Wizard of the Grove (31 page)

The building was small and square, a door in one wall, small windows in two others flanked by cupboards filled with the supplies a traveler might need. Opposite the door was a fireplace, and wood stacked floor to ceiling. At a comfortable distance from the hearth, sat the cabin's only piece of furniture: a chair, arms and back intricately carved with leaves and vines, the whole thing lovingly polished to a satin finish.

The Mother's chair.

The Mother's house.

Small cabins maintained by those who lived in the Mother's service. Blessed with the Mother's presence. A place of peace, not only for the mind and spirit but for the body as well for no weapon could pass the door and no hand could be lifted in anger within the walls.

Crystal had had no idea such a sanctuary existed here on Halda's frozen border.

Carefully, she reached within. The bedlam had been calmed by the Mother's presence although the pieces that had created it still remained apart. She searched among them gently until she touched the presence that spoke with the third voice. “Thank you,” she said to it.

“You're welcome, child,”
replied the voice.
“They called me Tayja when I had a life of my own. Know me as your friend.”
And then the
presence withdrew, leaving Crystal to herself, but the calm that came with it lingered.

Moving gingerly, for she hadn't the power to repair the damage done, Crystal crawled toward the chair, wincing as a torn bit of flesh caught on a rough piece of flooring. She knew she needed to eat and sleep, but she needed to think even more. When she reached the chair she sighed, and rested her head where the Mother's lap would be.

Tayja. Goddess of craft and learning.

It was just as she feared.

When the Age of Wizards ended, there were few powers left in the world. Out of all the pantheon that mortals had created to help them understand the Mother's creation and their place within it, only the seven goddesses remained. In time they caused one last wizard to be formed, a power to fight an ancient evil, and into that vessel they poured all that they were.

“And now that the evil is defeated,” Crystal realized, her aching head pillowed on abraded arms, “some at least have no further use for the vessel.”

Fire. Zarsheiy. Now she could name the hissing and howling voice, the first she'd heard, the part of her that fought the hardest to be free.

“And
that
is the problem . . .” Her eyes began to close and she sighed again. “They are a part of me and without them I am not. I wish,” she murmured sleepily, “that just once there'd be an easy answer.”

As she drifted to sleep, still leaning against the Mother's chair, she thought she felt the soft touch of a sympathetic hand against her cheek.

F
or two days Crystal did little but eat and sleep, slowly healing her damaged body as her returning power enabled her to do so. On the third day, she allowed the fire to die down to embers and, sitting with her back to the Mother's chair, slipped into trance and then deep within her own mind.

Green, a deep rich summer shade lightening to springtime as she went deeper still. A tendril of thought rose up to meet her and she paused, knowing that in the Mother's house only benevolent forces could stir.

“Why have you come?” Tayja asked, her tone sharp though not unkind.

“We need to talk.” The wizard concentrated and the green light fractured into a forest grove, the two women standing within a circle of silver birch.

The goddess smiled, the white of her teeth startlingly bright against the darkness of her skin. “Ah . . .” She sank to the velvet grass and stroked a hand along the blades. “So long . . .” Then her face grew serious and when she looked up at Crystal it bore the stamp of the mahogany of which she had been made. “You are safe enough with me, but do not attempt this with the others. It will only intensify their struggle to be separate once again.”

Crystal nodded and sat, folding her legs beneath her. The Grove was an image so much a part of her that it took little power to maintain. “What is happening to me?” she asked.

“I thought you had discovered it.”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“But you wish me to clarify? Very well.” Tayja sat straighter and cupped her hands before her. “Consider yourself to be the crystal you are named.” As she spoke a crystal appeared on her palms, rough cut, multifaceted, and a little smaller than a clenched fist. “You should be neither surprised nor fearful,” she chided, for the living Crystal had stiffened at the other's manipulation of her mind. “I am, after all, a part of you.” A green light shone through the stone. “As you can see, the joinings between the many facets are obvious and this one more so than the others.” She traced a finger down the line and the portion of the crystal it delineated began to glow red.

“Zarsheiy?” Crystal guessed.

“Yes. A necessary but unenthusiastic part of your creation. She has always been unstable and had all our power not been necessary . . .” The goddess shrugged, a most ungoddesslike gesture, and continued. “While you were focused there was no problem.” The crystal flared; green light submerging the red section back into the whole. “But as you lost purpose . . .” The green faded and the red glowed strongly once again. “Zarsheiy began to make her presence felt until . . .” A sharp crack and the red fragment of crystal broke free. “This weakened the structure and gave Avreen, who was always closest to Zarsheiy, ideas of her own.” Tayja looked suddenly amused. “Actually, child, you gave her some ideas yourself.”

