by Simon Brown
But now Grenda Lear was getting on with its existence and Areava must at last face the solitary truth of her own life. As queen she was separated already from the mainstream, but as a widow her isolation was complete. At her worst she easily imagined she was unloved, unwanted, cast away, but it was against her nature to feel sorry for herself for long, and she would remember the love and support of Olio, and the devotion of Orkid Gravespear and Harnan Beresard. Ironically, she understood how it was possible to be alone because she was queen, and yet as queen she had more companionship than she did as a woman.
On top of all of that, her head was filled with the details of the war against Lynan. She knew by heart the size of each detachment of troops going to the Great Army and where it came from; she knew the number of ships, naval and merchant, involved in transporting and supplying that army, and she knew how much the whole affair was going to cost her Kingdom. It would take a decade for the economy to recover. The crown itself would be in debt for most of her reign.
But Grenda Lear will survive, she told herself. Indeed, it would be stronger and more united because of Lynan's rebellion. In a way he had done her a favour by reducing Haxus—Grenda Lear's oldest enemy—to nothing more than a province ready for annexation once hostilities were over. The whole continent of Theare would come under the sway of her House. The Rosetheme kestrel would fly above every city, every port, every ship that plied the continent's seas.
She was slowly aware of a heavy weight growing between her breasts. For a moment she thought with dread it might be her heart, but realised almost right away it was the Key of the Sceptre. In wonder she lifted the quilt over her. The Key looked no different. She touched it gingerly and gasped when a spark flew between the Key and her finger. This had happened before, when she had first touched it after Berayma's murder.
What was happening?
Incredibly, even as her breathing and heartbeat increased in excitement and fear, she felt unconsciousness, heavy and dark, slip over her mind.
'No!' she cried out, but her voice was small and weak.
The Key was now so heavy it pressed down on her like a great stone weight.
And then she was no longer in Kendra.
A face flashed across her mind's eye, female, ancient and beautiful at the same time, alluring and terrible. Then a Chett's face, not a girl but not much older, strong, powerful and determined. Like me, Areava thought. Then Ager Parmer, one-eyed and serious. Another woman's face, also young, but unmistakably Kendran, and around her a great aura of power. The magiker who escaped with Lynan, but a student no longer.
And then Lynan's face, but changed dramatically, cruelly; pale and scarred, his eyes too old for his eighteen years. He was naked, aroused, fevered, muttering obscenities.
Areava tried to look away.
Lynan still, and then another presence over him, speaking to him but in no tongue Areava understood. A glimpse of a face, the first one Areava had seen, with deep yellow eyes and irises without striation. Terrible eyes. The face turned away and dark wings wrapped around Lynan.
Areava felt an overwhelming need to flee. Again, she tried to look away, to send herself somewhere else, but whatever power had brought her here would not let her escape.
The thing with a woman's face smiled at her brother. Her lips parted and blood seeped from the corners of her mouth.
Areava screamed, and everything went dark.
CHAPTER 25
Lynan's madness lasted four nights. On the first night, the night Lynan slew Farben, Jenrosa left the city by herself and made an incantation in the air. A ring of fire as red as the setting sun spread out in the sky, its moon shadow rippling along the ground like a bloody tide.
On the second night she left the city by herself and made an incantation on the earth. The ground beneath her feet coughed up the rotting body of a dead soldier, the flesh still hanging from its bones.
On the third night she left the city by herself and made an incantation in the water of the Barda River. The water broke in waves that spread out from her in a great circle. Fish fled the river and suffocated on the banks, twisting and flopping in pain.
On the fourth night, the night when she would make her greatest magik, she first walked slowly from her room to Lynan's private chambers. When she got there the two Red Hands on duty immediately let her through; no one stopped a companion of the White Wolf.
Lynan was in his bed, his eyes open but his mind somewhere else. His lips constantly muttered strange sentences that no one understood. He took neither food nor drink, but he did not diminish. His skin shone in the candlelight like marble.
On his left side sat Korigan. On his right side sat Ager. They looked at Jenrosa when she entered. Korigan tried to smile. Ager's eyes were asking questions she could not answer; not yet, anyway.
Ager made way for her. She leaned over Lynan and whispered in his ear, 'The past is the same, but the present has no boundary.'
Instantly he stopped his muttering, and his head turned so he could look at her.
'What did you say?' Korigan asked urgently.
Jenrosa waved her quiet. Lynan was saying something, but she could not hear it.
'The past is the same,' she repeated, 'but the present has no boundary.' She put her ear next to his mouth.
'The past is the present,' said a voice that was not Lynan's.
Jenrosa shot up straight and stepped away from Lynan. He smiled at her, something sickly and depraved, and for an instant his eyes focused on her face. Then he turned his head back, his eyes glazed over once more, and he returned to his muttering.
'What happened?' Korigan demanded.
'What did you do?' Ager added.
Jenrosa shuddered. She felt dirty, infected. She wanted to run to the Barda River and throw herself in, sink like a stone to the bottom and drown.
Ager grasped her arm and she flinched from the contact.
'God's death, Jenrosa!' he called. 'What's wrong?' He instinctively took a step towards her.
