by Tanya Huff
Slowly, Crystal pulled herself from Tayer’s nerveless fingers, and walked forward until she stood within the shadow of the massive creature. Then she turned and faced her parents.
Whatever protests they might have made washed away in the flood of radiance from her eyes. For the first time in eleven years, they were forced to confront who her father had been; not the mortal man who’d loved and raised her but an enchanted being of power and light. Still, Mikhail might have found the strength to deny it had the child not raised her eyes to his. Once before he had looked into the other world they showed and that time, as this, he’d admitted defeat. His angry questions choked off and became a pained nod.
Tayer dropped to her knees and held wide her arms. Crystal hesitated a moment then ran to her mother’s embrace. The light poured from them both and Mikhail, refusing to look away, was temporarily blinded by it. Then his arms were full of a warm bundle smelling of sunshine and hidden forest groves and the apricot she’d been eating . . . had it been there moments before?
“Don’t worry, Papa,” breathed a quiet voice against his cheek. “I shall take the pony you gave me for my birthday, and I shall remember you, and he shall help me not to be lonely.”
Then his arms were empty and when he could see again, Crystal sat perched on the broad back of the centaur. As the creature turned, the sunlight flashed on a single tear running silver down the gentle curve of her face, and then they were gone.
Tayer, who had been brave for her daughter’s sake, shuddered and turned to face her husband.
“You knew,” he realized suddenly. “You knew that someday this would happen.”
She nodded and her tears scattered to fall like dew upon the roses. “I carried that light beneath my heart,” she said. “I am sorry, my love, but I could never forget she was her father’s daughter.”
Mikhail wordlessly opened his arms, much as Tayer had done, and Tayer, much as Crystal had done, ran into them.
He stroked her hair, marveling at the strength it must have taken to hold such pain within herself for so many years.
“What shall we tell your father?” he asked at last. “The king and the court will have to know something.”
“We will tell them the truth. The truth from the beginning.”
“Will he believe us?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tayer cried, her fingers digging desperately into Mikhail’s arms. “She’s gone.”
* * *
Doan pulled his hood closer around his face and glowered up through the rain at C’Tal. “This’d better be important,” he warned.
The centaur nodded, hair and beard a solid wet mass on shoulders and chest. “It is,” he said. “Else we would not have felt it necessary to call you. You are aware that it is raining?”
“No,” Doan snarled. “I hadn’t noticed.”
C’Tal looked confused. “You had not noticed? But . . .”
“Of course I’d noticed, you overeducated carthorse.” He scanned the area, stomped to a nearby boulder, climbed to the top and sat with an audible squelch from sodden clothes. This put him eye to eye with the centaur. “I’m cold, I’m wet and I’m fast losing what little patience I have. Get to the point.”
“It is raining.” C’Tal held up a massive hand as Doan’s eyes began to glow red. “Please, hear what I have to say. The rain is, as you have said, the point. It has rained here for eight days now. The child is causing it.”
Both Doan’s eyebrows rose until they disappeared beneath the edge of his hood. He held out one gnarled hand, palm up, then brought the captured water to his lips. “I’m impressed,” he said at last. “How?”
The centaur absently scraped at the rock with a front hoof. “She is not even aware that she is doing it. But,” he added, anticipating Doan’s next question, “we are aware and we are sure it is her doing.”
“Just what exactly did she do?”
“Eight days ago, her pony died and in her grief she wept.”
A slow smile spread over Doan’s face. “And the world weeps with her. Sympathetic magic.”
“So we feel also. But she has stopped weeping and the world has not. As this is not something we taught her to do, we are not able to teach her to undo it. This is not something any of the others were ever capable of.”
“Well, they weren’t a very sympathetic lot, were they?”
Great corded muscles stood out along C’Tal’s shoulders and arms and his voice was ice as he replied: “We only teach. We are not responsible for what is done with our teachings.”
