Wings of Flame (23 page)

She listened. Black demons surrounded her, still looking to her as chicks looked to the hen. “Curse you,” they chanted. “Curse Vashti, curse Deva. Dung of Suth.” But the human words sounded like nothing more than the cawing of ravens to the creature of the wilds, and in that cawing and croaking she heard the wordless meaning.

Oh, my poor body! This horrible, heavy head. Am I never again to eat anything but vile grass?

What I would not give to be able to catch a fat, juicy insect
.…

Or a baby rabbit! How long has it been since I tasted rabbit?

My poor legs. Useless for hunting or perching. That sorcerer, what has he done to us? Why has he done this to us?

He has warped us, twisted us all out of our proper shape
.

An owl flew out of the cave, out at the wrong time of day for its hunting, and it hooted mournfully as it passed over her on soundless wings.
You can heal them
, that hoot said.

I? she thought.

Get of the Old One, you can heal them with a word
, the simurgh told her.

She lay scrabbling, all twisted spine and heaving ribs. “With what word?” she asked, her voice no more than a whine.

With your express command
.

The thorn forest stood in silence as the girl-creature stalked a toad. Hunger made her impatient, and she missed her prey.

“Araah,” she cried.

Little one, speak
, the simurgh admonished her, lifting its blazing plumes; downy sparks fell from them.

“Curse you,” a black horse-headed bird shouted.
Tend us, Mother
.

“Araah,” the girl-creature said again. “
Be yourselves.
” But they were only demons.

No, little one
, the simurgh told her more gently, its brazen cry muted.
The power is in words. The words of men
.

Was she human, to speak such words? She had almost forgotten, it was far less painful to forget, and no such words had crossed her lips for a full changing of the moon and more. She moved her tongue rustily, wet her lips, opened her mouth to bare her rotting teeth, but no sound came.

Mother
, a demon beseeched her.

She moved her mouth again. “Be ravens,” she said huskily, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

And the change came on them so quickly that she was never to remember it as more than an eyeblink. Black horse-headed grotesques were no more, poor parodies of Suth. Instead, ravens flapped up, cawing raucously, thanking her and praising the powers that be and flying off rapidly, on the hunt for food. There was no cursing in them any longer.

Now, little one
, said the simurgh in trumpet tones of victory,
heal yourself
.

It was a task beyond encompassing. The girl-creature stared up mutely at the splendid god-bird that stood towering over her.

All it will take is that you should call yourself by name
.

But she had no name that a mother had ever given her, whether Vashtin, Devan, or—Someone had given her a name once, but it was false, he was false, false. She had no true name.

That shred of memory, more feeling than thought, that memory of a kind and golden place.… She moved twisted lips to whisper aloud again.

“I will go down. Down to the lowlands, the warm place, down to Avedon. To Auron. Perhaps he will be able to aid me.”

It is a long way, and the journey needless
.

“Even so, I will go.”

But how?

“I will crawl.”

As you will, little one
. The tone was sorrowful and kind.
As you will
. And the simurgh faded into sky.

“Documents of state will avail you no whit,” Nasr Yamut said. “This former, fallen king mentioned your name in them, it is true. But such items are easily … unfortunately misplaced.”

“So?” Kyrem shifted his weight, seeming larger with every moment. “This is a matter between thee and me, Nasr Yamut, which of us is of more prowess, and that answer we both know already, I deem. But folk stand outside with weapons in hand. And there is no need for shedding of their blood over a matter that is between us two only. So I ask you again, what do you want?”

The priest slipped around Kyrem, descended the steps of the dais from the throne. Only then could he free his gaze and turn his glittering eyes on Auron.

“My white-headed horse,” he said.

“It belonged to me,” said Auron imperturbably. “Insofar as such a steed can belong to anyone.”

“Where is it?”

“Dead on Kimiel.”

“You took it to its death then.
Rode
it—” Hot storm of fury was rising in Nasr Yamut. Kyrem checked it with a word.

“Priest.”

