Victory of the Hawk

by Angela Highland

  Then he saw stars, as her hurled blast of fire sent him flying.

  Somehow he managed to cling to the gun, and only as he slammed into the earth did Kestar realize, sluggishly, that Amathilàen seemed intent on staying in his grasp as if fused to his palm and fingers. It was glowing now, brighter than his amulet had ever done. Without thinking he raised it up closer to his face just as a second blast rained down on him, punctuated by a howl of rage.

  “Accursed mongrel brat! Your blood is unworthy of a weapon forged by the Moonwise. Do you have the slightest conception of what you hold?”

  “Do you?” Still brandishing the gun before him like a shield, Kestar hauled himself to his feet and squinted through the haze of radiance that now hung in the air all around him. “I know this is Amathilàen, and that it used to be a sword, and that it has very definite ideas about not letting you kill me.” Which should have sounded ludicrous—which did sound ludicrous, at least to the fast-shrinking part of him that still couldn’t quite bring itself to believe anything that had befallen him in the last several days. Yet even as he said it, he knew it to be true. The weapon knew his hand. Even more alarmingly, his hand knew the gun, as if he’d carried and fought with the thing for all his life.

  “And so you will kill me instead, tool of my enslavers?” The magic around Kestar became a torrent, and to his alarm, it lifted him clear off the ground. He rose a foot, then two, as his attacker strode closer to him. One gaunt, glowing hand snapped up to gesture toward his throat, and with that, all at once, he couldn’t breathe. The Anreulag’s words roiled around him along with her power, Adalonic so heavily accented that he could barely understand her. “They have changed Amathilàen. They have changed Dalrannen’s heir until he is a pale shadow of the king who came before him. And they think now that you will kill me! I think not.”

  His vision dimmed, and gun in his hand or no, it was almost more than Kestar could do to gasp out a reply. “You remember the names. Amathilàen. Dalrannen. The Moonwise. Do you remember yours?”

  The magic choking him pushed him another foot higher, even as his opponent lunged close enough to stare, snarling, up into his eyes. “What do you know, mongrel? Do you know my name?”

  “He can’t answer you if you choke him!” Somewhere past the spinning in his head Kestar heard the voice ring out somewhere behind him. It took him several seconds longer than it should have done to give it a name—Faanshi. Then power slammed into him from behind, drowning him like an ocean wave, and with it came another shout from the healer. “Let him go, Marwyth!”

  What effect that final word might have had on the Voice of the Gods Kestar could not quite see, for unconsciousness threatened to overtake him before the magic holding him aloft abruptly released its hold. Panting, dazed, he hit the ground hard. Before he could faint, however, Faanshi’s responding power began to clear his head. He looked up again to find the ancient mage skittering back from them, even as the report of a gun went off.

  A gun he wasn’t holding.

  “My gun may not be magical, and it might not actually kill you, but I assure you I am quite prepared to make your next five minutes very, very painful,” another voice coldly proclaimed. Not Celoren, to Kestar’s surprise. Julian.

  With Faanshi’s help Kestar staggered upright once more to find the Rook a few paces behind her, a pistol in his right hand, one of his knives in his left.

  Yet to his surprise, the Anreulag attacked none of them. Her hands stretched out to either side, each still glowing with a dangerous fire, she fixed her febrile gaze on Faanshi. “What did you call me?”

  The question was softly uttered, yet with a fierceness that lent each syllable a harsh rasping edge, and all Kestar could think of at the sound of it was the swing of a blade coming straight at their necks. “Marwyth,” he said before Faanshi could answer. He was grateful beyond measure for the healer maiden’s presence, and acutely aware she’d kept him and Julian both alive the last two times the Voice of the Gods had appeared before them. “The elves told us your name is Marwyth. The Black Sun.”

