Hidden Warrior

by Lynn Flewelling

  He flexed his fingers, brushed his hands together, and rubbed at his arms, shedding the old skin like a snake in spring. He rubbed at his face and felt a thin, dry mask pull away, leaving the crescent-shaped scar still visible on the chin. The fire had somehow spared his hair, but he could feel the old scalp pulling apart beneath it.

  He ran his hands down over his chest and stopped, only beginning to fully comprehend what had happened. The old skin that covered his chest was pulled tight, bulging like—

  Like a maiden’s bodice.

  Shivering, Tobin stripped the old husk away and stared down at her small breasts.

  Tobin was dimly aware of a growing murmur as she stood and looked down. Her boy’s genitals had wizened to dried husks. She pulled at the loose skin above them and they sloughed off and fell away.

  Ki turned away, a hand clamped across his mouth, and she heard him retch.

  The world was going slowly grey around her. She couldn’t feel the stairs under her feet anymore. But Tharin was with her, wrapping a cloak around her, holding her upright. And Ki was back, too, his arm tight around her waist. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  The priests and Arkoniel were there, too, and the cloak had to be opened, an inspection made. Tobin kept her eyes on the sky above their heads, too numb to care.

  “It’s all right, Tob,” Ki murmured.

  “Not—Tobin,” she whispered. Her lips were sore, and her throat was raw.

  “Yes, she must take a woman’s name now,” Kaliya said.

  Arkoniel let out a soft groan. “We never discussed that!”

  “I know,” Tobin whispered. The ghostly queens were with her again. “Tamír, the queen who was murdered and denied. She came to me—offered me the Sword. Her name—” The grey fog rolled away and tears stung her eyes. “And Ariani, for my mother who should have ruled. And Ghërilain, for Illior and Skala.”

  The ghostly queens bowed to her, then sheathed their swords and faded away.

  The priestess nodded. “Tamír Ariani Ghërilain. May the name bring you strength and fortune.” Turning to the crowd, which had fallen silent again, she cried out, “I bear sacred witness! She is a woman, and bears the same marks and scars.”

  “I bear witness,” the priestess of Astellus echoed, and the others with her.

  “I call on you all to bear witness,” Arkoniel shouted to the crowd. “The true queen has returned to you! By the wisdom mark on her arm and this scar on her chin I verify that this is the same person standing before you now, but in her true form. Behold Tamír the Second!”

  Won over at last, the people began to cheer, but even that could not drown out the rending crack that rang out behind Tobin. The ornate wooden panel over the castle door—the one carved with the sword of Sakor—split and fell away, revealing the original stonework below.

  The Eye of Illior once more guarded Atyion.

  Tobin raised her hand to make reverence. But the roar of the crowd caught her, swept her up into the air as the world went black around her.

  In that same moment the Afran Oracle laughed aloud in the darkness of her cavern.

  Biding with half a dozen other wizards in the ruins of an Ero tavern, Iya staggered and covered her face as a brilliant burst of white light blinded her. Behind her closed lids the light slowly faded to reveal the face of a black-haired, blue-eyed young woman. “Thank the Lightbearer,” she whispered, and her companions echoed the words with the same reverence and wonder. Then with one voice they shouted it aloud. “Thank the Lightbearer! The queen returns!”

  In the mountains north of Alestun the wizards of Arkoniel’s exiled Third Orëska saw that same vision and hurried to find one another, crying out the news.

  All across Skala, wizards who’d accepted Iya’s small tokens, and many who had been deemed unworthy, shared the vision and wept for joy or shame.

  The vision struck Niryn a twofold blow as he paced the ramparts. He recognized that face despite the transformation and raised his fists at the sky, raging at the Lightbearer’s betrayal and Solari’s, and the failure of his own assassins to remove the Scion of Atyion from his path.

  “Necromancy!” he cried, swelling like an adder in his rage. “A false face and a false skin! But the strands are not yet woven.”

  A Harrier guard unwise enough to approach his master just then was struck blind and died a day later.

