Aenor woke abruptly, her mouth watering at the thought of a ripe, rosy apple. The tangy smell of its flesh filled her nostrils and she was almost sick with longing. She rubbed her temples to drive away the persistent headache, and swallowed her hunger. She rose and shook out her worn blanket and the ragged skirt of her gown. The clang of anvils made an ugly melody in the cavern beyond.
She grinned a little. It had taken them days to get the molten river back to its course, and the Queen had had to send one of her best singers down to the King’s court before it was done. Alilian Garnet Singer had accomplished it, but it had tasked her badly, and the dwarves whispered she had returned to the Queen’s court powerless, her song faded beyond recall. The dwarves had been driven cruelly to clean up the mess, and for that she was sorry. She had no dispute with the poor, twisted forge slaves. Now they were back at their work, and she hated the noise. She wished all their hammers would turn into rushes and reeds.
There was a river near the castle which had been her home once, a broad current of water, and she had often played amongst the shallows, when she could escape the watchful eye of her nursemaids. There was one place where the reeds and cat willows grew thickly, and she would hide amongst them, watching the tiny silver fish who swam between the stems, and the insects with multicolored wings which darted along the surface of the stream. Sometimes an unwary one would be gobbled up by a trout, and she would grieve a little for the ruin of its iridescent beauty. In her mind she could almost hear the steady croak of frogs at evening.
Aenor pushed back one of the long braids of her hair and shifted the sword to a less awkward position. Her fingers brushed the slender rope of licome hair that still ran through the beryl, and unconsciously she began to hum. It was a tuneless humming, more a series of rhythms, hoofbeats and frog croaks, than a song, but she could almost hear the gurgle of the river beneath it and smell the rich wet scent of mud and growing things.
Aenor remembered a day in the Queen’s court, years before, very early in her captivity, when no memory of sunlight pierced her mind. There had been a solemn celebration of some sort, and the singers had lifted their voices into a wonderous melody, in words which had no meaning but which conveyed a picture of a huge hall of white stone. Great pictures in colored crystal pierced the walls, and beyond them she knew there was a nameless light. It was then she had begun to waken from the living dream the White Folk had woven around her.
Knowing that her voice was like a raven’s compared to the least of the Queen’s spell singers, she wove a portion of that antiphonal melody into her humming. The words were a blur in her mind, a montage of visions of grasses and flowers and the way sunlight touched the leaves at springtide. It swirled in her mind as she paced the narrow confines of her chamber. The cavern smelled odd.
Aenor paused in her pacing and tilted her head to one side. She sniffed. The scent was delicious, sweet and spicy. Where could it be coming from? She peered into the dark comers of the rocks.
A flash of white caught her eye. She went to it and bent down. There was a flower there, a star-shaped blossom nodding on a slender stalk. She touched a petal with one finger and caught a shining drop of moisture on the tip. Aenor brought it to her tongue and tasted a sharp tang, as if green had a flavor.
“What is that infernal stink?!” The King stood at the entrance to her chamber, his pale face almost rosy with fury.
Aenor gave a guilty start and turned, stepping in front of the fragile flower. “Stink?” she asked hesitantly.
“What are you hiding?” He was bellowing and his eyes were like coals.
The little stream of song bubbled within her. Behind it, she knew, was a mighty river, a veritable ocean, a thing which might destroy the very vessel which contained it. That was how spell singers perished, by making songs too great for their powers. The thought that she might possess such energy surprised her. Aenor realized she had been learning all those years in the Queen’s court, without knowing it.
“What do I have to hide? I have a blanket I would not ask a dog to lie upon. Here.” She thrust the thing at him.
The stream gurgled in her throat as she spoke, pushing, threatening to breach its banks and flood the hollow room with a roaring torrent of music. Aenor hissed a ripple of notes out of a dry throat.
The King ignored her and peered towards the back of the small cavern. He sprang forward and pointed at the shimmering blossom. “What is that?”
Aenor pressed her back against the wall, her hands clutching the rough rock, trying to contain the song which seemed ready to burst from her straining lungs. Her breathing was deep but ragged. She fought for some control and found enough to speak. “It appears to be a flower. A jonquil, I believe.”
