A World Asunder

Gaea bled chlorophyll. Of all of the gods and creatures, she was the only one to let life live on her body, and she paid for it. They cut her hair as firewood for warmth and drank her tears as she cried. When they dug into the soil of her skin, they broke her bones for the crude oil marrow hidden within. And as the world broke her only rule, to only take what you need and replace for those that come after you, she painfully called for her death.

No one answered her. It wasn't until they reached for her geo-thermal heart that she considered the possibility of exacting her own revenge; and her retaliation would be swift and terrible.

***********

Renimyn heard the whispers of her Mother Earth at age six, but wasn’t aware of its origin until ten. She followed the calls on the wind, the soft invitations, until they brought her into the heart of Appalachia. Unwanted and unloved, she ventured alone as an escape and never looked back. Renimyn was the youngest to ever traverse into Appalachia and survive.

The Druids of Gaea were a small collective, but they shared all that the forest provided and were blessed by the vestiges of Gaea’s natural magics. In an area well-known for its myth and mysticism, the druids felt the Earth press her favor on them with every change of the seasons and every phase of the moon.

Gilded with leaf, twig, and moss, the druids gathered to her call in the Glade of The Mother; A tranquil patch of soil and clover, decorated with concentric circles of stones and colorful mushrooms, deep in the forest’s heart.

The Druids numbered seven; the number of the days, the number of creation. They had each forsaken their ties to the outside world, the unnatural life, and even their names. All seven had chosen names based on the flora and fauna that revealed themselves during their first communion with Gaea.

Born Janet O’Toole, Renimyn Sol saw the wren in flight, staged by the brilliant rays of sun through a canopy of trees, mint leaves in its beak. It was one of the first truly beautiful things she had ever seen; a light at the end of a dark tunnel that was her life before.

Most of Gaea’s called-ones were adults craving a change from the hardships of urban living; they had the means to travel and the most to lose. Stagma Cloud was a bouncer, and Owlu Mossfen had served in the military. River Crow ran from domestic abuse and the works of finance, while Bayrthyme Birch heard Gaea’s whispers atop an oil rig surrounded by ocean. Only the twins Kestrel Hedge and Zorro Bluebell had been born in the Glade, decades before Renimyn arrived, after their dying mother dedicated them to Gaea. She had followed the wind like the others, but no one knew much about her before she passed.

From all walks of life they came, from all walks they answered the call.

************

Revenge began as a bitter wind across the Glade. Tepid pools of fresh spring water burbled against the backdrop of pines bristling their needles. Gaea called along the breeze and her Druids heard every word.

Renimyn, now 18, startled awake from inside her hollow tree, sung to shape with spells of growth. The staff at her bedside, made from yew, was like ice to the touch. She turned to the bundle of bedding beside her, which held a hedgehog that shared the living space.

“ What do you think, Pebble? Is it time?” She spoke with a youthful enthusiasm. The hedgehog yawned and rubbed at its face with curled paws. The accompanying squeak was answer enough.

Renimyn dressed in a gown woven by silkworms, trimmed in goose down and ivy. She had dyed it with assorted berries to the color of a mauve sunset. She took a handful of nuts from a clay bowl and mowed them voraciously before exiting her tree to meet the others.

She was, surprisingly, one of the first, beat out by only Bayrthyme, who she was convinced never went to sleep. He was communing already, sitting crossed-legged at the center of a fairy ring of stone and mushrooms. Renimyn climbed into her own ring, and spoke out the scrying spell, to see what Mother Gaea called them to see.

“Circle of stones in the calling plate,

a bundle of Holly for the fairy ring.

Circle of treeheart and yew branch;

complete the round,

that nature’s will be shared.”

Renimyn’s eyes went glassy as she stared up into the sky. Her vision was of the birds and the insect, her hearing of the owls. Her skin was the vast plains and her breath rustled the trees. One with the world, Renimyn was shown the state of everything. The Earth screamed with quakes and liquid fire, wars were waged on her back and while they drained her lungs.

The many eyes of the ocean are what drew Renimyn most. Miles from the West Coast, the waves are pulled by force from Gaea's fingers. A massive ship lays mostly empty, save for a small group. From the water-birds, she saw the people standing on the ship's edge, facing the shore; The invisible pull of magic stretched like arachnid webs from hands to water.

There were other Gaea-blessed druids?!, she thought, stunned.

Renimyn felt her body gasp in shock and briefly lost her connection. She quickly re-doubled her efforts and focused back to the mysterious ship. With a keener eye, she peered into the nature of their magics and found her answer. The magic was element-bound, that was clear, but also something inherently wrong. Gaea's presence was not in the spell, replaced by a feeling of arrogant knowledge.

