Shadowdance (58 page)

"Exactly!" he snapped at Razkili. "Thousands! At least five times our number. And you want to go out and meet them? That's not a fight! That's barely an honorable suicide!" He slammed his hands down against the stone and turned to face his father and his lover. Minarik's face was utter bewilderment. Rascal's was stark terror.

He addressed his father first. "She has power," he said by way of quick explanation, "and she wants to attack, not with her men, but with her magic. She's showing off." He drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out suddenly as he prepared to confess his most deeply held secret. "But I have a magic of my own, a power she unknowingly gave me. Maybe I can turn it against her. At least I'm going to try."

An ear-splitting crackle filled the air. Another arcane bolt flashed earthward. Innowen gave a cry and felt as if his flesh were ripping away from his bones, as if his eyes were burning in their sockets. He sagged forward in his father's lap, gasping for breath as Minarik's knees twitched against his chest. Screams and shouts rose up from inside the grounds. Flames shot up from one of the outbuildings near the stables where the lightning had struck.

Innowen regained control of himself. Minarik sat slumped over one arm of his chair, clutching his wound, his face contorted in a grimace. Innowen pried his father's hands from the bandages. The red stain had grown, but not significantly. He left his father and bent down beside Razkili. Rascal's eyes were closed, and a bruise mark showed above his left brow where his head had struck the stone, but his breathing was even.
She's just made it easier for me,
Innowen thought to himself as he hugged Rascal and laid him gently back on the stone.

He got to his feet and looked around for his mother's sword and the helm he had dropped earlier. Snatching them up, he ran from the wall, pushing and shoving his way to the stairs as panicked soldiers abandoned their posts and ran in all directions. A terrified archer blocked the narrow steps at the halfway point, refusing to go up or down until Innowen ruthlessly kicked him off.

At the gate, he found Veydon and Sireos, fruitlessly attempting, with the help of a few men who had kept their senses, to reinforce the gate by bracing it with a pair of huge beams.

"The cracks are real!" Veydon shouted to Innowen, "and getting worse!"

"That last one broke a hinge clean!" Sireos informed him.

"Let me out," Innowen ordered. He sheathed his mother's sword and took her helm between both hands.

"What?" the two men exclaimed together.

Innowen shouted at them. "Open the godsdamned gate!" he demanded. "And shut it fast again behind me!"

"I hope you know what you're doing," Veydon warned, pushing his dark hair back from his sweaty face, but he beckoned to several men to push open one of the great doors, and he lent his own shoulder to speed the task.

"Innowen!"

Innowen knew without looking that it was Rascal who called his name. He swallowed hard and took a step toward the gate. Rascal shouted his name again, the edge of fear in his voice sharp, enough to cut through Innowen's resolve. He hesitated, biting his lip. Slowly, he gazed up. Hands curled into fists, Rascal stood directly above him on the rampart, ready to jump.

There was little time. Another lightning bolt, another thunderblast or two, and the gates might come crashing down, perhaps even the walls themselves, leaving Whisperstone open to the Witch's army. He looked past the opening Veydon had made for him at the sea of torches and glittering armor. Then he called up to Razkili. "Get everyone off the walls!" he shouted. "You know why! Get them off!" He rushed through the opening before Razkili could say more and heard it thud shut behind him.

Innowen stood in the shadow of the gate where neither the moonlight nor the light from the watchfires above reached. He wondered if his mother had noticed the swift opening and closing of the gate, if she felt him watching her. His eye roamed the ranks of her warriors, and doubt quivered through him. There could be no turning back, though. A cloud of dust and ash swirled up around him in a gust of wind. He sputtered and wiped at his eyes. He had planned to wear his mother's helm. Instead, he pulled up the hood of his white cloak and tucked the helm under his arm. He started slowly across the powdery field.