  Lhel woke in her lonely oak tree house and cast the window spell. Looking through, she saw Tharin bearing the girl down some passageway. Lhel gazed into that still, sleeping face. “Keesa,” she whispered, and was certain she saw Tobin’s eyelids flutter a little. “Keesa, remember me.” She watched a moment longer, making certain that Ki was with them, then closed the portal.

  It was winter yet in the mountains. Crusted snow crunched under her feet as she limped to the spring, and ice still ringed the dark pool.

  But the center was clear. Leaning over the water, she saw her face in the gently rippling surface, saw how old she looked. She’d had no moonflow since the winter solstice and her hair was more white than black. Left to a normal life among her own people, she would have a husband, children, and honor. Yet her only regret as she crouched over the water was that she left no daughter to tend this sacred place—the mother oak and its sacred spring—lost for so long to her people.

  She turned her palms up to the unseen moon and spread the seeing spell over the water. A single image rose in the dark water. She studied it for a moment, then walked slowly back to the hollow oak and lay down on her bed, palms upturned at her sides again—empty, accepting—and listened to the wind in the branches.

  He came silently. The weathered deerskin flap over the door did not stir as he entered. She felt him stretch out beside her, cold as a snowbank, and wrap his arms around her neck.

  I’ve come back to you at last.

  “Welcome, child!” she whispered.

  Icy lips found hers and she opened her mouth willingly, letting this demon they’d called Brother steal her last breath as she had stolen his first. The balance was restored.

  They were both free.

  Chapter 53

  Erius sat at the window of the gatehouse tower, watching his city burn. Despite the healers’ best efforts, gangrene had set in and was spreading. His shoulder and chest were already black, his sword arm swollen and useless. Unable to ride or fight, he must lay here on a couch like an invalid, surrounded by long-faced courtiers and whispering servants. There were few officers left to bring him reports. Still gripping the Sword of Ghërilain, he presided helplessly over the loss of his capital.

  The Plenimarans had broken through again just after dawn the day before. By nightfall most of the lower city was lost. From here, he must watch as cartloads of plunder trundled toward the black ships in the harbor, and crowds of captives—his people—driven like cattle among them.

  Korin had proven worthless in the field. Rheynaris had remained at his side, feeding him commands until an arrow felled him just after midday. With fewer than a thousand defenders left, Korin had retreated to the Palatine and was endeavoring to hold the gates. A few other regiments were still fighting somewhere below, but not enough to stem the tide. Enemy soldiers by the thousands hemmed the Palatine in, battering at the gates and hurling flaming sacks of oil-soaked hay over the walls with their catapults. Soldiers and refugees streamed back and forth from the springs and cisterns with buckets, trying to save what they could, but the fires were spreading. Erius could see smoke billowing up from the roof of his New Palace.

  Niryn’s Harriers had fought bravely, but even they were no match for the enemy. Decimated by necromancers, felled in the streets by sword or shaft, the survivors broke and scattered. There were also reports of rebel Skalan wizards, who had appeared mysteriously the day before. These were confusing; according to Niryn, the wizards attacked his own, rather than the enemy. Other witnesses insisted that these same traitors had fought for Skala. They were said to command fire, water, even great packs of rats.
Niryn gave no credence to such tales. No Skalan wizard had such powers.

  Erius had watched the northern roads all day. It was too soon to hope, even if Tobin had reached Atyion alive, but he couldn’t help looking, all the same.

  He couldn’t help missing Rhius; his old friend seemed to haunt him now, mocking him. If his old Companion still lived, the might of Atyion would already be with Ero now, strong enough to turn the tide. But Rhius had failed him, turned traitor, and only a stripling boy was left to fetch Solari.

  Dusk came, and darkness, and still there was no sign, no word by rider or pigeon. Refusing the drysian’s draughts, Erius sent everyone away and kept his vigil alone.

  He was dozing by the window when he heard the door open. The lamps had guttered out, but the fires below cast enough light for him to make out the slight figure standing just inside the door.

