Dragonwitch (21 page)

E
TANUN
VISITED
MANY
TIMES
over the long course of my reign. Every time I saw his face, it was like the first shining of the sun. And every time he left, it was like the setting of the moon and the fall of deepest night. But when I asked if he would come again, he said that he would. So I had hope.

The last time Etanun visited, I could scarcely enjoy our day together for the knowledge of its brevity. As the hour of his departure drew near, I reached out and took his hand in both of mine.

“Everyone I love leaves,” I told him. “My father, my mother, my brother, all have gone down to the Final Water, while I remain behind.”

“Your love for them keeps them close in your heart,” he replied, and once again I marveled at how tender a warrior's voice might be. That tenderness gave me courage.

“But is my love enough to keep you close?” I cried, drawing his hand to my heart. “Is it enough, Etanun, for I cannot bear your departure again!”

For a breath I waited.

Then he withdrew his hand from mine, and his face was grave and sad.
“Dear queen,” he began, and I felt as though a knife had been driven into my gut, for I knew what he would say. “Dear queen, I am a Knight of the Farthest Shore, servant of the Lumil Eliasul and the King Across the Final Water. My duty is always first in my heart, and it allows me to remain close to no woman.”

I could not speak for fear of my voice shattering the stillness. But I managed to whisper: “Then tell me at least, my love, that you would stay with me if you could. That if you were free, you would be mine. I can live on that.”

His eyes spoke his answer more eloquently than words. I stared at him, and I feared suddenly that he would feel the need to speak, to say aloud what I had already read upon his face.

I took to the air, flying from his presence as fast as I could drive my wings. My stomach burned, my heart broke, and I believed that all love was turned to hate inside me. There was no room to pretend anymore. No room to tell myself pretty lies. The truth was spoken with the merciless clarity of Halisa's own blade.

Etanun did not love me.

“What in the name of Lord Lumé—” the Chronicler began.

“Hush!” The cat appeared at his feet and stood up into the tall form of Bard Eanrin. The Chronicler's stomach turned at the sight, and his knees buckled so that he sat down hard on the marble floor beneath him. The legend stepped around the Chronicler to draw back a green-velvet curtain emblazoned with small white blossoms, and peered out.

Except—and the Chronicler knew he must be mad when he saw this—there was no curtain. There was only the branch of a hawthorn tree heavily laden with clustering blooms. But when the cat-man dropped it and stepped back, it was again rich fabric falling in folds.

“We've lost them,” Eanrin said, crossing his arms as he addressed the three mortals. “They'll not find us here.”

Alistair still lay on the floor, though he'd rolled onto his back and stared, openmouthed, at the vaulted ceiling above him. Mouse stood nearby, trying to disguise her own surprise at the sudden change in their surroundings. She looked more bedraggled and waif-like than ever in this setting.

She looked more familiar here too.

Eanrin gnashed his teeth at this thought. What a fool he'd been! But how could he have known? In all the time—such as Time could be measured here in the Between—they had worked together, Imraldera had never behaved so irrationally! She had never abandoned the Haven and left the gate unguarded, especially not when Eanrin was away.

He shouldn't have gone. That was the truth of the matter, though he could justify himself to the grave. Yes, he was Iubdan's Chief Poet. Yes, he had obligations to the King and Queen of Rudiobus. But he should never have left Imraldera alone.

“She shouldn't have done it,” Eanrin muttered, blame shifting by force of ancient habit. “She should never have trusted the Murderer's word!”

How frail and foolish these mortals looked here in First Hall! By the standards of Faerie, the Haven's proportions were humble and reserved. But this was an immortal's abode, built by immortal hands at the direction of the Lumil Eliasul, who was neither mortal nor immortal but who stood in a place beyond either. Here, the little humans looked so imperfect in their Time-bound clay bodies.

Yet the frailest, most faulty of this lot was the heir to Halisa?

Goblin voices rang beyond the Haven walls, and the three humans looked sick with fear. Did they not realize they were safe here? No one and nothing could breach the Haven, for it belonged to the Lumil Eliasul.

“I tell you,” one goblin said, “they took a turn back there. I swear, I saw the trail.”

“Don't be a fool!” snarled another. “They came this way. I saw the little one take a dive into yonder thicket.”

The Chronicler stepped away from the wall and curtain; Alistair and Mouse drew up behind him, and Mouse twisted the shreds of her gown between her hands. The goblins stomped and cursed and shouted at one another beyond the wall. Several even tried to penetrate the thicket, looming so near that the heavy velvet curtain of hawthorn wavered. But they could not get through.

