by L. K. Rigel
“Loving is the very purpose of living, my dear ones, but there are all sorts of love. To see the lilacs bloom every spring and the sparrows building their nests, to listen to thunder while safe by the fire with a hot mug. To watch the awareness of the world grow in your children’s eyes.”
Elyse prayed silently. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, keep Mother well; I’ll give anything.
“It has been such a joy watching you grow, Lourdes,” Mother said. “Your skills are exemplary.”
That silenced Lourdes for the moment.
“And you, Elyse.”
“It’s all right, Mother. I know I’m a disappointment to you.”
“Oh, Elyse, no! You’re a wonder to me. You play the pipa with your own kind of magic.”
That was actually true. Elyse played the oriental stringed instrument better than anyone who’d tried. As if she had been born knowing how.
“All kinds of love.” Lourdes scoffed. “I’ll never have children if I can’t have my true love.” Her purple face blotched with white spots, anger consuming her beauty. She grabbed their mother’s hand and held it up. The three of them stared at the ring as Lourdes’s meaning sank in.
“No, Lourdes,” Mother said.
“You could do it. You could give me Galen.”
“Never.” Mother ripped her hand away. “Never say such a thing again. Don’t even think it.” She swayed and grabbed the table.
Elyse steadied her. “You’re freezing, Mother. Where is your shawl?”
“On the roof, I think.”
As Elyse left the kitchen, Mother said to Lourdes, “Put Galen out of your thoughts. I won’t speak against this alliance. I’m the one who suggested it.”
Great gods!
Mother’s room on the third floor was the best spot in Glimmer Cottage. It had a roof deck with pots of herbs and flowers and places to sit and observe the world. Jasmine covered the deck’s south rail. Mother said its night blossoms bore the fragrance of Elysium, the heaven Elyse was named after.
A long time ago, a Sarumosian ship’s captain had brought the vine to Mother in gratitude after she’d wyrded his vessel to safety off the rocks in Tintagos Bay.
Every year since then, near the end of summer the great ship sailed into Tintagos Bay with another wondrous present for Mother: a cask of olive oil, the Tang pipa Elyse had learned to play, Mother’s shawl—and one year a bag of hard green beans, a box with a grinder in it, and a scroll with instructions to roast and grind the beans to make the most marvelous drink. Every year Elyse hoped the thankful captain would send those beans again.
She found the shawl draped over the chaise chair on the deck and wrapped it around her shoulders. It smelled of lavender and rosemary, like Mother.
Movement caught her eye in the meadow between the cottage and Igdrasil. She dropped the shawl on the chaise and picked up Mother’s wyrded glass for a better look. Lourdes always complained that the glass wasn’t strong enough, but on a day this clear Elyse could see the wall guards at Tintagos Castle with it.
She easily identified the handsome blond man on horseback, galloping toward Glimmer Cottage at full speed.
“Mother! Lourdes!” She flew down to the kitchen. “Prince Galen is coming!”
5
Glamour Dust
Mother untied her apron and handed it to Elyse. She smoothed her hair, once as dark as Lourdes’s, the strands now invaded by gray. The worry line between her brows had deepened.
“Stay here, girls.”
Lourdes followed her anyway, and as Mother passed under the arch of the kitchen door she gestured over her shoulder like tossing salt. “Stay.” She wiggled her fingers to set a boundary. Her wyrds were stronger than iron and didn’t need histrionics, but lately she’d added the hand flourishes.
The embellishment intensified the boundary’s strength. Powerful as Lourdes was, she couldn’t break it. Elyse stood with her in the doorway, and they both strained to hear Mother and Prince Galen in the parlor.
Lourdes’s face lit up. “A glimmer glass.” She flung the cupboard open and shuffled through its contents. “She keeps one here somewhere.”
Her thick hair fell forward around her shoulders, free of the jeweled net she usually kept it tucked into. The graceful precision of her movements and the cinch laced around her simple dress accented her figure, but her obsession with Galen threw an ugly cast on all her loveliness.