  What he’d expected the Anreulag to do when she heard her name, Kestar could not have said—but he was certain he hadn’t expected a smile like a knife slash to rip across her gaunt face, or a slow burn of elation to kindle in her eyes. “Not my true name,” she hissed, “but I remember this one. By the Mother of Stars, I remember. And there are elves that still remember me too? Did they tell you why they called me the Black Sun, mongrel boy?”

  “Not specifically, no.” It had been plain enough to Kestar when Gerren had told them about the destruction of Starhame. What the steward hadn’t ventured he could see now on the edges of his inner sight, and feel in the low hum of power in Amathilàen. The weapon knew her, even as it knew the hand that wielded it, and he wasn’t about to argue with it now. “But I know enough to guess. I know you attacked and killed your own people, and that Janlec Dalrannen stopped you.”

  “None of them could match me. None of them. Not even Janlec, and I would have gone to him if he’d asked. He never called me by that name.” Marwyth’s hands glowed more brightly, the radiance streaming along both her arms—and then, all at once, the brilliance darkened. Gold became red. Red darkened to violet, until at last her form seemed wreathed in smoke and shadow. “No matter how well it fit.”

  Julian swore, “Nine hells, that’s not her name? Shoot her, Vaarsen, shoot her now!”

  Then Faanshi’s power exploded in answer, a sphere of purest white light repelling the tendrils of darkness swirling forth from the one they faced. “I won’t let you hurt them, akresha,” she said, even as Marwyth howled her fury. “Kestar or Julian or anyone else. Please don’t make us kill you.”

  “What would you have me do, then, infant? Return to my enslavers?” Marwyth’s derision resounded through the clash of brilliance and shadow, and with her every word, the blackness gathered more thickly against the shield that Faanshi had thrown forth. Power rolled down into the earth beneath their feet, accentuating the power above with the beginnings of tremors. “I will kill every living creature in this land and burn every building to ash before I let them rule me again. And I will start with the three of you.”

  “I swear to you, we don’t want—” Whatever Faanshi meant to say Kestar never heard, for the healer’s anxious voice cut off with a breathless gasp as the Anreulag redoubled her assault. Julian fired his gun and threw his knife in the same breath, but the blade clattered aside before reaching its target, and the bullet exploded in midair.

  Some of the darkness, flowing like spilled ink across a page, reached Kestar and sent him staggering backward, coughing hard. The gun in his hand grew almost too hot to hold. Yet as he dropped to one knee, the air around Amathilàen was clearer and cleaner. He breathed deeply, easing his straining throat and lungs, but that did nothing for the vision kindling behind his eyes: his hand on the gun, blurring into the image of another hand on the hilt of a sword, and then back again.

  It remembers being a sword. All at once he was filled with the certainty that if he willed it, as long as his own hand touched it, Amathilàen would make itself a sword again.

  But there was no time to figure out how to bring about such a wonder. Kestar snapped his head up to find Julian tossing his now empty pistol aside. If the Rook felt any fear at confronting the Voice of the Gods, the being who’d almost killed him, there was no sign of it in his face. Nothing but determination blazed in his eyes, a match for the quieter conviction in Faanshi’s. Marwyth hurled blackness at both of them, provoking another hurled knife from the assassin, and enough magic from Faanshi that the healer’s eyes turned to twin golden stars.

  She won’t hold out.

  Kestar didn’t want to acknowledge the thought, but the flurry of images from Amathilàen was unmistakable—elves, six of them, all of whom had power to come close to the strength of the Black Sun. But they hadn’t b
eaten her, and they’d been mages raised in the traditions of magic. Faanshi had no such knowledge. Formidable though her power was, she was barely trained in how to use it.

  He couldn’t let her and Julian fall.

  Amathilàen moved in his grasp almost before he thought to lift his hand, aiming for him even through the collision of light and dark obscuring everything in his line of sight. The gun had been fired already, but it had two shots left. Brendalah. Jerendriel. A bullet for each of the members of the Moonwise who’d made the gun, and part of him recognized the names that flashed across his thoughts—the eldest of the Moonwise, and the next youngest one after Marwyth herself.

