Wizard of the Grove (15 page)

“Very good,” said a voice not her maid's, yet issuing from her maid's mouth. The girl's brown eyes had turned a brilliant blue. “And very nice.”

Crystal clamped down on her power, releasing it now would only hurt the girl. Realizing the direction of the second comment, she snatched up her robe and put it on, ignoring the fabric floating about her legs.

“Get out!” she commanded, dragging a sleeve across the water streaming from her nose.

“As you wish, milady.” The girl bowed mockingly and turned to leave the tent.

“That's not what I meant and you know it. Get out of Anna!”

“Anna?” Kraydak walked the maid's body back to its position by the bath. “What a pretty name.” He picked up the mirror that lay on the bed and studied the face he wore. “So is she. Pretty.” Features blurred and she wasn't any longer. He turned to Crystal and a lift of now scraggly brows said clearly,
your move.

Carefully, biting her lip in concentration, for she had neither the older wizard's training nor his years of experience, Crystal rebuilt what Kraydak had torn down. She knew she did exactly as he wished, that, for reasons of his own, he tested her, but she couldn't refuse the
challenge and let Anna suffer. Better her pride take the blow than an innocent girl.

Kraydak merely watched in the mirror, his eyes amused. “Very good,” he said again when she finished, and caused Anna's head to nod approvingly.

Crystal flushed with pleasure at the tone of warm praise and then was immediately appalled as she realized it. “What . . . what are you doing here?” she managed at last in a voice neither as forceful nor as self-assured as she would have wished.

“Oh, I just came to see how you were getting along.” He smiled a dazzling smile with Anna's mouth. “To let you know I need not rely on messengers but can be at your side in an instant, turning friend to foe.” He looked her over, eyes lingering on breast and hip, the curves pressing damply through the thin cotton of her robe. “Now that I've got a good look at you, however, a few other ways of passing the time come to mind. But alas . . .” Anna's hands fluttered along her body. “. . . I find myself woefully ill-equipped.”

“Well, if things are so woeful where you are, maybe you'd better go back where you came from.”

“Throw me out,” he told her, spreading his arms in a gesture of surrender. “You can do it. I can feel the power you command.”

Deceiver, the centaurs had named him. Lies, they said, fell from his lips in numbers too large to be counted. But this time, did he speak truth? Was he so far extended, his power spread so thin she could, if not defeat him, at least cast him forth? The temptation to find out was very great.

“No. If I throw you out, I'll destroy Anna, burn out her mind.”

“So? You don't particularly like her. What difference would it make?”

“It would make me no better than you.” Her chin went up and her eyes narrowed. “I won't stoop to your tactics to win.”

“You won't win, child.” His voice was stern. “You haven't got what it takes. Winning means sacrifice. You aren't even willing to sacrifice this . . . this . . . nonentity to get me out of your tent. You amuse me,
Crystal.” Again his eyes stared through her robe. “You fascinate me. But you are no danger to me.” He smiled one last time and the brilliant blue of his eyes began to darken. “Until the battlefield.” Suddenly the eyes turned brown again and Anna collapsed to the carpet.

Some hours later, Anna woke with no memory of her subjugation. Although mortified by the thought, she was willing to believe she'd fainted. Thankful that the girl had not been hurt, Crystal was still more relieved that she wouldn't be spreading panicked tales of the enemy's assault throughout the army.

Crystal herself told no one of Kraydak's visit. When nothing could be done—and nothing could—why add to the weight of worry? She had a fair idea of the power it took to so manipulate another's body and while it frightened her—for it offered further proof of just how great a power was his to command—it reassured her as well. He was too canny to deplete his reserves again as the battle drew closer. A wizard did not survive as long as Kraydak had by taking foolish risks.

But even as she comforted herself with this, even as she breakfasted, mounted, and moved one day closer to Hale, she scanned the eyes of everyone she met, knowing they just might be a certain uniquely chilling shade of brilliant blue.

*   *   *

No cheering crowd lined the road, for only fools and madmen cheer a war, but stragglers joined them daily and those who stayed behind looked up from their work to watch them pass.

Crystal felt the young woman's eyes on her from the moment the girl became visible by the side of the road. The intensity of the stare drew a throbbing line of power between them. Slowly, as they rode closer, features began to develop; average height, slightly plump, with honey colored hair worn short and curly. The original bright colors of her clothes were faded with many washings and she was barefoot. She stood with her feet apart, holding her elbows in large capable hands. She ignored the rest of the march, never moving her gaze away from Crystal.

