The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

  Then a figure came into view, a small human-sized shape that stood on the grassy knoll and looked directly at the three watchers in the woods.

  "Father-and you, too, my sister-come here," commanded an imperious voice, a voice that the king and princess recognized at once, even as the wind gusted out Deirdre's long black hair. "And bring the dwarf as well!"

  Instinctively Alicia and Finellen pulled back farther into the shadow of their cover, astonished that their presence had been discovered. The High King, however, pressed the branches back to either side and stepped into the daylight. He was stunned by his daughter's appearance here, his first reaction a genuine explosion of relief because she looked so strong, so robust.

  But very quickly that relief was tempered by puzzlement and a growing suspicion. The looming form of Grond Peaksmasher rose to the sky behind his daughter, yet now it stood like some placid manservant awaiting its master's whim.

  "What do you mean, giving me orders?" Tristan demanded, approaching the young princess.

  Deirdre regarded her father with an expression of aloof, icy disdain. For the first time, he noticed her hands. She carried a huge axe, the blade balanced on the ground while she leaned a hand easily against the base of the shaft. "Not just you-I order all of your companions forward as well."

  When no one emerged from the tiny grove, Deirdre snapped her fingers once and pointed at the trees. Immediately a shadow fell across Tristan as the gigantic figure leaned forward.

  "No!" he cried. "You can't! That's your sister in-"

  But he was too late-or rather, Deirdre took no notice of his objection. Instead, she watched impassively while massive fingers closed around the treetops. Wood splintered, and the incongruously pleasant scent of pine filled the air through the entire valley as the Peaksmasher lifted the trees from the earth as a gardener might pluck some annoying weed.

  Tumbling figures were clearly visible amid the gaping holes of dirt left behind. Alicia and Keane crawled from the debris, then a sputtering Finellen followed. Slowly, one by one, the others appeared, uninjured for the most part, though one of the dwarves had suffered a broken arm in the upheaval of the grove.

  In the meantime, Tristan looked back to his daughter, amazed at the cool air she exuded-the air of the conqueror, he decided. Then he saw other figures moving behind her, and his astonishment grew to a numbing kind of disbelief as this rank of new arrivals moved forward to take up station on both sides of the princess.

  Firbolgs! Serving his daughter, as loyally obedient as any guard of honor, they arrayed themselves along the grassy hillock as the remainder of Tristan's party dusted themselves off and came forward to join the king. Alicia, he was relieved to see, had suffered no injury except to her pride. Her eyes flashed rage at her sister, but surprisingly she held her tongue.

  Keane, Brigit, and Hanrald followed the princess, and they, too, regarded Deirdre with suspicion and silent hostility, since the overwhelming presence of Grond Peaksmasher was more than enough to stifle any obvious resistance.

  Tavish risked emerging from her cover as the princess and the firbolgs hurried down the valley to the grassy hillock where Deirdre confronted Tristan and his companions. At last the bard understood what she had long suspected: Deirdre was working against the wishes of her father and family, and hence to Tavish, against the good of the Moonshaes. Furthermore, she had the High King and his companions at a severe disadvantage.

  Grimly the bard crept from her rocky niche, working her way from boulder to shrub for concealment as she surreptitiously advanced toward the princess and her gigantic allies.

  Slowly, gradually, she narrowed the distance between them. The harpist cursed the infirmities of age; at nearly sixty, she was no woodland scout! Yet her limbs responded with alacrity to the needs of the moment, and the attention of her targets remained firmly fixed upon the party before Deirdre-the group that included her own father and sister.

  Tavish heard the arrogance in Deirdre's tone as she spoke to her prisoners, saw the firm set of the young woman's shoulders as she braced herself against the Silverhaft Axe. The princess seemed every bit the cool conqueror, though the harpist couldn't hear enough of the words to understand the purpose of her conquest. Surely it wasn't vengeance or hatred that motivated her! But what then? Ambition? That, too, didn't seemed likely. Tavish would never have suspected the bookish Deirdre of attempting to usurp her father's throne.

