Chapter

Twenty-One

Brin arrived with the rest of the children at the [Weaver’s] hut, which looked exactly like the type of place a [Witch] would live. Even in this crowded part of town it was alone in an open grassy plain, and instead of being made with normal wood, which was abundant, it was built of seamlessly woven straw.

[Weaver] Tawna pretended to hate the idea that people would think of her as a [Witch], but then did everything in her power to make herself look like one. She wanted all the clout of a [Witch], but none of the stigma.

The children with him seemed pretty excited. Myra was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet since this was her mother, but the other kids seemed excited as well, and more than a little nervous. Tawna was a local celebrity, and frankly the lesson with Toros yesterday had been awesome. If that was the quality of lessons they had to look forward to, then obviously they would be excited. The only one dreading this day, apparently, was Brin. He just wanted to get through it.

The door to the hut opened; the various fibers making it up wriggled and squirmed their way into the walls, clearing the way.

Out stepped [Weaver] Tawna. She wore a shimmering violet gown covered in a gossamer shawl, with the sleeves together so that her hands were hidden. Her head was high, her expression impassive, and her black hair was combed so smooth and straight she could be in a shampoo commercial.

This wasn’t the Tawna he’d ever seen before. What was she trying to pull? He already knew she was a shrieking harridan. Was she trying to act cool for a group of thirteen-year-olds?

She approached the group and separated her hands, but the sleeves were so long only her fingertips were visible. She gestured to the area in front of her and spoke in a cool, almost monotone voice. “Gather round. Form a circle if you please.”

They complied, forming a circle with her. Myra stood on her right and Zilly on her left.

“A [Weaver] weaves,” said Tawna, as if it were the most profound thing in the world.

She let the words hang in the air. For too long. There was silence for thirty seconds. Then a minute. The children started to look at each other, maybe wondering what they were supposed to do. Myra looked up at her mother with adoration in her eyes.

Out of nowhere, Tawna finally continued her lesson. “To weave, one must understand threads. This is the base Skill of our Class—[Thread Mastery]. Threads of cotton. Threads of silk. Threads of linen.”

Myra dashed out of the circle to the hut and returned quickly with a worn and ragged farmer’s shirt. It was clean, but it was heavily frayed and had holes in places. She gave it to Tawna, who took it without looking.

Tawna tossed the shirt into the air. It floated there for a moment, flapped in the wind, and then unwound itself. Each thread of the shirt unwove itself from the rest in less than a second, and then just as quickly, the shirt reassembled. What fluttered to the ground was a perfect coat jacket, green where the shirt had been tan, with twisting dragons embroidered down the arms. It was a smaller size than the shirt had been, but looked thicker.

That was a coat someone would pay six silver for, and she’d made it in seconds.

The children gasped, and Marksi looked like he wanted to leap over for a closer look. Brin caught him and stuffed him into his hood. “Stay!” he whispered.

That brought his attention to his own clothes. He’d never gotten around to replacing anything, so they were still too small, and the hard chores and harder play meant that they were getting almost as ragged as that farmer’s shirt. Just like yesterday, he felt terribly underdressed.

In his old world, everybody had thirty outfits and they were all mass-produced trash. Here, everyone had one, two, maybe three outfits, and they were generally beautiful. The best materials they could afford, all sorts of color, embroidery, and embossment to give themselves unique flavor.

In fantasy movies in his old world, everyone had ratty hair, mud on their faces, and only wore brown. If there were any other colors, they were also covered with mud. But it turns out, combs were very low-tech, washing your face was not that hard, and if you could only afford one outfit, you’d find a way to make it something you could be proud of.

A lot of the reason they dressed so well, however, was probably because of this [Weaver], who could replace an entire textile factory by herself.

“[Weaver] is a common Class, but not often is it offered to children on their System Day. Does anyone know why? Brin?”

“I…” Brin had been hoping to fly under the radar, but he should’ve expected she’d call him out. “Uh, no. I don’t know.”

“I thought not. You’re not from here. You don’t seem to be from anywhere,” said Tawna. She gestured to Myra.

“Most of the time you’ll get [Spinner] first. [Spinner] can be evolved into [Weaver],” said Myra.

“Quite right. But I cannot suggest you take this Class. Do you know why, Brin?” she asked.

He met her gaze. “No.”

“One wonders if you know anything at all. Perhaps if you spent less time courting abomination and more time learning common knowledge your fate would not be so… but I’m getting ahead of myself.” She gestured to Zilly.

