The silence was broken – first by footsteps, and then by voices. One voice sounded very young; the other, very old.

 

            “You said you would tell me a story.”

              “Do you promise to sit here while I do so? Listen carefully, then. Once upon a time, there lived a mother and her daughter. The mother’s name was Lenelle, and her daughter’s name was Aunsaena, and they were both priestesses.

 

               “This was a very long time ago, you know. In those days, the barbaric Tsymovkam still ruled over us all. People suffered daily, but because the Tsymovkam trained even their children to cast powerful and deadly spells, no one could fight back. The priestesses, especially, could not do anything, because they had sworn to create, never destroy. And so they tolerated the intolerable in silence. That is not to say they let the ordinary people suffer – no, some priestesses knew spells of their own, and used those to help people hurt by the spells of the Tsymovkam. And so, balance was maintained as the Tsymovkam hurt and the priestesses healed in equal measure.

                “Now, the Tsymovkam hated the priestesses for this very reason. More than that, they were afraid ofthe priestesses and what the priestesses’ spells could do.”

               

                “I think I’ve heard this story before.”

               

                “No. The story that you have heard your entire life has been a lie. This is how it really happened – there was a priestess and her daughter, and they were gentle and kind and loving.

     

                “One day, Aunsaena – the daughter – she came home and said to her mother, ‘The Tsymovkam have killed a girl and left the body to rot in a ditch!’

 

                “The priestess, Lenelle, was naturally very upset at the news. She said to Aunsaena, ‘I will speak to the poor girl’s parents tomorrow morning.’ She said this, even though she did not know if she had ever met the girl in her life, because such was her nature.”

 

                  “I’ve never heard this part of the story before.”

                  “Of course you haven’t heard this, child. It’s the truth.”

                  “Are you sure?”

                  “Yes, I am. Do you want to listen or not? So Lenelle and Aunsaena both felt terribly sorry for this dead girl. This was nothing new, of course. The Tsymovkam killed whenever they were in the mood – but the priestesses felt sorry for every needless death.

                 

                 “This death was not like any other. The girl certainly was like any regular victim. There was nothing special about her, or her family. But her death was something that the people could not tolerate, when they had suffered far greater losses.

 

                 “Even among the priestesses, some were angry – but they felt that, as their vows forbade killing, they could do nothing. The Tsymovkam were afraid, however, because they expected everyone else to think like they did – and they knew that they would have launched a bloody revolution had they been in the same situation as the priestesses.”

                 “I know what happens next. The Tsymovkam grew paranoid and tried to fight the

priestesses, but they lost after all because the priestesses’ spells were better.”

 

                 “No, haven’t you been paying attention? Some of the priestesses – including Aunsaena – did feel angry, but they did not fight or resist in any way for fear of upsetting the balance and making the situation worse. The Tsymovkam, however, did not wait for anything to happen – they decided to kill the priestesses and remove the source of their worry once and for all.”

 

                 “That’s what I said they would do.”

 

                 “But it did not end as you said. The priestesses tried to use their spells, but they were taken completely by surprise. It was a massacre, not a fight. Lenelle and Aunsaena fled into the woods, and that is when everything changed.”

 

                  “What changed?”

 

                 “I’m getting to that. So Lenelle took her daughter Aunsaena deep into the forest with her. They went further and further away from civilization, until the forest around them became so dense that no sunlight reached the ground. And it was there that they lived for many years, practicing spells.

 

                 “Now, the spells that they practiced were not the ordinary kind, the kind that healed. These spells were meant to hurt. Yes, I know what you’re about to say. You think that there are some things which cannot be done with magic, which is why all those people who do use magic for ill have to be indirect about it. But the thing about healing magic is that it is capable of reaching every part of a person’s body in order to heal it. So it is not that difficult, really, to twist the spells a little and make the magic open up wounds instead of close them. And that is what Aunsaena in particular began to learn at a rapid pace.

 

                 “Lenelle, too, was twisting the traditional spells, but for a different reason. You see, she knew how dangerous it was to live, so long as the Tsymovkam did too. She also feared that her time was running out. And so the spells she devised were meant to make things grow faster instead of heal. Crops could be harvested and hidden away before the Tsymovkam destroyed them, baby animals could become ferocious beasts fit for guarding a house in no time at all. Lenelle was so caught up in what she thought the results of her work would be that she never really stopped to think what the implications really were, what her work would come to mean for the world.

 

                 “One day, Aunsaena decided that they had hidden long enough. ‘Mother,’ she said one day, ‘It’s time to restore balance to this world.’