  She forced the thoughts, the questions, aside. This was not a time to wonder about why. Far more important to Tavish, and to the Moonshaes, was what. Specifically, what should she do now?

  The axe, Tavish sensed, was the real key to Deirdre's power, the tool that enabled her to compel the obedience of Grond Peaksmasher and the firbolgs. The bard's eyes focused on the potent talisman as she squirmed into the scant cover beneath a dense cedar. She had reached a point only twenty paces behind Deirdre, but there was no further cover between herself and the princess.

  Yet she had also reached the point of no return. Gathering her legs beneath her, calling on them for one more burst of speed, she concentrated on the Silverhaft Axe. She would try to wrest the weapon from Deirdre. Whatever happened after that would be up to the king, his companions, and the firbolgs. Tavish's own chances of survival, she believed, were slim. If one of the great firbolgs reached her before Tristan or Keane could come to her aid, the bard had no illusions about the outcome.

  But she had no choice, as far as she could see. Tense and alert, she watched Deirdre, waiting until the princess began to speak.

  Then, knowing no time would be better, Tavish broke from her cover in a mad dash toward the black-haired Princess of Callidyrr.

  "It is your arrogance!" Deirdre sneered, speaking to her father. "Your blindness to the need for change! That desire, to hold your people back with a primitive religion and a hidebound fear of progress, that is the evil against which I strive!"

  "The evil has been wrought by your own 'friends,' " the king replied, with a meaningful glance at the firbolgs flanking his black-haired daughter.

  "Bah-they are mere tools, fit only to bear the axe to the place of its use. If their actions draw you here as well, so much the better."

  "But think of your people, your kingdom!"

  "They are not my people-not yet," Deirdre retorted. "Though they will be soon enough!"

  "You're crazy!" cried Alicia. "What matter if you kill us? Do you really think-?"

  "You will not necessarily die. All of you who serve the will of the New Gods will be spared," Deirdre explained, like a tutor trying to get a plain point across to a classful of thick-skulled students. "This is the way of the future, the destiny of the Moonshae Islands."

  "You would betray the faith of your people, the goddess your mother has served all her life?" Tristan challenged. He struggled to understand, knowing that this was his daughter before him but not finding any part of her that he knew.

  "My mother serves the enemy. My mother is the enemy!" Deirdre snapped. "That's why the rest of you will remain here as prisoners, significant only as bait to draw the true menace into my presence!"

  The High King studied the crystal-bladed axe, with its gleaming haft of pure silver. The weapon must weigh a tremendous amount, yet Deirdre had twirled it around as if it were a toy. That artifact! Surely it must in some way be responsible for his daughter's unnatural behavior.

  Then the king stiffened reflexively as he saw something moving behind Deirdre. Tavish! His heart pounded as he saw the bard break from the cover of her tree. The stout harpist's legs pumped steadily as she dashed toward the princess. At the same time, Deirdre's attention, and that of the firbolgs as well, remained fixed upon their captives.

  He heard Alicia's intake of breath, knowing that she had seen the bard's desperate venture as well. Desperately he prayed that none of them would betray that knowledge before Tavish could wrest the axe from the princess.

  "Bantarius-Helmsmite!"

  The voice sent a tingle of alarm through Tri
stan's mind. Where did it come from? Who had spoken? The words, the tone, were both maddeningly familiar.

  A glowing form instantly materialized in the air behind Deirdre. Solidifying quickly, it became a blunt hammer with a head of slate-gray steel and a haft of sturdy oak, suspended behind and above the princess.

  But as Tavish passed beneath it, the hammer smashed downward, dropping that solid head straight onto the bard's scalp, bashing her with brutal force. The harpist dropped like a felled tree, collapsing, motionless, amid the rocks and grass.

  Deirdre never even turned around. "Welcome, Exalted Inquisitor, to the dawn of a new era!" she said, holding forth a hand. To Tristan's bitter rage, Parell Hyath stepped forward from the concealment of a nearby clump of rocks, advancing to take his place beside Deirdre. Now Tristan recognized the voice of the spellcaster, too late to do any good.