Doan slowly rose to his feet and the two ancient powers stood immobile, gazes locked. With a shudder that ran down the length of his body, C’Tal broke away, his head and shoulders slowly bending under the weight of an impossible burden.
“We are not responsible for what is done with our teachings,” he repeated, his voice so low it sounded like the distant rumble of thunder. “We cannot be responsible for the actions of any thinking being. But this time . . .” His head came up and his mighty shoulders squared. “This time we teach where the responsibilities lie.” He snorted, an amazingly horselike sound. “We are no longer so blind as to think the Mother’s Youngest will know this on their own.”
Doan stood a moment longer, then he nodded, once, and abruptly sat. “Which brings us back to the rain. Have you tried to comfort her?”
C’Tal backed up a step, his tail flicking from side to side in short, jerky arcs. “We are not . . .” he began. “That is, we do not ever . . . it is not in us to . . .”
A centaur at a loss for words, Doan thought, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly despite the circumstances. Now that’s something you don’t see every day. Aloud he said, “Let her go home, C’Tal.”
“But her learning has barely begun!”
“Not forever, you idiot; just let her visit.”
“If that is all you can offer, you may return to your caverns. We hone a weapon and time is short.”
“Try to remember that weapon is still a little girl. No, wait!” Doan chopped through whatever C’Tal was trying to say with that staccato command. “You asked for my advice, now listen to it. Responsibility isn’t enough. She’ll never know compassion if she isn’t shown it, nor love either. If you can’t give that to her, take her to someone who can.”
“Emotion is . . .”
“Emotion caused this.” Doan gestured up at the glowering gray sky. “Remember? She’s tapped into something here the Enemy doesn’t have. I don’t know how, maybe it’s her parentage, the Mother knows that’s strange enough, but if she’s to be the key to the Enemy’s Doom she’ll need all the help she can get. Don’t cut her off from this. It may save her life. It may save all our lives.”
C’Tal appeared to be thinking it over. More rain gathered in his hair and beard and began to stream over his motionless body.
“It is possible that you are correct,” he said at last, spun on one hind leg, and galloped away.
“You’re welcome!” Doan snarled as C’Tal’s glistening black haunches disappeared into the distance. A centaur at full gallop moved too fast for the eye to follow. “I don’t envy that child her next few years with those pompous nags,” he muttered, climbing down off the boulder. He scowled as he realized he was wet through, then he smiled suddenly. “Nor,” he declared vindictively, heading for home, “do I envy those overblown horse’s asses their next few years with her.” He snorted. “They’ll remember this rain with fondness if she ever gets mad.”
EIGHT
One moment, all was peace and stillness in the Sacred Grove. The next, the muffled boom of a distant explosion sent Tayer into the sanctuary of Mikhail’s arms. The sound had barely died when there came another. And then another.
In the quiet after the third blast, the birches of the Grove shuddered and swayed, although no wind moved through them.
“
Balls of Chaos,” Mikhail swore softly, holding Tayer safe against his chest. “What was that?”
“The beginning of war,” replied a clear, young voice. “And possibly the end of Ardhan.”
“What . . .” Mikhail’s hand went to his side, groping for his absent sword. Not since his first visit, seventeen years before, had he carried a sword into the Sacred Grove. Not until this instant had he missed it.
But Tayer pulled herself from Mikhail’s grasp and stepped forward eagerly, scanning the circle of trees.
“Crystal?” she called.
The young woman who stepped out from between the birches seemed to have also stepped out of legend. Although barely more than a girl, she stood as tall as Mikhail, sapling slender, and graceful in a way unseen since the Eldest died and her sisters disappeared from mortal sight. Her hair was a white so pure it shone silver and her eyes were the green of new spring leaves flecked lightly with gold.
She was dressed for travel, breeches, tunic, and riding boots all in black, and she looked like a shadow defying the soft sunlight of the Grove.
“Crystal,” Tayer said again and held open her arms.
