Mist Rising by Eve Langlais

Chapter Two

A GODDESS HAD SPOKEN TO HER!

A much younger Agathe had dropped to her knees, trembling, not so much with fear but with awe. “Forgive me, Goddess. I did not know.”

Will you serve me?

“Yes!” Why not? If Agathe didn’t choose death, then why not a focus beyond that of knowing she’d never hear her children laugh again? Or have her husband drag her close to whisper, “Meet me in the barn.”

You may start by choosing to live.

Agathe stepped away from the edge that led into nothingness. But then had no idea what to do next.

The Goddess sighed. Follow the path to the bottom.

Agathe had set off, and by the end of a two-day hard march, she arrived just as the suns set. The end of the road was low enough that she could discern the mist below, swirling and shifting. She turned from the edge to the Abbae built into the mountain with its massive door banded in metal and the knotted pull of its bell.

She’d hesitated before ringing it, wondering if the Goddess would speak to her again then decided it didn’t matter. There was a place for her here. A second chance to see if life could still have meaning.

A tug of the rope rang the bell. The door had opened, and Agathe found herself greeted by the Maeder herself, recognizable by her long mauve robes, lint-free and unpatched—how luxurious. Her mantle swept from her gray-haired crown to the floor, a lacy legacy that told the story of her life and the Abbae she ruled.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the Maeder had said.

And from that day on, Agathe waited to fulfill her purpose. And, in so doing, found peace among the Soraers. But she’d always wondered if she’d imagined the Goddess speaking to her. If she’d wasted her time waiting for this moment, this awakening in the night. Surely, she’d grown too old to make a difference.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she made it to the courtyard, if it could be called that given it wasn’t open to the sky. It appeared darker than usual because Soraer Hiix forgot to swap the dead solarus stone for a fresh one.

“Hiix, you lazy sow. You know it needs to sit in the suns all day!” Soraer Venna had scolded, wagging a finger. Her rotund figure had lost some girth in the last few months. They were all thinner than usual, making their wrinkles more pronounced. Blame a bland and restrictive diet. And maybe their age, too. The passing of decades might have taken their toll.

At the chastising, Hiix rolled her eyes and sighed. “I forgot. It’s not that big of a deal. Not like we’re planning to stay up late. I’ll charge it tomorrow.”

Left unsaid was the reason Hiix had failed to charge it. Her knees were swollen again, meaning climbing the ladder to put the stones on the charging ledges taxed her, but she wouldn’t admit it.

Venna knew it, however. All of them had been at this routine for as long as they could remember. Why bother changing now? Every day, they did the same thing: rose at dawn, did chores, went to bed.

Agathe should note that the bed part was actually welcome at her age. Which was why she didn’t appreciate the interruption of her communion with her pillow and mattress on that chilly and—unbeknownst to her—fateful night.

Her gnarled fingers worked the latch, and the door stuck for a moment because of the moist evening air. She heaved it open with a groan and met the mist’s wet kiss.

The sight of it frightened, and she slammed the door. The mist had never risen this high before.

Agathe wondered if she should wake her Soraers. Surely, this was big news…if she didn’t imagine it.

She bit her lip. Had she seen mist? Yes meant she should keep the door closed. But then what of the person or persons outside? They no longer rang the bell, but they couldn’t have gone far.

“Hello?” A tremulous query that barely rose above a whisper.

Open the door.

The voice was inside her head. What did it mean?

You swore to obey.

The command had her blinking. “Goddess?”

Was she really going to question? She swallowed hard and tugged the door open. Immediately, the mist was everywhere, a thick band of white and gray, obscuring everything. She glanced around but couldn’t see much. The two lights flanking the door barely penetrated the swirling fog. It even concealed the wide ledge with its many-limbed tree, an ancient cherrapl that still produced fruit season after season.

Despite having never met any monsters, Agathe suddenly remembered every single story that warned of dangers when the suns set. In the fog, especially. It was why people still superstitiously sealed doors and shuttered their windows at night. If the legends were true, the mist had climbed the sheer cliffs back in the day, and some nights, it boiled up like a storm, spilling over the rim of the mountain and into the bowled valley. With it came nightmarish monsters, which explained the King’s edict: Thou shall not go outside after dark. Not that people obeyed it much. They’d long ago lost their fear of the night.

Agathe blinked as she looked around the area outside the door. The bell-rope dangled with no one around to tug it. Had they gone back up the long path, or did they conceal themselves in the mist?

Why hide unless they meant harm?

Get back inside,her sense of self-preservation screamed.

But that other voice, the one she’d not heard in decades, offered a different command. Wait.

“Wait for what?” Agathe knew she shouldn’t question the Goddess; however, she was old and had waited a long time. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to agree.

It is time for you to fulfill your destiny.

“Took long enough,” Agathe grumbled and then winced as she waited for the Goddess to smite her.

When it didn’t happen right away, Agathe’s eyes and ears strained to penetrate the fog. Did something lurk? Would a monster lunge from the mist and swallow her whole?

“Whaa.”

Agathe blinked. Had she heard a cry, or did her imagination play games with her?

