Kingfisher

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He got tired of the endlessly battering blade and shifted his bulky, ponderous weight out from under his shield. He let the shield drop. The knight’s sword met air instead of metal and kept going, dragging the dark knight after it. He drove his blade into earth and clung to it, maintaining a perilous balance.

  Sun leaped off Daimon’s blade and into his eyes as he lifted it. Somehow, the black knight pulled his own sword out of the ground and angled it upward to block the fall of Daimon’s. Metal sheared against metal. The two knights pushed against one another’s weight, lumbering around the crossed blades. The muscles in Daimon’s arms and back, wrung to the utmost, could only maintain their thrust against the dark knight’s strength; the knight seemed equally unable to change the equilibrium of their power.

  Then the black knight let his own blade shift, yield, just enough, as he twisted to one side, that the weight of Daimon’s body armor pulled him off-balance. The step he tried to take to catch himself was blocked by the knight’s blade, run into ground against Daimon’s foot.

  He fell facedown with a grunt of breath. The black knight rolled him onto his back, not without some difficulty. The tip of his blade found a delicate, defenseless line of skin between helm and breastplate. Daimon gazed at the hard, expressionless, inhuman head looming over him. The knight’s shadow fell into his eyes; he heard the harsh, weary rasp of his breath within his helm. Who are you? he demanded silently, urgently of the shadow-knight, of himself. Who are you?

  “I yield,” he said to the exasperating uncertainty, and the cold metal left his throat. He heard the thud of the massive hilt hitting the ground. The black knight raised both hands, wrestled off the helm, and Daimon saw the elegant, broad-boned, smiling face beneath it.

  His breath stopped. Field squires swarmed around them both. Hands hoisted him upright, drew off his helm. The distant whistling and cheers from the onlookers grew suddenly loud; he sucked in fresh, sweet air, and heard Jeremy Barleycorn’s amused voice from the announcer’s stand.

  “Dame Scotia Malory has defeated Prince Daimon Wyvernbourne in knightly combat with armor and broadsword. Beware, House Wyvernbourne, the powers of the north.”

  He looked for her as the squires helped him rise. But he only saw the back of her head, the severe braid of honey-colored hair suddenly fall out of its coil and down the black mantle, as she was escorted off the field.

  Later, Daimon sat among the wyverns in the huge, ancient hall named after them. The great, winged, long-necked, barb-tailed beasts swarmed across the stone walls and the ceiling, shadowy with age, memories of themselves. The throne built for the first Wyvernbourne king stood on a simple dais against a backdrop of the great stone caves and peaks where the wyverns lived. When the king arrived, he would sit there, as his ancestors had done, surrounded by wyverns’ faces rearing out of the black wood of the back and the armrests, their wild, staring eyes golden lumps of amber forged long before Wyvernhold existed. A podium with a microphone, looking bizarre among the wyverns, had been placed on each side of the dais.

  Knights who had spent the earlier hours on the practice field crowded into the rows of black-and-gilt chairs. Their faces were sunburned; they smelled of soap and shampoo. Daimon, adrift in his thoughts, barely heard their greetings. A lovely scent of lavender beguiled him out of himself as someone took a seat near him. He straightened, glancing around for the source of the lavender, and saw his half siblings, the two princes Roarke and Ingram, and the sister born between them, Princess Isolde. They scattered themselves around Daimon; as knights shifted to let them pass, he caught again the faint, elusive fragrance.

  “Too bad you bothered to fight in full armor,” Ingram said, taking a seat behind Daimon and prodding his shoulder. “You missed the sight of Isolde smacking the head off the joust dummy with her lance. It went flying. Nearly took out Jeremy Barleycorn in the announcer’s stand. He ducked just in time, or it would have been his head flying after it. What’s this all about? Anybody know?”

  “Not a clue,” Daimon answered shortly.

  “Something Lord Skelton found,” Isolde said, settling her ivory braid over one broad shoulder as she sat. She and Ingram had their mother’s hair, and the only blue eyes in the family for several generations. “Something in a book, I think.”