The magicians' spells were written academically, not woven like those are the druids. It felt like someone recounting with a fire, was without speaking to its life and breath, of the flicker of its light against the dark. The ocean rumbled as its balance was pulled away.

The message was heard loud and clear: there were others using the Mystic powers in defiance of Gaea and they would burn The Mother’s world in their wake.

Renimyn broke the scry spell and took in a struggled breath. She glanced around to see the others waking from their own visions. The met each other's gazes with a serious flash and nodded. It was time to leave The Glade of The Mother and involve themselves in the outside world. Others had discovered magic and the subsequent damage could prove fatal to Gaea. It was time to eliminate magicians and stem the bleeding.

**********

"As Gaea bleeds, the Pantheons draw their battle lines...."

Across the living room, a teal and white glow of a muted television is cast over the couch as Michael Halloway stretches in his kitchen after a fitful sleep. He shrugs his shoulders up, yawning as he crosses his arms over his head and scratches the back of his head; the sharp stubble prickling the edges of his fingers. He was unaccustomed to the late morning wake-up, a forced event by his wife who had insisted that he “learn to wake with the rest of us” before their family vacation to the Maldives the following Saturday. It had been three years since the last trip, what with the grueling schedule his division had placed on him of late.

Lt. Colonel Michael Halloway had been tasked with the formation of a brand new division, codename HOUDINI, after the Crescent Moon Incident five years prior. Halloway, ever the skeptic, was initially disgruntled after the suggestion that he, a military strategist with over 25 years experience, would be sent back stateside to play babysitter for a group of civvies with no respect. It was a quick, albeit unhappy, change of pace when he saw firsthand what they were capable of.

All traditional methods went out the window when, on a day not unlike this one, Halloway was found dumbstruck for the first time in his life. A 19 year old barista from Tallahassee fired a projectile comprised of condensed blood from her own body through a flak jacket roughly 35 yards away. Whether he liked it or not, magic was real and was making tremendous waves. Magic represented a brand new frontier, one that could not be traced with the most specialized equipment, but could pose a devastating threat.

Halloway gathered his coffee cup from by the sink and poured a fresh cup. The bitter, aromatic brew was a staple regardless of the change to his routine. He took a large sip and sighed happily to himself. All in all, he was actually looking forward to this reprieve. He undoubtedly knew that his wife would go for some excessive purchases while there and, despite his own penny-pinching tendencies, would easily acquiesce if pressed about it; after all, it isn’t every day that they get to take a week-long trip alone without work following either of them.

Gathering another large sip, Halloway was distracted by a sudden flash of light from the living room television. The sudden and ominous breaking news story “New Storm System Breaking Records” catapulted him towards the remote to unmute the anchorman. The image on the screen was of a hurricane seemingly the size of Texas barreling towards the West Coast at break-neck speed. The intense red coloring of the station’s radar system gave the monstrous system an even more foreboding aura.

“....the storm, nicknamed the Maw of Goliath, suddenly appeared this morning and had built up at an unprecedented speed. The National Weather Service has issued the highest level of emergency for the entire West Coast and some of the Midwestern States...

Halloway furiously pulled out his cellphone and beat the numbers into the screen with nervous intensity. “This is Lt. Colonel Halloway. I am requesting authorization for a scan from any HOUDINI operatives in closest proximity to the storm. Chain code Lima Foxtrot Niner Gulf Five Seven Charlie Eight Two Tango. Confirm?”

“Chain code confirmed. Activating Operative 34-659.”

“Patch me through,” Holloway bellowed into the phone receiver. The operator transferred the call as soon as there was a connection.

“This is Operative 34-659. Sending reconnaissance shikigami. Awaiting air picket.”

Holloway had a love/hate relationship with the shikigami, a Japanese paper figure used in their ancient magic. The object could be completely concealed from view and fly, among a variety of other useful inclusions, but was made from such a flimsy material. That was as far as he cared to understand the mysticism, and he was sure there was plenty already lost in translation.

The line went quiet for some time, then whirled back to life.

“34-659 reporting, air picket confirmed.” There was a pause, and then the operative spoke again.

"Visual contact on civilian vessel. Cruise liner confirmed, identity unclear. Positioned dead center in weather cell. Situation's non-standard — getting heavy adverse indicators, sir."

That clinched it; someone was making the first move. The operative continued.

“Visual PID on 8 tangos. Detecting arcane-type energy emissions. Sir, awaiting further orders.” The operative was not the best the Lt. Colonel had ever worked with, but he was glad the training was starting to bear fruit.

“Hold for Red Team SITREP. Task additional ISR assets in the interim.”