“What is it doing here?”
“I have no idea.” That was quite true. She had not been thinking of jonquils, and she did not think that the King would believe her in any case.
The King stared at her. His face had thinned in the past days and his eyes were circled with a darkness which did not come from the smuts of the forges. The rainbow circlet above his brow seemed dim and grimy, and his dark locks were lank against his skull.
With a quick move he smashed the flower with his boot. Aenor gave a little cry, as if she had been kicked. The small compassion she had begun to feel for the King died stillborn. The song thrummed along her veins, not like fire, but like chill water, clear and clean.
Aenor lifted her hands off the rock and moved towards the King. Her touch might not kill him, but it might make him wish she had. He gave a sort of squawk and pointed behind her.
She turned. The imprint of her body stood upon the rock, a mass of wild white roses, irises, and poppies. A single stalk of gladiolus, red as blood, lay along her hip, where the sword rested. The scent of roses filled the room, and where her foot had rested, lilies sprang. The King rushed away, leaving Aenor alone with a growing bower.
Alphonze, King of White Folk, was worried. He had failed twice to exercise command over one troublesome mortal female, and several of his lesser relations were eyeing his rainbowed circlet with open covetousness. When the Queen had exiled Aenor to his domains, he had been certain he could accomplish quickly the recovery of the jewel she possessed, A few weeks of cold and hunger would reduce the girl to such abject misery that she would be glad to hand over the thing. It would be quite a coup to do what the Queen and the court had failed to do.
But Aenor had surprised him. She showed little if any fear of his awesome might. She was rude and defiant, and she had eroded his authority by her critical presence amongst the forges. Something she had done had certainly caused the eruption of the metal river and the ruin of his workshops, though he had not spoken his suspicions to the Queen. It had been humiliating enough to beg for the offices of a spell singer to clean up the mess. The Queen suffered greatly under the curse that Aenor had laid upon her, but he considered that to be a sign of Elpha’s own weakness and incompetence.
Now he could not get the memory out of his mind of a silhouette of hateful blossoms springing from the bare rock where Aenor’s body had pressed. The terrible scent of these flowers disturbed him. Once, long ago, he had rejoiced in such things, in the sweet music of breeze on leaves, the soft fall of petal upon grass, for he had been very young when they had come to these caverns. Now the thought of such things was painful and loathsome. The Clay Folk were inferior, short-lived, and brutish. It hardly seemed possible that they were heir to the Blessed Lands, fouling it with their stone houses and loathsome habits. How could the Lord of the Living have chosen them over his earlier and greater creatures? Why, in his vanity, had he given them imperishable spirits, those souls which made them unique amongst his creatures? As he had been many times before, Alphonze was enraged at the injustice of it all. We are beautiful, the fairest folk to ever walk under the sun and moon, and they are ugly and stupid.
With an effort he set aside these futile musings and concentrated upon the problem at hand. Aenor had somehow learned t
he secrets of the spell singers. If he was not careful, she would be leaving patches of daisies all over the workshop floor. He ought to send her back to the Queen and wash his hands of the whole matter. It had not been his idea to steal her from her bed and bring her to (hese caverns. He had dwelt several millennia in the now-abandoned Crystal City beneath the green sun of the beryl, and in truth he preferred his sooty workshops. And Alfgar the Accursed had certainly shown the folly of treating with mortals. Alphonze sighed. Alfgar had been the finest flower of the Fair Folk. How could he have loved a silly wench? How could he have stolen the sun for lust?
He arose from his great stone chair, unable to penetrate these mysteries, and began his preparations. Fresh clothing, for the Queen hated the smell of the forges, and new boots, for the sole of the one still stank of jonquils. He would swallow his pride and ask for aid a second time, though it left a bitter taste in his mouth. They would take the girl back. He would demand it. It was Elpha’s fault anyhow. They never should have let Aenor run tame at court, learning who knew what secrets. They should never have brought her into the realm, as they never permitted those others who bore White Folk blood in their veins, the Guardians of the Way who hid the avenues between the sunlit world above and that below. There were merely servants who could bear the light, and while they possessed great powers compared to the miserable Clay Folk, they were still tainted by their human heritage. Vile creatures, neither one thing nor the other, performing their meagre magics in pale imitation of their betters. The only good they did was to prevent the Clay Folk from entering the realm with their dreadful swords.
