretty bad. But I had no clue what I was doing! Saying that wouldn’t help though. I didn’t know what would. I imitated a breathless fish for a while, and then shut my mouth.

She took a deep breath, and then started speaking slowly, like she would to a kid; a really small and slow kid. “You almost murdered a dozen men. I waited while I heard you building that scape, hoping that you would stop after scaring them off. But everything you said was sheer murder. You summoned one of the people of the mounds, one of the worst. I have not even heard of Sliverette. She sounds like you created her, taking a spirit from the faerie folks and casting her in your twisted imagination!” She grew more animated as she spoke, almost spitting out her words, condemning me with every one of them. I tried to protest, but she stopped me with a gesture. She was not done yet.

“You created that scape just to kill. And then, to make matters worse, you let it make havoc without trying to stop it. At first, I thought you didn’t know how to stop it. But no! You knew what you were doing! You called it off with a simple word at the end when it came for me! Just like that! But you didn’t make the slightest effort when that thing was slaughtering those men!”

“No one died,” De Vorto noted wryly. With my own conversational ability apparently lost for the moment, I echoed those words, including the wryness, to my belated horror.

“No one died!” she repeated the words with such vehemence that I wilted a bit. “How do you know! Those people were bleeding all over the place! How do you know who died and who didn’t! How can you be so callous! You’re a...you’re a...monster!”

“You did go overboard,” De Vorto’s voice conceded, with some reproach thrown in. I didn’t believe this! He was telling me that I went overboard! How much of that madness was him and how much was me? I had no clue, but now was not the time to figure that out. I had to calm this girl down before she chucked another fireball at me. Caught between my newfound fish mimicry skills and my supposed tendency to ‘overkill’, one of us would end up dead. I really did not want either of us hurt at all.

“Say something! Don’t just stand there and stare at me!” She almost screamed these words. She had flushed as she blasted me with those words. God, she looked stunning! I was still too distracted to know what to say or how to react.

“You said you were done screaming,” the words escaped me before I realised what I was saying. Oh god!

“Of course, and I’m the one who’s wrong here!” She was exasperated too now. Great!

“I really didn’t know what would happen. That was the first time I tried anything like that! It was all De Vorto’s fault!” The words tripped over themselves in a hurry to get out. And then, there was silence. She raised one eyebrow, looking at me in anticipation, waiting to hear what that meant. I was dumbstruck at my own stupidity, and going by the horrified silence in my head, so was De Vorto.

“My…my…mentor,” I stammered, “He just started teaching me this morning, and I am new to all this. I don’t know wordsmithing any better than…than someone who doesn’t know it.” I was stumbling to new depths of verbal ineptitude.

“Your mentor?” Her tone made it clear that I was once again using the wrong words to say what I should be saying. De Vorto’s silent fury was flooding my mind like the buzzing of a thousand bees, making it difficult to think.

Her expression made it clear that she wouldn’t let me stop there and definitely expected me to complete my explanation. I took a deep breath, and collected what thoughts I could. “I’m not a wordsmith. I’m not with the Guild or the Free Word or any other organisation. I’m a…a cipher.” I said the word as I struggled to describe who I was. I was using those damn words! I was becoming part of this crazy world!

“Slick, let me have you know that I am a wordsmith and I have walked the Way of the Word for long enough to know that there is no way in hell you’re a cipher. You summoned an entity, a particularly powerful one, without using a spell, a scape-staff or any kind of pre-woven scape. You cast her in the image of your needs, of your words. You violated the most important rules of the Way by leaving the scape open-ended in terms of intent, potential and control. To make matters worse, you actually put in a clause that specified that you could not stop the monster until it completed the deed. And worst of all, you did not even mention what the deed was. God knows how many people that imp would have gone on to kill or maim before someone stopped it! I do not even know how you managed to weave it without following the set path. You have done all of this, and you expect me to believe you are a cipher?” She managed to make ‘cipher’ sound like some kind of vermin that crawled in dark, dirty places.

I absorbed this analysis of what I had done; those crazy words that had come out of nowhere. I was reminded of my mathematics professor who used to tick me off for finding obscure derivations to regular theorems just because I had never bothered to memorise the standard solutions. At this point, De Vorto offered a “Well, at least she’s smart.” I guess she was. And I was responding by being my daftest. I was still processing everything she had said and at the same time acknowledging De Vorto’s comment mentally, when she snapped her fingers before my face.

“What?” she demanded, waiting for an explanation, “Are you going to say something or are you going to space out again? Are you high on something?”

“No,” I countered. This, I could deny confidently. “I’m completely sober.”

“Well, why can’t you tell me why the hell you did what you did?”

On second thoughts, denying that wasn’t a good idea. And then I remembered my entire honest bluff sequence with Akto, and decided what worked once could definitely work again! Only I decided to skip the outrage. I took a deep breath and spoke, “I’m sorry. I’m just shocked. I have never done anything like this before. Meeting you yesterday was bad enough. You attacked and I reacted with pure instinct. I had no clue what you did or what I did. It’s only after that, through conversations with my mentor and Akto that I have learned about the existence of things like the Way of the Word, the Guild or the Free Word. It’s only then that I recognised that I do indeed have the gift. In all those words he used, I heard the word ‘cipher’ - that came the closest to describing what I was. That’s why I used that word when I tried to tell you who I was, what I was. I do not know anything more than this, Dew.” I said her name for the first time, tasting the way it sounded; liking it very much.

She gave me a long suffering sigh. “Really? That is your story? You’ll have to do better than that. You resisted my elemental attack like it was nothing, bouncing it right back at me, and you expect me to believe this ‘I-don’t-know-what-I-did’ story? You figured all of this out and wove up a murderous faerie because of conversations with Akto and this mysterious mentor you met today? Are you going to come out with the truth or shall we just say goodbye to each other now? You can figure this mess out by yourself!”

“No! No goodbye!” the words left me almost before I could stop them. I was completely flummoxed. I’d given her the truth, and she had brushed it off as hogwash. It was ironic that this was happening to me, someone who had passed off hogwash as the truth so many times! I was acting like a total imbecile in front of a woman I found extremely attractive. I tried to make some swift repairs to my already irredeemable image, “Dew, that is the truth. It might sound insane, but really, if I was a powerful wordsmith, I would have come up with a better cover story! Going by that logic alone, you need to cut me some slack and at least try to believe that there might be some truth in what I’m saying.”

She gave me a long, hard look, reminding me of the ones Akto had shot in my direction all morning. “You know, that is a completely crazy story. But I will go along with it for now. However, I need you to come with me to meet Akto and the rest of the Free wordsmiths. We can’t have you roaming around and murdering people like this. Before the warren, the whole truth will be out for sure. For your sake, let’s hope you’re not lying. Let’s go.”

She stomped off, and for a couple of seconds, I was left staring after her. And then I quietly followed her. That was where I had been headed anyway. Only now, my chances of making it through the night alive were looking even bleaker.