Jenrosa put her hands out to ward him away.
'Tell me what just happened,' Korigan ordered, coming around to their side of the bed.
'I cannot tell you,' Jenrosa said breathlessly. She shook her head to ward off any more questions. 'Not yet. I will tell you later.' She ran for the door.
'Jenrosa!' Korigan cried after her.
'Trust me!' she called back but did not stop. She ran until she reached her room. A single candle burned on a washstand. She splashed her face and throat with water. Shadows danced around her. She knew what they meant. She had not much time. She took some materials from one of her saddlebags at the foot of her bed and left. She intended to walk out of the palace, out of the city and into the country to perform the last of the four magiks, but when she got outside was stopped by the sheer menace in the air and the realisation she might not have enough time. Panic rose in her and she pushed it down with a great effort of will. Where could she go? She needed fire…
Almost at once she thought of the smithy. But would the blacksmith let her use it? She shouted an order to a passing patrol of Red Hands to follow her, and she made her way out of the palace and through the streets. When they arrived the blacksmith was still at work, adding the finishing touches to one of the blades for a pair of shears. He saw them approach out of the corner of his eye and angrily barred their way, holding out his tongs like a sword with the red-hot piece still in them.
'You lot have just put in my new furnace and now mm want to destroy that one, too? I won't have it—' Jenrosa nodded to the Red Hands. A short sword flashed in the air and the tongs clattered to the ground, broken in two. None too gently they evicted the shocked blacksmith from his own shop and set up guard outside.
Jenrosa made sure no one else was inside and closed the doors. Warm air blossomed inside the smithy. Sweat prickled her face. She gazed into the centre of the furnace, steadied her heart and began the incantation, her voice starting as barely a whisper and rising as the magik gained strength
. The fire grew hotter as the chant continued, changing from orange to yellow to white, and its core seemed to pulse with a life of its own, Tendrils of flame licked out from the furnace, reaching for Jenrosa like grasping fingers. The tendrils merged together, created writhing patterns that suggested shapes Jenrosa thought she recognised but could put no name to; then she saw a face, indistinct, unrecognisable as any individual, but a face nonetheless with eyes and mouth and ears. The flames retreated. The heat in the smithy was almost unbearable; she felt as if she was standing in the middle of the sun. Sweat saturated her clothes, plastered her hair to her scalp.
More tendrils, sinuous, tinged with blue and green. Forests. Wings. A woman.
There, Jenrosa thought. Now.
The core changed colour. A bright ruby point that swelled until it seemed to fill the whole furnace. A face, and this one she knew. She screamed at it in fear and hate, and the face screamed back at her.
A wall of air moved out from the furnace, picked up Jenrosa like a leaf in a storm and threw her against the smithy door. The door flew open and she tumbled outside among the startled Red Hands. Hands scrabbled to pick her up. She remembered to breathe. The cool night air touched her skin, made her shiver. She looked up and saw a cloud of black greasy smoke pillow into the sky until a fresh breeze above the city walls caught it and whipped it away.
Truespeaker, are you alright?' one of the Red Hands asked.
Jenrosa hardly noticed the title. 'We have to get back to the palace. Quickly.'
She tried to take a step but was too weak. Hands grabbed at her again.
'Best wait a while,' another Red Hand said.
'Quickly!' she cried. 'For Lynan's sake!'
That did it. They set off at a brisk trot, supporting Jenrosa between them.
'Hurry!' she called desperately, afraid she would be too late, and clutching at the dagger under her shirt.
The whole time Lynan was in the forest—and time behaved very strangely when he was there—she was never very far from him. Even when he could not see her he could hear her song.
'I do not understand the words,' he told her once.
'It is a song of desire,' she replied. 'A song of deep and great want.'
'You are singing to me?'
'I am singing for you,' she laughed.
The sun never rose in the forest, although the moon was so bright there was no need for it anyway. His eyes could tell colours and shapes apart as easily as they could in the day, and everything possessed a beautiful sheen, as if gilt in silver. When she was close, the colour became more like jade or emerald.
When she was not singing for him, she was asking him questions.
One time she said to him, 'Tell me about the queen.'
'Which one?'
'The one you sleep with.'
'The one I love.'
'The one you sleep with,' she insisted, the laugh never far from her voice.
'She is wild and beautiful.'
'And she loves you.'
'Yes.'
'Tell me about the other one.'
'The other queen?'
'The other woman. The one you love.'
'No.'
'You will not tell me about her?'
'I do not love her.'
With one long, sharp nail she traced the shape of a heart on his chest. 'Tell me about her.'
'She is in pain all the time. I do not know how to reach her.'
'But you do not love her,' she said, pretending to pout.
'No.'
'Tell me about her.'
'The queen or the one I love?'
'The queen who hates you.'
'She is my sister.'
'She is half of you.'
'No.'
'She has half the Keys.' She used her finger to lift the Keys and study them closely. 'Is she beautiful?'
'I do not know.'
'Is she as beautiful as you?'
'I do not know.'
'I need all the Keys. Without them we cannot be together forever.'
'I know. I will kill her for you and take her Keys.'
