Wizard of the Grove (41 page)

A nervous smile glimmered briefly. “I started thinking about all the rock piled up above us.”

Raulin bit back a laugh. “With all the things we have to worry about . . .” After the strange half-light of the tunnels his eyes adjusted quickly to the greater gloom of the cave. He saw the sweat sheen Jago's face and touched his brother's arm. “These mountains have stood for thousands of years, they'll last a few hours more.”

Jago nodded. He plucked at the sling holding his injured hand immobile against his chest, and forced his thoughts away from the great weight of stone they moved under.
Crystal needs you. Think of Crystal.
From deep in his mind came a wisp of song. He sighed and the knots in his muscles eased.

“Hey.” Raulin leaned over one of the shadowy bundles that almost filled the cave. “Tanned hides.”

Intrigued, Jago moved beside him. The corner of hide felt butter soft between his fingers. “Trade goods?” he guessed.

Raulin shrugged. “Makes sense.”

“The danger has passed. Come.”

“He's back?” Raulin asked, reading Jago's reaction.

“Yeah.” Jago tried to calm his pounding heart as he rose and turned. Lord Death stood in the entrance, the light from the passage igniting copper strands in his hair. He cast no shadow into the cave.

“Things have changed,” said the Mother's son, his expression unreadable. “We must hurry.”

*   *   *

“I can't decide; are you brave or stupid? I mean, considering that you expected the cap to fry your brains.”

Crystal tried to focus. Browns and blues swam in front of her and finally arranged themselves into a young girl with wild chestnut curls and cornflower eyes. She didn't look much like one of the wer.

The girl grinned.

Pale greens swirled about in soothing patterns and Crystal realized where she was. “I'm not awake.”

“Out cold,” agreed the girl. “Your power is slowly rebuilding but for now, you're stuck here.”

Crystal's stomach spasmed. “I'm starving.”

“You surprised? You better hope they feed you soon or, even after you regain consciousness, you'll be mush for days.” The girl spun about. “The others can't get this high in your head with no power to use, but I go where I want.”

“Are you trying to get free?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You're Eegri.” she smiled, despite the hunger, as one long-lashed lid dropped in a saucy wink.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You weren't the one who . . .”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Eegri snorted, “I don't do babies.” Then she looked thoughtful. “Not after the initial gamble. No, you broke Sholah loose with that stunt, shattering the remaining matrix. Geta's still sulking, but the rest of us are rummaging about quite separately. So,” she drew her legs up and sat cross-legged on nothing, “answer my question. Brave or stupid?”

Crystal considered it for a moment, weaving a strand of hair through her fingers. “I guess,” she said at last, “you could say I took a chance.”

Eegri stared at her, then burst into peals of laughter. “I like you, wizard!” Her smile fell on Crystal like a benediction and a delicious smell filled the air. “You got lucky. They're feeding you.”

Her mouth flooding with saliva, Crystal felt herself pulled back to consciousness. “Did you do that?” she asked the fading goddess of chance.

Eegri's smile hung on an instant longer. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

*   *   *

Crystal opened her eyes to see the ancient woman who had knelt by the birth bed. In age-twisted hands, she held a large clay bowl filled with heavy porridge. Her gray eyes, while not kind, were at least neutral.

“You saved my granddaughter and her child,” she explained. “Eat.”

She backed quickly away as Crystal grabbed up the bowl and began shoving handfuls of the warm food into her mouth. Then, recovering, the wer admonished sharply, “Eat slower. You'll choke.” Male voices from the passage admonished her in turn, but she snarled them into silence as she left.

Crystal felt the rumble of moving rock, and ignored it, concentrating on the food. The porridge only just took the edge off her hunger, but its weight was a comfort in her stomach, and when the bowl had been licked clean she felt able to look around. She was in a small cave, about eight feet square, and a single torch was jammed into a crack by the door—by the blocked door. She got up, put her palms against the stone, and pushed.

As she expected, nothing happened. “I am going to get my strength back,” she muttered, sitting back down, “and then I am leaving. Cap or no cap.”

