The Usurper's Crown (70 page)

Avanasy moved at once to stand in front of Medeoan and Ingrid.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Medeoan stepped around him, her eyes wide. “Yamuna.”

The lean man bowed, palms over his eyes, with an air of complete mockery made more terrible by the destruction around them, and by Peshek still as death at their feet. Ingrid saw that his hands were mismatched. One of them was smooth and strong, the hand of a much younger man.

“I am flattered so illustrious a one would recognize so humble a servant as myself.” Yamuna straightened up. “Your husband has sought long and hard for you, Majesty, but I fear you are a little late in returning.” He smiled toward the cloud of smoke that hung in the distance. Ingrid could smell nothing but burning, and her throat itched from the smoke and ash they had to breathe even here.

Medeoan went white. She swayed for a bare instant, and murmured a single word. “Kacha.”

Yamuna smiled. “Yes, poor young Kacha. The Nine Elders were more frightened by his maneuvers than he realized, and played their highest card against him.”

“Highest …”

“No,” croaked Lien. “No.”

“Yes, old man,” said Yamuna with mock solemnity. “They chose to summon one of the four immortal guardians, and the one they selected was the Phoenix.”

“The Phoenix?” stammered Medeoan. “They brought the Firebird into the world?”

“And it is not pleased with your realm.” Yamuna pursed his lips and shook his head at the smoke, even as his dark eyes gleamed.

“You did this.” Medeoan clenched her fists. “Your magic allowed all this!”

“So it did,” agreed Yamuna. “And now, my magic will allow me to make an end of you, as well as your man here.” He held up a bottle of scarlet glass, and a chill swept across Medeoan’s skin. She glanced at Avanasy’s face, and saw how he groped for a spell, for a defense against whatever magic was to come. Yamuna raised his arm. Medeoan lifted her hands, as did Lien.

Ingrid leapt. She tackled Yamuna with all her weight and they fell together. She rolled over, coming up on top of the skinny old man, clutching the wrist of his impossibly young hand in both of hers. He snarled and struggled, but she hung grimly on. His fingers loosened from around the bottle, and it fell.

It dropped into Avanasy’s outstretched hand. Avanasy stumbled forward, handing it to Lien, who received it quickly. Yamuna screamed and Ingrid screamed, but she had been distracted and he threw her off, causing her to hit the ground hard and take in a lungful of ash. Choking and sputtering, she forced herself to her feet. Yamuna was already standing. Avanasy snatched up a pike that lay beside a dead man. Ingrid heard the hiss as the hot metal touched his flesh, and now he too screamed, but he wheeled around. Avanasy charged forward, and the pike spit flesh and bone and heart.

Yamuna fell without a sound.

Avanasy dropped the pike and stood over the body, panting for a long moment. Ingrid moved to his side, as did Medeoan, but he did not seem aware of them. Ingrid’s lungs and eyes burned, and she knew he felt the same, but she also knew that his heat did not only come from outside. It came from the rage that would not be quieted by the death of this enemy. This man’s whole world should burn, for what he had done, was doing to Peshek, and Medeoan, and himself, and Isavalta, and to her, to Ingrid.

“There is no time for this, Master Avanasy,” said Lien’s voice, sounding far sharper than Ingrid had yet heard it.

They all turned, and Ingrid saw thunder and fear in Lien’s face.

“The Phoenix has been unleashed. We must get away from here at once.”

“No!” cried Medeoan before Avanasy could speak a word. “Master Lien, if this is the Firebird, it flies in Isavalta. I cannot leave my people …”

“There is nothing you can do!” Lien shouted in reply. “It is one of the four immortal guardians. It will fly until it has destroyed Hung Tse’s enemies.” He swallowed hard. His face had gone deathly pale. “I must return home. I must warn Cai Yun …”

“Master.” Avanasy’s wounded hand curled up. “Do not lose your way.”

“You don’t understand.” Lien pulled himself roughly from Avanasy’s grasp. “The Phoenix will seek out Hung Tse’s enemies. After Isavalta, who is a greater enemy than myself? Than my niece who aids my vengeance out of loyalty? I must get her to safety …”

What little color she had faded from the empress’s cheeks. “No,” whispered Medeoan. She knotted her fists and gritted her teeth hard.