The shadow of the wall drew a black line across the earth. He stopped suddenly without crossing it. The Witch saw him, he was sure of it. She sat rigidly on her horse, and though the wind whipped her hair and the folds of her garments, she did not move. She stared his way, and he felt their gazes lock over the distance between them. He turned away and scanned the top of Whisperstone's wall. Not a single soldier stood atop it. Only two lonely forms remained to watch him from there. In the glow of the watchfires it was difficult to see their faces, but he was sure they were Minarik and Rascal. He wanted to shout at them,
Get below! Don't look!
But he knew nothing he could say or do would make either of them turn away.

He stepped out of the wall's shadow. A crimson bolt sizzled across the heavens, and the world flashed white for a brief instant. But neither the lightning, nor the thunderclap that followed, had the same power as the earlier blasts. He hesitated, then continued walking across the field.

The Witch raised a hand. The sudden silence was its own thunderclap as her soldiers ceased their rhythmic beating. Innowen bit his lip, uncertain of what to expect. If they charged, he was done for. The Witch gave no further order, however, and her troops kept ranks.

They all saw him. It was impossible not to see him in his mother's white cloak with the moon shining on him. He pushed the cloak's folds back over his shoulders with his free hand, letting the moon strike the armor he wore, his mother's armor.

Halfway across the field, he stopped. A sea of arms and armor stretched before him. Doubt rose in him again, but he took his mother's helm in both hands and raised it high overhead, letting the moonlight play on it. Then he lowered it again arid let it slip from his fingers to lie in the dust.

He wished he could have spoken to her, that he could have walked right up to her. She would have said something like,
You have my armor, thief,
and he would have cleverly answered,
Consider it my inheritance, Mother,
and she would have been surprised to hear him call her that. She might have said,
I thought you were a dream when you came to my bedroom,
and he would have answered,
Real as flesh, flesh of your flesh.

But he dared not get that close. He knew her power. She might stop him before he could stop her army. They could all see him. He had their attention. Nothing remained for him to do, now, but dance. He touched the clasp of the cloak. The soft cloth slithered from his shoulders and dropped to the ground.

He listened for the wind, and from his memory came an echo of Razkili's harp. He closed his eyes, hearing a note that had no physical sound as he put one toe forward, lifted and spun on it, and settled himself again. He opened his eyes and spun once more with his left leg bent behind him and his back deeply arched.

He stopped. That had been no dance, only a series of mechanical movements. He stared at his mother, wondering what she must be thinking. His breathing was too quick. He forced it to slow. Did he fear his mother so much? Or did he fear
for
her?
Think of your father,
he told himself sharply,
think of Rascal.
He eyed the line of soldiers with their shields and spears and swords.

Innowen swept his hands forward lyrically as he made a deep lunge. His memory had let go a single echo from the magnificent wind harp. Now he called up its entire symphony from the well of his soul. He moved over the ash, flowing sinuously from one extension to the next. His arms swept upward in a rolling motion that carried him to the tips of his toes and over backward until he caught himself on one hand while the other strained toward the moon. Straightening, he flung out his arms and spun again, dragging one toe in the dust, carving a perfect circle on the pale, gray earth.

The wind rose around him, and with it came a wail of music, like a storm, from out of the night. The wind harp! In his mind, he'd heard it. Now he heard it for real. On Sparrow Hill, on the other side of Whisperstone, it sang to him—with the voices of an angel's chorus or a demon's, he didn't know. But the sound filled him, lifted him. The wind surged. The music it carried crescendoed wildly, and Innowen embraced it as he danced.

The Witch, her army, Whisperstone—it all faded from his awareness. That was always the deepest beauty of it. While he danced, his mind emptied. Worry, fear, troubles, all thought poured out of him like water. The world vanished. Time stood still. Out of this unreality, he carved for himself a new reality, a landscape defined by the power of his muscles and the stretch of his limbs, time created by the rhythm of his movements, the beating of his heart, and the pulse of the blood in his veins.

And sometimes, when it was over, when he stopped, he cried, for the world he returned to could never be as beautiful as the one he made with his dance.