Another mewling, plaintive sound drew her from the Abbae’s threshold out onto the ledge, where the winding path down from the mountain ended. The mist hung all around, pushed back only by the light shining from the globes on either side of the door.

The fog, thick and unrelenting, didn’t allow her to see a thing. Such a change from the daytime when the mist hung low enough to seem like a cloud in the Abyss and the sky was blue for as far as the eye could see.

She grabbed a torch from inside the door and thrust a solarus stone into its cage. By waving it ahead of her, it parted the fog for her to advance. The moist air quickly closed in behind her.

“Hello?” Her voice quavered as she made herself a target. It had been a long time since anything from the Abyss had attacked, and despite the exaggeration, it had been only an oversized cave spider—nothing to be afraid of.

But if nothing in the mist was dangerous, then why were there Nine Abbaes of the Shield guarding this path?

Werebeing the keyword there. All but a few of the Abbaes had gone out of business because no danger lurked anymore. Agathe should stop being a coward.

There’s nothing to fear.

Still, she really wished she’d brought a knife. Or that sword.

Waving her torch, Agathe cleared the area around the door. Nothing and no one. She was about to give up and return inside when she heard it again.

“Whaa.”

Having suckled a few, she knew the cry of a baby. She couldn’t ignore it.

Torch held aloft, Agathe made her way to the tree that clung stubbornly to the edge of the flat ledge. Its fat trunk could have hidden any number of things. Still, she had to look. She placed a hand on the gnarled bole and mouthed a quick prayer for strength before daring to slowly peek around.

At first, she saw nothing, the torch barely penetrating the fog. Even waving it around did nothing to dispel the thick mist. Her disquiet grew.

The air felt heavy, full of portent. Danger.

She should go back inside.

Not yet.

As if brushed aside by a ghostly hand—or a god—the mist parted, and she saw it on the ground. A bundle with a face.

Agathe couldn’t have said who was more startled. The baby’s eyes widened, and its mouth opened. Agathe expected to hear it yell.

Instead, the child smiled.

And Agathe knew she’d found her purpose.

Putting her torch down gave her the two hands needed to pick up the babe from the ground. Agathe stared into the chubby-cheeked face with its thick-lashed eyes. “How did you get here?”

Obviously, the swaddled baby didn’t walk. Someone had abandoned their child for Agathe to find.

Not unheard of. It happened quite often in the King’s Valley. If someone had a female child they couldn’t keep—born out of wedlock or one mouth too many to feed—they gave it to the Soraers of the Shield, which was better than families with superfluous boys, who sacrificed them to the old pagan gods.

Was this child an offering to the Goddess? And if yes, then why here? No one ever made the trip to this forgotten place—unless they were desperate.

Agathe cradled the child to her chest and felt a sense of rightness, as if the missing piece of her life had finally fallen into place.

She whirled to return to the Abbae, only to pause as the mist closed in against her. She’d need her torch, or she might get lost. Holding the baby in one arm, she crouched to grab it, her joints creaking. No sooner had she stood than she cursed as the light on the end went out.

The fog practically soaked her with moist glee as it surrounded her. She was blind for all intents and purposes, but she also knew this ledge. She’d guarded it long enough. She’d use the tree to guide her in the right direction. Her fingers felt the bark and looked for the marks on it, the arrow and symbol showing the path going up the mountain. Orienting herself by it, she took her first stride with confidence, the next with a little less surety. By the third, she shuffled. Surely, she should see the light by the door by now. The stone within the glass globe should last until morning. It had absorbed the pale suns’ rays for most of the day. Then again, so had the rock in her torch, and it had extinguished without even pretending to fade first.

What if she moved in the wrong direction? How to tell? The fog pressed in all around her, and turning to look behind, she couldn’t see the tree. No keep. Where was the edge?

She inched more carefully, and a good thing, too, as her left foot came down and began to slide before she caught herself.

She’d found the cliff.

If she did a half-revolution and walked straight, she should hit a wall. She turned and moved again.

Teetered shortly after on another edge.

Don’t panic. She must have veered. Off she shuffled once more. Again, she almost slipped off.

It made no sense. While, at the same time, Agathe recalled the stories. The fog played tricks on minds.

Some said it was the evil spirits trapped in the Abyss below, rising as a mist to cast their displeasure. It was as good a theory as any. And useless right now.

“I want to get back inside the Abbae,” she muttered out loud before closing her eyes. She took a breath before uttering a soft prayer. “Niimweii, help your servant. And if not me, then at least show me how to bring this child to safety.”

A breeze caressed her cheek, startling her, mostly because she’d expected a voice. She swayed on her feet, only to realize that she stood once more on the edge. She stumbled back, and the light wind tickled again, almost saying: This way.

She turned to see it pushing the mist aside, parting it so she could see the soft glow alongside the Abbae’s door.

“Thank you, Goddess.” For Agathe did not doubt that this was the answer to her prayer.

Baby held tight, she ran for safety, knowing the fog could return at any moment.

She’d almost made it when something emerged from the fog, a long, sinuous shape that tripped her!