When Crystal was close enough, she threw herself into the heart of the green fires. And surprisingly, because she had an anchor those fires couldn't touch, she pulled herself out again.

Crystal received a kaleidoscopic vision of the young woman's life. Chickens figured prominently. Chickens and a man, with a square jaw, a broken nose, and black brows that drew a line straight across his forehead. He was holding a chick, still damp and helpless from the shell, holding it, protecting it. Then it was a child who had his father's brows but his mother's eyes. Then it was a spear.

The exchange took only a few seconds. Crystal wanted nothing to do with it, she was responsible for the whole faceless mass of them, wasn't that enough? But asked, she saw no way to refuse. She nodded once. The girl nodded as well, then spun on her bare heel and headed home across the fields.

“A princess does not stare at her subjects,” Lapus informed her.

The mood shattered. Crystal tucked the black-browed man safely away in her memory and turned to the Scholar.

“You've been promoting the princess a lot lately,” she said wearily. “Have you been talking to my mother?”

“The queen is anxious for you to do your duty.”

“Don't tell me about my duty, Scholar,” the wizard growled. “I spent six years learning it from better teachers than you'll ever be.” She gripped the sides of her horse so tightly that it turned its head and snapped at her knee, knowing full well she was not asking it to change its pace.

“The princess is your duty as well.”

“I'm tired of duty!” The cry was from neither the wizard nor the princess but from Crystal, who was seventeen and so full of duty that there was little room left for her to be just herself. She looked at Lapus in horror, not believing what she had said.

For a second the reflection of the wizard flickered in Lapus' eyes and pity took its place. But only for a second.

“For some of us,” he said flatly, retreating into the depths of his cowl, “there is no choice.”

“For some of us,” Crystal repeated just as flatly.

Except for the sounds of hooves and leather and a thousand marching men, the next few miles passed in silence.

She did indeed have a lot to think about as the army wound through field and forest on its way to Hale, but not all of it was distressing. Bryon invaded her thoughts more often than she was willing to admit. And each time he did, she felt the path of her future widening. The centaurs would not have approved. A couple of times, and this puzzled her greatly, Bryon's cheerful grin was replaced by the scowling face of the young Duke of Riven.

“Riven doesn't even like me,” she muttered to her horse's ears.

Her horse, very wisely, refused to become involved.

*   *   *

As the deformed little man in the blue and gold livery entered Kraydak's sanctuary, the screams stopped abruptly. He stood just inside the gold lined door and waited. Once the screaming ended, his master would not be long. He waited patiently, ignoring the soft, moist sounds coming from the inner room.

When Kraydak emerged, his blue silk tunic and wide flaring breeches were spotless, his red-gold curls tumbled softly about his face, and his generous mouth curved in a satiated smile. His left hand was red to the wrist but that was undoubtedly due to the bloody bundle of skin he carried. Behind him, on a low bench in the center of the inner room, lay what appeared to be a fresh side of beef with long golden hair.

The wizard tossed the bundle to his servant—who caught it awkwardly (the only way his twisted body allowed him to do anything)—and the blood disappeared from his hand.

“She lasted longer than most,” he said approvingly as the heavy wooden door swung shut behind him.

The servant—whose name had been among the first things taken from him—clutched the bundle tightly, spattering the costly carpet with thickening globs of red, and arranged his features into what stood for an ingratiating smile.

“There is good news, milord.”

Kraydak settled himself behind his desk and raised an eyebrow. The servant shuffled forward.

“Kirka has fallen, milord. The plague has done its work.”

“Did you doubt that it would?” And the servant's twisted body convulsed in pain.

“No, milord!” The pain stopped and the servant straightened as much as he could, dampness spreading down the front of his breeches. “The young and the strong survived, just as you said. Their tongues have been removed and they are being marched to the mines of Halda.”

“A long march from Kirka.”

“Yes, milord.”

“Unlikely more than a few will survive the march.”

“Yes, milord.”

“A pity. Still, there are always more slaves.”

“Yes, milord.”

“And you will join them if that skin hardens enough to crack before you get it tanned.”

The servant glanced down at the bundle in his hand, which was indeed beginning to stiffen, and began to shuffle backward to the door. He was reaching for the handle when the wizard stopped him.

