by Sharon Lee
Ramendysis threw his working at the rising leviathan, blasting the creature with unformed bursts of power. He might as well have been throwing water balloons, for all the attention it paid to him.
He was still hurling great gobbets of power down the beast’s throat when the mighty jaws closed around him, and the whale crashed back into the sea.
Water geysered, swamping us. The batwing reared, wings working. I slipped, grabbed, lost the flask, but somehow kept my seat.
We dare not hope that this will keep him any longer than the other, the batwing panted. What now?
The night crackled with possibility; distracting and delectable tidbits of power drew my eye, and I felt—bloated, too big for my skin. I blinked and looked down at my hands, gloved fingers gripping the dusky mane, blue flames dancing merrily along the leather, illuminating the intricate embroidery.
Even as I watched, the flames faded, and I was comfortable inside my skin once more—if terror and exhaustion could be said to equal “comfort.”
The plan bloomed then, like a dark and wondrous flower, and I knew what had to be done.
“House,” I said, my voice rasping and raw.
Wings snapped against the pregnant air, and we rose toward the stars.
Attend me. The batwing’s thought was strained. The sea will not hold the Storm Lord long. We cannot outrun him. A plan would be—
“House,” I repeated, and hauled on its mane, yanking it toward Heath Hill and the snake’s nest of power enclosing Joe Nemeier’s abomination of a house. “No time to lose.”
THIRTY-NINE
Thursday, April 27
Googin Rock lay black and baleful in the restless sea; its bladed surface slick and sullen.
I slid off the batwing’s back and dropped to my knees on the glassy knob, the outgoing waves lapping, ice cold, over wrists and legs.
I closed my eyes, the better to see the wall I had built. A wall of sheer willpower, with me on one side and all the power I had drunk on the other. It was not an optimum arrangement, and it wasn’t going to last long.
I just hoped it would last long enough.
This is not, the batwing said, its thought coruscating against the breeze, a very good plan.
I leaned hard on my hands, feeling the rock through leather-covered palms.
“You have a better,” I managed, wincing away from the resonance of my words, “plan?”
There was a pause, during which I touched time and drew my will along its delicate strings, watching the notes as they thrummed across the waters.
No. The batwing’s voice recalled me from my game.
“Right, then,” I said, struggling to keep the words flat; uninformed by power. “You’d better go.”
No, the batwing repeated. I saw it lift in the darkness, and settle carefully amid the blades directly behind me. It folded its wings, and shook its mane into order. I saw all this without turning my head. The power showed it to me. Just as the power showed me the turmoil on the ocean’s floor and the belch of brimstone storming toward the surface.
If the Ozali can absorb your gift? the batwing asked. What plan, then, Kaederon?
There was no other plan. This was my best shot: Overload Ramendysis with jikinap and watch as his head finally and oh-so-deservedly exploded. If the plan failed—
Power shattered the star-shot night. Lightning ran my blood, rising to meet and join with itself, bearing me along like storm wrack, all I could see was blare and blaze.
Flowers filled my vision, and a running carpet of springtime green. A gull laughed, peepers sang; waves stroked the shore.
I gasped, reached out and wrapped myself around the land like a kid clutching a teddy bear.
Out by Blunt Island, a waterspout rose.
I might have screamed. Certainly, I wanted to. The wind whipped, lightning stitched the sky, thunder crashed.
I held my breath, the land a comfort at the back of my power-dazzled mind.
A wave broke hard over the Rock, sudden as a gunshot. Mist swirled, but not so much that I couldn’t see the figure kneeling on the broken surface below me—and now was my chance.
Power smoked my blood, rising fast, hungry and hateful. I raised my hands, and threw it—all of it—at that quiet, kneeling figure.
The blare of power burned away the mist, igniting the air like a meteor—
No! screamed the batwing, but I had already seen—it wasn’t Ramendysis kneeling there—
It was Borgan.
I flung my will after the bolt of jikinap, desperate, not caring that it burned as I snatched it back—snatched too little back.