“Corgar will kill us if we've lost the little one!” someone said.

“Don't be daft,” said another. “Why should he care? It's not as though the beast was any good to him.”

“It's the prophecy,” said a third, and its voice was low and tremulous. “It's the prophecy, I tell you, and this is the first step to its fulfillment.”

“What prophecy?”

“Didn't you hear? The Murderer came to Queen Vartera. He told her Corgar would break through to the Near World, just as he did!”

“So? Don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“But there's more. The Murderer also said that, though Corgar would break through and assert his will over all the mortalings, the king of that country would drive him forevermore from the Near World. And Corgar believes the little one
is
that king.”

“Yeah, that's all well and good. But did you get a look at the creature? He's tiny! Corgar could swallow him in one gulp and still be hungry after.”

The goblins laughed at this and moved on. “Aye,” they agreed among themselves, retreating back through the Wood, “not all prophecies are bound to be fulfilled.”

Eanrin observed the Chronicler throughout this exchange. He saw how first a flush of red crept across his face, swiftly exchanged for a pallor like death.

Suddenly the Chronicler looked up and met Eanrin's gaze. For the first time, a sliver of doubt slid into the poet's assured mockery of the whole affair.

The last of the goblins departed and the mortals all sighed and sagged. Alistair sat down heavily, hiding his face in his hands. His head still rang from his contact with the goblin in the courtyard, and he suspected it would continue to ring for quite some time. Mouse withdrew from the others, embarrassed now.

But the Chronicler never broke Eanrin's gaze. “Where are we?” he demanded.

Eanrin snorted. “As if you didn't know.”

The little man swallowed, his jaw clenching. “This . . . this is the Haven of the Lumil Eliasul. The Haven of the Prince of the Farthest Shore. Built by the Brothers Ashiun.”

“Well done, Chronicler,” said Eanrin. “You've done your research.”

“I don't believe in this place.”

“I don't see what your lack of belief has to do with anything.”

“And you're Bard Eanrin.”

“That I am.”

“I don't believe in you either.”

The cat-man smiled. “Be that as it may, you must admit that I did save your sorry skins when you yourselves were obviously unable to do so.”

To this, the Chronicler had no answer. So he turned to Alistair and stopped in surprise. The young man had stripped off his remaining goblin armor, all but the boots, revealing the torn and bloodied shirt beneath, and the nasty pucker of his scarred-over wound. Its appearance had improved since morning, but here in the gentle light of the Haven it looked nastier than it might have elsewhere.

The Chronicler felt an unprecedented surge of concern and pity for his former pupil and recent rival. “My lord!” he cried. “What happened to you?”

Alistair felt his shoulder and grimaced wryly. “I couldn't tell you for certain,” he said. “It appears I've had a rum go, but I can't remember much. A nasty sight, eh?”

“It's not as bad as it was,” said Mouse softly from behind.

Alistair whirled about. “Why do I understand you?” he cried. Then he turned to Eanrin, pointing first at him and then back at Mouse behind him. “Why do I understand her?”

“Her?”
Mouse's eyes went wide. “No, no! I'm a boy. Really, I am!” Then she saw the look exchanged between the Chronicler and Alistair, and her face flushed hot. Bowing her head and shrinking into herself, she said, “Oh. So you know?”

“I'm afraid so,” Alistair said, rubbing the back of his head.

“But . . . I cut my hair.”

“Yes, you did.” Alistair nodded.

“And I . . . I bound myself up in . . . in places.”

Now Alistair blushed. He couldn't look at the girl, so he turned to Eanrin again and repeated his question. “Tell me, cat-man, why can I understand her?”

“First,” said Eanrin with a glower, “you will not call me ‘cat-man' again. I am a knight, a poet, and a gentleman, and you will address me as
sir
or not address me at all.”

“Yes, sir,” said Alistair, undaunted. “Why can I understand her?”

“Because you are in the Wood Between. Spoken language matters here as
little as time, or size, or any other of the restrictions to which you mortals are so well adjusted.”

“Oh.” Alistair rubbed his sore forehead again, wishing he could rub some sense back into life. He felt numb all over. What else, he wondered, had he always taken for granted that would, at any moment, be flipped upside down and proven complete twaddle?

“Well, now we've got the Chronicler,” he said, “what's next?”

“We must hasten to my country,” said Mouse, her voice still low and embarrassed but determined. “We must hasten there at once before it's too late!”