Avanasy turned to say something to the empress, but Ingrid did not hear it. Her ears were ringing and her eyes were filled up with memory — the house of bones on its taloned legs, the famine-thin hag with her black iron teeth, the growling dogs, the watching cat. Ingrid’s hand flew to her mouth. She began to tremble. Despite the golden heat radiating from overhead, the world about her had gone suddenly cold, and she could do nothing but shiver.

“Ingrid, what is it?” Avanasy stretched his hand out toward her.

“The … Old Witch,” gasped Ingrid from between her fingers. “Oh, God, oh, Mary, she told me. She told me she knew how to cage the Firebird.”

Avanasy gaped. “She said this?”

Ingrid nodded, pressing her hand against her mouth as if she were about to be sick. Gently, Avanasy urged her to sit. She thumped clumsily onto the ground, raising up a cloud of soot, unable to look anywhere but straight ahead, unable to see anything but Baba Yaga.

“You have spoken with the Bony-Legged Witch?” said Medeoan, sounding half angry, half disbelieving.

Again, Ingrid nodded. “She … called me to her. She has something she wants me to do. She said … she said that I would come to her a third time, that I would beg to be allowed to do this thing, because only she knew how to cage the Firebird.”

“Is this true?” the empress demanded of Avanasy.

“Yes.” Avanasy dropped to one knee at Ingrid’s side. “Oh, Ingrid, why did you not tell me?”

Ingrid let her hand fall into her lap. “I meant to. At first, I didn’t want to add to your worries. Then, so much was happening …” She gestured vaguely at Lien and the empress. “As foolish as it sounds, I forgot.”

“No. It is not foolish. It is easy to forget what happens in the Land of Death and Spirit. It is as when we walk in dreams.” He took her hand. “Do not reproach yourself.”

“What did the Old Witch want of you?” asked Medeoan flatly.

Ingrid shook her head. “I’m not sure. I can’t remember clearly. Something that had been stolen from her …” She tried to concentrate, but the memories slipped through her mind’s fingers like water. “I don’t know anymore. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Avanasy. “We know the knowledge exists. We will seek it out.”

“None of this matters,” said Lien, his cold voice cutting across whatever else might be said. “It is too late. The Phoenix has flown ahead of us. It has already burned the army of Isavalta.”

Ingrid thought Medeoan was going to faint. The empress swayed on her feet, as white as the mists around their ship.

Avanasy gripped the empress’s hand. “We can still save Isavalta. We will …”

“You will stay to die!” shouted Lien. “Do you not hear me? The Phoenix will not permit your empire to survive. Your capital may already be on fire, you can’t know. We cannot wait here for you to come to your senses. I will not leave my child … my niece to its judgment.”

“How do I find the Old Witch?” Ingrid asked, putting out one hand to push herself to her feet.

Avanasy covered her hand with his free one. “Ingrid, no. I can’t let you do this. I don’t know what going alone into the Silent Lands will do to you. I have not had time to understand the whole of your … divided state. If you attempt this,” Avanasy’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper, “you may not be able to return to the mortal world. I will go and bargain with the Old Witch.”

“With what?” said Ingrid. “I’m the one she wants. What else do you have to give her?”

She knew nothing of Isavalta, except for some coastline and one fishing village. She had no obligations there, no family, except Avanasy, and Avanasy said she did not need to do this thing, that another way could be found. She could let that happen. She did not need to go back to that place, to face that … hag again. She did not need to acknowledge the split in herself before Avanasy could heal her. It did not have to happen.

Yet, even as she told herself that as firmly as she could, she knew she lied. She knew what wildfires were. She had seen them on the mainland, the aftereffects of the loggers’ efforts. She had seen smoke blackening the sky and smelled the choking stench. She had heard the screams.

No, she knew nothing of Isavalta, but she knew very well what had been visited upon the Isavaltans.

“There is no other way, Avanasy,” said the empress.

Avanasy’s face creased, at first, Ingrid thought, from anger, but then she knew it was from the effort to hold that anger back. “You would order this from one who is not even subject to you?”

The empress did not flinch at this question. “I am not ordering her, she is freely offering.”

“Do I have to take this off?” Ingrid asked, touching the braid on her wrist. “Or can I just … go as I am?”

