The Firebird's Vengeance

by Sarah Zettel

  No. Not now. He must not be cold. He must be fire. He must burn.

  Daren reached within himself, he reached out. He forced his hands to move, to clutch the silk, to begin the knot. He coughed for breath, for air. He spat, for water. Metal and gems waited within the silk, that would do for earth. With fire, the whole world would be with him, and he could weave all together.

  On the table beside the pieces of the shattered portrait lay the tools Daren had used to begin his painstaking repairs, the long pins of silver and gold, the tiny hammers, the snips, and the pliers, all made of the finest brass and copper. Steel, that child of iron, could not be used to mend or make a tool of magic.

  Daren picked up one of the silver pins. It was the length of his middle finger and as thick as a piece of coarse twine.

  “My lord!” cried Korta and Daren’s concentration faltered. He heard the slap of skin against skin and knew what had happened. Luden had seized the boy’s hand, had held Korta back.

  Perhaps I misjudge. It didn’t matter. He must not falter. He must reach inside, he must reach outside, he must gather all the world into himself and his weaving. There must be earth and air and water.

  And fire.

  Daren drove the silver pin into his hand.

  The pain exploded inside him, making him see stars and flames. The blood ran hot down his wrist and Daren pressed his hand hard against his silken bundle and the uncompleted knot.

  Hands moved against his hand. The whisper of silk crossed his skin. Korta? No. Luden. Tying the knot, binding his hand to the broken portrait. Finishing the working.

  “I make the mirror whole again. I see the picture unbroken again. I see the fate of Urshila …” No. No. It cannot be that name. It must be the other. “I see the fate of Ulla Raadhar.” Beside him Luden started. Yes, I knew. I know. I permitted her to remain, for I also knew where her loyalty lay. Pain wracked him, robbing him of words and breath. He must not break. He must be whole. “I see her death and how it was accomplished.”

  “This is my word …” Daren gripped the edge of the table with his one free hand. The feeling was leaving his hands. The fire was dying. The floor rocked beneath him. “My word is firm. This is my word and my word is firm!”

  Before him the sapphire shone and sparkled. It glimmered like a tear-filled eye, and like an eye Daren could see the reflection in it. In that reflection he saw Urshila, Ulla, Urshila, and a bent, ancient woman in drudge’s clothes. He saw the witch’s eye, the bucket of water, how the old woman tricked Urshila near the water, and how Urshila died. He saw that same old woman bundle the corpse into a length of half-rotted cloth and coax another drudge to help her carry it out to the canal, and heave it in.

  And with that seeing, he slipped to the floor before the others could catch him. He was nothing but pain now. The connection between flesh and spirit was dissolving, burned away by the fire he had set free.

  “Did you see?” he whispered, barely able to hear his own voice for the roaring of the pain in his mind. “Did you?”

  “Yes, Daren.” Luden took his hand. “It was enough. You can go now.”

  And the lord sorcerer of Isavalta closed his eyes and gave himself over to the fire.

  Sakra insisted he and Bridget try to snatch a few hour’s sleep. They put out all but one lamp and Bridget curled herself up on the horsehair sofa, trying to ignore how it itched. Used to sleeping wherever he could find a place, Sakra stretched out on the carpet in front of the stove.

  Taking advantage of the dim light, Bridget watched him, taking in afresh the length and shape of his body. Her mind, tired of dwelling on fear and disaster, to her surprise began wandering in directions she had scarcely dared admit to herself she had traveled before. All things considered, it was late in the day for maidenly modesty, but as grim, as uncertain as things stood with them now, such ideas were hardly appropriate, or timely. She had much to prove, to herself and to him, to show that her words were not just desperation. It would take time, and given what waited in Isavalta for their return, God Almighty, given what waited in this flat with them now, that time might not be hers.

  But if it was … surely it was permissible to dream of what might be, of his hand touching hers more than fleetingly, of drawing her fingers down his face, and his throat, of what love might be when it was more than a flash point on a night in summer, of when it was slow and gentle, and not a lie but a true thing.