  Erius’ heart sank. “Tobin, how are you back so soon? Were you turned back on the road?”

  “No, Uncle, I went to Atyion,” Tobin whispered, walking slowly toward him

  “But you couldn’t have! There’s been no time. And where are your troops?”

  “They will come, Uncle.” Tobin was standing over him now, face hidden by shadow, and suddenly Erius felt a terrible coldness.

  The boy leaned down and touched his shoulder. The chill spread through Erius, numbing him like poison.

  When Tobin leaned closer and the light caught his face at last, Erius could not move or cry out.

  “Oh, they will come,” Brother hissed, letting the horrified man see his true face. “But not for you, old man. They come for my sister’s sake.”

  Paralyzed, Erius stared uncomprehendingly at the monstrous thing standing there. The air shimmered and the bloody specter of his sister appeared beside it, stroking the rotting head with motherly affection. Only then did he understand, and it was already too late. His fingers clenched convulsively around his sword hilt as Brother stopped his heart.

  Later, Korin would have to break his father’s fingers to free it from his dead hand.

  Chapter 54

  Swans. White swans flying in pairs against an impossibly blue sky.

  Tobin sat up, heart pounding, unsure what room this was.

  Atyion. My parents’ room.

  The bed hangings were pulled back, and a misty dawn was brightening outside the window. Curled up between Tobin’s feet, Ringtail bared his teeth in a great yawn, then began to purr.

  “Ki?”

  The other side of the enormous bed was smooth, the pillows plump and undented.

  Tobin climbed out and surveyed the large chamber with rising concern. There was no pallet or servant’s alcove and no sign of Ki at all. Where could he be? Tobin headed for the door but a fleeting image in the tall looking glass caught and held him.

  There she was at last, that stranger who’d looked at him from Lhel’s spring. Tobin stepped closer, caught between shock and wonder. The stranger did the same, a tall, awkward, frightened-looking girl in a long linen nightdress. They shared the scar on their chins, and the pink wisdom mark on their left forearms.

  Tobin slowly pulled the shirt up. The body wasn’t so different, still all whipcord and angles, except for the small breasts that swelled just below the crusted wound. But lower down—

  Some thoughtful servant had left the chamber pot in plain sight by the bed. Tobin just made it and collapsed on hands and knees, retching dryly.

  The spasm passed and she forced herself back to the mirror. Ringtail twined around her bare ankles. She picked him up, hugging him close.

  “That’s me. I’m Tamír now,” she whispered to the cat. Her face was not so different, a little softer, perhaps, but still plain and unremarkable except for the intense blue eyes. Someone had washed away the last bits of ragged skin and brushed it from her hair. It hung in smooth black waves around her face; she tried to imagine it braided with ribbons and pearls.

  “No!” Fleeing the mirror again, she looked in vain for her clothes. She went to the closest wardrobe and threw it open. Her mother’s velvets and silks caught the morning light. Slamming the door, she went to the next wardrobe and pulled on one of her father’s dusty tunics, but it was too large. Yanking it off, she took a black cloak from its peg and wrapped herself in that instead.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she rushed to the door to find Ki.

  She nearly fell over him. He was dozing on a pallet just outside, sitting with his back to the wall and his chin on his chest. Her headlong rush woke him. Two soldiers standing guard snapped to attention and saluted, but she ignored them.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” she demanded, hating the unfamiliar timbre of her voice. Just now it sounded rather shrill.

  “Tob!” Ki scrambled up. “I—That is, it didn’t seem proper—”

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “We weren’t sure what you’d want.”

  “What I’d want? My clothes, damn it. The ones I arrived in!”

  Ki turned to the nearest guard and stammered out, “Send word to Steward Lytia that Tob—that the princess—that Tamír wants the clothes that were washed.”

  Tobin pulled Ki into the chamber and slammed the door. “I’m Tobin, Ki! It’s still me, isn’t it?”

  Ki managed a sickly grin. “Well, yes and no. I mean, I know it’s still you, but—Well, Bilairy’s balls, Tob! I don’t know what to think.”