Avanasy wanted to protest. He wanted to rage, Ingrid was sure of it, but she also saw how terribly he knew that there was no other choice. Whatever must be done to cage the Firebird, it would surely involve magic, and strong magic at that. Even she could see that much. If he drained himself white to gain the secret of this working, the empress would be left alone to do what must be done afterward, and that could not be allowed either.

“No,” he said sorrowfully. “If the Old Witch wants you, she will take you. All you need to do is speak her name. Do not remove the braid. It will, I think, lessen the disorientation and difficulty you will have as you move through the Silent Lands.” His fingers trailed gently around her wrist. “And as with the ring, the binding of the spell will help bring you back to me.”

“I will set vigil for you myself,” announced Lien. “If you can do this thing, you will be saving my family’s lives.”

“Well, then.” Ingrid faced Avanasy and smoothed down her apron. “I’d best get on with it, hadn’t I?”

But Avanasy’s eyes glistened brightly. He grasped both of Ingrid’s hands and drew them up close to his chest. She could feel his heart beating hard and frightened, even underneath his woolen coat. “Listen to me, Ingrid. Courtesy is all where you are going. Do not fail to be polite, to anyone or anything. Accept nothing until you know the conditions under which it is given. Refuse nothing that is freely given, and trust your heart over your eyes.”

“I’ll remember,” she told him gravely.

“I love you.”

“I’ll remember that as well.” She kissed him softly, feeling afresh how the warmth of his mouth was like no other heat there could be. Not even the fire still smoldering around her could burn her so deeply.

Then, she let go of his hands and walked forward three short steps. She faced the blackened forest. The sooty wind teased at her disheveled hair.

“Baba Yaga!” she cried out, as if she stood at the back door of her father’s house calling one of her little siblings in for supper. “I know you’re out there! I’ll do what you want if you’ll tell me how to cage the Firebird. Do you hear me, Baba Yaga?”

There was no transition. Ingrid was simply elsewhere and she did not understand how it could be so. Bewildered, she stared about her, and her confusion only deepened.

This was not the Land of Death and Spirit as she had seen it before. These were not the dense pine forests lit by the directionless glow. These were ordinary pine trees hedged by fern and bramble. Birds called to one another overhead and mosquitoes whined uncomfortably near. High summer had passed, and the green leaves of the underbrush paled toward autumn’s yellow. The wind smelled of pine resin and fresh water, and she knew where she was.

She was home. This was Sand Island. She was sure of it. If she headed south, she would come to her family’s house. How had she come to be home so suddenly? What had gone wrong?

Ingrid didn’t know what to do. She had expected the fairy land, and the insistent tugging telling her where to go. Not to be home, not to be alone.

Because no other idea came to her, she hiked up her skirts and trudged southward. She moved only because she could not stand still in the middle of the woods. Her mind was so awhirl with astonishment, she had no clear idea whether she thought movement itself could bring her answers, or whether it was merely an instinctual reaction to get clear of the mosquitoes the frost had not yet come to kill.

In the distance, she heard someone humming a familiar tune. Ingrid broke into a run, shoving aside the brush and brambles with her elbows. There, in a small clearing, stood Grace, smiling her sunny smile and breaking dead branches into kindling.

“Grace!” cried Ingrid, running up to her sister’s side.

Grace turned and looked at her mildly, with no surprise or ruffling of her expression at all. “Hello, Ingrid. What are you doing here?”

“Grace, I’m home,” Ingrid panted. “I’m back.”

“Why?”

“Wh … why?” Ingrid could only stammer in surprise. “Yes, why?”

Ingrid stared at her sister. Grace just smiled, the careless smile that Ingrid knew so well.

Why am I here?
Ingrid rubbed her forehead. The sun warmed her shoulders. The scents and sights she had known all her life surrounded her. She had been away, she knew that, and there had been good reason, but now … now …

“I came home,” she said uncertainly.

“Well, good,” said Grace. “You can help me carry this.” She handed Ingrid a bundle of kindling wood.

“Yes, all right.” Ingrid’s hands closed around the dead-wood. It smelled of earth and bark and pricked her hands. She tucked the bundle under one arm. Grace hoisted her own bundle on her shoulder and took Ingrid’s hand. She had forgotten what her sister’s touch felt like, that warm, light palm. She was a grown woman, but walking with Grace still felt like walking with a child, cheerful, careless, enjoying the moment.

Grace swung their arms, and began to sing.

“An old man come courtin’ me, fa-la-la-loodle!