Crystal felt her cheeks grow warm as she considered the aspects Avreen wore. “Raulin?” she asked.

“Raulin,” Tayja agreed. “Not in itself a bad thing, but it strengthened Avreen and when next you used your power she twisted it, hoping to break free.” Another facet flared along the edge of the larger stone, this one a deep flesh pink. “She didn't quite manage it, but her attempt and Zarsheiy's continuing fight to wrest control made the matrix increasingly unstable.” The definition of the remaining contact lines intensified and each facet began to take on a color of its own, making the original crystal seem more a puzzle than a single piece. One, a deep
brown, well marbled with green, became for a moment the dominant color.

Crystal touched the brown portion gently. “You?”

“Me,” Tayja confirmed, her expression twisting slightly in embarrassment. “I found I could work on my own, and you wanted so badly to fix the pump. I am sorry, though, I had no right.” She sighed and shook her head. “Three nights ago, however, it became fortunate that I had strengthened my will or, if you wish, the part of your will which is mine.

“When you opened yourself to call Lord Death, you lowered all barriers and both Zarsheiy and Avreen took advantage of the opportunity.” The red fragment grew suddenly radiant, the crystal writhed in Tayja's hands, and the pink fragment lay free as well. “They began to fight for control of your power. Because I have always been integrated more fully into your personality, I can call to my use a greater part of your power than either of them but in order to do it, I had to take their path.”

Crystal noticed that even when the brown broke free of the larger mass, much of it remained green.

“With your help, I brought you to this house, where both of my ambitious sisters lie dormant and no others can break free to challenge you. Use this quiet time to rebuild your shields so that when you leave, as you must, they will be contained.”

Crystal stared into the goddess' hands. The red and the pink had become colorless. The brown remained unchanged. Deep within the multihued stone—for four goddesses had not yet taken up their aspects—she saw a core of green. She realized that little bit of green would be all that remained if all the goddesses broke free and Crystal knew it wasn't enough to sustain a life.

“What must I do?” she asked, searching Tayja's face for the answer. “How do I become whole again?”

Tayja spread her hands, the stones vanished, and she shook her head. “I do not know, child,” she admitted, “but two things I can give you. First, as much as we seem separate, we are all a part of you. We
gave up our lives at your creation and now have none of our own. Second, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.” She frowned. “Not a great deal of help, is it?” The goddess clasped Crystal's hands for a moment. “Now you know me, you better know one part of you and there is always strength in that.”

The Mother's house was cold when Crystal returned to it, the embers she had left, mostly ash. Carefully, she rebuilt the fire using only mortal skills. Not until it roared red and gold, and heat began to rise again, did she consider her meeting with the goddess.

“I suppose,” she said to the Mother's chair, thoughtfully nibbling on a handful of raisins, “that if Tayja truly is a part of me and
I
don't know what to do then
she
can't. I do know I can't go on like this.” Not only for her own sake but for the sake of the world as well. The ancient wizards had refused to control their appetites; her lack was less a matter of choice, but the results were likely to be the same if any one of the goddesses gained control—death and destruction. She twisted a strand of hair about her fingers and frowned. As much as she disliked the idea, the centaurs seemed to be the only solution. Maybe they knew something that could help.

Our knowledge,
C'Tal had often said,
begins with the Mother's creation of this world and we have constantly added to it ever since. This aside, we do, however, prefer you to work out your difficulties yourself. That is why we taught you to think.

Crystal sighed. “Oh, be quiet,” she murmured at the memory, and it obediently stilled.

She spent the rest of the day tidying the small cabin and restocking the woodpile. The night she spent in meditation, rebuilding her shields around the goddesses, using the knowledge Tayja had given her to anchor them securely. In the morning, in clothing made of cedar and woodsmoke, she closed the door of the Mother's house firmly behind her and headed west.

As she walked, her power-shod feet barely dimpling the snow, her thoughts turned back past her recent breakdown to Lord Death and his sudden departure. Going over their conversation once again, she
was forced to conclude his actions most closely resembled those of a jealous man.

“Which,” she pointed out to a curious chickadee watching from a juniper bush, “is ridiculous. Lord Death is . . . well, Lord Death. He
isn't
a man.”

As she continued walking, she didn't see the small bird's panicked flight nor the evergreen wither and die.

Crystal had not been celibate in the twelve years since she'd defeated Kraydak, but men who could deal with all she was were few and far between. She remembered Raulin's solution and smiled; in his desire to deal with the woman he merely acknowledged the wizard and for him that was enough. She suspected Jago would not have settled for anything so simple.