  The confusion in his eyes fed her growing fear. “Is that why you slept in the corridor?”

  Ki shrugged. “How would it look, me crawling into bed with a princess?”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “It’s what you are.”

  Tobin turned away, but Ki caught her and clasped her by the shoulders. “It’s who you have to be. Arkoniel had a long talk with Tharin and me while you slept. It’s a lot to take in and I don’t think it’s fair the way everything happened, but here we are and there’s no going back.” He slid his hands down her arms to clasp her hands, and she shivered at the touch.

  Ki didn’t seem to notice. “It’s worse for you than me, I know, but it’s still damn hard,” he told her, the anguish clear in his face. “I’m still your friend, Tob. You know I am. I’m just not so clear on what that’s going to mean.”

  “It means the same as always,” Tobin shot back, gripping his hands. “You’re my first friend—my best friend—and my sworn squire. That doesn’t change. I don’t care what anyone thinks! They can call me anything they like, but I’m still Tobin to you, right?”

  A soft knock interrupted them and Lytia came in with Tobin’s clothes over her arm. “Tharin sends word that the first troops are assembled. I took the liberty of searching the castle treasury for suitable armor, since you had to leave yours behind. I’ll send it up as soon as it’s been cleaned, and some breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “None of that, now.” Lytia shook a finger at her. “I’m not to let you out of this room before you both have something to eat. And what about a bath? I washed you as well as I could while you slept, but if you’d like a tub carried up, I’ll order it.”

  Tobin blushed. “No. Tell Tharin I need to speak with him, please. And Arkoniel, too.”

  “Very good, Highness.”

  As soon as she was gone Tobin pulled off the nightshirt and began to dress. She was in the midst of lacing her breeches when she noticed that Ki had turned away. His ears were scarlet.

  Straightening up, she threw her shoulders back. “Look at me, Ki.”

  “No, I—”

  “Look at me!”

  He turned, and she could tell he was trying hard not to stare at her small, pointed breasts. “I didn’t ask for this body, but if I have to live with it, then so do you.”

  He groaned. “Don’t, Tob. Please don’t do this to me.”

  “Do what?”

  Ki looked away again. “You can’t understand. Just—cover yourself, will you?”

  Shaken, Tobin pulled on her tunic an
d looked around for her boots. The room blurred and she sank down on the bed, choking back tears. Ringtail jumped into her lap and bumped his head under her chin. Ki sat beside her and put an arm around her, but the embrace felt awkward, and that hurt, too.

  “I’m your friend, Tob. I always will be. But it will be different and I’m just as scared as you are. Not being able to share a bed, or even be alone together anymore—I don’t know how I’ll stand it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that!”

  “Of course it does. I hate it, but it does.” His voice was gentle now, and sad in a way she’d never heard before. “You’re a girl, a princess, and I’m man-grown, not some little page who can sleep at your feet like—like this cat here.”

  It was true, and she knew it. Suddenly shy, she took his hand again and held it tight. Her own was still brown, but her palm had lost much of its roughness in the transformation. “I’ll have to build up those calluses all over again,” she said, her voice too high, too unsteady.

  “That shouldn’t take long. Ahra’s always felt like old boot leather. Remember her, and all those women who met you yesterday. You’re still a warrior, just like they are.” He kneaded her upper arm and grinned. “Nothing lost there. You can still break Alben’s fingers for him, if you need to.”

  Tobin gave him a grateful nod, then pushed Ringtail off and stood up. Offering him her hand, she said, “You’re still my squire, Ki. I’m going to hold you to that. I need you with me.”

  Ki stood and clasped with her. “Close as your shadow.”

  With that, the world seemed to settle back into place, at least for the moment. Tobin glanced at the brightening window in annoyance. “Why did they let me sleep so long?”

  “You didn’t give us much choice. You hadn’t slept in a couple of days, and then what with all that last night? It really knocked you over. Tharin said to let you rest while he mustered the garrison. We’d have had to wait anyway. I’m surprised you’re on your feet at all.”