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i.
Once upon a place, in a time outside of time itself, there lived a weaver.
He wove garments, of course, as a weaver is wont to do; but it was his intricate tapestries that he was known for. It was said that he could bring a thousand threads into whole cloth and not leave a single visible seam; it was said that his designs were unequalled throughout the universe and beyond.
It was said that once he had woven a chessboard so infinite that the very first game was still being played somewhere – that he had feathered a dozen owls so lifelike they had come to life – that the constellations only hung in the sky because his loom had put them there.
Much was said about him. Some of it was even true.
Once upon a time, in a world between worlds, there lived a herder.
Much less was said about her, and even less of truth. Not for any lack of prowess on her part; simply that some kinds of beauty bedazzled more eyes than the strength of others.
For it was that the herder taught beasts, trained them to both fight and defend with equal ferocity. Birds, most often, wise owl and carrion hunter alike, but oft too could she be found galloping the stellar fields on horseback or prowling alongside lions, always keeping watch for creatures lost in the wild.
Yet other times she was found alone, and on these occasions she always carried with her a bow and half-dozen arrows, though no-one had seen her shoot even one.
About this last point, then, circled the lone persistent rumour – that she had been a hunter once. An archer, punished by the heavens to never wield her weapon again, for having dared shoot the sun itself.
(“They really are getting their legends mixed up, aren’t they,” tuts the weaver, shaking his head.
The herder shrugs. “You’ve got to admit, it does sound like something I’d do, given the right reasons.”
The weaver is silent for a moment, pulling another bright ochre thread among his fingers. “There’s little that anyone wouldn’t do, with enough incentive. Doesn’t make it any more true. I’d know.”
The herder laughs, gaze tracking the arc of a dozen wings across the sky. “Of course you would.”)
ii.
Time passed, twelve decades in all – and time, too, came for them to be wedded at last.
The weaver received nigh-countless suitors where the herder had almost none. But nevertheless it mattered little, for the weaver had sworn long ago that he would wed none other, and though the herder had yet to agree she hadn’t put forth any objections either.
Thus it was that, at sun’s rise on the day she came of age, they each voyaged to seek blessings from their respective guardians.
And thus it was, that when they met again on that sun’s night, the herder’s face was dark as the swift black steed she rode, and the weaver’s ashen as the silken white cloak he wore.
Their met gazes had said it all, but still she gave voice and spoke.
They talk of a war, said she, scarcely believing. That I am to train a three-hundred strong army of vicious warhorses before they will grant any union.
He inclined his head, grim. And that I shall weave the flags for that fight, banners hidden with a dozenfold strategies for victory.
What exactly passed between them afterwards may never be known for sure, for it is from this point on that the records noticeably diverge. Even the history of the heavens themselves is inevitably told by its powerful, and merely a refraction of truth, if even so.
Such, then, is one version of it.
(“And what did you tell them?” asks the weaver.
“That I’d sooner leave every last one of my flock fending for themselves in the wild than turn them into killers,” answers the herder, uncharacteristically grim. “You?”
At this question the weaver’s face suddenly reddens, though his voice is still calm. “That I would rather be never able to weave of my love for you again, than to spark a bloodbath with my loom.” He smiles. “So where does that leave us?”
“In a hell lot of trouble,” comes a third, a voice of voices, and they both turn as twice-dozen wings coalesce into one form.
“You’re here!” the herder exclaims, leaping down from her horse with equal excitement.
“No thanks to you two,” the shifter grumbles, a scarf of black feather settling around his shoulders.
“What trouble do you mean?” asks the weaver, expression serious yet again.
“A wall.” He holds up a hand before the herder can interrupt. “A wall of impossible height and unfathomable width, surpassable by neither man nor beast. Since you both clearly won’t cooperate willingly…”
Their gazes meet yet again. Now their lands adjoined, up to the forest and down to the river, but if such a wall were to be built –
“I imagine they’d be so generous as to offer us chances to meet in exchange for our cooperation, even,” the weaver murmurs, to a sickened look on the herder’s face.
