“No!”
Thorn’s cry was a surprise to them all, but mostly to the woman. She staggered, the smooth progression of her spin interrupted, and her foe took immediate advantage, bringing up his knee in a brutal blow to her midsection that doubled her over, following it up with a second kick to the face that bounced her on her back. Now he had the ax.
Nothing came of it. Even as he raised the weapon Thorn stabbed his knife at the man’s side, aiming for the seam where breast- and backplate joined together. There was an armored guard flap underneath and mail below that; by rights, the blade should have glanced off, with no damage done. But Thorn did his own forging, he’d spent the best part of a year underground, apprentice to the Mountain Folk—a branch of the Nelwyn tree that worked metals instead of soil—learning how to do it properly. This stiletto, he cast thin as a knitting needle, to fit between any seam and through the rings of a mail shirt. And so it went, to the hilt into the Maizan’s side. Not a fatal strike, Thorn didn’t have the proper angle for that, but enough to get the man’s attention. Which, in turn, caught the Nelwyn a powerful thump to the side of his skull, followed by a clumsy backswing of the ax, the flat of the blade like running full tilt into a door. Down he went, while the Maizan returned to what he’d decided was the preeminent threat, the woman. As he raised his ax to finish her, though, darkness exploded upward around him. He made no outcry, it was doubtful he even knew what was happening. One instant he was there, the next he wasn’t. Only Thorn’s knife lay on the floor to mark his passing.
Thorn was still gawking when the woman’s palm slapped his chest and knocked him aside, the sound of her hand merging with the swish of the other Maizan’s crossbow bolt as it whizzed by. He was in the doorway, using the jamb for cover as he worked the cocking lever to recharge his bow; the archer had as clear a field of fire as any archer could wish for, and from the speed and evident efficiency of his reload, it was doubtful either Thorn or the woman would survive a rush up the stairs.
The Maizan raised his bow.
And his head separated from the rest of him.
Body and bow fell together, in a scarlet mess.
Where he’d been, stood Geryn Havilhand, double-handed broadsword shaking in his grasp. His leathers were torn, his face scored with grime and gore, soaked as much with blood as sweat.
“Bastard,” he cried, and then, with face upturned as though to the whole palace above, “Bastards!”
He spied the Death Dog and, as though to emphasize the point, hacked at it like a logger with his blade until both stone and steel were badly chipped. He was too caught up in his frenzy to notice a pool of darkness oozing up beneath the hound; after his last stroke, when he’d exhausted himself too much to go on, the creature simply vanished, along with the remains of the other Maizan.
Thorn felt a faint taste of the Demon’s satisfaction at its meal; it made him sick, but also made him hunger for more.
“They’re killing the Lions,” Geryn said hoarsely, tripping over his own feet as he made his way down the stairs, using the wall as a bulwark to hold himself erect. “Cut ’em down like butchers, them an’ their damn birds.”
“The herons!”
“Drumheller, what’s happening, what does it mean?”
“Nothing good, I fear. Has anyone sounded the alarm?”
“None left of ours to try. Only reason I’m still alive is’t I followed these gobshite yobbos into the Old Keep. Forgive me, Peck, I din’t know this’s what they did wi’ yeh. I thought they’d treat’cheh better.”
“Could have been worse, Pathfinder. Are you hurt?”
“Bumped an’ bruised, but nowt enough t’ matter. Not done well by this, though.” He brandished his blade, frowning at the scars he’d left along its edge. “Done me fair service, it ’as. Deserved better in return.”
“Make amends as and when you can, lad, now’s not the time. See to the lady here.”
The young Daikini squinted for a better look in the dim glow cast by the fallen torches and then flushed to the roots of his hair.
“Blessed Elora,” he squeaked, “she’s got no clothes!”
“Then find her some,” Thorn told him briskly, “and quickly. Horses, too. By the Carter’s Gate.”
“Aren’t yeh comin’ with?”
“I have other responsibilities.”