“You forgot to thank me,” said Kraydak softly, “for the pain.”

“Forgive me, milord!” Had he been able to rise from them, he would have fallen to his knees. “It was exquisite pain, milord. Thank you. Forgive me.”

“This time.” Kraydak smiled. “But always remember, I made you what you are today.”

The servant had only dim memories of a time when he had been a strong and brave warrior, the captain of an army that had dared to oppose Kraydak's might, but he knew what his master told him was true—for his master always spoke Truth.

“Thank you, milord. I remember.” And he scurried away.

Kraydak steepled his fingers together and sighed. Kirka had fallen like all the other cities and countries before it. So much for Kirka's
vaunted healers. He bent over the table and made a brief notation, a small bet with himself on how many survivors of the plague would actually make it to Halda. Not that he really cared; all his hopes now rested on the wizard-child and the battle that approached in Ardhan.

“And what I shall do when that's over,” he said to the air, “I have no idea.” He had survived the Doom. He was the greatest wizard ever. Nothing could touch him. He was indestructible. He would live forever. He was very bored.

His thoughts strayed back to the inner room and the low stone bench. He smiled and his blue eyes blazed as he went back to play with what lay upon it.

The servant had been very wrong when he assumed that life stopped as the screaming did. His own experiences should have taught him otherwise. There were ways to prolong the torment indefinitely and for what Kraydak had in mind, skin would have only gotten in the way.

T
he army camped outside the walls of Hale's Seat. The Royal Party alone, consisting as it did of over twenty people, was considered to be enough of a strain on the town's resources in a time of war.

The Duke of Hale, a small, neat man in his late thirties, rode out to meet them. He paid homage to his queen, greeted Mikhail as an old comrade—the two men were of an age and had fought together in the Border Raids years before—informed the Duke of Belkar that his son had ridden in three days before with two hundred men and was even now waiting for him in town, and stared in astonishment at Crystal.

A trick of the evening sun turned her skin to burnished gold and at the same time ignited her hair into silver flames that danced gracefully on the breezes chasing about her. Her eyes blazed and all the greens that the Mother had given to the world in the beginning spilled forth with the fight and clothed her in glory. She towered over the rest of the company and the very air around her sang with Power.

For a moment there was nothing human about her at all, her beauty was so much like the Mother's first children and so very little like Man. The Duke of Hale, who was reckoned to be a brave man, began to tremble.

And then, incredibly, one long-lashed lid dropped over a glowing eye in what was unmistakably a wink.

Hale started and found the silver-haired girl regarding him levelly, her eyes containing nothing more than the reflected glow of the sun.

When they fell in behind Tayer and Hale for the ride through town,
Mikhail raised a questioning eyebrow at his stepdaughter. It took no power to know what he asked.

“He had to be sure of me.”

“All right.” Mikhail could see the necessity of that. “But the other?”

Crystal shrugged. “I didn't want him to stay frightened.”

“Well, he may not be frightened,” laughter hovered at the edge of Mikhail's voice, “but you've certainly confused the poor man.”

That night, Hale gave a great banquet in honor of the queen. Whether because he felt she should not do completely without the pomp of the grand tour she'd missed or because he felt his own people could use the entertainment so close to war, no one knew. And no one would have been so ungracious as to ask.

Not up to arguing with her maid, Crystal allowed herself to be primped, painted, and laced into an elaborate gown.

“You look like a princess tonight, milady,” enthused the girl as she pinned an emerald spray into the scented and piled mass of Crystal's hair.

“Yes,” Crystal sighed, studying herself in the glass, “I suppose I do.” She was the symbol of the continuation of the Royal House in Ardhan. She felt like a symbol, like an icon, and not a bit like herself. The wizard was hidden by yards of ribbons and lace and the beauty which had made the Duke of Hale tremble could barely be seen beneath the glory of the presentation. Only her eyes were unchanged, but no one looked a princess in the eyes.

“I'm not enjoying this,” she whispered to Mikhail as they walked in procession into Hale's Great Hall. “I feel like I'm wearing a mask.”

“You look lovely,” Mikhail told her proudly. “And you've made your mother very happy.”

“But it isn't me.” Everyone seemed to have the idea that being a wizard was like being a farmer, a collection of skills that you picked up or put aside as needed. It was actually more like the difference between a cow and a horse, Crystal decided. There were certain physical similarities but that was as far as it went.
I'm a horse dressed up as a cow,
she realized suddenly.
I can never be a princess, and even less can I be queen.
She winced at the thought of making that clear to her mother.