 

                “Lenelle agreed. She put a few seeds in her bag, in case they needed to grow fruit trees in a hurry, and left with Aunsaena. They went to the very edge of the forest and beyond, until at last they reached a great fortress of stone in which a thousand of the Tsymovkam lived, and they decided that they would enter it one night and kill the Tsymovkam within. You see, by this time, they had forgotten their vows and their principles. Restoring the balance was really all they cared about, and that was why they had practiced for so long so far into the forest.”

 

                “Could they kill the Tsymovkam, then?”

 

               “No. They spoke to the people who lived around the fortress. Aunsaena said, ‘If you can help us to get in and out of the fortress, we can kill the Tsymovkam.’ But the people refused, they were so convinced that they were powerless against the Tsymovkam.

 

              “Aunsaena was disheartened. She realized that it was impossible to save people who would not help her to save them. So she tried to convince them that they could and would be saved, but it was of no use. Days turned into weeks, and Aunsaena and Lenelle remained in the village outside the fortress without having achieved anything. Eventually, even Aunsaena began to believe that there were too many of the Tsymovkam to defeat.”

 

              “What was Lenelle doing?”

 

              “Well, she was making her own plans. She reached out to the people and started sending out messages to the other priestesses who had survived the massacre years ago. In the many years that she and her daughter had lived in the forest, most of the people whom Lenelle knew had died. But there were some still living, and they reached out to their friends, and before long Lenelle was receiving support from several directions.

 

              “Of course not much of the support she received was of any use. Lenelle’s friends were more approving than the villagers were, but their approval was of the kind which really means, ‘I am there for you, but I will not help you, but I will not actively work against you either.’ And Lenelle became as frustrated as her daughter when she realized that they would have to do this themselves. As a result, when Lenelle thought of a mad, risky, suicidal plan, she did not tell

anyone except Aunsaena, because no one else would have helped anyway.

 

              “The plan was this: they would sneak into the fortress and Aunsaena would kill as many as she could. They did not know how many that would be; they were not even sure that they would be able to enter the fortress; but they had delayed too long already.

 

              “As it happened, they did not have to try too hard to enter the fortress. Luck seemed to be on their side, and they were surprised by how easy it was to carry out the first part of their plan. Sadly, that was where their luck ran out. A sentry saw them and raised the alarm before the two had set foot inside the main building of the fortress, and the Tsymovkam came out in greater numbers than mother or daughter had anticipated.

 

              “In desperation, Lenelle took the seeds from her bag and scattered them on the flagstones. She then began to cast the spells that she had devised for entirely different purposes. The seeds sprouted, took root in whatever cracks they could find in the stone, and continued to grow, as Lenelle harnessed all the magic that she could. Before the priestesses’ eyes, the shoots became trees – large trees, at that – and their roots plunged deep into the soil. Cracks appeared in the stone of the floor and the walls, and these cracks only widened as the roots grew. Soon, the fortress was crumbling, its foundations damaged beyond repair. As the last seed finished growing into a tree, the fortress collapsed on top of the Tsymovkam who lived within.

 

              “Lenelle did not survive this, I am sorry to say. Aunsaena did. When the grief had faded, Aunsaena observed how the people reacted to the incident. She saw that people drew hope from it, because it had proved that the Tsymovkam were not invincible after all. The Tsymovkam could be killed. It did not matter that only a few of the Tsymovkam had died that day, because the very fact that they had died at all was almost as harmful to them as though all of them had died at once. And it was not possible for a single priestess, or even several priestesses, to destroy the Tsymovkam entirely – but it was possible to establish that they could be destroyed. Belief is a powerful thing, my child.

 

             “So Aunsaena spoke to other priestesses about this. Many agreed with her; many didn’t. Those who believed in her went with her to her home, the one deep in the forest where she had lived with her mother. There they settled, to learn all the spells that Aunsaena and Lenelle had developed. Some of them devised little tricks of their own. They called themselves the Daughters of Aunsaena, and they brought the Tsymovkam to their knees a few assassinations at a time.”

 

            There was silence for a long time. Then:

 

            “I don’t believe you. It’s not possible to make things grow faster.”

 

           “Perhaps you should look in a mirror. Here, take mine.”

 

           There was a crash, followed by the tinkling of glass.

 

           “What happened to me?”

 

           “Hush, now. It will all be fine.”

 

           “I’ve changed! I have – I have a beard now! No, that can’t be my reflection; this is some sort of trick! I’m telling my parents!”

 

            Laughter filled the enclosed space as footsteps receded. Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, it ceased.

 

            Silence descended once more.