“How long do we wait, then?”
“As long after moonrise as seems prudent. I wish I could be more specific, but in truth, Geryn, I’ve no idea. Just remember to err on the side of caution.”
“We can’t come wi’ yeh?”
“Where I’m going, and what I’m to do, it’s best I’m alone. Trust me in this. And be careful.”
“An’ you, the same. Got’cherself a name, missy?”
Thorn hadn’t expected a reply, but then he also hadn’t expected any skill at arms.
“Khory,” he heard, and turned to stare in dumbfounded astonishment. Her voice was deep, a husky contralto, roughened by an age of unuse, made more awkward by the necessity to resort to physical speech where Demons normally cast their thoughts directly from mind to mind. She knew what she wanted to say, that much was clear; she was finding it difficult shaping lips and larynx to form the words.
“Khory…Bannefin.”
“Geryn Havilhand. A pleasure.”
“Stay,” she said haltingly to Thorn, as though finding the proper word to use was as much a challenge as the actual speech. “You.”
“No,” Thorn replied, as sparingly. He kept his construction direct and clear, the way he would with a child. “Stay with him!” He indicated Geryn and struck a tone and manner that permitted no opposition. There was a moment when he thought she’d argue, a set to the jaw, a glint to the eye, that bespoke a will as stubbornly indomitable as his own. But—this once—she let it pass and did as she was told. The two soldiers left.
He couldn’t help a sigh at the prospect of another bout of parenting.
“Demon!” He made the word a Summons, as though he’d thrown a warding circle and cast all the proper invocations.
You’ve done well, little mage.
“I haven’t bloody started, thank you very much. If the Maizan have seized the palace…”
Accomplished fact, that is, though none within Elora’s hall know it, nor any beyond the palace walls.
“What of Elora?”
Feel the moonglow, Drumheller?
He did, as a sizzle of energy like cool fire, where its light touched the topmost towers. Throughout the great castle, trumpeters stood poised to sound the final fanfare—and Thorn sensed Maizan assassins close by to make sure the voluntary was final in every respect.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” he cried. “Can’t you swallow those Maizan up as well?”
He heard the laughter of genuine amusement, not a pleasant sound at all from a Demon.
Silly little man, if my power could reach so far, in such a way, what living thing would be left to walk within these walls? Why else do you think I am bound so tight and cast so low?
“How’d you reach me then, in Elora’s Tower?”
I but showed you the path. The power to walk it was yours alone.
“What?”
Speak to the stones now as you did then, they will make way for you.
He felt the weight of them, soaring skyward, their base planted firm and deep upon the earth. It was much the same as when he’d turned what he later came to know as his InSight on his bed, so many years ago. There was a resonant echo within the fabric of the stones of the mountains whence they came, old patterns broken as the raw stone was quarried and shaped, new ones formed as those massive blocks were set in place.
He thought he’d always understood the way of things, the form and manner of their being. Some elements were of air, some of water, some of fire, some of earth; some were solid, others not. But the Demon had shown him a different,
more intense means of perception and that had profoundly shaken his faith in his own beliefs. Stone was solid, so much so that the walls of this cell helped support a building that rose hundreds of feet into the sky. Yet stone could be broken by the force of a blow, by subjecting it to too much heat or cold, or worn away by running water across it. As the outward seeming of a man belied the miraculous complexity of what lay within, so, too, was the solid frontage of a stone equally a mask. The structure was simpler than what he’d find in a more nimble, active being, but peer deeply enough and the bedrock aspects were the same.
All was energy. All was malleable.
The world he inhabited, his very body, had constancy only because he lacked the means to see it truly. Now he saw through clearer eyes…
…and wished he didn’t.
At first glance, there seemed to be great voids between the core particles of the stones, as he discovered there also were within himself. A simple matter then to will himself to pass between them.