Crystal went eagerly to the embrace, resting her cheek on her mother’s head with a weary sigh. She had come a very long way in the last few days and she had a disagreeable duty still to perform. This temporary haven was welcome.
Tayer broke away first. She pushed her daughter out to arm’s length and looked her up and down. “Black becomes you,” she said at last with a smile. “But what are you doing home? Have they given you a holiday?”
“No, Mother. My time with the centaurs is done. They sent me to help.”
“Help what, child?” Mikhail asked.
Crystal looked over at her stepfather, her face grim enough to wipe away his smile of greeting. “From the time of the Eldest, through the raids we have fought every harvest, we . . .” She waved a long-fingered hand. “. . . Ardhan, has been part of a most deadly game, put through our paces by Kraydak, the wizard who has controlled the throne of Melac for the last four hundred years.”
“Wizard,” Mikhail grunted, his brows drawing into a golden vee as he considered it. “That would,” he muttered to his memories, “explain a great deal.”
Tayer shook her head. “You must be mistaken, child. The wizards are all long dead.”
“No, not all. Two remain. The sounds you heard were Kraydak’s work.” Crystal paused and took a deep breath, the rest was difficult to say. “We must go back to town at once. The palace and everyone in it has been destroyed. We three are the only survivors of the Royal House of Ardhan. Mother, you are now queen.”
The distant cry of a bird was the only noise as shock, anger, sorrow—a cacophony of emotion—roared through the Grove. But no disbelief. No denial. The truth in Crystal’s voice was stronger than those.
“Everyone?” Tayer asked at last, her eyes wide, her voice trembling.
“Yes, Mother. Everyone.”
Mikhail looked out at Crystal through the numbness that thankfully seemed to be cushioning the despair. “You were in the Grove seconds after the sound died. How can you know what happened?”
“The centaurs foresaw Kraydak’s attack. As I could do nothing to stop it, they sent me here to you.” She looked earnestly at her parents. “Although I’d have tried if there’d been time . . .”
“You could do nothing to stop it?” Mikhail interrupted, a dawning light of understanding showing on his face. “What could you possibly have done?”
Crystal backed up a step, laced her fingers together, and stared down into the pattern.
“I,” she said softly, “am the other wizard.”
* * *
When Tayer, Mikhail, and Crystal brought their lathered horses to a stop in the People’s Square, they were instantly surrounded by terrified men and women. Hands clutched and pulled at their clothing and the horses’ harnesses. Voices wailed, sobbed, and cried out in despair. Tayer and Mikhail sat like statues in the midst of chaos and stared in shock at the smoldering pile of rubble that had been the palace. Even Crystal, who had known what they would face, sat silent and disbelieving.
The blow had been well aimed. The outbuildings—the stables, the barracks, the servants’ quarters—had not been touched. The old palace wall, with its seven new arches opening the palace up to the people, still stood. Only the palace itself had been destroyed. The great hulking stone edifice that had squatted ugly and supreme in the center of King’s City was no more. It looked as if a giant had lifted his massive fist and squashed it flat.
A score of people—those of the Guard who had not been in the building at the time of the attack, as well as nobles, servants, and townsfolk—crawled over the wreckage. In several places, small groups marked another body being lifted clear. On the pile of debris that had once been the West Tower, a girl, no more than ten or twelve years old, crouched and rocked a broken, bloody body in her arms. The body had been so badly crushed it was impossible to tell at a distance if it was male or female, mother or father. The girl’s face was wet with blood from pressing her lips against her grisly burden. Her eyes were wide with shock, staring ahead at nothing. She wailed, a thin high cry, sorrow and fear mixed together. It rose and fell to the cadence of her rocking.
On the very edge of the Square, atop the rubble of what had been the sunroom wall, four bodies lay. Around them stood a Guard of Honor. The guards’ arms were red to the elbow and their uniforms were spattered with blood. Dull crimson stains marked the sheets, that covered, but did not hide, the identities of the four dead.