“Imagine all you like,” retorts the shifter, silhouette already fracturing back into feathers. “I can’t stay, but suffice to say they’re mad. Next time you – either of you – decide to make dramatic declarations of sentiment, make damned sure to tell me first.”
The flutter of wings, and then they’re alone again.
“Sorry!” the herder still shouts skyward for good measure, though she doesn’t look quite sorry at all.
Neither does the weaver, as he turns to her. “What do you want to do?”
“Impossible height and unfathomable width, he said? No way over and none around, except…”
The weaver's eyes dance with something entirely unlike mirth. “Through?”
“Through,” she agrees, gaze burning a fierce emerald. “Let them come, I say.”)
iii.
The stories – the less-inaccurate ones, that speak not of two figures in glorious battle or even their absence from it, go thus:
At the next sun’s rise the wall was laid, there between one moment of twilight and the next, its surface smoothly flawless obsidian and thrice as thoroughly bespelled.
With it the decree sent: that those it separated were not to meet, save for the day it was seven and seven again, should the heavens be so pleased. And it was absolute in every term, for the wall was as good as told. No soaring bird could find its top, nor unwinding thread span its ends.
But lo and behold – not three by thirty days later the sun rose yet again, and now shone through a pathway, rough-hewn sides forming a tunnel through that impossible rock. Not sizeable, not by any means, but more than enough for a person (or two) to step through.
Some said the weaver had stolen strands from the edges of the very universe itself, to weave the fabric of a door into that pitch-black face; others claimed that this only proved those stories true, that the herder's arrows burned still with the curse of that sacred flame she’d shot down, blazed enough to melt all that stood in its way.
But the truth of this, above all else, will remain an eternal mystery. For that very same day they disappeared without trace, weaver and herder both, never to be heard from again.
(“Don’t let anyone else see you. He’ll know what to do with it, just make sure he’s alone before you give him this,” the herder emphasises for the umpteenth time to the quartet of owls perched on her arm, each grasping a corner of woven cloth in their talons.
From behind her the weaver laughs, albeit somewhat distractedly. “You’ve said that quite enough times already, I think.”
Two of the owls give reproachful looks of avian agreement.
“I know, I’m just – I can’t help worrying,” she mutters a little defensively, before setting the owls aflight with a nod. “We only have the one chance, and there’s no way he won’t get in trouble for this, even without any good reason.”
“You’ve taught your flock well enough,” the weaver answers, finally looking up from the flickering threads wound about his fingers, an intricate cat’s cradle of red-yellow-orange.
“Only because they were scarily clever to begin with. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering.” She glances over, already reaching into her quiver for an arrow. “You’re done?”
He inspects his work once more before holding his hands out towards her. “As much as I can be. It’s not every day we try to open gateways through cursed rock.”
“What, like it’s hard?” she quips, drawing the arrow through the complex intertwine of fiery threads – then cheering when the arrow’s tip truly does catch on fire, crackling a merry blaze. “Awesome!”
“It does match your hair,” the weaver says, smiling wryly. “Though I suppose I hadn’t considered how you would fire an actual flaming arrow with a wooden bow…?”
The herder grins. “Watch and learn,” she quips, and by the time she’s done speaking three arrows have already found their targets, marking the corners of a rectangle in flame. Then she lets the last arrow fly, and the moment it lands the entire section of the wall bursts brightly ablaze before dying down just as abruptly.
What’s left isn’t a gaping tunnel between their lands, but instead the blue-green shimmer of a pathway between worlds.
“Don’t worry, it’ll disappear right after we go through. This door will, at least.” The weaver quirks an eyebrow at his companion. “You haven’t even asked where this goes.”
The herder waves an unconcerned hand. “Don’t need to. Ready to get out of here?”
“If you’re asking. I can tell you that we’ll need names, though,” he adds as they move closer.
“Ooh, a name, I’ve never had one before!” She turns around, grinning as she walks backwards through the doorway. “What’d be good, you think?”
“Maybe – ” he begins, but the rest of his answer is lost forever to this place, silent save for the steady beat of wings, already fading into the distance.)