Wizard of the Grove (43 page)

Beth's grandmother answered the summons, her womanshape so wrapped in leather and fur she could barely walk. She eased herself down by the fire and accepted the offered mug of tea.

“Yes, it'd be damned uncomfortable to change, dressed like this,” she said in answer to Crystal's startled expression, “but at my age emotions know their place.” Her face creased as she thought of two babies born dead. “Now it no longer matters, I change when I want. You got any honey for this tea?”

“I'm sorry,” Jago told her, “we're out.”

“I'm sorry too. Tea without honey is an abomination.” She sipped, made a face, and decided the warmth made up for the taste. “You wanted to know how the children change?”

As Crystal had suspected, the random changes were necessary in the young, giving the parents a way to teach with stimuli, a sudden cuff snapping the child into the desired form. Only with the female's first heat, did it become dangerous.

Raulin and Jago occupied themselves with butchering a young buck Eli and his hunters dragged into the camp.

“We don't want you hunting on our land,” the wer snarled, “and anything you intend to waste, return to us.”

“Very gracious,” muttered Raulin.

“Very,” Jago agreed.

But they were careful to return what they couldn't use to the pack.

The weather held, cold and clear, and the quartermoon passed.

*   *   *

Crystal stood, silver and ivory in the moonlight, surrounded by wer. Of the three hundred gathered, less than one hundred were female; Beth and Jason's daughter the only child.

“Is this all of you?” she asked, when they had settled into place and the only movement was the slap of tails on snow.

“No.” A young woman stood shivering in the cold. “My sister has reached the time of no changes and could not travel.” She looked as though she wanted to add something, then shook her head and flowed back into wolfshape.

So few,
Crystal thought sadly. If only she had done this sooner. If only they had come to her, asked for her help—but they were too blinded by hate to consider it. As far as the wer were concerned, the wizards were the pain givers and her defeat of Kraydak did not erase the fact that she was a wizard. She sighed, grieving for all the lost ones, then reached for her power and began to sing. Her hair fanned out around her, the moonlight dancing down each strand.

The wer pricked up their ears and waited.

Crystal's eyes began to glow a deep summer's green as she poured power into her voice. She felt Sholah join her, merge with her, and the song changed as the goddess' wisdom gave it form. As it spread, radiating outward, Crystal spread herself with it, becoming a part of the power, becoming, in a way, both the singer and the song.

For an instant, the females listening heard not with their ears but with their hearts, and during that instant Crystal's power touched them and remade the fatal flaw.

The power built until the air thrummed with it and still Crystal sang.

The song changed again. Crystal began to reach.
All
the females of the wer had been her promise, not all but one.

The wer were forced to avert their eyes, so brightly did she reflect the moonlight.

From the sister, she picked up the blood tie and followed it back over the mountains. Back. Back. Her power stretched, thinned; she began to pull from the barriers. There! The thought patterns of the wer were unmistakable. She touched the woman gently. The barriers wavered. She could feel Zarsheiy waiting for them to fall.

The woman started, perhaps sensing the wizard's touch, and the change began.

Crystal stopped the change, held it, and reached for power to complete the healing.

The barriers fell.

FREE!
Zarsheiy surged forward.

And slammed into a wall of darkness.

The wer are mine.
Nashawryn's cold voice filled Crystal's head, cutting through Zarsheiy's screams of frustration.
Feared by mortals, hunters in the night; I give them my protection. Finish what you have begun, wizard, I stand by you.

Crystal reached again for power and found, even still linked with Sholah, that no power remained for her to tap, it was all tied up in the other goddesses. The other goddesses . . .

Keeping a careful hold on the change, Crystal slid into the woman's mind searching for the love she held for the child she carried.

Clever,
murmured Avreen, and gave up the portion of power she controlled.

The song finished.

Crystal let her body pull her home.