Zilly at least had the courtesy to look uncomfortable at being used as a weapon against Brin, but she answered, “[Spinners] can’t do much with the Class that can’t be done with a spinning wheel. And, um… [Weavers]...”

“Correct,” said Tawna. “Since my Class is an evolution of [Spinner], I can do anything a [Spinner] can do.”

She smoothly bent down, tore some grass from the ground, and flung it into the air. It all collapsed into itself and then spun out into a long green thread.

One girl raised her hand.

“Ask,” said Tawna.

“Is it true you can see the future?”

“Yes of course,” said Tawna. “And so can you.”

“What?”

“You see the world around you, and can tell that it is autumn. Tell me, then, in the near future, will the days grow colder or warmer?”

“Colder, but that’s not seeing the future,” said the girl.

Total cringe. What was that forum called that made fun of stuff like this? “I’m 14 and this is deep.” But the other kids were drinking it in, so snickering in derision wouldn’t win him any friends.

“You have seen the present and extrapolated the future. This is what [Weavers] do. Only we can predict more, because we can see more. To be a [Weaver] one must understand threads.” She closed her eyes and rocked her head back and forth and side to side as she spoke. “One must truly understand them. See them. Feel them. Know them, how they twist and turn, how they move and wind around the others. Threads of cotton. Threads of silk. Threads of linen.”

She opened her eyes. “Threads of fate.”

There were gasps throughout the circle. “If I can see your current path, can I not conclude that you’ll continue to walk down it?”

Brin resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but only because she was staring directly at him. “Oh? And what do you see in my fate, [Weaver]?” he asked, but not because she was starting to get to him. Was there something wrong with his fate? What did that even mean?

“I see one who pursues power to the exclusion of all else. You play, but only if it makes you stronger. You eat, but only to build muscle. You smile, but only to put others at ease. There is no gladness in your heart. Your fate is to bring chaos out of order, to push the fates of those around you into disarray.”

She couldn’t really see the future, right? He felt like someone should have warned him if that were the case. The stuff about him chasing power was true, but it wasn’t like he didn’t care about anything else. He chased power because he cared. And the fake smile thing? That was a lie, a mean one, because it was impossible to disprove. He smiled sometimes. He’d been smiling today. Until he came here.

To his surprise, not all of the children looked like they were on Tawna’s side at this declaration. Some of them glared at him with suspicion, but Davi was glaring at Tawna, his face darkening. Zilly looked downcast. Even Myra looked concerned. She was biting her lip, eyes moving back and forth between Brin and her mother.

“You’re—” Brin started.

“What about me?” Zilly interrupted. “What do you see in my future?”

Tawna’s eyebrow twitched. Her lip trembled, as if she were resisting putting her mouth into a sneer, but only with great effort. Her face smoothed, and finally she tore her eyes away from Brin and looked at Zilly. “You shine brightly. So brightly as to bring the shadows around you into stark relief.”

The other children all wanted their fortunes told, and Tawna answered them all with trite astrology-style nonsense. Stuff that could apply to anyone.

Tawna clapped her hands. “Now then, an activity. We will practice weaving.”

Myra rushed into the hut again and came out with six wooden squares. Tawna took one out of her hands and explained what they were.

The squares were weaving frames, except with a catch. The weaving would have to be done in pairs. One child would hold one set of threads, and the other would hold the set on the other side, and they’d take turns weaving them into each other.

They paired off, Zilly with Myra, and Davi with Brin. Then Tawna said, “Davi, why don’t you work with me?” leaving Brin alone.

It was a small, petty gesture. Exactly the type of thing he’d been expecting. This didn’t even look that hard—he probably wouldn’t earn a Dexterity for it, even if he had been allowed to participate.

He wanted to say he was above it, that he didn’t care, but somehow it still stung.

He waited, jaw clenched against any insubordinate words, until the lesson was over. She obviously wanted him to lash out, to say something disrespectful so she could give him some sort of punishment, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction.

He waited.

When the lesson finally wore down, he turned to go, but then took one last glance at the woven coat, still lying on the ground.

A thought occurred to him. He smiled. A genuine smile.

Tawna reeled backwards as if physically struck. Did the sight of him with a genuine smile bother her that much? She totally looked like the type to drink her own Kool-Aid. Or maybe she really could see fate, and his had changed. Changed with a single thought.

He didn’t make an accusation. He didn’t have any proof. Just a thought.