Deep below the shields, Avreen stirred.

Startled, Crystal shifted her thoughts away from the brothers, a little embarrassed they affected her so strongly that even such gentle memories could cause the goddess of lust to rise. She almost conceded that, if Lord Death was indeed capable of jealousy, perhaps he had cause. She shied away from the thought for that would mean he had reason and somehow that frightened her more than all seven goddesses.

Puzzling over her reaction to the Mother's son—and his to her and hers to that—Crystal walked around a granite outcropping and nearly died. A high-pitched and undulating howl echoed off the mountains and shattered the silence into a thousand sharp edged pieces. Blind panic threw her back as a massive brown and black body slammed through the space where she had been. Her heart in her throat, she rolled and looked up, dashing the snow from her face.

Brindle. A young male, barely five feet high at the shoulder. Small black eyes, well shaded beneath their protruding brow-ridge, glared down at her. His angry snorts made great gouts of steam in the frigid air. Muscles tensed and, silently this time, he charged.

Crystal just barely managed to avoid the strike. The soft whisper of fur against her cheek as she twisted to safety gave her an indication of
the animal's speed. Had he been older and more practiced at judging distance, even the agility that came of Crystal's mythic heritage might not have been enough.

As his prey disappeared again, the brindle checked his lunge almost in midair, flipped his heavy body about with a fluid grace, and, growling in irritation, attacked once more.

Crystal caught hold of her power and slapped a portion at the brindle's nose.

He stopped dead, his eyes narrowed, and his upper lip drew back to show a mouth full of needle sharp teeth.

Trying to calm her breathing, Crystal began to back cautiously away. The brindle snarled a warning and she decided it was safest to stay right where she was. Slowly, so as not to provoke a response from the watching animal, she sat on a bit of windswept rock and wondered what to do.

She remembered hearing that brindles never abandoned their chosen prey; tracking it for days across hundreds of miles, worrying at its heels, waiting until a chance presented itself and then moving in for the kill.

Had it been night she could've turned into the owl and flown—not even brindles could track a trail through the air—but she daren't risk the bird's sensitive eyes to the glare of winter sunlight.

Raulin had killed the brindle that attacked Jago with only a dagger. Crystal studied this brindle, much as it studied her, made note of the claws, each a dagger's length and cruelly curved, and realized just what that meant. She measured its bulk against her memory of Raulin. This brindle could make four or five of the man and the beast that had attacked the brothers had been larger still. In her mind's eye she saw him, clinging to the thick fur at the animal's throat, driving the dagger into the eye again and again, desperation lending strength to the blows until finally one pierced the brain. She shuddered.

She couldn't use enough power to flip the brindle away, as she had Raulin and Jago at the inn, for that would weaken her shields and leave her helpless against Zarsheiy and Avreen. She doubted she could count
on Tayja saving her again. If she had a choice, she preferred to face the brindle.

They were said to be intelligent, cunning, and ferocious; vulnerable only when feeding, for their gluttony made them careless. They did not peacefully coexist with any other living creatures and barely tolerated each other. Up to a dozen might live scattered throughout a clan range which was ruled absolutely by the oldest female, and if male brindles were thought to be bad tempered . . .

Crystal smiled.

The brindle howled at this display of fangs, puny though they were, then jerked what was to be his killing charge to a stop before it actually got moving. Where heartbeats before his prey had waited, an old scarred female, survivor of many matings, now reared and raked the sky with her claws.

Crystal opened her brindle mouth and roared.

The young male spared an instant to wonder what had gone wrong, then instinct took over and he ran.

The female brindle dwindled back to human form and the wizard grinned. A half grown male simply did not argue with a matriarch, no matter how unexpectedly she appeared. He would not stop running until he was miles away. From deep within, she felt the touch of seven smiles as the goddesses approved, for once in complete agreement, and just for an instant she knew how it would feel when she was whole once more.

?

Crystal's head snapped up and to the northwest. The touch came again.

?

Her power pulsed in response. The touch changed. Called.

!

Almost involuntarily, she stepped toward it. Something in the mountains, something with power, needed her help. She crossed the snow marked by the brindle's prints and walked into the fresh white beyond before she dug in her heels and asked the obvious question.

What called? Or who?

She knew the touch of all the Mother's Eldest, and this was none of them. She knew the sacred places where the Mother's power resided most strongly, and none were in these mountains. It had the feel of wizardry. But the ancient ones were long dead and even Kraydak, the one survivor from that earlier age, had joined them a dozen years ago.

!

Could she have triggered the relic Jago and Raulin searched for? She wished she'd asked for a look at their map.

!!