The Firebird's Vengeance (47 page)

“You had stolen the heart of the Old Witch and trapped her in her house. Had she been able to roam the world, the man Yamuna would have been her prey for his transgressions, and the Firebird would not have been released.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” The Vixen smiled again. “Perhaps if fish could fly they would mate with the birds, and then what good would all our nets be? But even you and I may not rewrite what has happened. The Firebird was brought into being, and you owe me a favor.”

Jalaja’s face was hard. Her hand curled on her thigh. From the corner of her eye, the Vixen saw a sword cut through the shimmering air, swinging down into the water and slicing the waves in twain. That sword was sharp enough to cut a mortal soul from its body without troubling its flesh, she knew. She also knew Queen Jalaja noted the glance she gave it.

“What is it that you want?” Jalaja asked at last.

The Vixen sighed and looked down at her hands. “Oh, it is a small thing. A trifle. I am almost loath to trouble you with it, but there is this promise between us.”

“A small thing, from you?” Jalaja laughed grimly. “I doubt that greatly. What is it?”

“It is a matter of timing. There is a living soul who needs your aid.”

“The soldier? That does seem a paltry thing. You could easily do what is needful yourself.”

“Alas, I cannot.” The Vixen’s careless tone was strained.

“And why is that?” Jalaja cocked her head. Diamonds rang against gold. The Vixen said nothing, and Jalaja raised one finger and pointed it at the fox woman. “Because she is a child of Hung-Tse. You cannot touch her life, despite your sneaking.” Again the Vixen made no reply and Jalaja threw back her head and laughed. “So! You have found your limit! I never thought I would see this day.”

“I am not the one who claims to be the queen of all creation,” muttered the Vixen. “Will you honor the bargain between us?”

Jalaja’s face grew calculating. She saw that there was some game underneath the Vixen’s words, and she sought to see the way the pieces waited on the board. “The soldier is none of ours. You should be speaking with Szu Yi.”

The Vixen sighed, and looked down at her hands. “The Goddess of Mercy is rather busy at present. I do not wish to trouble her.”

Jalaja’s eyes shone with a knowing light. “You do not want her to know that your progeny have snuck back into her realm.”

The Vixen lifted one hand languidly, studying her perfect fingers, and still avoiding Jalaja’s burning gaze. “She will see for herself, as soon as she looks.”

“And what will she do then?” Jalaja leaned forward, trying to catch the Vixen’s eye, but the Vixen looked quickly out over the waters, apparently watching the dance. “She and her kin will be furious,” Jalaja answered her own question. “You are risking the anger of a goddess, but you come to use the debt between us for the life of one soldier.”

The Vixen sighed. Out on the ocean, the dance continued, sword, bowl, lotus, and bird flashing from hand to hand as the goddesses spun out their eternal pattern. “Despite the things that are said about me, I do have some understanding of my place. No matter what the favor, you would not help the likes of me against a fellow goddess.”

Jalaja lifted her own brows. “Would I not?”

Slowly, as if it took a moment for Jalaja’s words to sink in, the Vixen turned back toward her. “What is it you are saying?”

“Tch, and you are the one with the reputation for such subtlety.” Jalaja sat back in her throne, curling her hands lightly around its golden arms. “Her people have been harassing those I protect for too long. Now, I myself could not interfere in her lands in such a fashion …”

The Vixen’s eyes narrowed. “But if it were I who asked, you could assist in her, shall we say, distraction, and claim it to be against your will.”

“It would of course be against my will,” said Jalaja evenly. “But what could I do? I am in debt to you, as you point out.”

Now it was the Vixen’s turn to sit back and take on an air of calculation. “And what of the soldier? She guards a thing I require.”

“So you do have some care for Isavalta after all.” Jalaja watched her sisters and herself dancing upon the waters. “One of our own will soon be going that way. He could still help, were he in the right place at the right time.”

“But you would not arrange that for nothing,” said the Vixen blandly.

“No.” Jalaja’s smile burned like her eyes did. “You would be bound in debt to me.”

“Such majesty bound with such a creature as I? No, I hate to see what is so perfect sullied. I was wrong to come.” The Vixen rose to her feet.