The thought was this: The undead in Travin’s Bog had worn clothes. A uniform, tight black nondescript clothing. Not the clothes they had died in. And while some of them had looked frayed, they’d mostly been in good repair. Whoever had reanimated them had also redressed them. And who would bother? No one, unless it was easy. Unless they could do it in seconds with barely a swish of their fingers.

[Necromancers] evolved from [Witches]. But where did [Witches] come from? He would bet his left eye they evolved from [Weavers].

Why, in Hogg’s stories, was it always [Weavers] who got burned at the stake when [Witch]-paranoia overtook a town? Superstition, but superstition didn’t come from nothing.

That thought alone would make you want to stay away from any [Weaver] you knew. To treat her with extra respect, but to take steps to stay away from her as well, such as not building your house too close to hers. Deference, but ostracization.

He’d almost feel sorry for Tawna if she wasn’t so vile.

He didn’t know she was a [Witch]. Honestly, he didn’t even really think she was. It was just a thought. But it was a thought worth thinking about.

And even if she wasn’t one, so what? She knew what it was like to be isolated and shunned, to have suspicions laid on you that you didn’t deserve. She knew exactly what it was like, but instead of being more empathetic to someone in the same situation, she did everything she could to make things worse for him. She was so petty.

And… the undead had been wearing matching clothes. Just a thought.

After the lesson he ignored the calls of his friends and marched to the general store. [Merchant] Julinha stood behind the counter and scowled at him as he entered. The sharp-eyed lady really didn’t like him, and now he was starting to understand why. Sometimes resentment rose from some kind of offense, and sometimes it originated from guilt.

“I need clothes, obviously,” he said, looking down at himself in a self-deprecating way.

“I can make you something from Odilon’s wool, but I’ll need a silver and two coppers for the entire set,” said Julinha.

That was gouging, plain and simple. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it, but a set of woolen clothes were worth four coppers, tops.

“Come on, that plain ugly wool?” asked Brin. “I’m not asking for a lot, Julinha. I just want to look like everyone else in the town.”

He stepped up to a shelf with reams of colorful linens. All of it would have been woven by Tawna. He picked up a nice blue fabric. “This looks good.”

She snatched it out of his hands. “It’s spoken for.”

Brin met her eyes and held them for a long moment. “She won’t let you sell her fabric to me, will she?”

“Get out!”

He didn’t move. “Alright. I’ll go. But I’ll be back with the Prefit. And if he won’t listen, I’ll bring Hogg. You know, after what happened to me, Hogg, he bragged to the other Heroes about Hammon’s Bog. About how it’s a great place for children. He thought it would be a good place for me to heal my… scars.”

Her anger started to fade, replaced by sorrow and sagging shoulders. He’d been right about her guilty conscience.

“I get it. I’m not going to force the issue. But at the same time, I don’t have anywhere else to go, you know? What am I supposed to do?”

She seemed to wilt before his eyes. She let out a long sigh and said, “Three coppers. I can’t do anything about the linen. She has the right to refuse you, no matter what I… She has the right.”

It was a good price, even if his clothes would be uniquely bland and undecorated. “One copper. And two bits.”

She winced, but nodded. “Come back in three hours.”

How long had it been since he’d stood up for himself? It felt good. He turned to walk away with his head held high, but paused in the doorway. Maybe he should have paid full price? He wasn’t really mad at Julinha. The problem was Tawna.

He chuckled. “You know, I was just thinking about clothes. It’s kind of funny, but even the undead were dressed better than me.”

“What?”

“The undead soldiers. They weren’t wearing the clothes they died in. Someone dressed them. Why? I can’t think of anyone who would bother, unless it was no trouble at all for them, I suppose.”

Just a thought. Had that been petty of him? He could be a little petty. Petty enough to leave similar comments with three other people on the way out of town.

When he reached the town’s gates, he was surprised to find Myra waiting there.

“Leave me alone. I’m not in the mood,” he said, intending to walk right by her.

“Why?” she shouted.

He stopped, stunned.

Looking at Myra, he saw that she was crying. Well, she was about ten years too late to manipulate him like that. “Oh, cut it out, that’s not going to work.”

“Why, Brin? Why do you want to kill my mom?” she asked.

“What’s wrong with you? I don’t want to kill anyone!” he shouted. He looked to his left. This area of town was never very busy, but there were two women on the street a block away who’d stopped their conversation to stare at the muscular boy shouting at the pretty, crying girl.

“I don’t want to kill your mom,” said Brin, a little more softly. “Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to. I’ve seen it. She keeps it right up in the middle of the room. I grew up with it, Brin, so I know,” she said.