“Let him go, Lourdes. You can have any man you want.”
“I want Galen.” Lourdes’s eyes flashed, and she slammed the cupboard shut. “And he wants me.” She turned a slow circle, scanning the kitchen’s shadowed nooks and countless piles of stuff.
Easy as knowing where the wild garlic bloomed, Elyse found the glimmer glass in the basket by the window under a tea towel embroidered with peonies. She lifted out a thin rectangular sheet about fourteen inches on the diagonal.
“Give me that.” Lourdes snatched the glass away then softened. “I’m sorry, Elyse. I only mean that I know how to use it.”
The glimmer glass on the roof deck was simple. It was wyrded for viewing unobstructed distances, and anybody could use that one, even Elyse. This glass was more sophisticated. It could show human beings—though most wyrders put on a general glamour to confound all glimmers. If you touched it you could hear their conversations in your head. It could connect across a valley, over mountains to another country, or through walls in a house. Only wyrders could work it.
Lourdes set it on the table and said “Galen” and turned her wrist with a delicate flourish. So simple. So easy to say a word and flick a wrist. Not so easy to channel the power that made it all effective.
Lourdes drew a sharp breath as Galen’s image filled the glass. Elyse watched from over her shoulder. Poor Lourdes. He was certainly handsome. He had perfect skin, a strong jaw and noble cheekbones. His hair was the color of dry sand, brushed casually back off his clean-shaven face. When he smiled he had dimples, and his brown eyes were kind and intelligent.
“I won’t refuse, Frona.” He didn’t smile now. “I know my duty.”
Lourdes spread her hands apart over the glass, and the picture widened to include their mother. Galen said, “Can you tell me about her? About Princess Diantha? I’d like to be prepared, in case…”
“In case she looks like a toad,” Elyse said.
“I can arrange for that.” Lourdes winked. Elyse wanted to believe she was joking.
Mother handed Galen a purple satin pouch with a black corded drawstring.
“Glamour dust,” Elyse whispered.
“She hates me,” Lourdes said. “My own mother.”
“Take this to a private place,” Mother told Galen. “Toss a handful of the contents into the air and call the princess’s name three times. Once you’ve spoken, be still. The next word you speak will end the charm.”
“What does it do?” Galen looked doubtful.
Glamour dust was an innocuous wyrd, useful for eavesdropping but otherwise harmless.
“I hope he catches the little shrew screaming at her maid,” Lourdes said. “I hope her face is blotched and bloated and she has an abscess on her eye.”
“The magics work on Sarumosian royals?” Galen frowned. “Even so, I don’t like to invade Diantha’s privacy.”
“It’s a glamour, not a magic,” Mother said. “It’s only a charm. It won’t change anything or cause anything to happen. Take it. Use it or not, as you see fit.”
“Clever,” Lourdes said.
Indeed, it was a clever move. Galen would take the dust and tell himself he’d only use it if absolutely necessary. But curiosity was its own charm. He’d be tossing glamour dust in under an hour.
“She’s jealous.” Lourdes uttered an anguished groan. “She can’t stand to see me happy.” She raised the glass above her head, ready to smash it against the worktable.
“Stop!” Elyse pulled it away, easier than she expected. “You know that isn’t true.” She slipped the glass into its basket. Out in t
he courtyard their mother followed Galen to his horse. His face was serious as he mounted, but Elyse sensed his excitement. He couldn’t wait to go somewhere private and find out what Diantha looked like.
“She’s old and sick and growing weaker every day.” Lourdes paced the kitchen. “You’ve seen it. She knows with Galen I’d be more powerful than she ever dreamed of.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Elyse watched the prince ride away then turned back to the kitchen. Lourdes was going through the cupboard again. “She loves you.”
“She’s changed,” Lourdes said. “She’s been strange ever since the Great Wyrding.”
“She’s been ill, not strange. And you’re only making yourself feel worse.”
“You’re right.” Lourdes closed the cupboard and smiled with sarcastic sweetness. “I should be pleasant and compliant, like you. Of course, I’d never get anything I wanted. Like you.”
