Wizard of the Grove

by Tanya Huff

  Jago rose and took her other hand between both of his. “I also,” he told her.

  Crystal’s lower lip trembled and she blinked rapidly.

  “Idiot,” Raulin said tenderly, and drew her into his arms.

  The centaurs wrought better than they will ever believe, Sokoji thought. And I hope I am there when this wizard-child comes to believe it herself.

  Later that day, while Crystal and the giant were deep in discussion, Jago went to his brother and demanded an explanation.

  Raulin looked up from the harness he mended—Crystal’s method of releasing the buckles had turned them into slag—and raised both brows. “An explanation of what?” he asked.

  “Don’t give me that, brother, you’ve never been good at hiding what you feel. Why no response to Crystal’s conversation with Lord Death?”

  “I gave her the only response I had.”

  Jago snorted.

  Raulin sighed. “Look, Jago, you’re a complicated man, I’m not. I’m her lover and her friend, but I’ve never fooled myself that I’m her love. In a lot of ways, you’re closer to her than I am.” He shrugged and reached for his dagger. The metal wouldn’t pry free, he’d have to cut the leather. “As for this morning, well, I don’t see as it changes anything. I’ll share her bed for as long as she’ll have me and when it’s over, I’ll thank the Mother-creator that I knew her.”

  “I thought you loved her . . .”

  “Of course I do. So do you. And she loves us both.” He grinned and winked. “Although in different ways. But there’s too much to her for just you and me. We couldn’t hold her and we shouldn’t try to. Close your mouth now, and pass me the repair kit.”

  Jago did as he was bid and then picked up the other harness. “I guess I underestimated you,” he said, turning the straps over in his hands.

  “I guess you did,” Raulin agreed. “You forgot, I’ve got hidden depths.” He looked smug. “It’s why I always get the girls.”

  “They feel sorry for you,” corrected Jago, ducking a wild backhand, and more relieved than he could say that when Crystal finally found her own heart she wouldn’t be breaking Raulin’s.

  That evening, just before the sky grew dark enough for stars, the wer came with their answer. Only Beth, Jason, and their daughter actually entered the camp, but it didn’t take wizard-sight to spot the rest out under the trees.

  Her head high, Beth ignored everyone but Crystal. She walked across the clearing as if she owned it. The baby rode in a sling across her chest and she kept one arm curled protectively around it. The other arm hung by her side, hand resting on Jason’s head. She stopped in front of the wizard and gray eyes looked fearlessly into green.

  Raulin stepped up to stand behind Crystal’s right shoulder, facing the great black wolf.

  Jason growled.

  Raulin growled back.

  From that moment on, they ignored each other.

  “Have you come to a decision?” Crystal asked, trying desperately not to laugh.

  “We have.” Beth’s mouth twitched as well. She took a deep breath to steady herself, during which time Crystal also gained control. “Will you heal us, wizard?” she asked simply.

  Crystal nodded. “I will.”

  “There are three other packs . . .”

  “Them too.”

  “They can be here in a quartermoon.”

  “Then in a quartermoon, no female wer will be at the mercy of the changes again. I will heal all of you then.”

  The sling wriggled and a tiny fist fell free to flail in the air, turning to a tiny paw as it waved.

  “Get down, Jason,” Beth admonished as his nose got in her way. She tucked the arm in safely, and looked back to Crystal. “Thank you,” she said. For my life and my daughter’s, not what you may, or may not, do in a quartermoon. Then she turned and they walked away from the camp.

  * * *

  During the week of waiting, Crystal spent a lot of time with Sokoji. The giant’s presence calmed the goddesses, lessening the constant struggle to keep them confined. They discussed the healing and once Crystal went into the trees and told the startled sentry she needed to talk with a woman who knew how wer children learned to change.

  Beth’s grandmother answered the summons, her womanshape so wrapped in leather and fur she could barely walk. She eased herself down by the fire and accepted the offered mug of tea.

  “Yes, it’d be damned uncomfortable to change, dressed like this,” she said in answer to Crystal’s startled expression, “but at my age emotions know their place.” Her face creased as she thought of two babies born dead. “Now it no longer matters, I change when I want. You got any honey for this tea?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jago told her, “we’re out.”

  “I’m sorry too. Tea without honey is an abomination.” She sipped, made a face, and decided the warmth made up for the taste. “You wanted to know how the children change?”

  As Crystal had suspected, the random changes were necessary in the young, giving the parents a way to teach with stimuli, a sudden cuff snapping the child into the desired form. Only with the female’s first heat, did it become dangerous.

  Raulin and Jago occupied themselves with butchering a young buck Eli and his hunters dragged into the camp.

  “We don’t want you hunting on our land,” the wer snarled, “and anything you intend to waste, return to us.”

  “Very gracious,” muttered Raulin.

  “Very,” Jago agreed.

  But they were careful to return what they couldn’t use to the pack.

  The weather held, cold and clear, and the quartermoon passed.

  * * *

  Crystal stood, silver and ivory in the moonlight, surrounded by wer. Of the three hundred gathered, less than one hundred were female; Beth and Jason’s daughter the only child.