*   *   *

Lord Death sped down the passageway, Raulin and Jago keeping up with difficulty. “Soon we'll come to a short passage that leads to the central cavern. Cross the passage quickly and quietly. The wer meet to decide Crystal's fate.”

“Meet where?” Raulin wanted to know when Jago had echoed the information.

“Where do you think,” Lord Death said coldly without turning.

“In the central cavern,” Jago translated.

“Wonderful,” Raulin muttered and reached behind him for his crossbow.

The passage was indeed short. Crossing it, quickly and quietly as instructed, the brothers could clearly hear the debate going on in the cavern.

“. . . healed Beth, we let her go.”

“And who will heal my daughter when her time comes? No! We keep the wizard chained to do our bidding as her kind once kept us!”

“Wizards are the pain givers. Kill her!”

“She healed Beth!”

“But why?”

“Wizards can't be trusted, her reasons . . .”

The voices faded in the distance. They ran about a hundred meters along secondary passageways until Lord Death stopped before a roughly circular boulder pushed tight against the rock wall. “She's behind this.”

Raulin shook his head, put his shoulder against the curve, and pushed. The boulder rocked. He bent and studied the floor. “Grooved,” he said, standing. “Can't be moved from the inside, but the two of us should manage fine. Jago.”

With a sound like half the mountain falling, the huge stone rolled out of the way.

Raulin straightened up and took a deep breath through gritted teeth. He waited until the pain smoothed out of his face, then ducked into the cave, his eyes half closed as though afraid of what he'd find.

Jago leaned a moment longer against the stone.
Lucky they're arguing too hard to hear that,
he thought, following his brother through the opening.
We won't get a chance like it again.

Raulin had caught Crystal up in his arms, ignoring his injuries as he pressed her against his chest, and covered her face with kisses. “I knew you were alive. I knew it.” But the shadows in his eyes said he'd had his doubts.

Crystal's fingers danced over every bit of Raulin she could reach.

He touched the cap and his expression hardened. “Is that what they hold you with?”

She drew his hand away, not allowing him to see how his tugging at the band sent slivers of pain into her head.

“We've got to get out of here,” Jago said softly. She turned to face him then and he felt her joy, less demonstrative than her response to Raulin, but just as deep.

“You're both injured. I have no power . . .”

“It doesn't matter,” Jago told her, wishing he could wipe the helplessness from her voice, “we have no time either. Come on.”

The three of them stepped back out into the passageway and Crystal froze.

“You've come back.”

Lord Death smiled hesitantly at her. “I couldn't leave you in the hands of your enemies.”

“But . . .” She looked from Raulin to Jago.

“I brought them to you.” When she stepped toward him, the smile vanished, and he turned away, feeling too exposed with Jago watching. “Now, I will take you out.”

Crystal quickly hid the hurt but not before Jago saw it and vowed to have a word or two with the Mother's son.

They traveled as quickly as they could, tossing caution aside with all the wer accounted for in council. The air freshened, the light changed subtly, and at last they could see the silver of moonlight on snow.

“It's still the middle of the night,” Crystal marveled, sagging against Raulin with a sigh. “It feels like it should be days later.”

“Well, we've cut days off our time,” Jago told them peering out into the night. “We've come out on the opposite side of the mountain.”

Just then the faintest of howls drifted up along their trail.

“I think,” said Raulin, propelling them out of the mountain, “you've been missed.”

They fought their way down the icy slope, almost blinded by the sudden brightness. The howls grew louder. Four legs move much faster than two, especially with injuries and a long night beginning to take their toll.

“Leave me and save yourselves!” Crystal cried as a sharp edge cut into her bootless feet. She stumbled and fell to her knees.

“None of that,” Raulin snapped, pulling her up. “We stay together, all of us.”

As they ran, his arm tight about her waist, she left a bloody trail on the ice.

Jago tripped on a hidden branch and reached out to steady himself on an oddly shaped outcropping. His fingers clutched at cloth.

“Gaaa . . .”