When Tayer’s anguished eyes Tested on what lay guarded there, she moaned softly and tried to swing off her horse. The mob clung to her in desperation, and she retreated, trapped. Mikhail peeled his hand from the pommel of his sword—it had gone there in a truly useless gesture of defiance when he first saw the destruction—and reached for Tayer’s reins, his intention clear. If the crowd would not let them dismount, then he would force a way through on horseback.
Crystal laid her hand on his arm and, when he turned to look at her, shook her head. She dropped her own reins, took a deep breath, and sang.
If the song had words, no one afterward remembered them. It was more a song of feelings. It was reassurance, security, hope. It was the song a mother hums to her child as she tucks it in at night. It was powerful, universal, calming.
One by one, the crowd quieted as the song poured over them. Some began to weep bitterly, but the panic stilled. Even the young girl stopped wailing and turned to stare at Crystal with wounded eyes.
Crystal’s gaze swept the crowd, resting briefly on each mourner. Not until all who needed it had drawn strength from the green fire of her eyes did she stop singing. The breezes carried the melody for a few seconds more, then they too were still.
Mikhail swung down to the pavement, the creaking of his saddle leather sounding unnaturally loud. He held up his arms to Tayer. She collapsed into them, paused for an instant in the security of his embrace, then, keeping a tight grip on his hand, started the long walk to the edge of the Square. The people parted to let them through.
When she reached the bodies, Tayer knelt and lifted the edge of the sheet. They were all there: her father, the King, Davan and Eyrik, her brothers, and Savell, Davan’s pregnant wife. She brushed a lock of hair out of Savell’s eyes and gently lowered the fabric, wiping her bloody hand on her skirt.
“Majesty?” a merchant asked quietly, his words falling into the silence like stones into water. “What are we to do?”
Tayer looked up at her daughter, but Crystal had banked the fire in her eyes and had no answer. She looked at Mikhail but he merely shook his head. The message was clear. Tayer was now queen. The choice must be hers.
The queen searched for her voice and forced it past her grief. To her surprise it neither quavered nor shook although it was husky with the tears that
streamed down her face.
“We will bury our dead and we will prepare for war.”
War. Of all those in the Square, only Crystal did not recoil from the word. Her eye had been caught by the glint of sunlight on red-gold curls and she stared in horrified fascination at the man beneath them who stood at the edge of the crowd. It wasn’t his beauty she marked, nor that his sapphire robes were clean and unstained by blood or grime. It was the fact that in the full light of the afternoon sun, he cast no shadow.
Aware of the scrutiny, he smiled up at her, raised one hand in a mocking salute, and faded slowly away. The breeze carried the sound of his laughter.
* * *
“Crystal?”
She turned slowly from the window. The voice was not one she knew, but the face hovered on the edge of memory. She searched until she found a name to fit it.
“Bryon?”
The tall, dark-haired young man flashed a dazzling smile and made an elegant leg. “At your command.”
Crystal stared in amazement.
“Bryon?” she repeated.
Bryon gracefully straightened up.
“Ah,” he said. “I see you’re puzzled. After all, it’s been six years, how could you be expected to recognize me?” He leaned closer. “I’ll let you in on the secret.” His lips hovered at the edge of her ear and his breath was a warm breeze on her cheek. “I’ve gotten taller.”
Crystal backed away.
“So have you.” Bryon nodded solemnly, but his gray eyes danced. It didn’t seem to bother him that the startlingly lovely creature his old playmate had grown into had a slight advantage in height.
Crystal—who had almost ceased to think of time, for the centaurs having all of eternity never bothered with it—was suddenly aware of just how long those six years had been. This was the grubby companion of her childhood? This handsome courtier with the disarming smile who was planting warm kisses on the palm of her hand . . . who was planting warm kisses on the palm of her hand? She snatched her hand away.