“Cheer up,” chided Mikhail, assuming the wince came from discomfort at her finery. “And look at the bright side. Hale always lays a fine table and tonight he's feasting us royally.”

Crystal smiled weakly at her stepfather's joke and settled down to have a miserable evening. Her plans were ruined when the food arrived and she discovered more than one type of wizardry was loose in the world. Her mouth watered. She was seated between Hale's wife Alaina and the Duke of Belkar and as neither of them seemed inclined to talk, she applied herself to the meal. Glancing up some time later—from her second pastry stuffed with raspberries and cream—she found Lady Hale staring at her.

“I beg your pardon,” murmured the older woman in response to the question on Crystal's face. “It's just . . . you're not what I expected.”

“Oh?”

Alaina blushed. “I always thought wizards would be grimmer, more awe inspiring, not so . . . so . . .”

“Princesslike?” Crystal asked from behind her ribbons and lace and jewels.

“Hungry.”

Crystal looked down at the remains of her pastry, considered the enormous meal she'd just eaten, and burst out laughing. The laugh had nothing to do with either the wizard or the princess, and she felt better than she had since Bryon had left the palace.

Bryon, who'd refused a seat at the head table and was eating with his captains, picked the laugh out of the sounds of a hundred people eating and arguing and making merry, and grinned. If she could laugh again . . .

Lady Hale smiled shyly. “I hope you're not offended. I'd always pictured wizards as being more ascetic and less concerned with fleshly matters.”

“It takes a lot of energy to be a wizard,” Crystal admitted, deciding she liked this woman who had accepted her so easily, “but if this wizard doesn't develop more asceticism she's going to be very concerned with fleshly matters.” With a sigh she laid her hand upon her stomach,
the dress showed a new animosity in places where it had merely pinched before dinner. She examined the soft curve of Alaina's pregnancy with frank curiosity.

“Is that very uncomfortable?”

As Alaina began to blush again, Crystal realized she'd probably said something she shouldn't have. “I'm sorry,” she exclaimed before Alaina could say anything. “It's just that I've never seen a pregnant woman before. At least not that I can remember,” she added thoughtfully. “Children don't pay much attention to that sort of thing and centaurs are all male.”

Alaina, who'd been very nervous upon learning of the seating arrangements for supper, was no longer afraid of the great and powerful wizard. The look on the wizard's face reminded her too much of her five-year-old son who forever asked about things he shouldn't. She answered the wizard as truthfully as she would have answered her son.

“Sometimes it's uncomfortable.” One hand rested gently on the curve of her stomach. “In the end, though, it's worth it.”

“May I?”

A slender hand hovered over Alaina's own. When she nodded, it drifted down and ever so tightly touched.

For a few seconds Crystal sat silent, sorting the sensations that flowed up through her fingertips. And then she smiled. It was a smile few were privileged to see, for it was neither human nor terrifying. It was the smile the Mother wore when She looked about her and marveled at the beauty She had created.

“So tiny and so perfect,” Crystal whispered, and her voice was the wind of summer caressing the earth. Her eyes glowed so deeply green her pupils washed away in the radiance.

Alaina, caught up in the light, felt herself falling into the whirlpools of Crystal's power. But instead of pulling her down, they lifted her up and wrapped her in wonder. A smaller light added its bit to the glory and she realized, with a wave of joy, that she saw the life of her unborn child. When the light retreated and she was herself again, she wasn't surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears.

The slender hand lifted slowly away, the green fires died, and the mark of the other world faded from Crystal's face. Her smile became very human and a little sad.

“Thank you,” she said.

“When you have children of your own,” Alaina began, but Crystal stopped her.

“Wizards have no children,” she said flatly. “It's the price of our power. Only the Mother's Youngest create life.” They sat silently for a moment and the sound of Tayer's laughter floated down from the center of the table. Crystal visibly brightened. “But you may have just solved a problem.”

Before Alaina could ask how, or even what problem, the Duke of Belkar leaped to his feet shaking his fist. It took her a heartstopping moment to realize he wasn't shaking it at her but across her at Mikhail. Apparently the two men were approaching the climax of a disagreement.

“If we're to win this war,” roared the red-faced duke, “we must take it across the border to the enemy's land!” His voice filled the hall, causing the musicians to falter and fall silent, and most of the diners to turn and stare at him in astonishment.

