Chapter 5: Aoife (part 4 of 4)

  Several emotions ran through Aoife simultaneously. Shock, disgust, anger—perhaps a little bit of fear—but above all, curiosity. One thought shot up to the surface of her mind, overpowering all others. Could this have anything to do with her blood tricks? Had this foreigner come baring the answers to a mystery that had vexed Aoife since her family's voyage from Dubhlind?

  No one interjected, and Rooey-shee continued, finally starting to paint a distinct picture. "Asha, one side of your family hails from the hub city of Temasek, in the heart of Suvarnabhumi. That's where I'm from and also where my brother—your father—was born and raised."

  Aoife immediately searched her mind for school teachings she had tucked away as useless trivia. Suvarnabhumi, the Golden Land. It was a collection of islands and peninsulas somewhere in the East, nearer the centre of Earth. If this were true, Ma wasn't from Huaxia after all, though it was possible that she had descended from a line of Huaxian ancestors.

  "You can probably guess from how I look that our part of the family originated from Luoyangese immigrants," Rooey-shee added, confirming Aoife's conjectures. "To make a long story short, Asha, your father—his name was Ruihong—travelled to DaKhuree where he married one of the locals. That would be your mother."

  Aoife's indifferent schooling knowledge did not extend confidently to 'DaKhuree', though it certainly sounded familiar. It conjured the vague image of a nomadic people galloping through mountainous plains on horseback. She told herself to check with Clodagh later whether she had the right idea—her sister had a much better brain for this sort of thing. For now, however, she withheld from interrupting the story.

  "Your mother came from a tribe of people called the Tsusuzekhs. You might be familiar...?" Rooey-shee looked around at the room and found only head shakes and blank stares. "No matter. The Tsusuzekhs used to practice a rare form of Blood Magic which required taking a sample of blood anytime a child was born in their village.

  "You were born there, Asha... in the Tsusuzekh village. As was tradition, they took a few drops of your blood and kept it in this vial that you see here. With these vials in the villagers' safekeeping, the Tsusuzekhs are able to maintain a connection with their own people, wherever they may be in the world. Mind you, in most cases, they're at most a few miles out hunting dinner. But every once in a while, one of their own might have blazed their own path somewhere far from home or married themselves off to romantics like my brother. And you, Asha, were the product of that union."

  As absorbing as this tale of Ma's origin was, Aoife found herself growing restless. At the mention of 'Blood Magic', her pulse had quickened anew and she wanted desperately for Rooey-shee to shed light on her own blood tricks. Not now while Ma and Clodagh were here, but perhaps later, she might have the chance to entreat this supposed relative of theirs to teach her about this Blood Magic—about 'safekeeping' Ma's blood.

  "You see the characters that are engraved here?" Rooey-shee pointed to the top of the wooden frame. "It's your name in DaKhureen, Asha. Carved by your Tsusuzeh elders. You must think me crazy, telling you about all these names you never knew you had."

  "I'm sorry," Aoife finally spoke up, impatient to get to the heart of the matter. "But how do we know any of this is true? Roo-ey... Rooey-shee, is it? Do you have proof that this is Ma's blood? That you're who you say you are?"

  "That's a reasonable question," the woman's reply was prompt and calm. "And I also go by Lucy, if you prefer. That's what most people call me, anyway. I suppose it'd be more proper for you to call me Great-aunt, but I don't mind either way."

  Lucy's serene face broke again into a wide smile. Aoife got the sense that this woman was genuinely enjoying getting to know the Griffins. As much as she begrudgingly found this endearing, she was nevertheless anxious to avoid digressions. "As you said, Lucy, I asked a reasonable question. Do you have a reasonable answer?"

  "Well, I wouldn't outright say that it meets the standard of proof but this... this is what helped me find you," Lucy nodded toward the vial for emphasis. "The core feature of the Tsutsuzekh Blood Magic is a technique by which they build a Quintessential bridge between the sample and the rest of the blood still inside the subject's body. In traditional practice, it's used chiefly to offer protection to their hunters and warriors—a kind of variable-range imbuement and augmentation—but it can also be used as a marker of the subject's vital signs, especially useful in times of crises. If a hunter goes missing, his vial of blood will always let the villagers know if he's still alive. The varying strength of the life signals can also help them in their search—the closer the vial is to its subject, the stronger the signs. The same principle still applies, even if the subject has travelled thousands of miles away to say, Brittania for example... though at that kind of distance, the connection becomes much more tenuous."

  As she said this, Lucy reached for the vial again and started caressing it in her hand. She got a faraway look in her eyes, which were directed at the vial yet seeing something beyond it and starting to water again. It struck Aoife that this was a subconscious action, one that had been repeated countless times to the point it had become muscle memory. Right then, she could imagine this woman caressing this vial of her mother's blood, night after night at the end of another fruitless search. And just like that, she felt ready to accept whatever explanation was forthcoming.