Alphonze raged silently as he prepared himself to go again to the Queen’s court. He was unwelcome there, the more so since the Queen had begun to sicken from Aenor’s curse. The efforts of the spell singers had thus far sustained her, but they had not managed to undo the damage.
How was it possible for one silly slip of a Clay Woman to wreak such havoc? He thought of the roses in her chamber and shuddered. The spell singers had sworn that Aenor was harmless, bound by their powers forever. Accursed females, all of them, with their endless chantings. They were just waiting for Elpha to pass, so that one of them might become Queen. They probably were not really trying to cure the Queen. It was unthinkable that Aenor could have been so effective.
Alphonze shifted his dark belled baldric into place over his tunic and contemplated the candidates for Queen if Elpha perished. They were all quite young, and none of them his allies. They might wish to put another in his place. If only Eldrida were a singer. He considered the woman, an odd female, always making visits to his forges and asking all kinds of questions of his masters. She was too cunning and flattering by half. Still, she might be useful, somehow.
His thoughts returned to Aenor and the imprint of her body in living blossoms upon the bare wall of the cavern. I, the greatest lord of the White Folk, will not be undone by any half-clay mortal.
Aenor lay stretched out on a bed of sweet grass. Her small cavern was warm and humid with the moisture of a thousand blossoms. A small cascade of clear water tumbled from one wall and spilled into a pool upon the floor. She had washed her face in it, then had removed her gown and unbound her golden hair, and cleansed herself to a glowing pink. The song within her had altered to a soft murmur, a melody that mirrored the ripple of the water. She felt a vast peace. The beryl-hilted sword rested beside her on the grass, but she had forgotten it.
A whisper broke her reverie. She sat up, her long silky hair falling across her small breasts and sheltering her nakedness. She felt the presence of another song nearby. A spell singer! Who? She racked her brains to identify the maker.
Ah, Angold. She was the youngest and most vigorous of the Queen’s singers, and her song was fresh and innovative by their canons. Indeed, she was almost a renegade amongst her kind.
Another whisper. The King, of course. Aenor tensed. What were they up to? The room seemed cooler, suddenly, and her body felt heavy. Her eyes drooped.
The grass beneath her was no longer soft, but cold and glassy. Aenor forced her eyes open and looked around. The flowers were turning to stone and glass, the merry waterfall to crystal. Angold was stopping her song!
A flicker of fear touched her, replaced by a flood of rage a moment later. Her song was gone—almost. A faint echo of its power rang in her mind. Her head nodded as a terrible sleep began to envelope her. She dug her nails into her thighs and the pain roused her a little.
Aenor clawed the crystal grass and closed her hand around the hilt of the sword. She was heavy with Angold’s song now and could barely move. Somehow she dragged the sword towards her, and clasped it to her chest. Then she sagged back, clutching the sword to her body, the great green stone upon her heart. A pearlescence covered her body, and she became a statue resting within a glassy bower.
“Is she . . .?”
“Dead? Hardly, Alphonze. She merely sleeps. My song was barely strong enough to do that much, and how long the spell will stay I cannot say. I am weary beyond all measure.”
“You mean she might awaken? Get her out of my court, witch woman!”
“Mind your tongue, you miserable artificer.” They glared at each other. “She is no more touchable in this state than waking, for she holds the sun against her heart. And let so much as a drop of moisture touch her lips and she will rouse . . . and my song shall cease.”
Angold leaned against the rocky wall at the entrance to the cavern. She was a tall, pale-haired woman with smooth features. Now she seemed shrunken in her blue pleated gown, and Alphonze looked at her bewilderedly.
“What do you mean?”
“I had to twist my song into hers. You cannot understand.” She gave a terrible laugh. “Now we are sisters. I wish we had never brought her here. I cannot bear the sight of her. She is our doom, Alphonze. You will be the last King of the White Folk, and no one will remain to tell our tale.”