  Kestar hoped they’d guide his hand even as he fired.

  * * *

  When the bullets struck her, two hot bolts of pain that pierced her head and chest, her world upended around her.

  The power she’d summoned dissipated with the collapse of her body, leaving her momentarily deaf and blind to everything but agony. Then a pair of arms caught her—the girl, the one with enough power to match the Moonwise. Hands sought the places where Amathilàen’s bullets had hit, and magic rolled through her wounded flesh, healing magic that she recognized only when it began its work. With that wave of power, memories erupted across her mind, stars kindling in previously impenetrable blackness.

  Marwyth. The Black Sun. Not the name she’d had at birth, but the name given her when she slew Rualendil of the Amatharinor and began her campaign to take over the rule of Astàlleramè and all the elven lands. A name she’d embraced eagerly, for it was fitting for the breadth and scope of the power at her command—

  Rualendil. She could remember him now, renowned among the Moonwise for his gift of moving earth and rock with the power of his thoughts, and the others came back into her memory with him. Chysandris, shaper of winds and superlative musician. Ayawir, master of water. Halcior, gifted with the command of green growing things, most comfortable among his beloved trees than anywhere else in the world. Niniah, mistress of light and illusion and the speaking of mind to mind, the locus of the Amatharinor’s ability to talk to one another no matter where they were. Brendalah, oldest and most powerful of them all, queen of their refuge at the top of the mountain called Eilengel.

  And Jerendriel, the healer, first to welcome a wild young newcomer into their ranks. A friend, until Jerendriel became the beloved of the prince Marwyth desired for herself—and who would eventually stand between her and the need to destroy all of Astàlleramè.

  Jerendriel and Janlec, the two who loved her best—and who failed to rescue her in time when human tribes captured and tortured her, in retaliation for when her own awakening magic had nearly wiped out an entire village, warping and changing most of its people. The humans reminded her of pain and fear, and when the increasing might of the round-eared ones threatened Astàlleramè’s peace, they reminded her of the exultation of her power in its full strength. Far better to be the Black Sun if that was what she needed to burn the enemy from the face of the land. Marwyth would do what Merawen would not—

  Merawen.

  Her eyes flashed open to find the dusky-skinned young one’s face above her own, green eyes bright with worry and compassion that looked abruptly familiar. Jerendriel had looked at her like that once. “I beg you, akresha, stop fighting me,” the girl implored. “Let me heal you!”

  Healing. Yes. She felt the young one’s power flooding through her, trying to reach the bullets lodged within her skull and her breast, the only thing now keeping her alive. Her skull was broken. Her heart was faltering. Both were blazing cores of the power that had resided in the weapon and which now was lodged within her, repelling the young one’s magic.

  Caught between ancient magic and new, her thoughts grew clearer.

  They’d known. The Amatharinor had understood her, better than she’d ever comprehended, and had seen what her power would do if left unchecked. She’d thought them enemies in her rising madness—but they’d been friends once, the closest of comrades, and they’d sacrificed themselves to make a weapon powerful enough to kill her in the name of saving their people.

  A sacrifice that had ultimately been in vain, for the humans had taken her anyway, and now they ruled the land. She couldn’t live in a land ruled by the descendants of the people who’d begun her true destruction.

  She didn’t want to.

  “Let me go, girl,” she whispered. “You are as powerful as any of the Amatharinor, and they would be the first to tell you that you must make the best decision to protect your people.”

  The two men came into her line of sight, standing behind the girl. Dalrannen’s heir and the other, the one she’d burned, in whom she could sense no elf blood whatsoever—but he’d taken a blast of her power to save the girl. She hadn’t realized humans could act with such nobility. Both of them looked down at her with solemn eyes, but neither moved to pull the young mage away from her, not yet.

