Malaya's page

As a result of early malnutrition Malaya is both short and skinny, although she's surprisingly hardy for her size. There is a set of five scars on her face which appear to have been caused by a clawed hand raking across it. (There are other scars all over her body, but they’re usually hidden by several layers of clothing.) Every morning she puts her long brown hair into a bun to keep it out of the way. Her eyes are also brown and she has a habit of focusing on people to the point where it’s unnerving.

As a young girl Malaya was kidnapped by a hag and forced to participate in various experiments meant to increase the hag’s magical power. She was rescued years later by a band of heroes. Not knowing what else to do with her, they took her to a House of Healing run by a Halan cleric. During her time there she realized she was also being called to serve Hala as a cleric, but fears that the hag (who escaped) is still looking to recapture her. Or even worse, is subtly influencing Malaya into doing her bidding.

Unable to shake these fears, Malaya set off on a journey to find and kill the hag that torments her. Her search has led her to leave her home realm of Mordent behind and travel through many of the Domains of Dread. Most recently she heard whispers of hags in Barovia and hired a Vistani traveler to take her through the mists. But when the mists parted her guide was nowhere to be seen, and she was left alone on the road.

I do not remember my parents.

I like to imagine them sometimes. How my father might have looked when he laughed. How my mother might have sung lullabies to me as I slept. I like to imagine they love and miss me. That they were not there the night Agnes came for me, and they searched for me tirelessly after I was taken. That one day I will somehow, miraculously, find them again. It is a story that might be true, and those are often the best ones.

Sometimes, in my darker moments, I imagine different stories. That my parents were there that night, and they fought for me, and she killed them. Or perhaps my parents simply welcomed Agnes into their home and gestured towards my bedroom. “The child, as was promised,” they might have said, while she cackled with glee. These stories might also be true. I have no way of knowing.

What I do remember is how frightened I was. I remember waking to a dark shadow looming over my bed. I remember screaming in terror as I tried to run to the door. Agnes toyed with me a bit, almost allowing me to reach an exit before blocking it with a giggle, but eventually she tired of that game and dragged me off to her lair.

There was another girl there. Perhaps a little older than me, perhaps a little younger, perhaps the same age. It was impossible to tell. I tried to talk to her at first. Agnes did not like it when I tried to talk to her. That was a lesson the other girl had no doubt already learned, for she never replied.

I never learned her name, and in my memory her face is always obscured by blood and bruises. What I remember most is her hair. It was thick, vibrant, the color of flames. I learned to pity her for that. It was beautiful, no matter how raggedly it was shorn, and hags despise things that are beautiful.

I do not know precisely why Agnes took us. She did not bother explaining. We were given orders and taught painfully that they must be followed without question. Read this tome. Drink this concoction. Lie on this altar. Don’t move or scream or cry when I carve symbols into your flesh.

I remember all those things. I wish I did not.

I remember the day the heroes came. It was day, for when they battered down the door the sunlight streamed in. I was standing in a corner, out of the way, as I had been ordered to do. I did not move. Not even when one of the heroes struck me by accident. At least I think it was an accident. It is possible it was not. Hags have many evil servants, and perhaps he thought I was one of them.

Perhaps I was one of them. Perhaps I still am, deep inside, where the dark thoughts linger. I do not wish to be, and Mother Nora says that is what matters. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The battle was fierce, but the tide was turning towards the heroes. No fool, Agnes realized this, and with a final snarl she fled. The heroes chased after her. When they returned they were cursing the foul magicks that had allowed her to escape, carelessly searching through her belongings in the hopes of finding a clue to where she had gone. It took them several moments to remember my existence. “You there. Girl. What’s your name?”

Inwardly I cringed. Ignorance was not acceptable, but I had no choice. Questions were to be answered both promptly and honestly. “I don’t know.”

They did not punish me for my ignorance. Instead they looked at each other in confusion before one of them, the one that had struck me earlier, finally shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s take her to Mother Nora, she’ll figure it out.” He looked at me. “Girl-with-no-name, you’re coming with us. No funny stuff, alright?”