  “Is this all of you?” she asked, when they had settled into place and the only movement was the slap of tails on snow.

  “No.” A young woman stood shivering in the cold. “My sister has reached the time of no changes and could not travel.” She looked as though she wanted to add something, then shook her head and flowed back into wolfshape.

  So few, Crystal thought sadly. If only she had done this sooner. If only they had come to her, asked for her help—but they were too blinded by hate to consider it. As far as the wer were concerned, the wizards were the pain givers and her defeat of Kraydak did not erase the fact that she was a wizard. She sighed, grieving for all the lost ones, then reached for her power and began to sing. Her hair fanned out around her, the moonlight dancing down each strand.

  The wer pricked up their ears and waited.

  Crystal’s eyes began to glow a deep summer’s green as she poured power into her voice. She felt Sholah join her, merge with her, and the song changed as the goddess’ wisdom gave it form. As it spread, radiating outward, Crystal spread herself with it, becoming a part of the power, becoming, in a way, both the singer and the song.

  For an instant, the females listening heard not with their ears but with their hearts, and during that instant Crystal’s power touched them and remade the fatal flaw.

  The power built until the air thrummed with it and still Crystal sang.

  The song changed again. Crystal began to reach. All the females of the wer had been her promise, not all but one.

  The wer were forced to avert their eyes, so brightly did she reflect the moonlight.

  From the sister, she picked up the blood tie and followed it back over the mountains. Back. Back. Her power stretched, thinned; she began to pull from the barriers. There! The thought patterns of the wer were unmistakable. She touched the woman gently. The barriers wavered. She could feel Zarsheiy waiting for them to fall.

  The woman started, perhaps sensing the wizard’s touch, and the change began.

  Crysta
l stopped the change, held it, and reached for power to complete the healing.

  The barriers fell.

  FREE! Zarsheiy surged forward.

  And slammed into a wall of darkness.

  The wer are mine. Nashawryn’s cold voice filled Crystal’s head, cutting through Zarsheiy’s screams of frustration. Feared by mortals, hunters in the night; I give them my protection. Finish what you have begun, wizard, I stand by you.

  Crystal reached again for power and found, even still linked with Sholah, that no power remained for her to tap, it was all tied up in the other goddesses. The other goddesses . . .

  Keeping a careful hold on the change, Crystal slid into the woman’s mind searching for the love she held for the child she carried.

  Clever, murmured Avreen, and gave up the portion of power she controlled.

  The song finished.

  Crystal let her body pull her home.

  TEN

  From where Lord Death stood, the figures grouped around the sleigh were tiny. Even Sokoji appeared no more than two or three inches high. He watched the giant reach down and lift the sleigh over a rocky ledge and frowned. She was the reason he watched from so far away. Unlike Crystal and the mortal, who could see him only if he wished it—although if one did, they both did—the Elder Races, so close in creation to the Mother, could see him whether he liked it or not. And he did not like it, for Sokoji always drew his presence to Crystals attention. Which meant he had to appear to her as well. . . .

  Which meant they talked. . . .

  And every conversation seemed to skirt dangerous topics; his feelings, her feelings, their feelings. And every conversation had Jago and the giant listening in, drawing conclusions, trying to bring into the open that which he preferred to have remain hidden.

  So now he took the coward’s way and watched from a distance.

  Crystal laughed at something Jago said, and Lord Death ground his teeth. Once, he remembered with a bitter smile, he’d encouraged her to spend time with mortals. Had, in fact, given her Jago’s life and with it Raulin’s gratitude. And now, Jago gave her the companionship she used to share with him, and Raulin . . . He looked down at his hands. Raulin gave her the one thing he never could. Even Sokoji placed one more life between them; another living creature, to listen and to help.

  “If it was just the two of us again,” he murmured at the wizard’s distant figure. He could tell her then. If when he finished speaking she didn’t have another pair of arms to turn to that were not his nor ever could be.

  He no longer wondered what madness had directed him when he said he would answer her call. He had named it the night she’d risked everything and healed the wer because he had asked her to.

  “I am Death,” he told a passing breeze. And I am in love. And it hurts. He sighed and shook his head. “This is your doing, Father,” he added aloud. The one true son of the Mother had been fathered by Chaos but never throughout the millennia since his birth had he felt so chaotic.

  * * *

  In midafternoon, between one moment and the next, the world turned gray and almost all the light vanished. Close objects took on a sharp-edged clarity and distant ones disappeared into a merging of snow and sky. For an instant, everything fell completely still, waiting, then the wind came up in strong and random gusts that whipped Crystal’s hair about and threatened to knock the mortals off their feet.

  “There,” Sokoji pointed. “The best I think we have time to find.”

  There, was a small triangular cut in the mountain, about ten feet deep and almost that across its open end. It offered protection on three sides from the coming storm.

  “I think you’re right,” Raulin agreed, squinting against a sudden flurry of snow. “Let’s move, people.”

  They secured the sleigh across the open end, for only by wizardry could they have fit it inside. By the time they’d wrestled up the shelter, anchoring it firmly within the mountain, the world had turned white and the air was solid with snow.