“Gently, mortal, I will not hurt you.” The giant picked up Raulin and Crystal who had careened into an outstretched arm, and drew all three of them against the shelter of her body. “You are safe. There is no longer any need to hurry.”

And then the wer were upon them.

C
rystal buried her face against the giant's warm side and refused to think about the wer howling around them. Her power had dropped to such a level that her bare feet actually throbbed with cold. Raulin and Jago were both wounded and she could do nothing for them. Hunger tied knots in her stomach. Her head hurt. One more thing and she'd break down and cry. She'd deal with the wer later.

Raulin enfolded Crystal protectively in his arms. The giant still held them loosely and he felt as if they'd reached a safe harbor. Let the wer slaver and growl, he was certain that the giant could take care of them.

Jago sagged and whimpered as his weight fell forward on the ruin of his hand. A gentle grip lifted him and settled him comfortably against a massive thigh and a soft touch along his back eased the pain. He saw his brother and Crystal safe against the giant's other side, thanked the Mother-creator for their good fortune, and relaxed.

The wer circled, two dozen wolves and half that number again of cats. They moved constantly, a seething wall of eyes and fangs gleaming in the moonlight, with here and there a pale flash of skin quickly clothed again in fur.

The giant sat patiently, held their prey, and waited.

Finally Eli padded out of the pack and shifted to his manshape.

“You have something that belongs to us, Elder,” he called.

“Yes,” she said, her slow, pleasant voice neither acknowledging the wer as a threat nor threatening them in turn, “I believe I do. You may come in and remove it from the wizard's head and we shall be on our way.”

Eli looked puzzled, then he caught sight of the cap lying deeply purple against the silver of Crystal's hair. “Not that toy,” he snarled. “The wizard.”

“But she can't
belong
to you. One person can't own another. If I remember correctly, that's what your people cried out to the wizards who tried to own you.”

“She is a wizard!” Eli almost screamed it. “The wizards kept us in torment. Created us so we would always exist in torment!” His emotions overcame him. He flowed back into wolfshape and raised his muzzle to the moon. The pack joined in.

The giant waited silently until the echoes of the howl finished bouncing back off the mountains, then said, “What you say is true, but as this wizard had nothing to do with that and is in fact younger than a number of you I fail to see your point.”

Another wolf rose to two legs and growled, “We could take her.”

“You could try,” corrected the giant gently. “I wouldn't advise it.” A quiet certainty radiated with the words, lapping over the wer, calming them. When most had stilled, she raised her voice, just a little. “I am taking these children to my camp. You may spend the night outside in the dark and the cold watching if you wish, but we will still be there in the morning. If you have anything else to say, you may say it then.”

“We can't just let the wizard go,” wailed a manshape of one of the cats.

“I
said,
we will be
there
in the morning.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, snapped back to fur, and began vigorously washing a hind leg.

“Can you mortals walk?”

It took the brothers a second to realize that she was speaking to them.

Raulin's chest burned with lines of fire, but he nodded. “Yes, I can.”

“Me too,” Jago straightened, taking elaborate care not to jar his hand. He was beginning to have fond memories of the mauling he'd taken from the brindle, at least he'd been out through most of that.

“Then follow in my footsteps,” she said, standing and scooping a semiconscious Crystal up in her arms. “I will always take the easiest
path. Don't worry,” she added comfortingly, ignoring the wer who scrambled out of her way, “it isn't far.”

They looked at each other, they looked at the wer—who appeared more confused than aggressive—and they did as they were told. Her huge footsteps were easy enough to follow, even in the uncertain moonlight. Jago estimated her height at close to twelve feet and at most only four of that was leg. As tall as she was, she actually looked taller sitting down.

It
isn't far
can be a dubious statement when uttered by a giant, but she led them only a short way down the mountain to where she'd set up her camp within a small copse of trees. In the center of the clearing a fire burned, and on the embers at the edge of the fire, just beginning to steam, sat a teapot.