The barbs might hurt if Elyse wasn’t used to them. “Maybe he won’t use the glamour. He sounded doubtful.” But she knew better.
“He’ll use it,” Lourdes said. “He’s a man.”
“Maybe Diantha is horrible.”
“She’s a princess, Elyse. All the circumstances in her life conspire to make her the opposite of horrible.”
“I wonder if that’s where he’s gone then.” Elyse couldn’t resist saying it. “To look at Diantha.”
Lourdes darkened. “Gone?” She raced out of the kitchen through a shimmer of pastel lights as she crossed the now-disabled boundary.
Elyse started to follow but stopped at the cupboard and put her hand flat on the door. She had a vague feeling something wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t focus on it. She had to calm Lourdes down before she upset Mother any further.
Lourdes was on the roof deck using the wyrded glass. “He’s going to Igdrasil.” She tossed the glass onto Mother’s chair and leaned against the deck rail, reaching out with her arms. Elyse thought Lourdes meant to enchant Galen from right there, but she was only pulling power from Igdrasil.
Only.
Galen’s blue dun stallion, visible to the naked eye, streaked toward the great tree. The mist was returning and had settled on its uppermost branches.
“I’ve got to stop him.” Lourdes hugged her arms to her chest, anchoring the power she’d drawn.
“Don’t go.” Elyse felt useless and weak. “If he loved you, he wouldn’t agree to marry Diantha. He wouldn’t consider her.”
“What do you know? You’ve never been in love.” Lourdes threw her arms out again and shouted, “Cloak!” Her black cloak appeared out of nowhere and settled over her. Her eyes were wild, triumphant. “Harness!” She reached into the air and plucked Hector’s bit and reins out of nothing.
Stunning. She must have been practicing on the sly.
“Lourdes, please—”
“Stay.” Lourdes set a boundary around Elyse that worked like an invisible cage. “It’s for the best, Elyse. You’ll see.” She leapt over the deck rail.
“Lourdes!”
Lourdes floated down to the paddock, calling Hector to her.
Elyse frantically searched the boundary for a weak spot. Her eyes fell on Mother’s shawl, still draped over the chaise chair. She’d forgotten it earlier, but now it might provide a connection to Mother. Anyway, it was worth a try. She focused on the shawl and pictured Mother in her mind. “Get me out of here!”
As she hoped, Lourdes’s trap was no match for their mother’s power. With a shimmer of light, the boundary dissolved. Elyse flew down the stairs and out the front door. She couldn’t shake the dreadful sense of oncoming disaster.
“Mother!” She wasn’t in the garden, or anywhere outside the cottage that Elyse could see.
Hector streaked away with Lourdes on his bare back. They jumped the fence and galloped away toward Igdrasil.
“Elyse!” Mother’s cry from the cottage sounded sickeningly weak and distant. Elyse found her in the kitchen leaning against the worktable, her face as pale as a rose petal. “I don’t feel well.”
Fear turned to terror. Mother never admitted illness. “I’ll get your medicine.”
The instant Elyse opened the cupboard, she knew she wouldn’t find the medicine there. Or anywhere. Lourdes had done something with it. Even the blossoms of wild garlic and hawthorn had vanished from the worktable.
6
The Wrong Lovers
Mother clung to the table’s edge, her
knuckles white. “Help me get up to the roof, Elyse. I want to see the forest one more time.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
She knew this was a nightmare, but Elyse couldn’t wake up.
“You can do it.” Mother struggled to stand without the support of the table. She cupped her hands and made a scooping motion in the air, then spread them flat, palms down. “I should weigh nothing to you now.”
Elyse couldn’t deny it. She still felt exhilarated being in on a spell, but this time it was mixed with dread. She draped her mother’s arms around her neck and guided, more than carried, the feather-light bundle up to the roof deck. Everything was clear to her now. Mother’s recent hand gestures hadn’t been for mere effect. Like a young wyrder newly come into power, she’d needed the movements to make her magics stick.