F
rom where Lord Death stood, the figures grouped around the sleigh were tiny. Even Sokoji appeared no more than two or three inches high. He watched the giant reach down and lift the sleigh over a rocky ledge and frowned. She was the reason he watched from so far away. Unlike Crystal and the mortal, who could see him only if he wished it—although if one did, they both did—the Elder Races, so close in creation to the Mother, could see him whether he liked it or not. And he did not like it, for Sokoji always drew his presence to Crystals attention. Which meant he had to appear to her as well. . . .

Which meant they talked. . . .

And every conversation seemed to skirt dangerous topics; his feelings, her feelings, their feelings. And every conversation had Jago and the giant listening in, drawing conclusions, trying to bring into the open that which he preferred to have remain hidden.

So now he took the coward's way and watched from a distance.

Crystal laughed at something Jago said, and Lord Death ground his teeth. Once, he remembered with a bitter smile, he'd encouraged her to spend time with mortals. Had, in fact, given her Jago's life and with it Raulin's gratitude. And now, Jago gave her the companionship she used to share with him, and Raulin . . . He looked down at his hands. Raulin gave her the one thing he never could. Even Sokoji placed one more life between them; another living creature, to listen and to help.

“If it was just the two of us again,” he murmured at the wizard's
distant figure. He could tell her then. If when he finished speaking she didn't have another pair of arms to turn to that were not his nor ever could be.

He no longer wondered what madness had directed him when he said he would answer her call. He had named it the night she'd risked everything and healed the wer because he had asked her to.

“I am Death,” he told a passing breeze.
And I am in love. And it hurts.
He sighed and shook his head. “This is your doing, Father,” he added aloud. The one true son of the Mother had been fathered by Chaos but never throughout the millennia since his birth had he felt so chaotic.

*   *   *

In midafternoon, between one moment and the next, the world turned gray and almost all the light vanished. Close objects took on a sharp-edged clarity and distant ones disappeared into a merging of snow and sky. For an instant, everything fell completely still, waiting, then the wind came up in strong and random gusts that whipped Crystal's hair about and threatened to knock the mortals off their feet.

“There,” Sokoji pointed. “The best I think we have time to find.”

There, was a small triangular cut in the mountain, about ten feet deep and almost that across its open end. It offered protection on three sides from the coming storm.

“I think you're right,” Raulin agreed, squinting against a sudden flurry of snow. “Let's move, people.”

They secured the sleigh across the open end, for only by wizardry could they have fit it inside. By the time they'd wrestled up the shelter, anchoring it firmly within the mountain, the world had turned white and the air was solid with snow.

“Will you be all right out here?” Crystal yelled at Sokoji above the shriek of the wind.

“Of course I will, child.” The giant folded her legs and settled herself comfortably against the rock wall. She pulled a hat out of her pocket and tugged it on. It looked like a bright red bird's nest
overturned on her head. “I shall sit here and think.” Brushing the already accumulated snow off her lap, she linked her hands and stilled.

Crystal reached out and patted the giant's knee affectionately.

“Hey, come on!” Raulin grabbed Crystal's shoulders and spun her about. “Get inside before you get buried. Or lost.”

“Lost?” They took the three steps across the cut, from the giant to the shelter, together. “How could I get lost?”

“Storms are tricky.” He pushed her to her knees and held open the outer flap. “Get turned around and the next thing you know you wander off and freeze to death.”

Crystal smiled, shook her head, and crawled inside, Raulin close behind. Before he ducked in, he noted that the sleigh, at the very edge of the windbreak provided by the mountain, had become a shapeless white blob and the giant, although as much out of the storm as possible, could barely be seen.

Because they'd brought in most of their gear, the usually snug shelter could only be described as cramped.

“How about cozy?” Crystal asked, when Raulin did just that after contorting himself around various bundles and into a sitting position.

Raulin only growled and tried to discover what was poking him in the back. Enough soft, silver light came from Crystal's hair for him to see her pulling their teapot out of a pack.