“No!” Mikhail slammed a mighty hand down on the table, causing the cutlery, and more than a few people, to jump. “Make him come to us! Make him fight on our terms!”

“The only way he'll fight on our terms is if we take those terms and shove them down his throat! We've got to goad him forth from his hole!”

“Let him wear himself out on the mountains and not on the bodies of our men!” Mikhail was on his feet now as well.

“Excuse me . . .”

“If we let him in, he'll be twice as hard to kick out! We can't let him set one foot on our land!”

“Let him run supplies across the mountains, not us!”

“Excuse me!”

“We'll be in and out so fast that supply lines won't matter!”

“What?! Are you crazy, our yeoman soldiers against his trained killers?”

“I said EXCUSE ME!” The air crackled with the force of Crystal's voice. Mikhail and Belkar stopped bellowing at each other and turned to stare at her.

“There's no need for this,” she began reasonably, holding on to politeness for her mother's sake.

“Stay out of this, princess,” growled Belkar. “You said yourself we were to fight the best way we know how.” He glared at Mikhail. “And my way is best!”

“This isn't your concern, Crystal,” Mikhail told her. “We have a decision to make just as soon as Belkar sees reason.”

A booming roar rocked the room, the candles and lamps flared with green fire, and a sudden wind threw the combatants back into their seats.

“There is nothing to decide.” Crystal rose to her feet, her eyes blazing no less furiously than the candles and lamps. It was just as she'd feared, whenever they made her be the princess they forgot about the wizard, and, worse yet, she began to forget as well. “Have you forgotten the palace? Squashed flat! And he wasn't even in the same country. He could easily do it again. Here. Tonight.”

Faces blanched.

“You will meet his armies on the Tage Plateau because that's how he has it set up. I will meet him when and where he chooses. You're nothing but game pieces to him, you and his army both, added to make our conflict more interesting.” The room darkened until it was lit only by the fire in her eyes and the glow of her skin and hair. “And you'd better petition the Mother that he makes a mistake because that may be our only chance.”

Then, turning to Lady Hale, she apologized for the disturbance and stalked out of the room.

*   *   *

“Crystal, I'd like to speak to you.”

“I thought you might.” Crystal slid over on the garden bench, giving her mother room to sit beside her. Gone were the ribbons and lace, the wizard was back.

“There was no need for that vulgar display at dinner.”

“Yes, there was.”

“Oh?” One beautifully arched chestnut eyebrow rose.

“People are forgetting this is a war of wizards.”

“You were being ignored and you didn't like it.”

“Well, yes:” Innate honesty forced Crystal to admit there was truth in that statement. “But they ignored the situation, too.”

Tayer sighed. “Of course they did. We're all caught up in something we don't understand and have no control over. If Belkar and Mikhail argue, they think they're doing something.”

“But they aren't!”

“Does it hurt to let them think so?” Tayer's voice was very quiet. “A little hope can make the difference sometimes.”

“This time?”

“Who knows. And if the army, can take care of itself, that leaves you free to deal with Kraydak.” Tayer gathered the stiff and unresponsive body of her daughter into her arms. Slowly, very slowly, Crystal relaxed. A breeze wandered in and tentatively ruffled her hair.

Crystal inhaled the scent of her mother's perfume and was transported, just for an instant, back to the days before the centaurs had come. Things had been so much simpler then. “I can't be what you want me to be, Mother,” she said at last.

“I know,” Tayer murmured. She'd known it for some time; the raw power blazing from Crystal's eyes that night had forced her to admit it. “I guess I'll have to start wanting what you are. But I don't want to lose my daughter.”

Not even the darkness could hide Crystal's smile. “Never that.” She returned the pressure of her mother's arms and for an instant it seemed as if their hearts beat in the same time and they were not two women but one. Then Tayer pulled gently away.

“I've got to get back. The queen can't vanish into the gardens for too long.” She kissed Crystal on the forehead, and stood. “Oh. One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“You keep the maid.”

The wizard considered hot baths and clean clothes. “Yes, Mother.”

Tayer had barely disappeared into the darkness when Bryon appeared out of it. He threw himself down on the bench and hooked his thumbs in his belt.

“Quite the trick you pulled this evening.”

“Not you, too.”

“I especially liked the way the lights went out. Must come in very handy when you need to impress the masses.”