  “A book,” Ingram marveled. “Our father gathers an assembly of knights from all over the realm because of a book? A real one, do you think? Or one of those floating around in the cloud?”

  “Parchment, I would guess,” Roarke said. He added, at his younger brother’s silence, “That’s paper made of goatskin.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, but I am stunned that you actually know what a book is.” Roarke leaned over the empty chair beside Daimon. “I could have used you this morning on my street-fighting team. We were overwhelmed by Graham Beamish’s team, who had both Leith and Val Duresse on his. Machines, both of them. Even at Leith’s age.” He paused, glanced around cautiously, as though the elder of the fighting machines might be listening. “You had lunch alone with our father earlier this week. Did he say anything to explain this?”

  Daimon shook his head mutely, then made an effort. “Some artifact of the god Severen’s, I think he said Sylvester found.”

  “Our father invited you to lunch with him alone?” Ingram exclaimed. “What for? What?” he demanded, as Isolde smacked him upside the head.

  “Thank you,” Daimon said gravely.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I don’t see—” Ingram said indignantly, then saw. “Oh, that. Well, nobody cares about that. Do they?” he asked, as Daimon, shifting abruptly in his chair, felt the blood rise in his face. He sensed Roarke’s intense, speculative gaze on the back of his head and quelled his own impatience, turning to meet his siblings’ eyes, as well of those of others around them listening without compunction for royal gossip.

  “The king told me, for the first time in my life, about the woman who was my mother,” he said carefully, and his siblings were suddenly motionless, entranced.

  “Who was she?” Ingram demanded. “Did he love her? Were you an accident?” He dodged his sister’s hand that time. “Sorry. Stupid.”

  “And then he talked about this Assembly. Nothing that I understood.” He paused; they waited expectantly, as did those in the island of silence around them. “He said she was the descendant of a very old realm that no longer exists. She vanished after a night, and”—he lifted a shoulder—“somehow he found me.”

  “How?” the listeners demanded at once.

  “Ask him,” Daimon answered pithily, and with great relief saw their father come in at last.

  The Assembly rose. The king, followed by Lord Skelton and Lord Ruxley, stepped onto the dais and seated himself among the wyverns. The magus and the mystes moved toward the podiums. Lord Skelton wore a suit of scholarly black and carried an armload of books and papers, one of which he promptly dropped and pursued across the dais before he reached the podium. Mystes Ruxley, magnificently robed in gold embroidered with jewel-toned threads, had already set a single, thin screen upon his podium. He gripped the podium with both hands, summoning patience while the magus dithered with his books and papers, sorting through them, changing their order, mislaying one or the other, and searching through them again. The king watched him expressionlessly, while the gathering settled again into their chairs.

  Finally, the hall and the magus grew quiet, and the king rose.

  “Knights of Wyvernhold, I have summoned you here from all over this realm at the request of the court magus Lord Skelton and of Lord Ruxley in his aspect of Mystes of Severen’s sanctum. This concerns a matter of Wyvernhold history. It is a matter of enormous power, lost for millennia and brought to light through the painstaking scholarship of Lord Skelton. He will present the matter to you within the framework of his studies. Mystes Ruxley will explain the matter within the context of the sacr
ed powers of the god Severen. What I will ask is that you consider this matter within the context of knightly endeavor along the lines of the court history of the first king of Wyvernhold. I will ask those of you who are willing to undertake a modern version of the old-style quest.”

  There was an insect-chirp of chairs creaking all over the room at the unexpected notion.

  “Lord Skelton and Mystes Ruxley will explain what that means,” the king said, and returned to the wyvern throne.

  Both nobles silently queried one another, then the impassive king. Dourly, Mystes Ruxley flipped a palm at the magus.

  “Since you brought it to light, Lord Skelton,” he said grudgingly, and the entire pile on the magus’s podium slid onto the floor. “Well, then,” the mystes said with more complacency, as Lord Skelton disappeared abruptly after it, “since you’re busy, I will begin.”

  He touched the screen in front of him and began to read.