  "We suspected some trickery from you," the cleric explained condescendingly. "Therefore we decided it would be best if I remained concealed until your hand was revealed. Though I must admit," the inquisitor added, turning to Keane and clucking in mock disappointment, "I had expected the principal troublemaker to be you."

  "This affront to the goddess will not pass!" Alicia shouted suddenly.

  The priest and princess stood together on the knoll, regarding Alicia with amused tolerance. "We do not hope for it to pass … not just yet," explained the inquisitor. "For only when the goddess makes her will known shall that will be bent to ours."

  Talos and Helm pressed close as the powerful demigod stirred from his age-long imprisonment.

  Grond sensed the surrounding presence of his ancient enemy, the Earthmother. Beyond the cloak of the world, he felt other immortal beings-lords who promised mastery, power… and freedom. This promise to the Peaksmasher the New Gods sealed with the presence of the Silverhaft Axe, and against that ancient talisman, he could offer no resistance.

  The pulse of the goddess was strong in the bedrock below him, but all of the demigod's might was focused on the surface of the world now, against the pitiful and helpless creatures within range of his crushing fists.

  16

  Clash of the Avatars

  Robyn flew steadily northward, driven by consuming urgency. Her wings stroked the air in rhythmic cadence, and though cool wind streamed past her feathered skin, her entire body burned with a conflagration of fear.

  Would she be too late? That question propelled her and terrified her, for she knew that the task before her was the most important of her life. For too long, worldly concerns had kept her content, even complacent. Now she knew the truth-the terrible vulnerability of the goddess, and the threats from within and without her realm. Gods such as Talos and Helm loomed, ambitious and mighty, while the demigod Grond Peaksmasher could tear her apart from within.

  This knowledge filled the High Queen with a sense of inadequacy and failure. At the same time, she knew a kind of desperate abandonment, a willingness to do anything in order to thwart these onslaughts.

  Of course, opportunity for redemption might already have passed her by. How could she have wasted so much time? Over and over she chastised herself, as if the criticism would infuse her wings with greater strength, her lungs with increased stamina.

  Somehow the druid queen's meditations at the Moonwell had occupied her far longer than Robyn had been even vaguely aware. The warmth of spirit had surrounded her, and she had sat entranced throughout the night of the full moon, allowing the spirit of the goddess to take possession of her, to infuse the human body with the immortal power of the Earthmother. It had been an expansive experience, unlike anything she had ever known, and it had carried Robyn far from her body, far from her world and her mortality. She soared on the wings of the Earthmother, journeying wherever she would, wherever the desires of the goddess took her.

  Yet unlike her daughter, who had also walked the paths of the gods, Robyn did not experience a vastness, an infinity like Deirdre's. For the universe of the Earthmother was most definitely contained and limited, surrounded by the Trackless Sea and marked only by the outcrops of rock, earth, and life known as the Moonshaes.

  In this domain, the High Queen had witnessed the awakening of Grond Peaksmasher, had observed the trials and dangers endured by her husband and his companions. And then, most terrifying of all, her spiritual journey had allowed her to look directly into her daughter Deirdre's heart.

  It was the latter vision that had jolted her awake and filled her with a sense of the most dire alarm. Though her return to awareness struck her at sunset, she had immediately taken to the air, chagrined that her musings had apparently lasted a full day. But then several hours had passed, and the moon had not risen, had not even glimmered in the east. And when it finally made its appearance, halfway to midnight, it had already shrunk well below the circle of its fullness. The meaning was apparent to Robyn: Her trance had lasted not just for a full night, but for three or four days!

  Thus the desire that drove the wings of the white hawk had become a keen desperation. What had already happened? What was left to do? These were the questions that raged through her mind as she soared from Myrloch Vale, arrowed through the sky over Winterglen, and finally crossed the Strait of Oman. Here, even at her lofty elevation, the summit of the Icepeak loomed above her, and she was forced to veer around the mountain.

  For, at the very least, her meditations had shown her where she had to go.