Elyse hugged her close, desperate to sense strength and power, but there was only the feeling of someone slipping away. On the roof deck, Elyse eased her mother into the chair and spread the shawl over her lap.
“Aeolios has gone.” Mother looked at the still gray clouds.
“My apologies to Brother Sun,” Elyse said, “but I prefer the clouds and mist.”
Mother’s gaze traveled over every little thing on the roof deck, the jasmine, the roses, and the rosemary. She looked north to the distant sea then southwest to the forest. She watched the trees, or the spaces between them, for quite a long time.
She was silently saying farewell to it all.
Elyse’s heart compressed, surely to the size of a walnut. She cut some jasmine and laid the blossoms like an offering on Mother’s lap.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” she said. “Breaking the boundary was too much for you.” It had taken the final toll on her mother’s strength. And for what? It would have dissolved anyway once Lourdes was far enough away from the cottage.
“I didn’t break the boundary, Elyse.”
Elyse frowned. “Did Lourdes let me go?”
“No.” Mother smiled sadly and stared at the woods as if thinking something over. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “I’ve made mistakes, Elyse. Many small. A few big. The Great Wyrding should never have happened. It altered the natural order below ground. I believe it gave Aeolios a perpetual headache.”
They both laughed.
“He has a right to be furious.”
“But that’s what you do,” Elyse said. “Isn’t that what wyrding is?”
“A moral wyrder plays with the universe, but never really changes it. We direct energy; we must never transform it.”
Elyse wasn’t quite sure she understood the difference.
“I was wrong to do it, and I’ve paid for it with ruined health and a shortened life. But that hasn’t satisfied Aeolios.”
“What does he want?”
“A wife.”
“He can have Lourdes,” Elyse blurted out. Her face turned red. “Well, it would solve a lot of problems.”
“Also my first thought.” Mother chuckled. “But human and divine couplings tend to end badly for the human.”
This was nice, just the two of them talking. They were never intimate like this when Lourdes was with them. “I don’t believe the Great Wyrding was wrong,” Elyse said. “Look how much good it has done, and it will last forever.”
“But the cost, Elyse. Every spell has a cost, and I did not consider it.”
“Like King Jowan,” Elyse said. “He didn’t think of what would come after he showed off the swords to Sarumos.”
“No, he
did not.”
Time. Elyse needed more time with Mother, time to learn everything. Time to love her. All the magics in the world couldn’t give them that.
Mother stirred in her chair. “I need the glimmer glass.”
Elyse shook her head. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Just inside, there’s one on my bed.”
This voyeuristic element in her mother was unnerving. On the other hand, it explained her uncanny intelligence of people’s comings and goings. The glimmer glass was on the bed, and as Elyse picked it up she was struck by a sick feeling. Had Mother ever watched her? In the woods she’d often felt followed, but she’d always believed it was the animals who tracked her movements.
“Thank you, Elyse.” Mother passed her fingers over the glass until Galen’s image appeared. He’d reached Igdrasil and sat cross-legged in a hollow at the tree’s roots. The bag of glamour dust rested in his hand. “Hold it with me.”
Elyse sat on her knees beside the chair. When she touched the corner of the glass, she heard seagulls calling and waves pounding on rocks—and Galen’s sigh, laden with care. He rose to his feet with a resolved look, opened the bag, and tossed a handful of glamour dust into the air.
“Diantha.”
Lourdes had known he would do it.
“Diantha.”
Prince Galen was no better or worse than any other man. He needed to know what she looked like.
“Diantha.”
“I didn’t tell Galen the entire truth about the glamour.” Mother was even paler than before.
“Please don’t distress yourself.”
“Listen to me—we don’t have much time!”
Oh, Mother.
“When Galen looks upon the glamour image, he’ll see past Diantha’s outer shell to her true nature. Not the brave front she puts on for the world, but the gentle soul she keeps hidden away. If he likes what he sees, his natural feelings will intensify.”
“You put a wyrd on the glamour after all.”
“Merely to enhance what is authentic and to smooth their path to each other, if there can be one.”