“What? Why?” demanded the Chronicler, stepping forward, his voice fierce. “Even now, the house of Earl Ferox is overrun. My people and many earls of the North Country are held captive. All because that creature wants the House of Lights. The House of Lights! As though we can pull nursery rhymes made real from our hats and present them to him on a silver platter! It's madness; it's insanity!”

“It's Faerie,” said Eanrin, his voice a little gentler than before. He sighed and addressed Mouse. “They need to know,” he said. “Tell them. Tell them everything you told me, and we'll see if we can't get a little prophecy fulfillment underway, shall we?”

Mouse hesitated but nodded. She felt as though choking hands gripped her by the throat. Yet she must speak. She must tell her tale, and she must get it right.

Fire burn! Fire purify!
she prayed desperately.

Then she caught Alistair's eye. And she saw there . . . what? Encouragement? He was not her enemy at least, this man whom she had saved and who had saved her.

Don't think,
she told herself.
If you begin to think, you'll never go through with it!
Do as the Flame demands.

“Well, girl?” said Eanrin. “In your own good time.”

H
OW
MANY
AGES
WOULD
MORTAL
MEN
count my rule of Etalpalli? I do not know, but I know it was long. Longer after that final departure of Etanun. For he never returned. I heard rumor of his deeds from those who traveled to and from my court, and I shuddered each time I heard his name. Yet I drank in every word, for I thirsted for news of him. I thought then that the pain I felt was the sharpest I would ever know.

But it was only the pain of embarrassment. I had not yet felt the fire of jealousy.

Then one day as I sat with my counselors discussing some treaty or policy, I heard a whisper among my ladies behind me. I would have disregarded them, save that I heard his name.

“They say Sir Etanun has fallen in love at last.”

“No! I don't believe it possible. Not a Knight of the Farthest Shore!”

“Indeed, I heard it too. And with a mortal maid, no less! One of the frail beings he was sent to guard and protect.”

“Impossible. How could anyone fall for such a creature?”

“I thought if he were to ever love anyone, it would have been our own fair queen.”

I heard no more. Neither their babble nor the words of my counselors. I sat as one frozen, but my insides were turned to molten lava. I knew then what jealousy was. And once more, in desperation, my mind fed me false hopes.

It couldn't be true! No more than idle gossip!

They stank. That was the worst part about them.

Mouse, alone in her small chamber beside a blazing brazier, stared at the clothes. Boys' clothes. Slaves' clothes. And not the clothing of slaves that would dwell within the confines of the Citadel. These were far too poor, too ragged to grace the halls of the Living Flame.

They must have belonged to one of the Diggers.

Mouse shuddered, but the stars were already shining above; she must hurry. So she removed her outer garment, the rough-woven robe of black edged in red beadwork. Then she took long strips of cloth and wrapped them around her body, pulling the fabric as tight as she could to disguise all trace of feminine softness. With another grimace, she took up the tunic and pulled it over her head, feeling as though she clothed herself in rags of shame.

What would Granna say if she knew?

Granna had always encouraged her great-granddaughter to look away from the Citadel light. Back home on the mountain, high on the rocky goat paths that Mouse and her ancient great-grandmother had climbed every day, they had commanded a sweeping view of the land crossed by mighty rivers flowing from some unknown source.

The low country held such allure for Mouse, who disliked mountain life, with its cold winds blowing straight through her ragged gowns and its stink of goats. From her view above, the low country looked warm and the rivers so clean.

And from the low country rose the Citadel, with its ever-burning light at the topmost spire. As twilight fell on the mountains, that light became more vivid, beckoning to Mouse across the leagues. A speck no bigger than a star, but red and low to the earth.

“Stop looking at it,” Granna would say sharply every time she saw Mouse's gaze wander that way.

“Why?” Mouse would demand. “It is beautiful and warm.”

“It'll take you away from me and our mountain,” Granna always replied. “It took your mother, and your fool father followed after her, besotted swain that he was. I don't want it to take you too.”

“Maybe Mother was right?” Mouse would say quietly to herself later, sitting upon a rocky outcrop that afforded the best view of the low country and that far-off light. “Maybe it is better to look to distant things and seek a better life? Surely it is wrong for me to stay on this mountain among goats all my days.”

But Granna always caught her and pinched her ear. “Silly girl,” she would scold. “Don't waste your time looking that way. Look up there instead.”

Mouse always shivered at this, turning to where Granna's old hand indicated. Farther up the mountain, in a place inaccessible but plain to see, was a cave. A hideous cave that, when one looked at it cross-eyed, resembled the shape of a wolf's head. Mouse could have believed it was the gate to Death's own realm, it was so awful.