It was an order. Orders were to be obeyed.

For a moment, as we walked out of the hag’s lair, I wondered what had become of my fellow prisoner. I had not seen her since before the heroes came. Had she been killed during the battle, as I nearly was? Had Agnes grabbed her before fleeing? The thought that she might have taken the opportunity to escape did not occur to me then. I still do not believe it is plausible. We were far too broken for that.

I like to imagine she is dead and at peace. Or that she escaped, however unlikely that may be, and healed, and now lives a happy life. In my darker moments I imagine that she was snatched by Agnes as she fled. Then Agnes kidnapped another child to take my place, and continued her rituals as if nothing had changed. All of these stories might be true, but one of them is more likely than others.

Mother Nora tells me such thoughts are counterproductive. Dwelling on such things only causes me unnecessary suffering. If I must imagine such stories, I should imagine ones with happy endings.

It is not an order, which is good, for it would be one I am often unable to obey.

I found out much later it was she who had hired the heroes in the first place. Hags are the sworn enemies of Halan witches and must be eradicated at all costs. Mother Nora was a Halan witch, but not strong enough to take on a hag alone. These two facts clashed against each other until she found some brave souls willing to take the risk. She was not pleased to learn that they had failed. That Agnes had escaped to terrorize another village. But she had tried, and so had they, and that was the best anyone could do.

When I first arrived at the House of Healing she fussed over me and treated my injuries. It did not take her long to realize that I would not speak unless asked a question. That I would not do anything unless specifically instructed. Some of her orders were very similar to those I was used to. Drink this potion. Lie on this bed. Some were not. Rest. Heal.

Live.

She brought me a book but did not order me to read it. She simply left it on the nightstand beside my bed. I now realize this was deliberate; that she wanted me to start making decisions for myself. To learn how to live a life without orders.

Eventually, while she was out, I dared open it. It was not the same as the books Agnes had made me read. It was a story. I had never read a story before. I became so engrossed in the pages that I did not notice when Mother Nora returned. Not until she set a plate of food next to me. I immediately dropped the book, terrified. Certain it had been a trap and now I was caught.

She did not punish me. She stroked my hair gently and said, “Read as much as you like dear.” It was not an order. I hesitantly reached for the book anyway.

When I was finished she asked me what I thought of the story. I answered, but not because it was a question. I answered because I wanted to. When we were finished talking, and Mother Nora went to leave, I asked her if I could have another book.

That was the beginning of my new life.

I began doing things without being ordered to. Talking even when I had not been asked a question. One day I told Mother Nora I had decided I wanted to be called Malaya, after the heroine of the first story I had ever read. She smiled and said that was very appropriate. That ‘Malaya,’ in a foreign tongue, meant ‘Freedom’.

However there can be no healing without pain. My nightmares continued. I would wake, not moving, (moving might disrupt the blade, damage the runes), not screaming, (Agnes did not want us to scream while she worked; it distracted her), not crying, (while she did not care if we cried so long as we were silent, we received too little water to waste it on tears). I would lie, perfectly still, and watch the ceiling. Only when the sun began creeping over the horizon, illuminating a small room that was not the place I had dreamt of, would I dare move.

Even during the day I could not be entirely free. I would hear Agnes’ voice giving me an order and instinctively move to obey. More than once Mother Nora found me in a corner, staring straight ahead, following orders only I could hear. That did not mean they weren't real.

Mother Nora has not told me that. In return I have not told her that I found the book she tried to hide, on the habits of hags, and how they will sometimes give children a small copper token to help them communicate with the child from a great distance. I have not told her that the spiked tea she gave me did not work, and I was awake as she tried to remove the copper ring from the pinky finger of my left hand. I have not told her that I felt her try to cut off that finger only to be repelled by a strange force. I have not told her that I heard her weeping, and I know it was not allergies reddening her eyes the next day.

Do not think I am angry with Mother Nora for what she tried to do. An infected limb must be amputated if the patient is to survive. No, I have not told her I know for the same reason she has not told me. She thinks it would cause me more suffering to learn that I am not entirely free of Agnes, and likely never will be. I think it would cause her more suffering to learn that she has not been able to keep that truth from me.