She tossed it in his lap. “Fill this with snow, would you, please.”

He did, and even though he carefully snaked his arm out between the two flaps, a small eddy of snow found the opening and danced inside. Crystal clicked her tongue and danced it back out.

She slid against Jago, set the full teapot Raulin handed her in front of her on the floor, muttered something at it, and dumped a package of tea in the now boiling water.

“Should you be using your power like that?” asked Jago, twisting around and digging out the mugs.

Crystal ducked his elbow and caught the teapot before it could spill. “I can't see as it'll hurt. Zarsheiy seems happier when her aspect is being used; it's when she gets bored that she tries to make a run for it.”

And she hates being talked about as if she isn't there.

Then maybe she shouldn't listen,
Crystal responded to the goddess' complaint.

By rearranging a number of the packs, and intertwining two or three legs, they managed to achieve positions where they could both drink their tea and be reasonably happy doing it. Body heat had warmed the shelter to a satisfying temperature, so damp outer coats were removed and piled against the entrance as an added protection from drafts. Crystal had muted the sound of the storm and, although an occasional gust shook the felt and canvas walls, in their island of comfort and safety, it had become vaguely unreal.

They ate a small meal—more for something to do than from hunger.

“We need more room,” groused Raulin as they finished, stretching out long legs and almost kicking Jago in the stomach.

You'd have more room if you'd lie down,
Avreen suggested.
And more still if you . . .

Shut up, Avreen!
But she passed on the suggestion, minus the corollary, to the brothers.

Raulin added the corollary on his own and, with a deep sigh, Jago offered to go sit in the storm until they finished.

Crystal smacked them both.

The amount of squirming necessary to spread out the bedrolls with three adults taking up the space where the bedrolls had to go was impressive but, with only a minor bit of wizardry, they were finally spread.

“I don't know about the rest of you,” panted Jago, pulling off his jacket and folding it into a pillow, “but that exhausted me.” He collapsed backward, then bounced up again quickly, apologizing for nearly crushing Crystal's elbow.

She only smiled and snuggled her back against Raulin's front, head pillowed on his forearm. Her eyes began to close. Jago lay down more carefully the second time, bending where necessary to fit. Because of the packs, the three of them were close. Very close.

“I hate to disillusion you, Raulin,” Jago said dryly, “but that's my wrist you're stroking.”

Eventually—being trapped in a small shelter by a storm having limited their options—they all fell asleep, tangled in and around each other like puppies.

*   *   *

Raulin woke, and lay quietly in the darkness listening to Crystal and Jago breathe. He wondered if the storm still raged and decided it didn't matter one way or another—he
had
to go outside. Slowly and carefully, he slid out of Crystal's arms, unwinding a strand of silken hair from around his throat. She murmured in her sleep, but didn't wake. Easing his feet into his boots, he laced them loosely, then pulled his overcoat from the pile of fur by the door—the loops that closed his were cord, Jago's closed with leather—contorted himself into it and backed out into the night.

By both kicking the snow away and compacting it with his body, Raulin got free of the shelter, made sure both flaps had closed securely behind him, and stood. As his head rose above the level of the tent, the wind, snow-laden, struck him full in the face. The storm did, indeed, still rage. And it was cold. Raulin quickly fastened his coat and tried to bury his ears in the collar. He'd come out with neither hat nor mittens. Just to be on the safe side, he bent and tightened his boot laces. By the time he finished, his fingers were already growing stiff.

He plunged around the shelter and began to make his way the length of it to where the sleigh marked the edge of the cut. After the wizard-created warmth inside, the night air felt like knives in his lungs and he was positive the interior of his nose had frozen. Had the wind not been making such a noise, he was sure he'd be able to hear the nose hairs crackling.

“Lucky I'm not going to be out here long,” he muttered, stumbling into a drift that reached his thighs. “Any sensible wizard,” he added, plowing forward, “would have built her tower farther south.”