Innowen dropped to the ground, exhausted. His heart hammered in his chest. Sweat made rivulets in the dust and ash on his face, and he licked at a droplet that ran into the corner of his mouth. It had a bitter taste. The music of the wind harp floated in the air, softer now, only a faint and purposeless harmony, hovering, lingering.

Slowly, he lifted his head and waited for his vision to focus. With a sigh, he let it fall again.

The Witch's soldiers stood behind their shields, unaffected, unmoved, as far as he could tell. Bitterly, he smashed a fist against his thigh. Maybe, their darkest desires were all to follow the Witch. Maybe she had protected them, somehow.

A curtain of ash blew up as the wind swept across the field from a new direction. The Witch nudged her horse. Like a pale ghost approaching through layers of mist, she rode forward. Unhurriedly she came, alone, taking her time. Her gaze never left him.

Innowen rose to his feet and waited for her. She stopped a few paces away and looked down at him with a passive curiosity. The wind blew a strand of hair across her eyes, and she brushed it back casually with a slender hand. It seemed a long time that she looked at him before she spoke.

"You look familiar to me," she said at last. "What is your name?"

Her voice came deep and rich as velvet from a mouth full and perfect as a red rose, just as Innowen remembered it. His lips parted ever so slightly as he regarded her, and all his fear vanished. With his new knowledge, it was easy to see so much of his own face in hers.

"You gave me a name five years ago," he answered slowly. "You called me Innocent."

At first, there was no reaction. Then her eyes widened. She raised a hand and set the tips of her fingers lightly on her lips as she looked at him anew. "I remember now." The wind blew her hair across her face again, and again she brushed it back. A distant look came into her eyes until she shook her head abruptly. "You were the crippled boy that I made walk. I dreamed of you some nights ago. But it was no dream. You stole my armor," she said without animosity.

"More than your armor," Innowen told her. "I stole your secrets, Minowee."

An expression of surprise flickered briefly across her face, but she quickly suppressed it. Or, perhaps it really didn't matter that he knew her name. Suddenly, all the hatred that he thought he felt for her dissolved. He pitied her. It was as Minarik had said. She didn't control her power; it controlled her. Khoom was the one to blame.

The Witch drew her shoulders back proudly and looked down her nose at him. Before she could speak, though, he rushed on. "Your god, Khoom, told me everything. He will desert you, Minowee. Already, he's turned away from you. Your power belongs to another."

"To you?" she said with a soft sneer. "You dance prettily, and a few of my soldiers throw down their weapons and run off." She barked a short, rude laugh: "Apparently, Khoom doesn't hold you in very high favor, Innocent. I'm going to shake these walls apart. That is power, boy."

So, his dancing had had some small effect after all. Innowen took a firmer stance, as if to block her way. "You'll never take Whisperstone," he said defiantly.

"Take it?" she laughed. "I'll crush it. Kyrin's life, and the crown of Ispor, those I'll take."

"What of Minarik?" Innowen shouted angrily. "Will you crush him, too? Vashni's father?"

It was not surprise, but true rage that twisted the Witch's features as she glared down from her horse. "You little bastard!" she cried. "I should have left you in that wretched storm. You think I don't know it was Minarik who slew Vashni on this very spot? If you had Khoom's power, you could see! The ground we stand on burns red with my son's blood!" She jabbed a finger at Whisperstone. "And no one,
no one,
in there will escape my wrath!"

Innowen opened his arms wide. "Then strike me down," he dared her with a barely controlled fury. "Let the earth burn with the blood of both your sons!"

Her jaw dropped. She leaned forward on her horse and glared. "Who are you!" she hissed.

But Innowen didn't answer. The sound of familiar piping floated down from the top of Whisperstone's wall and settled upon him like a soft embrace.

His gaze locked on the Witch, he drew one arm upward with languid grace and lowered it slowly. The wind changed direction again. The distant wind-harp wailed and Dyan's piping soared. The two musics blended, became one. Innowen rolled his head to the side and swayed. The Witch stared, bewildered.