  Sakra was propped up on one elbow, and staring at her. The realization shook Bridget from her reverie and raised a hot blush in her cheeks.

  What must he think of me now? Everything she was thinking must have shown in her face. Lord, would she never stop making a fool of herself?

  But nothing in Sakra’s expression said he thought her a fool. Instead, his eyes were as full of wishes as her own must have been; wishes for freedom, for knowledge, for permission, for love, and for the time to make all those wishes come true, oh, especially for time.

  She thought he was about to speak, but instead, the air was broken by the unmistakable retching sound of someone struggling for air.

  Bridget was on her feet and through the doorway to Aunt Grace’s room in an instant. Sakra followed close behind, carrying the lamp.

  Aunt Grace lay on her narrow bed, whooping, and choking in a terrifying battle for breath. The fight arched her back like a bow, half lifting her up and then slamming her down again so the bed springs creaked and rang and the whole frame rattled from her struggles.

  “My God.” Bridget ran to her aunt’s side. She grasped Grace, pulling her close to try to still the frantic straining. Grace’s eyes were wide with fear and strain. She coughed with a noise like a dog barking, but her throat did not clear.

  “Fading,” she gasped, her whole body bucking against Bridget’s as every muscle in her strained to force her lungs into motion. “Fading!”

  “What?” Bridget wasn’t sure who she was asking the question of. She tried to turn Aunt Grace’s face toward her, but her aunt fought the gesture, swinging her head wildly back and forth.

  “She!”

  Bridget managed to capture her aunt’s chin and turn her face toward the light. Grace was seized with a consumptive wheezing and her lips were tinged a dangerous shade of blue. Was she choking? She was not acting like it. What was happening? “Medeoan,” said Sakra. “Medeoan is fading.”

  “What?” asked Bridget again. She forced Aunt Grace’s legs up, and bent her down so her head was between her knees. “Breathe, Aunt,” she ordered, rubbing Grace’s back frantically, trying to help her muscles to loosen, to work more normally. “Don’t try to talk. Breathe.”

  Sakra tried to take Aunt Grace’s wrist and look for a pulse, but she flailed out at him.

  “No! Not him!” If there were more words, they were broken apart by another spasm of barking coughs that shuddered right through Bridget.

  Sakra stood back, his face grave to the point of fear. “The ghost, it has possession of her body. Its essence is dissipating, it will soon be gone. It is using Grace’s life to keep itself here.”

  Blood speckled the coverlet. Grace’s hands had gone ice cold. She could not tolerate this much longer. “What can we do?”

  Sakra looked away quickly and looked back again. His bruises seemed to deepen. “Can you see Medeoan at all?”

  “Aunt Grace, look at me. Look at me.” Bridget tipped her aunt’s straining, terrified face up. Grace choked as she tried to swallow and Bridget trembled, but she concentrated, and she looked deep.

  “Barely. She is still there.”

  “You will have to reach for her, Bridget. You can see her and follow where she goes and convince her to let your aunt go.”

  Bridget felt her own bone-deep weariness. She had spent herself into delirium and then into unconsciousness barely an hour ago. She quailed at the thought of having to draw on that part of herself again, but there was no choice. Grace huddled against her now, limp as a child, panting raggedly. “How?”

  “I will se
nd you.” He saw the question in her eyes, but did not wait for her to voice it. “For many years Medeoan believed you would help her. She never believed so about me, and will not be able to now.”

  Aunt Grace’s spasming hand caught Bridget’s wrist.

  “Help,” she wheezed. “All I wanted … was to help.”

  Medeoan shone brightly in her aunt’s eyes at that moment, and Bridget could not tell who the words had come from. But Bridget had looked into the eyes of the dying before, and knew what she saw in Aunt Grace’s face.

  “We must hurry,” she said to Sakra. “Have you the strength for this?”

  “We have, if you will trust me.”

  She nodded.