A hard-earned caution, and an innate courtesy, prompted him to look again, more closely, his perceptions a fraction wider and yet more focused. Fields of force and attraction appeared before him, reminding him of the patterns his wife cast on her loom, fragile individually yet woven into a far stronger and mutually supportive entirety. Only here the linking threads most resembled diamond dust sparkling in celestial firelight, and the motes they bound together, crystalline snowflakes. Similar in general form but each one unique unto itself.
The beauty made him weep. Not only for the glory that blazed around and within him, but also in sorrow for all those multitudes who would never see, could never comprehend.
The Demon was energy unconfined, substance without form. The world as Thorn knew it, totally the reverse. The two couldn’t help but be at odds. The smallest of steps after that for one to describe the other as inimical and evil.
He reached out to the stones, presenting himself to them as a supplicant, requesting safe passage, promising to do them no harm and asking the same of them in return. It was a tedious exchange, for the stones were by nature deliberate, and made all the more so by centuries of comparative dormancy. He had power—and desire—enough to bull his way through, yet at the same time knew, however tempting and desperate the need, that would be wrong.
He never heard the fanfare or sensed the moonrise. But he felt their repercussions.
Both moments made Elora tremble. And through the double bond that made Thorn part of both Demon and castle, it was as though he stood by her side.
She stands perfectly straight, because she has no choice. Her clothes are wrapped so tight around her she can barely move, and therein lies a problem none had foreseen. A burr of memory from a time she’d deliberately cast from her, a place of shadowed cold where flames existed to steal the warmth from things instead of the other way ’round. No friends at hand in this haunted recollection, the air sharp with the tang of blood, the ring of steel, the cries of the dying. She was very small then, she hardly had names to put to things, her mind still busy fixing the connections between it and her body. In these awful dreams, there are no details to the background, only an all-consuming shadow, out of which bursts misshapen masks: faces that are overlong and narrow, like combat arrows, broad of forehead, wickedly sharp at the chin, with cheek knobs as prominent as barbs. Bad teeth and hungry eyes, she’s seen more compassion in a starving wolf.
A figure in red commands them, wrapped tight head to toe beneath her scarlet robe in linen silk that has been stripped of even the memory of color. Elora is bound in black, the difference being that the woman can move; she cannot.
She feels her teeth chatter and clenches them, her fists as well, to make them stop, using that physical discomfort to put a welcome wall between her and her unwanted memory. Every Domain has its signal hue; together, they encompass the primary elements of the visual spectrum. Each their special fabric, each their singular design. The ensemble feels as though it weighs as much as she, and while the fit is perfect in every regard, she’s never worn it before, has had no opportunity to get used to it.
The gown gives her figure, and cosmetics give her face, a maturity she hasn’t earned and doesn’t feel. All she finds herself thinking of at the doorway is how much the Vizards remind her of those mannequins from her dreams, and how much her gown resembles the binding cloths of old.
“It’s your special day,” she starts to tell herself aloud, before the injunctions of her dressers return to her with a vengeance. They have painted a perfect mouth on her, they don’t want it spoiled by as much as a breath, much less a word.
I wish it was over, she thinks, why can’t it end? Why can’t I just end it myself? She fantasizes a turn on her heel and a quick march back the way she came, to the sanctuary of her tree, and barely stifles a giggle, which in turn comes close to provoking a succession of strokes in the watching majordomo.
On the other hand, once the ceremony is done, her Ascension acknowledged, she’ll well and truly be the Sacred Princess. The rulers of the Twelve Domains have come to pay her homage and swear eternal fealty. After that, she reasons, no one can ever again tell her what to do. She’ll be truly free. A passing discomfort is a small price to pay for such a reward.
Unless they’re lying.
She’s been lied to about so many things in her life, this one more won’t surprise her.
The doors swing wide.
Her first instinct is to run, but the train of her gown anchors her in place, the robes further denying her any stride longer than the length of her foot, so all she can manage is a reflexive demi-step back. She knows the face that waits on the dais, though her whole life has passed since she saw it last. He appears taller than she remembers, but then so is she. The smile welcoming her is all it should be, and when his arms open wide to receive her, she remembers how warm and safe she always felt in his embrace.