Jago started. It looked like their teapot; but theirs had been left with the sleigh on the other side of the mountain. Except—his eyes bulged a bit—wasn't that their sleigh drawn up on the far side of the fire? And that shelter . . .

“Uh, Raulin . . .”

“Yeah. I see, I see.”

The giant laid Crystal gently down on the sleigh, turned, saw the brothers' bewilderment, and smiled. “The breezes told me where to find your equipment, so I brought it with me when I came. Now,” she squatted by the teapot and filled three enamel mugs, “drink this and shortly you may sleep.”

Raulin stuck his nose over the mug she'd handed him, and sniffed. The painkiller from the emergency kit and something else. He took a cautious sip. Raspberries?

“Doesn't taste like goat-piss anymore,” Jago muttered.

“No reason why it should,” pointed out the giant, leaving Crystal, who after a number of mouthfuls was managing on her own. “I can do nothing for your hand,” she told Jago sadly. “It is beyond my skill. But in the morning . . .”

He nodded. “Crystal can take care of it.” That thought had kept him from screaming hysterics or black despair all night.

“But you,” she advanced on Raulin, “you, I can soothe.” She flipped
open his coat and had the old bandages unwrapped before he had time for more than a single yelp. Clicking her tongue at the flaming red lines, she fished a flat metal container from a pocket, and spread the ointment it contained over the wounds. Even before she finished they looked less angry. She cocooned him in fresh linen, and pulled one of his spare shirts, warm and soft, over his head. Lifting the empty mugs from two sets of lax fingers, she pushed the brothers toward the shelter.

“The wizard will join you when she's had something to eat,” she admonished as they hesitated. “Sleep.”

“Well, I'm not going to argue with her,” Raulin muttered, dropping to his knees and crawling inside.

Jago half turned, gave a small bow in the giant's direction, and followed.

“Now,” she loomed over Crystal, “first we will remove this ugly piece of work.” Her large hands circled the cap and she added, “I'm sorry, child, but this may hurt.” Then she pulled.

Crystal's back arched and she tried not to cry out as, with a crack that seemed to shatter her skull, the band broke. Panting, she collapsed back on the sleigh as the giant methodically snapped the polished amethyst into tiny pieces. “Please,” she said, when she thought she could control her voice, “I need food.”

“Yes, of course you do.” The giant placed a large biscuit in Crystal's hand.

Crystal took a tentative bite, sighed, and crammed the rest into her mouth. When she finished swallowing, the giant handed her another.

“I haven't had these since the centaurs,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs. The taste conjured up wild runs across the plains; the thunder of hooves pounding against the ground, the smells of centaur and upturned sod blending and becoming one, her hair blowing into a tangled cloud as she clung to a broad back and rode down the wind. She could feel strength seeping back. “I could never get enough of them.”

“I think you've had enough at present,” the giant chuckled. “Just one of those horse-cakes could keep your teachers fed for a whole day. They may, as the dwarves assert, be pompous and pedantic,” she said,
sliding her arms under the wizard and carrying her over to the shelter, “but they can cook.”

Crystal yawned, suddenly more tired than she'd been since her battles with Kraydak. “Have you a name,” she asked.

“I have a number of names. Today, I am Balaniki Sokoji.”

“Sokoji,” Crystal repeated, crawling inside. “Pretty. I like it.” She snuggled down between the brothers and fell asleep with Raulin's arms about her and Jago's breath warm on the back of her neck.

*   *   *

“Good morning, Sokoji.”

“Good morning, Crystal. How do you feel?”

“I have less power back than I expected to,” she shrugged, “but I had more power to replace than I'm used to.” She stretched and smiled. “I guess I feel fine.”

“Good.” Sokoji bent over the fire and stirred the porridge that bubbled and steamed. “Come and eat and you'll feel better still.”

Crystal, her feet healed during the night, glided forward an inch above the snow. She reached out, caught a plume of woodsmoke rising lazily on the still morning air and from it formed herself new boots.

“It would be more practical,” observed the giant, “to visit a cobbler.”