“Now you admit you are wrong!” Jalaja laughed. “This is a time of miracles such as to astonish gods. But stay awhile yet.” She held up her hand and her smile softened, just a little.

The Vixen sank back into her chair, watching Jalaja closely as if waiting for the trap to be sprung.

“You can have your entry into Hung-Tse and the life of this soldier, if you acknowledge the debt bond to me, here and now, aloud. It is everything that you wanted, and more than you came for, and as a debt, it is after all a small thing.”

“For you, perhaps. I do not enter into debt bond with anyone. I have never done so.”

Jalaja shrugged. “Very well. Then you may have the life of the soldier, which you have asked for, and I … well, I must speak to Szu Yi from time to time, must I not? I fear I cannot promise that I may not make a passing remark about your family’s new travels.”

The Vixen looked quickly inland, toward the mist that gave the illusion of true distance to the shifting world. Her tongue protruded slightly between her red lips as she considered her options and her normally calm face grew drawn and anxious. Then, at last, the Vixen hung her proud head. “Yes, I acknowledge there is now a debt bond between us. You need do nothing. You do this as a favor to me, and may lay claim to that which is mine in return if I do not fulfill the debt in good order.”

“Very good.” Jalaja rose, as did the Vixen. The thrones vanished and again there was only shore and sea and the eternal dance. “Go then. Your request will be granted.”

The Vixen turned away, and was a red fox again, very much out of place on the seaside, slinking away into the dunes with head and tail lowered. Behind her, Jalaja laughed and rejoined herself in the dance.

But as soon as she topped the dunes, the Vixen paused and looked back on the dance through the screen of thin grasses, her green eyes gleaming.

“What is mine is yours, O Queen. And since you lay claim to what is mine, I must deliver it to you, in your land, must I not?”

It was not until Bridget woke to the full light of morning that she had a chance to be surprised at how easily she had fallen into unconsciousness after limping back to Grace’s sofa with a spare quilt and pillow.

Her hair was a rat’s nest. She was abominably hungry and thirsty as well.

Sakra was still asleep in front of the cold stove.

Matches, food, something to drink, return at once to Isavalta to tell them what we’ve learned, and set off again as soon as can be to find Anna
. Bridget shook her head at the absurdity of her list of tasks. She wondered how things were in Isavalta, if Prathad and Richikha were managing all right, and how Ananda was coping. It was odd to feel a yearning for the place that had only been her home for a few brief months, but there was a comfort and welcome there she would not quickly find again.

And yet, she was not there. She was here in Bayfield again, calling back ghosts of the dead, and the living.

God Almighty
, she tried unsuccessfully to smooth her hair back.
It was supposed to be over and done. It’s time for the happily ever after, for new life and beginnings. Why are all the dead coming back to us now?

Oh, Anna, I didn’t meant that. I didn’t
.

To get away from uncomfortable thoughts, Bridget got up and began rummaging through the drawers of one of Aunt Grace’s little curio tables, looking for matches. It was early enough in the spring that the chill was uncomfortable.

Although she tried to be quiet, the noise of her movement woke Sakra. He pushed himself up into a sitting position.

“How are you feeling?” he asked by way of morning greeting.

“Better.” She held up the box of matches. “I thought I’d light the stove. We may not have such a luxury when we return to Isavalta.”

“A good thought,” he said, but his gaze strayed toward the window, as if looking for something.

“What is it?” asked Bridget, although she found she was afraid to know the answer. She did not want there to be any more of this. She did not want to be tired again, frightened again, planning and scheming again. She wanted to rest.

“I was thinking of Medeoan,” said Sakra gravely. “I was thinking how it is that she is really gone.” He paused. “After you returned last night, did you look at your aunt closely, with both eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the ghost? Did you see any reflection of Medeoan at all?”

“No.” Sakra’s eyes were strange and distant, almost frightened. “Surely she’s at rest now. Even she deserves that much.” But he looked away again. “Sakra, what is it? Tell me.”