“One day,” Granna would say then, her eyes fearful but determined, “the Silent Lady will return to us. She will step out of that cave, and she will see that we are delivered from evil again. Even as she did a hundred years ago. Even as she saved us from the Wolf Lord.”

“The Silent Lady,” Mouse repeated, but still she turned away from the cave mouth to gaze across to the distant light. “She must be dead long ago. While the Fire lives and burns.”

“It burns all right,” Granna would mutter. “And I suppose you could say that it lives.”

Then she would pat Mouse's head, clucking to herself, and her faded old eyes would fill with tears. “Don't follow the path of your mother. If you go down to the temple, child, no one will ever know your true name, and you yourself will forget it.”

Mouse sat now before her fire, clad in the stinking clothes of a slave boy, her stomach churning with disgust and dread. The brazier burned sweet incense, but it couldn't clear Mouse's nostrils of the stench of slavery.

Her next task was more heinous still, but she dared not shirk it. Taking up a knife, she grasped the long waves of her hair, pulled tight, and cut.

She nearly dropped the knife. She had not expected it to tear and hurt as it did! And across her hand lay a hank of black softness, her one great pride. Her glorious hair.

“Fire burn,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “Fire purify.”

After all, pride was a sin. All pride must be purged from the body, through pain if necessary.

She adjusted her grip on the knife and resumed the task.

Her hair had been her great treasure from the time she was twelve years old. It had been difficult, of course, to keep neat, free of burs and bugs. But she hoped it might be beautiful, so she'd washed it carefully in a mountain stream and combed her fingers through it every night, freeing it of tangles and leaving it soft and shining.

“Your hair is like hers,” Granna would say, watching across their humble fire.

“Like whose?” Mouse would ask.

Granna never responded. Mouse believed she must mean her mother; the mother who ran away, luring her father after. She liked to think she shared this one small link to that woman she had never known. And she would continue combing her hair.

Her hair that caught the eye of the temple women.

The summer of her twelfth year, women from the Citadel journeyed to Mouse's village to collect the temple tax. It was a hard journey, one not made every year. Four years had lapsed since the last time three red-clad women, tall, strong, and elegant, had climbed the mountain, flanked by silent bodyguards. Great woven wigs set with gold and uncut gems crowned their heads. Mouse, peering from the door of Granna's hut, thought them a wondrous sight.

“What are you looking at?” Granna had demanded and creaked up behind Mouse to see. Swearing, “Beasts and devils!” she gripped Mouse's shoulders with both hands. “You must go at once!” she said. “Take the goats up the mountain, and don't return until nightfall. Do you hear me?”

But though she pulled with all her strength, Granna was an old woman. Mouse twisted free with hardly a thought and, ignoring her grandmother's cries, darted into the village square to better see the beautiful women.

One of them spotted her. Dark kohl-rimmed eyes fixed upon Mouse with the intensity of a wildcat's. She pointed, speaking to her two equally beautiful sisters. “There,” she said. “Look at that one with the fine hair.”

“She is lovely indeed,” one of the sisters agreed. “The Speaker said to look for a child of her likeness.”

“She could not be better pleased with another,” the third sister said.

They swooped down, surrounding Mouse in all their red-robed glory. “Would you like to journey to the Citadel of the Living Fire as your village's tax?” the first of the sisters asked her.

Mouse nodded, struck dumb with wonder.

“No!”

Granna burst from the little hut, and all the village stared in surprise and whispered together. No one denied the temple women what they required. Their guards placed themselves between the old woman and their mistresses, but Granna grabbed their spears in her withered hands and strained against them. “You cannot take her!” she cried. “She does not belong to you!”

“You have no say, old one,” said the first temple sister, but her voice was not unkind. “If the Fire demands this child, the Fire will have its due.”

She said no more. Mouse was given no chance to say good-bye, and in the heat of that moment she didn't care. She was free! Free of the village, free of goats! She was free of the mountains, bound for the lowlands and the great Citadel with its distant light!

The three red-robed sisters placed their hands upon her shoulders and head. “Fire burn. Fire purify,” they chanted together, and Mouse thrilled at their words.

She stood now, her scalp sore and bereft of its black glory, her slender limbs hung with rags. Her smelly goat-girl's clothes had been finer than these. They at least had borne with them no shame.

A boy. She was dressed as a boy! What greater disgrace for a woman of the Citadel, an acolyte of the Living Fire? And yet, what choice did she have? It was either her own humiliation or . . .

But she could not think on that. She gazed out the tall window of her chamber, out upon a sky as dark as the fallen clippings of her hair.

There, high above, gleamed a blue star.