His foot hit something hard and he tripped, falling against the object and burying his arms up to the elbows.

Righting himself, he shook the snow from his sleeves. “Well, it
seems I've found the sleigh.” He followed the angle to where the lower, front end butted up against rock, clambered over, and out of the cut.

A solid wall of snow slammed into him and, if not for the rock wall at his back, it would have swept him up and away. Eyes closed against the wind, Raulin kept one hand on the mountain and staggered five paces from the camp.

“Far enough,” he decided, and did what he had to. When he finished, he reached out again to use the mountain as his guide. It seemed to have moved. He knew he hadn't. He stepped forward, arms outstretched, expecting to punch his hands into rock. Nothing. His hands were numb with cold, but he thought they should be able to feel a mountain. He took another step. Still nothing. He squinted in the direction he knew he had to go. All he could see was storm. All he could see in any direction was storm.

“Okay,” he drew his hands up into his sleeves as far as they would go, “let's just stop and think about this for a moment.” Closing his eyes again, for they certainly weren't any help, he took two deliberate steps backward. “Okay, now I turn to the left and go five paces which will take me back to the . . .” He bent and flailed around. Nothing. No sleigh.

“All right,” he fought to keep his breathing steady; panic would help the storm, not him. “All right, I could've angled off a little. I turn left again and keep going straight. I'll eventually hit either the sleigh or the mountain.”

Eventually didn't happen in six steps, or seven, or eight.

When he tried to open his eyes, he found the lashes had frozen.

“CRYSTAL!”

His scream only added to the wailing of the storm.

Crystal and Jago slept on.

*   *   *

“All right, all right, I'm coming!” Doan stomped out into the storm and stood solidly against the wind. The voice that had imperiously roused him out of sleep had quieted and the Chaos-born storm blocked
his sight. His eyes glowed red and a shadowy figure became visible about five body lengths away. He stepped toward it and it moved back.

“Don't play your games with me, Mother's son,” he grunted, for only Lord Death could walk unhindered through a blizzard, “I am not in the mood.” But he followed anyway, curiosity growing with every step, until the shadow stopped beside a body half buried in the snow. Doan's brow furrowed. The body didn't seem to have a head. He grabbed it and flipped it over. The coat had been pulled up in a turtle attempt at warmth. The man within still lived and he seemed vaguely familiar. Doan searched his memory for a name.

Raulin. That was it. One of the mortals whom the breezes had reported traveling with Crystal. His mouth twitched as he remembered the stories the breezes told. Their descriptions appeared fairly accurate, although Doan couldn't understand the continuous jokes about the man's mustache. When it wasn't frozen solid it was probably quite respectable. But what was he doing out alone in the storm?

And why had Lord Death come to him?

The dwarf bent and hoisted Raulin up on his shoulders. The weight gave him no trouble, but he cursed a little at the length.
Ah well,
he thought,
it can't hurt bits of him to drag. Snow's soft.

He paused before starting back and cocked his head at the shadow lingering at the edge of sight. “Why didn't you wake Crystal?” he asked.

The shadow that was Lord Death vanished into the storm.

Thinking deeply, Doan carried Raulin to safety.

Once inside, he stripped the heavy outer coat off his burden and checked exposed skin for frostbite. Ears, the end of the nose, a patch on each cheek, and fingertips, he decided, all of them superficial although the ears were a close thing. He tucked Raulin's hands up in his own armpits, and carefully began to warm the mortal's face. Only the ears still showed white when Raulin finally opened his eyes.

I've been found!
was Raulin's first jubilant thought.
Who or what is that?
was the second. Thick red brown hair, eyes the same color deep-set under heavy brows, flat cheekbones, a pronounced nose, and a
mustache that made his own look scanty made up the face which bent over him, concern and irritation showing about equally.

“Mom?” he asked for lack of anything better to say.

Doan laughed.