'Soon,' she said, and then again, drawing out the word, rubbing her thigh against his. 'Soon, my love.'
'You can have my Keys now,' he said.
She seemed to consider it, but let them drop from her finger. They clinked together. 'No.'
'But—'
She placed her hand over his mouth. 'No.' She lifted her hand and kissed him deeply. His head was filled with the great smell of her, of ancient earth and ancient sex. 'I will not be half complete.' After a long while she pulled back from him. 'I am half of you too.'
'If I am half my sister and half Silona, what is there of Lynan?'
'Nothing at all,' she said, her voice mocking. 'There never was.'
Another time she said to him, 'I will teach you to fly.'
'You will make me like you. I will be like Silona.'
'No one is like Silona,' she said. 'I am the last of my kind. I was here before your people came to Theare. We were hundreds then, each with our own great forest. At night we would fly over the continent and sing to one another. We would take each other on the wing. We had such beauty, such power.'
'Why are you the last?'
'All the others were slain by iron and fire, their forests butchered for farms, their wings turned into cloaks for petty horse-riding chieftains.'
'The Chetts killed your people?'
'You are all Chetts, dear Lynan.'
'Why are you still here?'
'Someone has to sing the song. Someone has to desire more than life.'
Another time she said to him, 'I will teach you pain.'
She held his head in her clawed hands and her nails bit deep into his scalp. His blood ran down her wrists and she licked them clean. She scraped her clawed hands down his chest and thighs until the blood ran down his legs and pooled at his feet and she devoured it all.
The pain was all the ecstasy he had ever known.
'Do you know pain?' he asked her.
'I know only desire,' she said, and he tasted the lie but was afraid to say so.
She saw the doubt in his face and it made her angry, She drew away from him.
'I am sorry,' he said.
She ignored him.
'Come back. I am sorry.'
She was smiling at him now, her face appearing behind branches and leaves. Teasing him.
'I will do anything,' he said.
She drifted towards him, carried on a breeze, her great black wings rippling in the sky. Behind her head the moon gave her a halo.
But there was the moon, above him.
The light behind her flared suddenly. He heard her scream, and the sound of it was like a dagger thrust into his own body.
Night. A single candle flickered on the washstand. Ager seated on his right, his head bowed in sleep. Korigan on his left, her body slumped over the bed, snoring softly.
And himself.
It took a moment, then he remembered who he was. And he remembered her.
'How long?' he asked.
He felt his chest and scalp. There was no bleeding, no scars.
'God.'
The light. Its echo still made him blink. What had it been?
He remembered it all. Tears sprang down his cheeks. His stomach roiled.
He wanted to vomit. He wanted to flay off his skin and throw it away. He wanted to cut off his sex. He wanted to dig out his own eyes, slice off his ears, lop off his own hands. He had been so fouled he would never be human again.
And yet he still desired her.
He glanced at his friends again. Ager stirred.
'No,' he said firmly. They must not see him or touch him ever again. He would be the cause of their death. He was becoming like her, like Silona, and everything close to him would corrupt. He would be a charnel house.
He wanted to close his eyes but was afraid of what he would see.
'Finish it,' some part of him said.
Kill myself, he thou
ght. God knows, no one else can.
'No,' that part of him said again. 'Finish it.'
Finish what? He hunted down the thought.
Finish Silona. It was the only way he could be saved.
He slid out of the bed and dressed quickly. He found his weapons under his clothes and strapped them on. He stopped at the door. The Red Hands would follow him. They would never let him be. They would die for him.
'No one else will die for me,' he said, and went to the window. He eased it open and lightly jumped outside. He was in the courtyard. He could see Red Hands posted at each corner. It was too dark for them to see him. Slowly, quietly, he made his way from the courtyard to the stables. There were two hands there playing a game under a lantern. They did not hear him. He went behind the stables to the feeding yard and found a good Chett mare. The horse smelled him and started whinnying, but he held its head without hurting it and spoke to it and let it sniff the back of his hand and then his hair. He gathered a second mare the same way. He chose two bridles from some hanging from the yard fence, fitted them around the horses' heads and led them out of the yard. He snuck back into the stable and took a saddle and blanket, returned to the horses, fit one with the gear and mounted. Holding tightly onto the reins of both horses he kicked the one under him into a gallop, charging out of the palace before any of the guards could challenge him.
Through the dark he rode, east and then south, across the Barda River and deep into enemy territory.
'Where is he?' Jenrosa shouted.
Ager and Korigan leapt into the air, both reaching for their weapons. Jenrosa ignored them and rushed to the bed, desperately whipping aside the sheets even though it was obvious even a child could not have been hiding under them.
Jenrosa grabbed Ager by his poncho. The Red Hands looked on in shock and surprise. Surely even the White Wolf would be more careful around the crookback?
'God's death, Ager,' she shouted in his face, shaking him, 'where is Lynan?'
'I…' He looked around, confused. 'I fell asleep…'
Jenrosa turned on Korigan. 'You must have seen him! You must know where he is!'
Korigan looked blankly at her. 'No. He was here.' She looked up hopefully. 'The Red Hands on guard…'