Nasr Yamut's eyes turned at once, again held by his, although they burned with hatred.

“What are your conditions to walk out yonder door and tell your followers to disperse?”

“One you have named already,” Nasr Yamut said, his voice a snake hiss of passion. “I am a priest. I am a fire-master still. You shall not slay me or defrock me or demote me or attempt to do so.”

“Done,” said Kyrem indifferently, sealing the bargain with his word.

“You shall abide by the Vashtin customs of coronation.”

“Which are?”

“The taking of a bride. The symbolic horse-mating, for fertility. The sacrificial fire to Suth, at the grove. The immolation of the sacrificial horse.”

Nothing had been said of buskins or the constraints of custom, and Kyrem determined to oppose them at a later time. “Done,” he said.

“And for the sacrificial horse, since my own kingmaker has been destroyed”—Nasr Yamut did not bother to dim the light of malice and triumph in his eyes—“I will have that roan of yours, that Omber, and none other.”

Kyrem stood for a moment speechless with anger. “By your own standards he is unsuitable!” he shouted at last. “Not pied, splotched, ear-clipped, uncouth—”

“None other,” said Nasr Yamut implacably.

“Great Suth,” Kyrem breathed.

“I will have eyes of lapis made for his head,” the priest added with ghoulish zest. “For when we hang it above the charts with the rest.”

This man could be bested, Kyrem knew he could. He, prince of Deva, had the power to make the priest crawl, and of the forces ranged in the streets, his was far the greater. But the thought of such a conflict in sunlit Avedon sickened him. One horse's life, against those of many hapless men.…

“I gave Omber away to a friend once,” he muttered wildly to himself. “What, am I to do as much for an enemy now?”

Nasr Yamut grinned, awaiting his answer. His malice would be satisfied whichever course Kyrem chose. Auron stood silently by, and Kyrem would not look at him. He had to make this pact entirely on his own.

“Done,” he said tightly to the priest. “Now put off those robes and go.” And Nasr Yamut departed, gloating.

A moment later Kyrem strode out on the portico, raised one clenched hand high in somber gesture of victory. The crowd below cheered, cheered again and broke up into families and groups of revelers. The priests headed back toward their stable in a knot of ceremonial colors, their master walking bright yellow among them. Auron came out quietly to stand at Kyrem's side, looking around at white towers and brilliant turquoise sky.

“A heavy price was paid, I know,” he said. “But unless I am much mistaken, the curse of war is off the land.”

Chapter Nineteen

Storm spun out of the stardark over the holy mountain. Winter thunder flings kingdoms asunder, so the adage ran. To the folk in the lowlands and on the mountain flanks it was a fearsome storm, white flare of lightning and the terrible rumble of thunder, hooves of the black horse of death, death itself galloping in the sky, though far away—thankfully, far away. They huddled in their huts just the same. But the girl-creature of the wilds, exposed and naked on a rocky mountainside, did not seek shelter. Storm meant nothing to her, though she glanced up once and saw the thunder-steed plainly enough, black equine presence in the clouds directly over her. Lightning only served to illuminate her way. She crawled on, continuing her slow journey.

The roar of thunder was not clamor of hooves only. It was voice, it had wordless meaning, like the chatter of birds, like the cry of the simurgh—

Shuntali! Shuntali! You are dead. You do not exist
.

Meaningless. But the merest shred of memory stirred. She hissed softly at it. Hissing, she stopped, sat back on her haunches and stared upward into the vortex of the storm.

There, at the core. It was not the thunder-steed only, but—huge, growing, the immense melantha-black equine head, gleam of rolling eyes, bared teeth, white flare of—wings, wings of white flame, and the glint of a jewel black as jet. And on the lifted forelegs, the claws, bone-white talons as of a huge bird. Closer, closer, as though they would pierce—

Devilish claws. It was the demon, the dark Suth himself.

The devil take you and leave his clawmark in you and bend all your bones
.