  Finally the north valley of the Icepeak came into view, and as she saw the colossus there, she felt no overwhelming sense of surprise. The vision had been too clear, too undeniable. Instead, she felt a growing sense of outrage and violation, a sense that grew from beyond herself, as if the whole island had been corrupted.

  The mountain that was Grond Peaksmasher, she knew, was a tool of the gods who had so long strived to overwhelm the Earthmother, to drive that goddess from the magical domain of her islands. It had been the mission of Robyn's life to stave off those incursions, and it was a task wherein she had already failed once. She remained well aware that it had been only her elder daughter's faith and tenacity that had previously broken the spell holding the Earthmother in thrall.

  Now, however, it was up to Robyn to make sure that her goddess's freedom remained unchecked. This looming god was a great threat to that vibrant vitality, and it was one Robyn could not let pass unchallenged.

  As she soared lower, the figures on the ground became visible. She saw the deep pit and recognized Tristan and Alicia. She saw other humans and many dwarves trapped there as well. Desperately Robyn wished that she could spare the time to go to them, could at least share with her family the sense of overwhelming love that drove her now into her most desperate attack.

  Outside the pit, Robyn saw her daughter Deirdre and the patriarch of Helm. When she recognized the latter, a squawk of anger burst from her hawk's beak, for even the self-disciplined druid was unable to entirely contain her outrage.

  Then she dove, feeling the power of the goddess surge through her. She was more than the great druid now, more even than the druid queen. As her spirit expanded, nourished by her days of meditation and trance, and she faced the looming bulk of the New Gods' power, she became something awe-inspiring, immortal in her own right.

  In the force of that swooping dive, Robyn Kendrick, High Queen of the Isles, became the avatar of the Earthmother.

  "Damn the curse that blinds her!" Tristan swore, shaking his fist at the disappearing firbolgs. Beside him, Ranthal paced and barked.

  The brutes had just lowered them into the pit with the rest of his companions, and now he railed at the backs of the giants, arms clasped around swords, shields, and axes, who walked away with the weapons of the humans and dwarves. The firbolgs quickly disappeared from sight, since the prisoners in the pit could see only a short distance beyond the rim of the enclosure.

  Just then the shriek of the white hawk pierced the breezy air in the valley, and the king peered anxiously into the sky. "Robyn! It's a trap!" he cried, his voic
e lost in the wind that suddenly arose.

  "What are you guys doing in here?" asked Newt, appearing between Tristan and Alicia as they stood beside the gray barrier of the granite wall.

  "We have to get out!" Tristan barked, returning to his inspection of the sheer surface. It was only twelve feet high or so, but the sides had been thoroughly smoothed and provided no handholds. It made a very effective prison.

  "Well, don't be mad at me!" the faerie dragon huffed, quickly disappearing again.

  Keane approached, his gait maddeningly nonchalant to the king. Yet Tristan sensed something conspiratorial in the man's walk, so the king turned back to the cliff, as if continuing his inspection. Keane came to a stop beside him.

  "There may be a way-at least for one of us to get out of here," the young wizard said, his tone low and elaborately conversational. "I have a spell of levitation. It can lift me to the top, where I just might be able to do some good."

  Tristan looked at him thoughtfully. "Just you?" he asked.

  "Well, just a single person," the mage amended. "Though I thought that I could do the most-"

  "Please!" the king said, his voice desperate. "That's my wife and my daughter up there! Use the spell on me!"

  "But… Your Majesty," Keane objected. "You have no weapons!" He bit back another remark, concerning the king's missing hand. He saw the desperation in Tristan's eyes but tried to dissuade him rationally. "At least I could use my spells to some effect!" he concluded lamely.

  "Think about the fact that they put you in here without restraint," Tristan urged, his eyes turning crafty. "They know of your powers! Perhaps they're watching you right now, waiting for you to make some move for freedom! They won't expect the same from me!"

  "But… the danger-!"

  "Keane!" Tristan's voice was level and tense. "I won't, I can't order you to do this. The goddess knows you've earned the right to rule yourself. But please, man… it's Robyn!"