  “You’re asking me to let you die,” the young one said. Her voice was a rough little whisper, and tears ran down her cheeks. “Are you sure about this? I can heal you. I know I can. Please don’t make me do this.”

  “Infant, you know there’s no place for me in this world.” More memories tumbled across her thoughts, blurring now around their edges as the heat of pain blazed brighter, yet still clear enough to show her their truth. “I’ve killed too many. And I’ve killed my own kind. Let me go to the Mother of Stars to be made anew. Let me have my peace.”

  The girl stared down at her, stricken, but then finally bobbed her head. Her power retreated before her hands did, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to break their contact; that, oddly, was a comfort. It would suit her well to die in supportive arms.

  “Remember one last thing, girl,” she whispered. “I had another name once. Before the humans named me Anreulag, before I was the Voice of the Gods. Before I was Marwyth, the Black Sun. Before all these things, I was Merawen of the Moonwise.”

  “Merawen,” the girl echoed. Her tears flowed more strongly now, but for the briefest of instants, she smiled down at her. “I will remember your name. I will sing it to Almighty Djashtet, and ask that the Crone of Night see you safely to the Mother of Stars.”

  “We’ll remember,” Dalrannen’s heir promised. “Merawen.”

  As her vision wavered she could see the face of Janlec laid over his own, and she heard the echo of the king’s voice saying her name, far back in the earliest reaches of her recollections. It rang like a trumpet of silver, and it soothed her heart as she closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the stars.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The royal palace, Dareli, Jeuchar 25, AC 1876

  At the end of it all, it didn’t take long for the palace guards—not to mention the others who’d come with Kestar Vaarsen, Julian Nemeides, and the healer Faanshi—to find where the Anreulag had appeared. The guards refused to let her near the scene of the battle, but once it was over, Margaine summoned Tamber Corrinides to accompany her to the northern lawn, next to the hedge maze that had been renowned throughout the realm for its cunning design for as long as she could remember.

  Now it would be remembered as the place where the Voice of the Gods was killed.

  They found Kestar, Julian and Faanshi gathered around the Anreulag’s fallen form. Faanshi kneeled beside the body, her head bowed and her eyes closed as she murmured low, liquid syllables in the Tantiu tongue. Margaine wasn’t fluent in the language, for there’d been no call for her to learn it until she’d married Prince Padraig, but she knew a prayer when she heard one. The two men held respectful stances on either side of the healer as well, and so she threw up a hand to halt everyone with her in their tracks until Faanshi finished.

  On her final syllable, the she-elf Tembriel hurried forward, the only one out of the trio’s companions disdainful enough of human authority to move be
fore receiving royal command. Margaine opted to ignore the breach of etiquette. Never mind that the woman was a fire-mage, and that the realm had already suffered enough of what an elf capable of setting her surroundings ablaze could do. The princess instead stayed her censure out of respect for the strange tangle of relief and grief on Tembriel’s face, a conflict she felt within her own heart.

  She hadn’t ever thought she’d have something in common with an elf. But then, the world had changed for humans and elves alike—and the changes had only just begun, Margaine was sure.

  Faanshi finished her quiet orisons and looked up, first at Tembriel, and then at them all. Tears streaked her cheeks, and though she appeared a few years younger than Margaine herself, the healer’s green gaze was far too weary and far too old for her unlined face. “She is dead,” she announced, “in case any of you are about to ask. She asked me not to heal her when Kestar shot her.”

  “So it worked?” Tembriel shot a dubious glance from the figure lying on the grass to Kestar Vaarsen and back again, and at last kneeled down cautiously on the body’s other side. “This is—was—who Gerren said? Marwyth, the Black Sun?”

  “She confirmed that,” said the man who’d named himself Julian Nemeides. “But she said her true name was Merawen. She asked us to remember.”

  “Merawen.” Tembriel breathed in the name, then abruptly shot to her feet and whirled back to face Margaine. “The elves of Dolmerrath claim Merawen’s body so that we may lay her to proper rest.”