  Sakra did not waste time with another word. He reached for the red band that tied his hair back and pulled it free. The dozens of braids cascaded around his shoulders, the beads rattling and clacking against each other. Aunt Grace’s grip convulsed painfully, digging her nails into Bridget’s skin, but Bridget did not pull away. Aunt Grace needed contact now, needed the warmth of life to help her hold on.

  Sakra took Bridget’s free wrist and looped the red braid around it. Bridget made herself remain still, her mind open. She had some idea what was about to happen, and she strove to hold herself ready for it.

  Sakra began to sing. His voice was deep and well trained and filled the dim little room with its richness, the strange syllables she could not understand rising and falling in steady waves. Winding the band around his own wrist he joined them together with the words and the silk. She felt the chill in the air and the deep current that came with the working of magic. Although she did not understand the words that evoked his magic, she felt their pull reaching under skin and bone, seeking the touch of her powers, her gifts.

  She balked at first. She could not help it. The touch was too personal, too intimate, but she gained control of instinct, and reached inside, giving of herself to aid in this working.

  Sakra’s power accepted the gift of her own, and his song wove it with his, shaping it, turning it into a lifeline for her to hold, to follow. She could see it now, shining in the dim light. She felt the pull of it, as if it were a physical bond like the one about her wrist. It drew her down and into herself even as the song pulled her outward. She looked toward Aunt Grace, and she saw Medeoan.

  It was a moment of stark clarity. She saw Medeoan’s blue eyes, her greying hair, the deep lines of fury in her face, graven so much more starkly than the ones care had etched onto Aunt Grace’s. The two were bound, more tightly even than she and Sakra now. She had expected to see that it was Medeoan’s grip that held Aunt Grace so tightly, choking her, but Medeoan too was bound, and Aunt Grace clung tightly to the dowager’s ghost, as if her entire soul depended on the presence of the spirit of a stranger.

  The lifeline, the path created by Sakra’s song and the weaving of their magics, led between these two, even though there was no way between. They were one, clinging together like two people drowning and dragging each other under, and yet Bridget knew she must follow. She must see the way. She reached for the place where her mind’s eye was and willed it to open, willed herself to see what was hidden, what was true beneath the illusions and the bindings, to see Medeoan and be seen by her, and with that sight, with all the presence of self that she could muster, she followed Sakra’s lifeline to that place where Grace and Medeoan walked.

  She thought it would be something like entering the Land of Death and Spirit; the green light, the silence, the sense of some vital element missing from the air. She had been mistaken. It was like drowning. A cold heaviness rose around her, not parting to let her in, but yielding as she forced her way into its alien element. Image and light spread out, rippling and blending. Only the slender line she was pulled by remained clear.

  I will see. I must. You cannot remain hidden from my sight. I do not permit it.

  In her mind she heard again the strains of Sakra’s spell song. She held them tight, weaving her determined thoughts into them, willing them outward to the watery blur of light and color that her world had become.

  So slowly that her eyes strained and her head ached, the new world took shape.

  To her surprise, Bridget found herself in the Long Gallery of the palace Vyshtavos. It was complete in every detail, with all the portraits in their places on the walls and fires crackling in the three fireplaces.

  Medeoan and Aunt Grace stood before the center fireplace, clinging tightly to each other’s hands and leaning together so closely and at such drastic angles that if one of them let go, the other would surely fall. Their heads were both tilted up in identical attitudes and they gazed at one particular portrait.

  Bridget walked forward, Sakra’s lifeline now no more than a shining thread wrapped around her wrist. Medeoan stirred a little, gradually becoming aware of Bridget’s approach, although she made no noise. The dowager lowered her eyes to take in Bridget. Stiffly, puppetlike, Aunt Grace mimicked the dowager’s gesture.

  “These were my parents,” said Medeoan, returning her gaze again to the portrait. Aunt Grace’s head turned and tilted as well. “My husband murdered them.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Bridget licked her lips. “Hello, Aunt Grace.”

  Aunt Grace did not look at her, nor did she loosen her hold on the dowager. It would have been comic were it not so appalling, two aging women in a gallery of portraits, looking back over the past, clinging only to each other.