My power struck him mid-chest, burning, toothy, and full of malice. I saw his eyes widen, that was all, then he was down, a dark huddle among the stony knives.
The sea went still.
“No,” I said. Shivering, I got my feet under me on the glassy rock. “No.”
The land whined like an abandoned hound; behind me I heard hooves clatter against stone. Down among the stone blades, a dust devil swirled into being beside the still huddle that had been Borgan, and just as suddenly died, leaving Ramendysis behind.
He held a leather jacket negligently in one hand, and he was smiling.
“Well done, Princess Kaederon,” he said, and bowed.
He made a marvelous target, standing there, so near I couldn’t possibly miss. If I had any power left me—but I’d given everything that I had to Borgan.
Ramendysis dropped the jacket—one more rag onto the heap—and stepped forward until he was at the base of the center hump on which I uncertainly stood.
“Yield,” he said, just an ordinary word, drawing its power from old horror, and present despair.
“No,” I said, and reached beneath my jacket, snatching Mam’selle free of her nestle against my backbone and throwing her in one motion.
She tumbled once, and buried herself in the center of Ramendysis’ chest; a true strike, even in the Land of the Flowers.
Ramendysis laughed.
“Stupid child. I can no more be broken by the toys of this sorry land than Prince Borgan could resist the call of his skin.”
He extended one long, white hand, not even bothering to pull Mam’selle from her resting place. There was no blood.
“Yield.”
My stomach cramped, bile rising. I averted my eyes, but that was no better, because there on the broken surface was Borgan, dead by my hand. A warrior in white leathers crouched beside him, loon tucked into the crook of an arm.
He met my eyes, and in the eerie silence made by the absence of waves, I knew what I had to do.
I turned back to Ramendysis, and held my hand out to him.
“I yield,” I said, “and freely give everything that I am.”
Kaederon! the batwing screamed, but it was too late.
Ramendysis had already taken my hand.
I smiled, and relaxed my will, allowing the peculiar virtue of this, my Land, to fill me utterly, and flow to our enemy.
* * *
The land buoyed me, submerged me, fragmented me. I was the beach, and the leading edge of the shore, yearning for the caress of the absent waves. I was Googin Rock, sullen and dangerous. I was pebble, thorn, and sand. I was every living thing that set roots in the land, and every living thing that moved upon it. I was the tourists in their beds, the trenvay at their service, the plover on their nests. I was a calico cat slinking toward home; I was the warrior in his white leathers, kneeling among the broken knives of his vanquished foes.
Briefly, I was Kate Archer, shivering in the chill air, fingers crushed in a blazing hot grip. I had eyes, and I opened them, saw jikinap rising up to the stars like sea mist, and the blood, rich and red, staining the front of Ramendysis’ robe.
* * *
It was something of a shock to open my eyes and take in pale sky laced with dawn fog. Waves plashed near at hand, and hissed along the sand. Somewhere, a gull shouted good morning.
“There, she’s coming around now,�
� said a deep comfortable voice.
Breath-caught, I turned my head. Borgan was lounging within arm’s reach, his head propped on his fist and his face drawn with exhaustion.
“ ’Mornin’, Kate. You were right about that jacket.”
“I would have rather been wrong,” I told him truthfully. “Where’s Ramendysis?”
“He has,” came an accented, murmuring voice that seemed eerily familiar, even though I was pretty sure I’d never heard it before. “I believe that he has become Changed.”
“That had been the plan,” I allowed. “But—don’t you know?”
“Little Ozali, I do not.”
Ice ran my backbone. I rolled to my knees in the sand, and stared at the lady seated on a drift log. She smiled, displaying dainty fangs. Seated as she was, still she was tall, her dark skin iridescent in the borning light.
They probably heard the penny drop in Bangor.
“I wouldn’t,” I said delicately, “be addressing the Opal of Dawn, by any chance?”
The smile widened, and she shook her silver hair back, revealing a narrow face tapering to a pointed chin; her eyes a milky, sightless blue.