He is dressed head to toe in white.
She blinks, blinks again, as the first flankers of Vizards precede her down the aisle. Of their own volition, her feet move with them, dainty hobble steps, three to their slow and stately one, which give her the delicacy of a doll. The train flows back and out behind her for twice her body length and to the edges of the aisle, forcing her to pitch her body slightly forward and push with all her strength, like an ox before a fully laden wagon. The effort makes her cant her head a little toward the floor, and she lowers her eyelids as well, to further block any sight of the altar, thankful finally for the ornate headdress that mere moments before she would cheerfully have cast from the top of her tower. She can’t look at Willow standing there, the sight of him makes her head hurt, as though sand is being scattered into the orbits of her eyes. She doesn’t like him dressed up; comfortable homespun suits him better, plain attire for a plain soul.
Every eye is on her, the air of expectation within the vaulting chamber so intense she can taste it, and the thought zips through her of an elaborately decorated main course being brought before a state dinner. Some delicacies, she knows, are best eaten alive, the expertise of the chef determined by his ability to sustain that life throughout the meal. The image makes her ill; she wonders where it comes from, why it chooses this moment to show itself. She wants to scratch herself; she itches all over, as though someone has slipped a scattering of fleas into one of her robes, her skin grown unbearably sensitive to the touch.
Her mind is no longer paying attention to the tasks at hand, but that doesn’t really matter. She’s been trained for this moment since she was old enough to learn; if there is no consciousness at all to direct things, she knows her body can carry on regardless. With a final thunder of drums and trumpets, she takes her appointed place.
She and Willow are the same height, but he uses the dais to give himself a head’s advantage over her.
“Elora Danan,” she hears him say, his voice rich with all the warmth and caring that fills her dreams and memories of him. “In th
e name of the Twelve Domains, I bid you welcome.”
She wants to scream at him, Where have you been? Why didn’t you come for me sooner? But she remains silent. Instead, she turns, as she’s been trained, to follow her appointed path.
A shallow ramp leads her up and around the circumference of the great, central dais, past each of the assembled Domains in turn. It isn’t that the platform itself is so high; her robes are so binding she can’t raise her feet enough to span the distance. Her throne as well has been specially designed so that she won’t actually be sitting on it, in any normal sense, but resting at an angle.
As she makes her clockwise circuit she casts sidelong glances across the front rank of chairs for her first look at who is present. On one level is a preening satisfaction, that so many personages of note have come to pay her homage. No matter who you are, she crows with silently malicious glee, I’m your better! At the same time, though, another part of her wonders what that means. She can’t wait to embrace the rank and authority they offer—and then to settle old scores (she tries to flick a dagger glance toward Angwyn’s king, but the hulking brute is too thickheaded and self-absorbed to notice)—yet at the same time she wants no part of it. Those desires feel wrong, the moment itself far worse. Every physical aspect of the ceremony strikes a discordant note, the music jangles in her ears, the visual opulence twists her eyes. She is flushed and chill all at the same time, just as though she is falling ill, and has a horrified (delightful) image of herself collapsing at Willow’s feet in a dead faint.
A section of seats is virtually empty and she snaps her gaze back for a second, more focused look, as always presenting (as best she can) the show that her eyes remain properly downcast and straight ahead. Only one figure, a boy—or possibly a girl, she can’t really tell—sits alone in the center of the first row, resplendent in a suit of iridescent shimmer that makes it appear as though his very skin is aflame. With such a start that she loses the beat and nearly misses a step, she realizes that her stare is being returned with an intensity that beggars hers. She purses her lips, uncaring that it spoils the purity of her face painter’s conception, puzzled by a curious dichotomy of vision; the boy is but a single, relatively small figure in a single row, yet he somehow seems to her to fill the entire space, to the point where she has a sense of great wings folded over a sinuously majestic body that reaches all the way to the ceiling.
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