These are the secrets we keep from each other.

One time she brought me a book entitled Tales of Ages. She apologized when she gave it to me, saying it was not precisely a story like the others. That she had run out of stories and could not buy more until the traveling peddler returned. I did not care. It was a book, and that was all that mattered.

Tales of Ages had some similarities to the books on magical theory Agnes had once ordered me to read, but also could not have been more different. It spoke of Hala, Goddess of the Weave, and how she taught her followers to sense that Weave. How magic both arcane and divine was all part of the Weave, and the line between them far thinner than most thought. It spoke of the first Witches, servants of Hala with differing styles of magic but the same ultimate goals. And, in a chapter I shivered to read, it spoke of the hags. How they too used the Weave, but for their own destructive ends rather than for the purpose of reducing suffering, and were therefore anathema to Hala and her servants.

It was a religious text, but not like other religious texts I have since read. There was no dogma. No commands. No calls to proselytize and find new worshippers. Much of it was focused on different styles of meditation, how to sense the Weave and use it to reach your full potential. The rest was practical instruction on healing techniques. I recognized some of them as ones Mother Nora had used on me.

After reading Tales of Ages I felt strange. Like there was a warmth inside of me. I asked Mother Nora about it and she gave me a long look. “It is possible,” she finally said, “that Hala is calling you to her service, as she once did me. But calls do not have to be answered. Do you understand?” She knelt down to look me in the eyes. “Dedicating your life to anything, especially a goddess, is not a decision to be made lightly.”

I understood. I did not reach for the warmth inside of me, not then.

I began to help Mother Nora and the other priestesses in their work. I learned about herbs, and tonics, and ways of healing both magical and mundane. I read other religious texts about other gods, to see if any of them affected me as Tales of Ages had. I studied, and I healed, and I thought about what I did and did not want.

I wanted to be myself. I wanted to read more books. I wanted the nightmares and dark thoughts to stop.

I did not want Agnes to come back for me. I did not want her to have abducted anyone else. I did not want anyone to suffer as I had.

One day Mother Nora was out shopping when a small child was brought in. He had fallen from a great height. I knew, looking at him, that there was nothing I could do. That there was nothing any of the priestesses could do, for he needed healing magic, and in our small House only Mother Nora was capable of casting such spells. I knew he would not survive until her return. I looked at his parents’ faces and knew they knew it too. There was so much pain in their eyes. So much suffering.

I reached for the warmth inside of me.

When Mother Nora returned the child was laughing in his mother’s arms. She looked at me for a long moment. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

I smiled. “Yes. It is a decision I’ve made for myself.”

That should have been a happy ending, but stories about real people do not end when they should. I continued to hear Agnes’ voice in my nightmares, and sometimes, (albeit rarely), in my waking moments as well.

I am Malaya. I am Freedom. I can never be completely free while Agnes lives. Facts clashing against each other.

Mother Nora was not pleased when I told her I was leaving. She said I was far too young and inexperienced to be hunting a hag. She cried. I felt guilty for making her cry, but I could not stay. Not knowing that Agnes was out there. Even if the whispers I hear are mere paranoia, even if she never thought about me again after that day, she is no doubt hurting someone else. That is what hags do.

Hags are the sworn enemies of Halan witches.

It has been over a year since I last saw Mother Nora. I have spent my time wandering, casting healing spells to pay my way as I follow rumor after rumor. So far none of the rumors have proven true. I follow them nonetheless.

The latest rumors have led me to a land called Barovia. The Vistani man I sought as a guide warned me it was a difficult land to get to and even more difficult to leave. When I persisted, he shrugged and said “On your own head be it.”

The mists were strange. Cloying. Unnatural. I could not tell you how long I spent in them. Hours? Days? Weeks? I do know that at some point along the way I lost my guide. Perhaps having taken my coin he simply left me there.

Eventually I stumbled out of the mists and blinked up at the sky. It was full of storm clouds, but after so long in the mist it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I had made it to Barovia.