**********

"The blood and the water, the elixirs of life, ran true as the world started to die..."

**********

The rain pattered heavily against the umbrellas and found its rhythm with the syncopated footfalls of London's pedestrians. The city was wet and cold, but thriving in its usual resilience. Shops still opened, walkers still braved the icy water to work and eat and keep the animal of industry alive.

Randolf Kerr listened to the repetitive thumps of precipitation as they slid down the umbrella in his hand and the overcoat at his back. He had been waiting outside the shopfront for the better part of an hour, finishing the last of his pack of Sterling Blue cigarettes. When he had stomped out the last butt, he then started playing with the knuckle bones in his overcoat pocket.

Randolf glanced down at his reflection in the ever-growing puddle before him and wondered if the old man had finally kicked the bucket. The shop behind him was as unassuming as it was old; a pillar of Old London hidden by meandering cobblestone streets in a maze of buildings that the natural world seemed to actively retake.

The store had no name, no sign out front; only a façade covered in wandering vines and a picture window long in need of cleaning. The only real indicator that this was a shop at all laid with the red open/closed sign barely visible behind the cloudy glass, currently turned to closed. Randolf had resigned to call it Mangrove, after the ingredient that never seemed to be sold from its shelves.

Mangrove was one of the fading few shops smattered across the globe that catered to a more magical clientele. The shop would have been right at home in the streets of New Orleans, where there was more of a customer base seeking its remedies and assorted charms. Randolf and the rest of his seidmenn were some of the only regulars, enough that he felt he should have a key made for them. It would beat the hell out of waiting here in the rain for him to open up. The old man would never go for that, of course; being more cautious and set in his ways that even Randolf's seidr master had been before he passed.

There was a faint flicker of movement at his periphery, and the sign read Open. Randolf stopped his fidgeting and closed his umbrella as he pushed the door open and stepped through the doorway. The old man, Mr. Gordon, was already behind the counter, filling jars and tiny bags with multiple powders. Randolf quietly walked thorugh the rows of shelving, passed dried greenery and chittering creatures held in cages. The air was as musty and stagnant as it always was despite a layer of fresh incense smoke rising to the ceiling. Randolf collected the several jars he required with a practiced ease, almost muscle memory at this point, and walked up to the counter. Mr. Gordon did not look up from his task and grumbled to himself.

"Good morning, sir." Randolf was prepared to start up a friendly conversation with pleasantries, but knew that they would amount to absolutely nothing.

"40.27 Pound Sterling, boy", the old man said lackadaisically. Randolf dropped a crumpled pile of bills on the counter and pocketed his merchandise.

"Could I borrow that basin out back for the bones again, Mr. Gordon?" The old man shooed at him with a wrinkled hand, gruffly replying,

"Fine, fine, fine. Go ahead." Randolf turned to the back of the shop and walked to a door at the end of a short hall, bordered by a terrarium of animate plant life that shifted as he walked past. He stopped at a small table outside the doorway, picking up a small piece of mangled chalk. Where the chalk used to be, he placed the items from his pockets he wouldn't need.

Randolf opened the door, revealing a modified closet. It was a gutted space, done so to make room for a coffee table riddled with candles, skulls, and crystals of varied kind and size. At the center, sat a stone basin dusted with the chalk dust of a thousand rituals before. Randolf lit the candles throughout and began drawing arcane markings; concentric circles, jagged edgings, and archaic shapes. They all met at the center of the basin, connected by a triangle made of runic writings. Randolf knelt down in front of the dais and held the bones overhead with both hands.

"Allfather, hear the call of your humble servant. I call upon the master of Huginn and Munin, of the King of the gods, for a blessing on my travels and a glimpse through your All-Sight." He cast the bones into the bowl and watched as they clamored across its surface. They settled in a moment and Randolf started to read them.

When you, Seeker, set forth on roads unknown,

May your feet find soft earth.

As written in the blood of stars, for all who walk the paths of fate,

Beware the war of seidr power,

Of runes forged in fire and lightning,

As the sky and the earth shall rend,

And all the heavens shall be swallowed in stride.

The winds of Ullr will guide you, Oh Seeker,

To the Wyrd-Twisting, and the Sound Keepers, and the last of bleeding gods.

Randolf jumped back as the basin was filled with a blue flame that ate away the bones and the chalk, then dissipated in a gust of air and smoke. He crawled back another few feet, backing into Mr. Gordon's legs.

"Alert your seidmenn to come and grab all that they can carry from my shop, boy." The air around him felt thick with an unspoken weight, the man’s eyes glinted as if they were carrying centuries of secrets. "Things are in motion now that cannot be undone."