“You are, indeed.” She inclined her head. “I will not forget, Princess Kaederon. Come to me, when your duties allow. And bring your rogue of a grandfather.”
“Not sticking around?” I asked.
“I think not,” she answered. “Now that the threat to Daknowyth has been retired, I ought return and take up duty.”
She rose as if she were leaving immediately and shook out her dappled robes.
“What an extraordinary Land this is,” she said, and bowed. “Princess Kaederon. Prince Borgan. Long may your powers delight you.”
The mist thickened slightly, then blew apart.
I was alone on the beach with Borgan.
“Nice lady,” he said. I laughed—or at least I tried to; it came out kind of choked and mangled.
“I thought I’d killed you,” I said.
“Near thing,” he answered with a tired smile. “Pulled your punch at the last, though.”
“Ramendysis,” I began—and stopped when he shook his head.
“He’s Changed, all right. Changed from being so full of power he was barely alive, back to the man he might’ve been. Your lady knife made a difference to him, then.”
I felt a rush of relief—of liberation—so vast that I think I could’ve flown at that moment, if I’d’ve had the wits to spread my wings. As it was, I blinked a couple of times, clearing the tears out of my eyes, and brought my attention back to Borgan.
“You look like hell,” I said, after I’d studied him a long moment.
He laughed, kind of breathy and thin.
“I just guess that I do,” he agreed, and sighed. “I’d best be getting in, if you’ll lend a hand and a shoulder?”
“Sure.” I came to my feet, surprised at how light and limber I felt, held my hand down and braced myself.
He levered himself to his feet, moving slower and more carefully than usual, his grip not as firm as I’d like. When he was upright, I moved closer, and he put his hand on my shoulder, leaning like he meant it.
“Where’s Gray Lady?” I asked, as we moved down toward the waves.
“She’s to dock,” he said. “I’ll just go into the water here, Kate. You might not see me for a day or six.”
“I’ll see you after, though?”
He smiled. “Oh, aye. You’ll see me after. The land and the sea, you know—there’s no keeping ’em apart.”
I nodded, and walked with him into the surf.
“See you,” I said.
“Soon,” he answered, and waded out into the breakers. When he was waist deep, a wave broke over his head, and he was gone.
FORTY
Thursday, April 27
The trees let me in with a welcoming murmur, and opened a path to the Center.
Gran and Mr. Ignat’ were sitting on the ground, their backs against the ancient tupelo tree, Arbalyr roosting, head under wing, on the branch over their heads.
Mr. Ignat’ saw me first; he touched Gran on the shoulder, and helped her to her feet.
“Everything all right here?” I asked, embracing her. She’d lost weight, but when I touched her tree with my thought, I found no sign of blight.
“We’ll be a little while mending,” Gran said. “You can handle the carousel?”
“Been doing it this long,” I said, like it had been nothing. There would be time for stories over the long winter.
“Good,” she said, and cupped my face in her hands. “I’m glad you came home, Katie.”
“Me, too,” I said, truthfully.
A rustle brought my head around, as Mr. Ignat’ stepped ’round the tree, a careful arm around the waist of a frail woman wearing the tattered dress of House Aeronymous.
Vivid green eyes touched my face and she held out a painfully thin hand.
“Katie,” she said, and her voice was as sure as her smile. “How you’ve grown.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Lee has been married to her first husband for more than half her lifetime; she is a friend to cats, a member of the National Carousel Association, and oversees the dubious investment schemes of an improbable number of stuffed animals.
Despite having been born in a year of the dragon, Sharon is an introvert. She lives in Maine because she likes it there. In fact, she likes it so much that she has written three novels set in Maine; mysteries Barnburner and Gunshy, and Carousel Tides.
With the aforementioned first husband, Steve Miller, Sharon has written seventeen novels of science fiction and fantasy—many of them set in the Liaden Universe®—and numerous short stories. She has occasionally been an advertising copywriter, a reporter, photographer, book reviewer, and secretary. She was for three years Executive Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., and was subsequently elected vice president and then president of that organization.