“Have you added prophecy to your other gifts?” he sneered, ignoring the chill the singer’s words aroused in him. “I shall have this place closed in with stones, so none may see this . . . horror.”
“Do what you will; it will not suffice.” Angold turned away and he followed her. Neither of them heard the slight slither of leathery hide over rock.
VIII
The smell of Paris reached Dylan long before he reached the edges of the city. It stank like all the sheep in Christendom rotting in the August sun. A grey mist rose off the river, full of flies and midges and biting gnats.
When he could see the shield wall, Dylan slid wearily off the licome and patted his flanks. “This cesspit is no place for the likes of you, nor me either, if the truth be told. But I must go there. Somewhere in there is a bit of my grandmother’s hide pretending to be a scabbard. I do not know if we will meet again, dear friend, but if we do not, it has been a privilege to have known you. Thank you for bearing such a clumsy burden so many leagues.” He stroked the mane and plucked a cockleburr from the tail. To his surprise, some dozen hairs came away with it. He wound them back and forth between his fingers into a luminescent coil and tucked them into his pouch.
The licome gave a brazen bellow and turned away. It vanished into the woods, and Dylan stood for a long time after it had gone, feeling a little lonely. A tiny melancholy frisked in his mind like a playful puppy, and he realized that he had lost his taste for the haunts of men, for the bustle of commerce and the shrill voices of his kind. Too, he was disturbed by his dreams. Beth shimmered in his sleep, but the other woman did as well. She slept, it seemed, or perhaps she had died, for she seemed so still, unmoving in a glassy bower, her pale skin gleaming like pink pearl, the lovely hand clutching the sword against her breast. He was no Prince Charming to wake the Sleeping Beauty with a chaste salute upon the wide brow, like one of his mother’s tales. He had the niggling fear that somehow the Fates would cheat him, unreliable as they were.
Banishing these thoughts as well as he could, Dylan walked up the left bank of the Seine until he
came to a bridge. It was a clumsy affair of poorly cut stone, new by its rawness, but already missing blocks from its sides and center. It looked as if the masons had been drunk when they made it. He shook his head, comparing it unfavorably with the fair span across the Thames that Arthur had built after he became King to replace the one ruined by the dreadful sound of the King’s pipes. Then he picked his way carefully across it. Huddles of beggars crouched here and there upon it, and they called to him for alms. They were miserable and diseased and he avoided them, for they had the same look of Shadow as had the peasants which had attacked the licome.
An indifferent guard in rusting mail and filthy braies barely stirred as he passed. Inside the wall, the beggars were more numerous. He could barely comprehend their gabble, and he realized that many were missing lips and noses and had running sores upon their faces and arms. This was no Shadow sickness, he knew, but the dreadful white death called leprosy. Franconia’s ruler must be a fool, to permit these folk to run free in the streets. Did Paris possess no lazarium where these people might dwell in decency, cared for by pious monks, without the risk of contaminating their fellows? Two scuttled towards him like crabs, claw hands out in whining supplication, and he waved them back in horror and pity.
A few steps further on an ugly fellow offered him a pretty girl of ten—or a boy about the same age, if he preferred. The children stared at him with empty eyes as they crouched in the litter-clogged doorway of a tumbledown shed. Dylan was disgusted and almost moved to pity. His better judgement told him that he could do nothing.
He passed a reeking alehouse and though his throat was parched, he was not tempted to enter its noisome confines. From the shouts, he suspected they were engaged in some sport he did not wish to know about. He was almost past it when there was a terrible roar, followed by screams and shouts.
He turned and saw a large bear, collared and muzzled, lumbering out, dragging a hapless youngster behind it. The beast was missing bits of fur, and a bloody froth rimmed the leather around his mouth. It reared up and batted the boy aside, raking sharp claws across his arm. The patrons exploded out of the alehouse and skittered to a halt as their victim turned to confront them, bellowing his ursine rage. A tongue of flame licked out between the planks of the structure, and there was an explosive boom! The customers, caught between an angry bear and a fiery building, screamed and darted this way and that.
Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 02] Page 8