  “‘The young god felt the year dying within him. Frost whitened his bones, his brows, his lashes. The dying leaves in their journey floated through his veins, blocking light, blocking warmth from his heart’s blood. The voices of the birds cried of the coming end. They sang cold; they warned cold; they flew away and left the god to die. The old moon, the withering crone, showed no mercy, only cold. Animals fled from her, buried themselves in the earth. The pale webs of spiders, their tales, turned to ice and shattered.

  “‘The god began to turn to ice, began to die.

  “‘In his despair, he called to the vanished sun. He summoned its warmth, its fires into himself. With his power, a great mountain burst into flame in the snow. Ice melted from the cliffs carved by the footsteps of the river god. Stone itself melted. Stars of fire blazed like jewels and fell into the icy waters, warming them. The river ran gold with molten light. The wild, swirling waters, freeing themselves from the prison of ice, spun and spun. They shaped and fashioned. They made a vessel of pure gold, brought it into light. The pale moon, now the full and barren queen, reached down with her fingers of icy light to snatch the vessel, to steal its warmth and beauty as it whirled in the flow of the god to the sea.

  “‘The moon caught it, held it in her fingers of mist. But the river god pulled it down into its rapid, foaming waters, pushed it down deep, hiding the brilliance from her. Weighed with the god’s great power, the vessel sank, warming the waters as it drifted down, turning over and over in the flow, filling and emptying, gold warming god, gold burning water as the great river flowed to meet the sea.

  “‘The new moon, maiden now, made one last attempt to steal the god’s treasure. Her face looked down; she saw herself reflected in the river god’s face. She snatched the vessel his power had made, hid it there in her secret place, her pool buried under the earth. But the god found it and took it back. And he took her, for she was rightfully his, part of his great and powerful godhead.

  “‘He bore her with him to the sea.

  “‘There in the fountain of the world, the great cauldron of life, the vessel floats and falls, filling and emptying. The moon still searches, walking the path she weaves in the dark across the sea. The sacred vessel is now lost, now found, full and empty, carrying sun and moon, the power of water, of gold and god. It waits to be found. It is never lost. It waits.’”

  “Little of that,” the magus said, his gray head with its furry brows and long mustaches rising unexpectedly like a wayward moon from behind his podium, “makes any sense whatsoever.”

  “I am aware of that,” Mystes Ruxley answered acidly, looking a trifle unsettled by the apparition. “But, confused as it may be, it is the first written reference to the sacred vessel holding the god’s power. It is the tale most learn first.”

  “For most, the only version they know.” Lord Skelton brought up his collection from the floor and dropped it onto the podium with a thud that made the microphone ring. “The dying and reviving god is certainly the central symbol of the tale. But it would be ridiculous for the king to send his knights out in boats searching for a floating bowl of gold. For one thing, that much gold would sink like a stone.”

  “It is also light,” Mystes Ruxley reminded him, restored to equanimity by his pun. “Granted the tale is already muddled by antiquity, but it is a place to begin the discussion. The vessel has been, from very early times, an astonishing source of power. And you have come to the conclusion that it exists. Today. In this world. It can be found. We could argue that it must be, before the evil represented by the moon finds it first. If it is not in water, then where should the knights look?”

  The magus’s brows peaked; lines fretted his forehead. “That is the mystery. My search into the early myths, the tale of the vessel at once empty and full, lost and found, the great cauldron of life, brought me to unexpected conclusions. The vessel can only be seen through the clarity of understanding. It must be named in order to be truly seen. It can only be truly seen by those who, in the most profound way, already possess it.”

  “There must be something wrong with your translations,” the mystes said with asperity. “It is sacred, yes, but it’s also a physical object. You have been pursuing it for years, and now you are convinced that it exists to be found. Yet you say that it only exists for those who can see it? That makes no sense.”

  Lord Skelton gripped his mustaches with both hands, a sign of mounting exasperation. “And you call yourself a mystes.”