  “Will you be all right out here?” Crystal yelled at Sokoji above the shriek of the wind.

  “Of course I will, child.” The giant folded her legs and settled herself comfortably against the rock wall. She pulled a hat out of her pocket and tugged it on. It looked like a bright red bird’s nest overturned on her head. “I shall sit here and think.” Brushing the already accumulated snow off her lap, she linked her hands and stilled.

  Crystal reached out and patted the giant’s knee affectionately.

  “Hey, come on!” Raulin grabbed Crystal’s shoulders and spun her about. “Get inside before you get buried. Or lost.”

  “Lost?” They took the three steps across the cut, from the giant to the shelter, together. “How could I get lost?”

  “Storms are tricky.” He pushed her to her knees and held open the outer flap. “Get turned around and the next thing you know you wander off and freeze to death.”

  Crystal smiled, shook her head, and crawled inside, Raulin close behind. Before he ducked in, he noted that the sleigh, at the very edge of the windbreak provided by the mountain, had become a shapeless white blob and the giant, although as much out of the storm as possible, could barely be seen.

  Because they’d brought in most of their gear, the usually snug shelter could only be described as cramped.

  “How about cozy?” Crystal asked, when Raulin did just that after contorting himself around various bundles and into a sitting position.

  Raulin only growled and tried to discover what was poking him in the back. Enough soft, silver light came from Crystal’s hair for him to see her pulling their teapot out of a pack.

  She tossed it in his lap. “Fill this with snow, would you, please.”

  He did, and even though he carefully snaked his arm out between the two flaps, a small eddy of snow found the opening and danced inside. Crystal clicked her tongue and danced it back out.

  She slid against Jago, set the full teapot Raulin handed her in front of her on the floor, muttered something at it, and dumped a package of tea in the now boiling water.

  “Should you be using your power like that?” asked Jago, twisting around and digging out the mugs.

  Crystal ducked his elbow and caught the teapot before it could spill. “I can’t see as it’ll hurt. Zarsheiy seems happier when her aspect is being used; it’s when she gets bored that she tries to make a run for it.”

  And she hates being talked about as if she isn’t there.

  Then maybe she shouldn’t listen, Crystal responded to the goddess’ complaint.

  By rearranging a number of the packs, and intertwining two or three legs, they managed to achieve positions where they could both drink their tea and be reasonably happy doing it. Body heat had warmed the shelter to a satisfying temperature, so damp outer coats were removed and piled against the entrance as an added protection from drafts. Crystal had muted the sound of the storm and, although an occasional gust shook the felt and canvas walls, in their island of comfort and safety, it had become vaguely unreal.

  They ate a small meal—more for something to do than from hunger.

  “We need more room,” groused Raulin as they finished, stretching out long legs and almost kicking Jago in the stomach.

  You’d have more room if you’d lie down, Avreen suggested. And more still if you . . .

  Shut up, Avreen! But she passed on the suggestion, minus the corollary, to the brothers.

  Raulin added the corollary on his own and, with a deep sigh, Jago offered to go sit in the storm until they finished.

  Crystal smacked them both.

  The amount of squirming necessary to spread out the bedrolls with three adults taking up the space where the bedrolls had to go was impressive but, with only a minor bit of wizardry, they were finally spread.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” panted Jago, pulling off his jack
et and folding it into a pillow, “but that exhausted me.” He collapsed backward, then bounced up again quickly, apologizing for nearly crushing Crystal’s elbow.

  She only smiled and snuggled her back against Raulin’s front, head pillowed on his forearm. Her eyes began to close. Jago lay down more carefully the second time, bending where necessary to fit. Because of the packs, the three of them were close. Very close.

  “I hate to disillusion you, Raulin,” Jago said dryly, “but that’s my wrist you’re stroking.”

  Eventually—being trapped in a small shelter by a storm having limited their options—they all fell asleep, tangled in and around each other like puppies.

  * * *

  Raulin woke, and lay quietly in the darkness listening to Crystal and Jago breathe. He wondered if the storm still raged and decided it didn’t matter one way or another—he had to go outside. Slowly and carefully, he slid out of Crystal’s arms, unwinding a strand of silken hair from around his throat. She murmured in her sleep, but didn’t wake. Easing his feet into his boots, he laced them loosely, then pulled his overcoat from the pile of fur by the door—the loops that closed his were cord, Jago’s closed with leather—contorted himself into it and backed out into the night.

  By both kicking the snow away and compacting it with his body, Raulin got free of the shelter, made sure both flaps had closed securely behind him, and stood. As his head rose above the level of the tent, the wind, snow-laden, struck him full in the face. The storm did, indeed, still rage. And it was cold. Raulin quickly fastened his coat and tried to bury his ears in the collar. He’d come out with neither hat nor mittens. Just to be on the safe side, he bent and tightened his boot laces. By the time he finished, his fingers were already growing stiff.

  He plunged around the shelter and began to make his way the length of it to where the sleigh marked the edge of the cut. After the wizard-created warmth inside, the night air felt like knives in his lungs and he was positive the interior of his nose had frozen. Had the wind not been making such a noise, he was sure he’d be able to hear the nose hairs crackling.