That wordless voice. It was only a small part of the vastness of the black bird-stallion, thunder of those blazing wings, roar out of the black abyss of night. She was merely a single small creature on the vastness of the Mare Mother's sorrel side. But she felt its focus on her.

Shuntali! Shuntali! You are dead
.

She hissed again, and the hiss was her reply. “
Why, then you can no longer kill me. Go away.
”

My curse on you. I have made you
.

“
Your curses have done their worst.
”

I have made you, I say. I am powerful; I am with the numina now. I deserve your worship
.

“Yaa.” She spat. “
I also am powerful. I also am with the numina. I worship no one.
”

It was immense, the black terror steed; it was as big as the stardark sky. Corpse-white deathflame wings thundered over her; bone-white claws drove at her. So close that she could see the sheen of black feathers, black scaly legs. Feathered black steed with the clawed black legs of a vulture.… One taloned foot would be sufficient to pick her up and pierce her to the core. She did not care. Nothing could be done to her that had not been done already, no pain inflicted that she did not already suffer. But she was annoyed. A claw the size of a Devan saber slashed past her hunched shoulder—

She opened her mouth and spoke aloud, human words. “Go away,” she said peevishly.

And at once all fell to silence. She looked up; the storm was gone, the sky clear and liquid, the stars powdered across it like pollen of the melantha floating in the dark river of time.

She crawled off toward Avedon, and if she felt triumph, no one knew it.

“I don't know what to do,” said the mother.

The Devan noblewoman listened patiently, hiding her annoyance, though she was anxious to be on her way to Avedon. This was her most valued seamstress and needlewoman, and as often happened, such a servant became nearly a friend. It would not do for her to be unhappy; the work would suffer.

“She moves through her tasks, but she scarcely speaks any more, ever, and she scarcely seems to know me. She tells me to go away. I have pleaded with her.…” The woman fell silent, trying to control sobs.

Trouble with her daughter. The lady knew how daughters could be troublesome. “Did something happen to change her?” the noblewoman asked.

“Nothing! At least nothing that I know of, and I know of almost everything that concerns her.… I cannot understand it. At first she seemed dreamy, as they often are at that age, and I thought little of it. Then it was as though she were caught in a nightmare, possessed by something, bewitched. She would scarcely move from her bed. I was so frightened, and I could not help her. Now she seems a little better in a way. She does her work, but she does not speak, and it has been so long. I am so worried about her.…” The mother sobbed again.

The Devan noblewoman had seen the girl and did not think her bewitched, and she was growing bored with her servant's sniveling. Happily she thought of a solution that suited her own devices.

“Bring the little wench along with us,” she said, “when we go to the Choosing.”

“The Choosing?” The mother raised wet eyes, blinked.

“Have you not heard what I was saying? All these new garments that have to be made, that is what they are for.”

“I was not paying attention,” the needlewoman said humbly. “I have been so troubled.”

“Well, I want you to come with us, and bring your daughter too. That way we can have an earlier start and work while on the road. Kyrillos has made a son of his the king of Vashti, it seems, and the prince must choose a bride at the festival of the winter solstice. There is to be a great Choosing for him, at Avedon, with girls of Deva and Vashti alike—any maiden may present herself. Perhaps the change and the excitement of the journey will help your daughter. Let her walk before him herself! If by strangest chance he should choose her, at least she will be well taken care of.”

Though actually, the lady was thinking, this prince was sure to choose one of her own daughters, Devan noble maidens whom he had known from his youth. She would adorn them gloriously to draw his eye to them, and she would make certain that the needlewoman had no time to so bedeck her own daughter. The wench was not unattractive. But then, there would be many pretty maids in attendance.

“So let us get to work on these clothes, shall we?” she said briskly.

The needlewoman was working her mouth in consternation. “But my daughter is only fourteen years of age,” she managed to say at last.

“As long as she is of childbearing years, the younger the better, say I.”

“Well,” the woman murmured, moving toward the worktable, “perhaps it will be an opportunity for her after all. We are so—” She stopped short of saying they were poor. “Or perhaps,” she added, “she will be the better for the change.”