  “My lords, please,” the king said. Both men started as though one of the painted wyverns had spoken. “I understand that if it were a simple matter, the vessel would have been found long ago. It might help us if you present your ideas about the vessel without interruption. You can argue later. Lord Skelton?”

  The magus presented his views with many rustlings of paper, much riffling through pages of books. Odd bits of arcane philosophy, ancient names and poetry, folklore and allusions to the writings of the early mystica formed a roiling sea in Daimon’s thoughts, upon which the golden vessel floated aimlessly. “You must see with your heart. The vessel will find you. It will recognize itself in you. The vessel belongs to anyone who desires it, but no one can possess it. Its powers are as ancient as the world; it holds all the mysteries of the world.”

  One of which, Daimon noted, lay hidden in his father’s expression; the king listened to Lord Skelton without a thought revealing itself in his face, while all those amorphous ideas of power stirred to life under his roof.

  The magus stopped, seemingly at random in the middle of a thought, and asked if anyone had a question. Half the hall rose. He looked nonplussed at the response. Even the wyverns flying across the ceiling seemed to peer bewilderedly down at him.

  “I have as well,” the king said, quieting the hall again. “But perhaps Mystes Ruxley’s thoughts on the matter will answer some of our questions.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” the mystes said with what sounded like equal portions of indignation and relief. “And thank you, Lord Skelton, for a presentation that was scholarly to the point of nebulousness.”

  “You’re very welcome,” the magus said imperturbably.

  “I’m sure the question uppermost in your thoughts is: Where should I look for this vessel? In the sea? In the streets of Severluna? On a mountaintop? Lord Skelton seems to think that it can be found only by not looking for it, or only by those who have already found it. Some such. The vessel is formed in the Severen; it might be somewhere along the river. Or at the estuary, where the Severen meets the sea. There are, as well, references to the moon in her aspects of child, queen, crone. The phases of the moon might suggest clues. There is also a reference to Calluna’s cave. Perhaps there are ancient clues on the walls of the cave, even an image of the vessel itself.” Lord Skelton opened his mouth; the mystes lifted his hand. “Yes, yes, I know that every scratch on the cave walls has been studied. But maybe that’s why the vessel has not been found: Nobody would recognize it if they saw it. A coo
king pot, they might see. A simple drinking cup.” He paused, hearing his own words. “I suppose,” he added reluctantly, “in that idea, Lord Skelton may be right. Perhaps only the heart, not the eye, would recognize the power in it.”

  Daimon, motionless in his chair, heard his mother’s voice again, on a noisy street corner in Severluna, not far from where he had been born: Whatever shape it has taken, you have the eyes, the heart to recognize it. Find it for Ravenhold. Find it for us.

  13

  On the far side of the Hall of Wyverns, Pierce, sitting with a wyvern glaring from the stones on one side of him, and Val in his formal black leather and silk on the other, tried to render himself invisible. He was still in his black server’s uniform; he would, Val assured him, be all but inconspicuous wearing that among the knights. Two old men had been droning on the dais for an hour, with the king between them. Pierce hadn’t heard a word they said. He had taken one look at the king’s sharp, golden eyes, his strong, inscrutable face, and his own head had tried to recede, turtle-wise, into his untidy collar. He stared at his feet, waves of anticipation and dread rolling through him, sweat running down his hair, down his back like brine.

  Val turned to him once, his ice-blue eyes wide. Calm, they said. Calm. Pierce swallowed dryly, kept sweating.

  There was a sudden stir throughout the hall. Something had happened; knights turned to speak to one another; others rose. Pierce jumped at the touch of Val’s hand.

  “We’re taking a break,” Val explained, and stood up. “Come on, let’s find my father. Our father,” he amended, as Pierce stared at him incredulously.

  “I can’t go out there among the knights. Not like this. If I even stand up, I’ll melt into a puddle of kitchen-server black on the floor.”

  His brother’s brows crooked. “You’ve come this far,” Val reminded him. “Just a little farther—” Something in Pierce’s expression, his inextricable huddle, made him relent. “Stay here, then. I’ll find him. Don’t go anywhere.”