He had no idea what she meant by “it.” Some kind of [Weaver] thing, he guessed.

“Why do you hate her?” Myra finished.

“Why does she hate me? There’s only one person in this world who has a reason to hate me, and that’s the [Witch]. The [Witch] that destroyed Travin’s Bog and tried to kill me and failed. If that’s not your mom, then tell me why she hates me. Tell me. Tell me why, and I’ll fall down at her feet and apologize.”

Myra slapped him. She clearly hadn’t earned Strong I yet, but it took every bit of willpower he had in his body not to return the blow.

“My grandmother died in a [Witch]-hunt, Brin,” said Myra. “My mom knows better than anyone⁠—”

“Oh, I guess that it’s wrong to spread rumors, then. But what do I know? I’m just a pre-[Witch],” said Brin.

He stomped away, and she didn’t try to follow him.

The walk down the road to Hogg’s house in the forest felt shorter than it normally did. He was walking too fast, his long steps eating up the ground. He’d be there soon, and he wasn’t ready for it.

Yes, the adult part of him was telling him that he could have handled that better. That sometimes people just didn’t get along and he should let it go.

But he was in a teenager’s body, and that part of him was liable to boil over. His blood roiled in his veins. He wanted to punch something.

“Get down, Marksi,” said Brin.

He wasn’t sure if Marksi would understand, but the little snake understood the tone if not the words. He slid down Brin’s back and slithered a few feet down the road.

Brin picked up a stick on the road and swung it into a tree, as hard as he could. It shattered immediately.

He grabbed a branch from the end of a limb on a tree and pulled on it, trying to tear it free. It bent, but didn’t break, and his pulling on it swished it back and forth and made him feel stupid. He growled, buckled down, and really pulled. Eventually the branch started to give, but the tear was uneven, and pulled a long strip of green bark away until finally it came free.

He hit the tree with the branch a dozen times, until the green stick started to give way and turn into an awkward flail.

He threw it on the ground and took a breath. That was immature, but he felt a lot better.

“Come on, Marksi,” he said.

The snake had been watching him with wide eyes, but when he heard the warmth in Brin’s tone, he squeaked and climbed up to his usual spot.

When Brin got to the house, he was serene as a summer morning. Hogg was sitting on the porch with a vacant expression. Concentrating on a mirror image somewhere, probably.

His gaze focused when Brin walked up, and he said, “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. I’m as serene as a summer morning,” said Brin. “Hey listen, can I ask you about [Weavers]?”

“Oh geez, this again,” said Hogg.

“What’s going on with their fortune-telling? Can they really see fate? And what does that even mean?”

He could see Hogg mentally calculating whether he actually had to answer or if he could tell Brin to get lost. The Oath to uphold his fatherly duties must’ve forced his hand, because Hogg growled and said, “They’re pretty tight-lipped about it. But it’s real, whatever it is. They can see… something. Maybe it’s better if I tell you what they can’t do. They can’t see the future. All sorts of surprising things happen to people, and Tawna doesn’t predict any of it. She doesn’t even try. They can’t read your mind. I’ve played against [Weavers] in cards, and they can’t predict my bluffs and they can’t tell if their hand beats mine. I think they can see a general impression of who you are. What you like and dislike, what you want, that kind of thing. So in the card games, a [Weaver] could tell that I wanted to win, but couldn’t tell how I meant to go about doing that. Does that answer your question? Please say yes, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Tawna says my ‘fate’ shows that I’m evil and bad and I want to kill her,” said Brin.

“That checks out,” said Hogg.

“Shut up,” said Brin. “She’s annoying but I’m not planning on killing her. The only person in this world I want to kill is the W—the [Necromancer] who destroyed Travin’s Bog.”

“Stop. I see where you’re going with this, and [Weaver] Tawna is not a [Witch]. I’m ten times more paranoid than you, and I’ve already verified it six different ways. I’m not guessing; I’m certain. Drop it,” said Hogg.

He wanted to ask if [Weavers] evolved into [Witches]. That would actually be an argument against Tawna being a [Witch], because if [Weavers] could spin then [Witches] could weave, so any [Witch] would’ve been able to clothe her zombies. But what was the point? Hogg would just think the worst of him, and he probably wouldn’t even answer the question.

“Fine. Whatever,” said Brin. “I’m going to go train my Dexterity or something.”

He made it two steps before he stopped and face-palmed.

“What?” asked Hogg.

“I forgot I ordered clothes. Looks like it’s a Vitality kind of day. I’m going back to town.”