  "We set out three years ago. Three of us. Myself, my older brother Michael, and Bateer, one of the Tsutsuzekh Bloodkeepers. To cover more ground, we split the sample into three vials, and we each went our separate ways. I have to admit I was losing hope. It was a fool's errand from the beginning, probably much worse than trying to find a needle in a wheatfield... or however your saying goes. And the vital signs just... kept getting weaker everyday," Lucy's voice broke then, and a tear fell down one cheek. Aoife felt herself welling up as well, and thought she heard a sniffle from behind her. Lucy wiped the tear again briskly and looked up with renewed confidence. "But something happened today. I was wandering the banks of the River Thames, trying to decide if this was another dead end and whether I should leave for another hub... when the signs got stronger. The strongest they've been in months. There was a spike before—I think maybe a couple of weeks back?—but that one was fleeting. This time, the signs stayed healthy and... it wasn't easy, but I was able to follow them here. Look, you can probably see for yourself."

  Aoife looked again at the blood within the vial, with newfound appreciation for the dancing, shimmering light. So this was her mother's blood that had been touched by Magic, and the invisible light source had been... Ma's own life force? Her head swam, but she somehow understood this to be the incontrovertible truth. She also knew precisely what had made the signs come back with renewed vigour.

  "Aoife, you look like maybe you have something to say."

  Her great-aunt—because that's who this woman was; Aoife was convinced of it now—directed a warm smile toward her. She fought to get the words out, here in this fantastical moment beyond her most far-fetched daydreams, but found herself overcome with emotion. It was all she could do to keep the floodgates from opening. Before she could muster her composure, Clodagh cut in first.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Um, excuse me, Lu... Great-aunt Lucy, ma'am," her sister's voice was timid and moist. Aoife looked over her shoulder and found tears streaming freely down Clodagh's face and a speck of clear snot hanging down from a nostril. She felt the urge to give her sister a hug then, but at the same time, became aware of her mother for the first time since Lucy had started her story. Curiously, Ma was now hanging her head and appeared to stare intently at a spot on the table in front of her... at nothing in particular. Aoife was also perplexed to find that Ma's shoulders were raised and her back taut, as if she were bracing for some kind of impact. Oblivious to this, Clodagh behind them continued tearfully. "But why hadn't you started looking for Ma until three years ago? You said the Tsusuzekh people used to practice Blood Magic. Did you mean that they don't anymore? Is that why you couldn't look for us before?"

  Lucy turned her smile, just as warm, toward Clodagh, then considered for a moment. "You really don't know what's happening outside Thameside, huh. The Tsusuzekh people suffered a raid nearly forty years ago. Their entire village is rubble and the few remaining survivors are scattered in nearby hubs."

  Aoife was stunned, and was immediately sucked back into the tale. First, a long-lost great-aunt showed up unannounced, bringing tidings of a whole side of the family she had never known. Next thing, she revealed that a large part of that family had been all but exterminated.

  Then a long-forgotten memory flickered into life. Around the time when the family had first moved into Thameside, back when Ma had been stronger and dined with Aunt Cara regularly, there had been a conversation where her aunt worked herself up into hysteria talking about the East India Company. One point of grievance was that the EIC had gotten their hands on a disproportionate supply of the Khiimori Apparatus, thus paving the way for their domination of the Thameside adventuring market. With it, there was mention of a raid on a Far Eastern settlement that the EIC had allegedly taken part in, but how this tied into Aunt Cara's tirade, Aoife hadn't paid enough attention to retain. She was shocked that this detail, a piece of trivia she had filed away ages ago, had come back to inform a significant part of her own family history.

  "That's terrible," Clodagh said between sniffs. "Is that why Ma's parents... couldn't look for Ma themselves?"

  From the corners of her eyes, Aoife saw Ma shudder beside her. She felt uneasy, and began to think that she should put a stop to the conversation. But she was as hungry as Clodagh for the answers, if not more so.

  "It's... indirectly, yes," Lucy's brow furrowed in concentration and she appeared to choose her words more carefully. "After the raid, the Tsusuzekh people were driven from their homeland, which was in one of the mountains near DaKhuree. A perimeter was set up by a coalition of adventuring companies. They set up fences and guard posts, wouldn't let so much as a field mouse sneak into their operation. It practically became a makeshift hub, and stayed operational for decades. Three years ago, they suddenly packed up and left. I guess they'd milked the place dry of everything they needed. Bateer was the first to rush back and try to recover anything he could find from the old village site."