“It would,” Crystal agreed, accepting a huge portion of the oatmeal and nodding her thanks. “But by the time I realized that, there were no cobblers around.” As she ate, she told the giant everything; the first time she'd heard the voices in her head, the healing of Jago, her fight with Lord Death when Zarsheiy nearly broke free, the demon, agreeing to accompany the brothers to Aryalan's tower, and the wer. She didn't know why, exactly, but she felt Sokoji should know.

Sokoji sat immobile while Crystal spoke. Much of the story, she knew. The goddesses, however, she would have to think on.
They
were an aspect even the centaurs had not considered.

“Crystal?”

She turned to see Raulin crawling out of the shelter, his bandages brilliant white in the morning sun.

When he spotted her and saw that she was all right, his worried expression vanished. “I woke up and you weren't there . . .” he said, spreading his hands. He reached back inside for more clothing, but Crystal stopped him before he could put it on.

“Wait.” she said, wrapping warmth about him. “I want to look at your chest.”

“It doesn't even hurt anymore.” Raulin began, going to her side. He noticed the giant sitting motionless on the other side of the fire. “Is she okay?”

“She's fine,” Crystal assured him, undoing the dressing. “Her name is Sokoji and she's thinking. Lift your arms.”

He did. “She looks like she froze during the night.”

“The centaurs once took me to visit a giant. She sat like that the entire two days we stayed. Apparently she'd been thinking for almost six years.”

“What about?”

“No one knew.”

The eight parallel lines on Raulin's chest no longer looked dangerous. Although the cuts themselves had not healed, the flesh around them appeared healthy and firm. Crystal set her fingertips just under the collarbone where they began and, humming softly, traced each line. The wounds glowed briefly green and vanished. Then her hands moved a little lower.

“Crystal! We're not alone!”

“Prude.”

“Whoops! Excuse me if I'm interrupting.”

Raulin flushed deep red and pulled the heavy undershirt, still clutched in one fist, over his head.

Jago tossed him a shirt and sweater, grinning broadly. “I noticed you hadn't got dressed this morning. Guess now I know why.”

“You don't know anything, you little . . .” Raulin stopped in mid diatribe, his eyes widening. “Your hand!”

Both Jago's hands were whole.

“That's two I owe you,” he said softly to Crystal, his eyes bright with emotion. “Thank you.”

I
have less power, than I expected to.
And she had no memory of healing Jago. As it healed her when she needed it, whether she directed it or not, her power had also healed him, using the life-bond between them.

“Come and eat,” she said, suddenly unsure of what this closeness would demand of her. “Power alone can only do so much.”

As the brothers ate under Sokoji's unwinking stare—Jago having been reassured as Raulin had been—Crystal spotted movement in the trees and went thankfully to meet it.

Raulin rose in protest but Jago dragged him back, mouthing the words “Lord Death.” He'd sensed Crystal's discomfort, knew it had something to do with him and Raulin, and wished, not for the first time, that Lord Death had a more corporeal form. As much as he had grown to love the wizard, Jago suspected that her kind could never be happy with mere mortals.

*   *   *

They stood silently for a moment, Crystal gazing down at the branch in her hands and stroking the needles, and Lord Death staring off at nothing, then they both began to speak at once.

“Please, go ahead.”

She hesitated but realized he would not speak until she did. “I missed you,” she said at last. “What kept you away?”

“Would you have me sit at night and keep company with them?” Even to his own ears, he sounded bitter.

“Why not? You've sat with me in mortal company before.”

But I meant more to you than the company then,
he thought to himself.
Ironic, isn't it, that someday those two will die and be mine and you I can never have.
All he said aloud was, “No.”

“Have I upset you somehow, I . . .”

Her distress at his refusal showed in both face and voice and while he cursed himself for hurting her, he also marveled that he could. “Two mortals, a giant, and a wizard make a crowded campsite.” That to
lighten the
no.
And then he took a chance. “But if you want me, step away from the fire and call.”

“And you'll come?”

“If you call me,” he reiterated, meeting her eyes, wondering why he put himself in such a position, “I will always come.”
What if she never called? What if she did?