  “They’re waiting for me, with Vyshko and Vyshemir.” Medeoan spoke the words fatalistically. “I will have to answer for what I’ve done.”

  There was nothing Bridget could say to that. Grace leaned a little closer to the dowager. Her fingers dug into Medeoan’s sagging skin.

  If Medeoan felt any pain, she did not show it. She just tightened her own grip on Aunt Grace, leaving white circles around each fingertip on Grace’s skin. “I didn’t feel that way when I ruled. I felt I was right. I did what was necessary for Isavalta. There is not an emperor in the whole of history without blood on their hands. Most especially the blood of their family. I knew that.”

  “You knew a great deal,” said Bridget carefully. She knew that she was seeing what was true, but only to an extent. The truths here were metaphoric, a representation of what was happening within Aunt Grace. The truth was the two of them were growing closer, not farther apart, and they were hurting each other to do so. Medeoan had no life left to lose, but Grace could still so easily lose hers.

  “I did know so much. I still do.” The dowager sounded wistful.

  Bridget hesitated, uncertain of how to proceed. Part of her wanted to storm across the space between herself and the spirits and force them apart, but she held back. A hammer blow at this point might shatter all, and she must not forget they needed Medeoan who was weakening even as Aunt Grace was.

  Aunt Grace rested her head on Medeoan’s shoulder in a dreadful parody of affection. Somehow it was seeing that which broke Bridget’s paralysis. “May I speak with my aunt?”

  Medeoan shrugged. The gesture made Grace’s head bobble grotesquely. “I am not the one who holds her silent.”

  “Aunt Grace?”

  Aunt Grace turned her head, pressing her face against the dowager’s neck, a child looking for comfort.

  But it was Medeoan who staggered then, and Grace who steadied her. “It seems she has nothing to say to you.” The dowager’s voice grew breathier, as if she were also short of air.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Medeoan’s answering smile was thin and a little sad. “You doubt the evidence of your eyes at last?”

  Anger finally made its way through Bridget’s fear and hesitation, goading her into motion. She rounded the duo until her back was to the fire and the walls of portraits. “Aunt Grace, it’s Bridget.”

  Grace lifted her head, looking about her curiously, as if she just found herself in this place, but it seemed to be of only mild interest. Yet her hands maintained their death-grip on Medeoan, and the
two women swayed as if blown by a wind.

  “I don’t believe she can hear you,” said the dowager, her voice was mild, but the tone fell flat.

  Bridget reached out, uncertain whether she just meant to touch her aunt, or to try to grab her and shake her. Her arms would not reach. She could see the women, leaning together, less than two steps away from her, but when she stretched out her hands, she could not reach them. “Aunt Grace!” she cried. Grace continued to contemplate the paintings over Bridget’s shoulder. “Is this your doing?” Bridget demanded of Medeoan.

  “You did this between you.” The dowager tried to shake her head, but she managed only a tremor. Not much time left, that thought and fresh fear stabbed at Bridget.

  Fear banished thoughts of subtlety. “Will you let her go?”

  “No.” Bridget would not have thought it possible, but the dowager pressed herself closer yet to Aunt Grace, and Aunt Grace gathered her near.

  “Why not?”

  Medeoan looked at her as if she were simple. “We need each other to be.”

  Memories came crowding into Bridget’s mind, thick and fast as she faced the dowager’s mildness. She remembered the fearsome, frightened woman in the golden robes. She remembered seeing her crumbled on the floor beneath the Firebird’s cage, and seeing the vision of Mikkel’s murder at his mother’s orders. She remembered excoriating Medeoan for what she had allowed herself to become. All the memories jabbed at her temper and her own fists tightened. Stay calm, she ordered herself. Keep your wits together. Try to find out what’s really happening in front of you.

  “Why does Aunt Grace need you?”

  But Medeoan did not appear disposed to be helpful. Like Grace, she returned to the contemplation of the portraits. “You will have to ask her that.”

  “But you said she cannot hear me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  For a moment, Bridget felt the absurd impulse to laugh. “I do not have time for this.”