  Not everything was clear to Aoife yet, but she surmised that the raid on the Tsusuzekh settlement had played a key role in supplying the EIC with the Khiimori Apparatus. Further, it sounded as though they had maintained a steady supply line for thirty odd years, which had only been depleted three years ago. It all seemed like an extremely unpleasant bit of business, and Aoife could feel herself emphatically joining the legion of Thamesiders who hated the EIC.

  "We—that is, Michael and I—received word from Bateer that he managed to dig up some of the old vials they kept in the village Bloodsafe. So many of the vials he used to look after were gone... missing or smashed to pieces. You can imagine how that could affect him," this elicited a shuddering sigh from Clodagh. Lucy also sounded choked up, but recovered herself quickly to continue her account. "Among the few that he recovered were Asha's and Sartsetseg's—Asha's mother. Sartsetseg's vital signs had unfortunately faded long ago, but Aster's... it was still flickering. So subtle you could barely see it with the naked eye, but apply some Aquatic manipulation to it, and it was definitely there.

  "We set off in such a hurry. On hindsight, we should have been better-prepared, or at least recruited more help. But we were just so desperate to find you. And we thought if we found you, maybe your father... Anyway, the weak signals told us you were either very far away or near-death. We prayed it was the former, and decided to split up and set off in different directions, explore all possibilities. Bateer started in northern Huaxia and worked his way down, might even have made it as far south as Hongtoo by now. My brother Michael worked his way southwest, into Anatolia, then Kemet and Tamazgha. I started in Rutenia and kept going west, through Skania, Teutonia, and Gallia before ending up here."

  There were some magical terminologies she didn't understand, and Lucy mixed up Ma's names again, but Aoife listened with growing admiration—perhaps even affection—for the older woman. She and her two companions had traversed the known world in search of Ma. As someone who had divided her entire life between two neighbouring islands, Aoife couldn't begin to imagine the sheer scale of her great-aunt's journey... or the minuteness of the hope that she had to keep alive for three long and lonely years. Behind her, Clodagh began to openly sob, great drops of tears falling to the floor. Aoife steadied herself with effort before turning back to Lucy. "You mentioned Ma's father... what happened to him? It sounded like, maybe, you were hoping to find him too?"

  Beside her, Ma let out a kind of whimper. High-pitched and strained, it died as abruptly as it had issued. Aoife suddenly regretted her question and almost made to grab Ma right then and take her upstairs. Lucy, whose eyes were on the sisters, seemed not to notice the change that was happening to Asha Griffin.

  "Sartsetseg was already living with Rui in Temasek when the raid happened. So for better or for worse, she wasn't there to see it happen and never got a chance to go back to the Tsusuzekh Valley before it was boarded up. Rui took his wife and little Aster and tried to cross the transatlantic passage that had just opened up back then. He said the New World was where he would find answers for the next phase of his research. As you can imagine, it would have been a long and fraught journey, starting from Temasek. They managed to safely make their way as far as the edge of the Mediterranean—that much we know—but that's when we lost contact. I was hoping—"

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—"

  Aoife jumped, turning wildly to the source of this inhuman screech. Her mother sat crooked in her seat, hands clutching her own hair, face stricken, bulging eyes riveted on Lucy. Aoife had never seen Ma—nor any human—do this. Her first instinct was to grab Ma by the shoulders, then she thought better of it and transferred one of her hands onto Ma's back, stroking it. She tried to say soothing words but couldn't hear her own thoughts over her mother's ceaseless scream.

  Clodagh had also rushed to Ma's side, her shocked face still wet with tears, and tried to do the same with no greater success. Somewhere, Aoife heard the distant sound of children crying, and her thought turned to her younger siblings upstairs. She tapped Clodagh to get her attention, then pointed an index finger in the air. Her sister understood, then turned toward the stairs. Aoife turned back to her mother, whose scream seemed to continue with no pause for breath. At this rate, even the neighbours would come knocking soon...

  Aoife followed Ma's gaze and found Lucy on the other end, who stared back at Ma with wide, concerned eyes. Only later would Aoife reflect that her mother's calm during much of the conversation had been as much a veneer as Lucy's dignified air upon meeting long-lost family, bound to break down sooner or later. Presently, however, her only thought was that Lucy was making Ma act this way, and she needed to remove the source of the problem.

  "LUCY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, just to be able to hear herself. "I THINK YOU NEED TO LEAVE! NOW!"

  Lucy nodded grimly, grabbed the vial of Ma's blood, and stood up to go. Between trying to calm Ma down and worrying about her siblings upstairs, Aoife somehow had the presence of mind to notice that Lucy walked with a limp that favoured her left leg. She added that to the growing list of questions she had for Lucy the next time they met. Then she went back to her hapless attempts to pacify this monster that had suddenly awoken in their house.