His face tightened, as if in pain. “The promise of the Seven Mothers is that there is no true ending. Life and death, the mortal and the immortal, are wheels within wheels, always turning, coming together and separating again. Your death leads to your birth which leads again to your death, and again to your birth. The dance is forever, the pattern changes but is not broken. But … there have been … rarely, but there have been those who chose to step outside the pattern, who gave up the dance to leave all to someone who could continue within it, to win a great battle or heal a great wound. There is only oblivion then. No eternity, no rest, no rebirth or Heaven. It is the greatest sacrifice. I think that is what Medeoan has done when she held on long enough to pass on what was needed to you and Grace.” His brow furrowed in distress. “I have hated this woman since I laid eyes on her, hated her for all the long, cold years I have been in Isavalta even as I pitied her, even as I tried to forgive when she lay so broken at the end. But … the things she did to Ananda, to her own son. You know only some of it, Bridget. But now she has done this. I don’t know what to think.” He stared past her, seeing only his own confusion. “Part of me wants to believe this is a trick, a perversion, one more evil to add to Medeoan’s name. But if you cannot see her shade within your aunt …” He shook his head. “May the Mothers help me, I don’t know how to forgive so much.”

The pain in his face was real. That fact reached her, even though what he was saying had yet to really sink in.

“We know my eyes are not infallible.” She offered the words tentatively. Sakra only shook his head again.

“It took the Shifting Lands to deceive them. I do not think a single ghost here could manage so much.”

Bridget looked down at her hands. She had tightened her fist around the matchbox, crumpling its paper. “We need to get back. I can’t think about any of this here. There isn’t room for this sort of miracle in Bayfield.”

Sakra’s mouth quirked up in the suggestion of a smile. “I think this miracle began in Bayfield.”

“Perhaps.” Bridget pushed her snarled hair back again. “But I’ve never known how.” She shook herself. “I do, however, know how to light that stove, and I’m getting cold.”

“If my lady would do the honors.” Sakra bowed gracefully and stood aside for her. In spite of the uncertainty of his feeling of what had happened to Medeoan, he too seemed healed even after so short a rest. His bruises had faded at least a little, and his placid demeanor had reasserted itself. “I fear I am not familiar with this particular variety of luxury.” He frowned at the stove as if it were a strange dog in the yard.

Bridget found herself smiling as she brushed past him, giving the cold stove a small pat to show him it really was a well-behaved creature. Sakra laughed a little and Bridget grinned. Despite all, they could find a moment for each other, just as they had from the very beginning. They were at ease together again, and she was grateful for it.

She knelt in front of the stove, layering tinder and kindling on top of the ashes. After a moment, she became acutely aware he was watching her, taking in each movement of her hands, each turn of her head. She found herself wishing she’d gone through the bother of braiding her hair last night so it was not such a mass of snarls, and then laughed at herself for her vanity.

The match struck against the hearthstones. The tinder took on the first try, and the fire blossomed readily, so Bridget was able to lay on the larger sticks of fuel and close the slatted door.

“And there you have it.” She stood, wiping her hands on her stained and rumpled skirt.

Sakra was only a few inches away from her. She felt the heat from his skin more acutely than she did the heat from the stove. Seeing her discomfort, he made to move away.

“Wait,” said Bridget, coming to one more decision.

Sakra stayed where he was, so close she could reach out to touch him without any effort at all. “Yes?”

She kissed him, slowly and cautiously, as uncertain as any half-grown girl who was afraid of being too bold. He stiffened in surprise at the first brush of her lips, but softened in the space of one short breath, leaning toward her, helping her, wrapping his strong arms around her. He tasted of cinnamon and cloves. He smelled like life itself.

The doorknob rattled. Bridget started like a guilty child, but Sakra only smiled and stepped back a respectful distance. By the time the door opened to reveal Aunt Grace, shawl over her head and market basket slung on her arm, there was no hint of impropriety anywhere but Bridget’s blush.

Grace, thankfully, busied herself with hanging up her shawl, which gave Bridget time to compose herself and pick the basket up from the floor where Grace had set it. A dozen fresh eggs waited underneath a blue-checked cloth.

“I thought we could all use some breakfast,” announced Grace, as if she expected a challenge. “Good, you have the stove going. There’s a frying pan hanging by the basin in the other room. Fetch it out, Bridget, would you? You’ll find the drippings can as well.”